This was posted 4 years 27 days ago, and might be an out-dated deal.

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[PC] Free Hellion (Was $21.50) - Steam

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Another freebie from Steam.

This time it is the game Hellion.

From the website:

Hello space survivors!

It's been a long time since the ideas of a future multiplayer space survival game were discussed among the founders of Zero Gravity and creators of Hellion. Our journey started with playing with orbs representing the planets, each carefully moved by skilled hands in a simulation of what would later become orbital mechanics in the game. From the very first moment, we wanted to make a complex and realistic simulation of a solar system within a multiplayer sandbox environment. The goal was huge and ambitious and the course set.

With a full team, it took us less than two years to make our vision into a reality. Hellion was launched in Early Access in February 2017. We succeeded in releasing a game that was almost impossible to be made, often having to cross and bend the boundaries of our game engine – Unity. The start was a little bumpy but soon enough players recognized that our game was providing a unique experience that could not be found in any other game. The support of our players has confirmed that Hellion is truly special and we are very proud of it.

We are also proud of you – our players. We couldn’t have even dreamed of creating such a dedicated and engaging community as ours is – both on Steam and on Discord. We are grateful for all the support you gave us during these years and for all wonderful adventures we went through while trying to survive Hellion’s gaze. This expedition left a mark on us for life. Together we built the world of Hellion.

Unfortunately, the cruel reality is – not enough players were brought into our world of Hellion to make it commercially viable. After the sloppy start of the game, predominately in terms of bugs and issues, we gave our best to fix the game and add new content via numerous patches and updates. Hellion grew, got better, but is still far from the original idea of what Hellion was meant to be. Factions, additional ships, trade posts, all of this was simply put aside since our team was constantly fighting technical issues, some of which were simply impossible to be solved for good.

That struggle is coming to an end. At this point, without an influx of new players, the game doesn’t pay for its development. That’s why we had to make some hard decisions…

Zero Gravity can’t afford for further development of Hellion. There will be no new updates, bugfixes or any official changes to the game.
However, since the game is playable and we believe it offers a unique gameplay experience, we want to keep it going for players who want to enjoy it.
Hellion will leave Early Access without achieving goals we originally set out to do.
In order to keep the servers up, we will continue selling the game on Steam. Since the game is not fully finished, the price will be lowered to 15 USD (starting tomorrow Oct. 16).
Control over the official servers will be handed to Hellion’s Discord moderators.
Moderators will stay in touch with us for any important events that might occur.

We are absolutely aware that many of you will find these news disappointing. This is a hard time for us. We invested a huge amount of effort and work into Hellion and our hearts and minds were in this project for many years. Now, Hellion’s development is coming to an end and we are sad that our vision for the game was not fully realized.

Once again, thank you for your support, ideas, reports, content you’ve created and everything else you’ve done for this survival expedition. Thank you immensely!

Yours,
Zero Gravity Team

Enjoy!

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closed Comments

  • +3

    Thanks!

  • Are they doing what epic games are doing now?

    • +2

      I don't think so, I think it's just no longer a viable game for the devs so they're abandoning it

    • Who knows but I am not complaining.
      But seriously it is a possibility that this is done to counter Epic although I believe that they have to up the ante as so far the only great game given away was Tomb Raider IMO.

      • +5

        Epic give out surprisingly high quality/desireable games each week - Stanley Parable, Watch Dogs, Assassins Creed Syndicate, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Farming Simulator, Yooka-Laylee, Darksiders, Hello Neighbor, Faster Than Light are some of the ones I see in my account. The reviews on this one are…not great. Hopefully Steam can up their game. Freebies are great but even better when they're of actual value.

        • +7

          valve isn't giving the games out, the publishers are

        • When you've got a spare billion in the bank and you want to pry devs/publishers away from the entrenched competitor, guaranteeing them a chunk of coin and a sizeable player base (at least for a week or two) is an easy way to build some market share. Valve just doesn't have the bank to compete with that strategy. What they are hoping is that Fortnite will die a fast and miserable death and Epic hasn't built enough of an install base for their platform to keep the devs onside without the regular cash injections. It's going to be fascinating to see what happens when the golden llama finally dies.

          • +1

            @geosta: You seem to forget that Epic has one of the most used engines… The Unreal Engine is the reason why EGS exists, not Fortnite. Epic as an entity is valued entirely on their engine which remains one of the most used and popular engines.

            • +1

              @Kozhutki:

              Unreal Engine is the reason why EGS exists, not Fortnite

              Incorrect, Epic makes nowhere near as much from Unreal as it does from Fortnite..

          • +2

            @geosta: I am not sure why you think Valve does not have the money to compete - they make a lot of profit from Steam every year.

            https://www.statista.com/statistics/547025/steam-game-sales-… (these are the figures for 2017 so it is safe to assume the numbers are significantly higher now).

            In addition to that there is additional revenue from the market place etc.

            So, Steam can afford it, they just do not want to do it.

          • +2

            @geosta: I keep seeing people talking about Epic having money to burn. Gaben has a personal net worth of 5 billion. Just saying.
            I'm a software publisher who sells on Steam, nothing against them. But they have put their money in the bank.
            What Tim Sweeney is giving to game developers is amazing. I get it the more tools we have to build something great with his engine the more chance is the next big hit will create royalties for them. But still the same applies to Valve and the Source engine and they done sweet fall for indie devs. You could maybe build a mod and if they liked it you could get it published but nothing like all the assets and tools given to devs from Epic.

            Anything I build in the future will be on their platform. If I go on Steam I will pass the price difference onto the customer. See what the neckbeards think about 'greed' when it comes out of their pocket instead of the developers.

          • +1

            @geosta: "Valve just doesn't have the bank to compete with that strategy." Are you actually trying to paint Valve as the little guy? They've been raping developer sales for years, believe me they could give games away, they just don't want to.
            -Just Gabe Newell himself is worth 3.5 Billion lol
            -Іn 2005, Fоrbеѕ аnnоunсеd thаt thе соmраnу hаd grоѕѕеd оvеr $70 mіllіоn thаt уеаr аnd іtѕ wоrth іn 2011 wаѕ ѕаіd tо bе аrоund $2 bіllіоn whісh rоѕе tо $3 bіllіоn іn 2012. Аѕ thе соmраnу hаѕ nоt уеt dесlаrеd thеіr vаluе рublісаllу ѕо fаr. Wе аѕѕumе thаt thеіr nеt wоrth wіll bе аrоund $8 bіllіоn, соnѕіdеrіng thеіr рrеvіоuѕ уеаr vаluеѕ.

            Valve just doesn't have the bank lmao

    • +4

      no. the publishers are making these games free, not valve.

  • -3

    Showing as $21.50 for me

  • +2

    I know it's free and all … but….

    Devs did a runner with the money they made on the game and have abandoned it in an unfinished state and removed "Early Access" from the title and allowed people buy it for $21.50 thinking it was a full game.

    In saying that, looks pretty decent despite the bad publicity so might give it a shot.

  • +2

    I logged in to comment here.
    Without evidence, it is pretty harsh to say "devs did a runner" — the opposite may be true, Devs now out of a job after bank account goes below zero for too long.

    Creating games of this vision at quality is hugely expensive. Valve (Steam) nearly folded multiple times with half-life 2, Bungie had major challenges and EA has bought up a stack of games vompanies that didn't want to make formula games. It appers from the steam comments someone may eventually buy the franchise as a subnautica parallel… who knows; the point of this post is to be less keyboard warrior and show a little empathy to those devs and entrepreneurs brave enough to give it a go.

    There is a great post by betadwarf on just how bloody hard it is to make anything decent, http://forcedthegame.com/story/

    • +1

      creating a game with any type of budget with a small team sounds just awful. hoping your years of ideas come to fruition and that the market is ready for your game, most times the market isn't ready.

    • +2

      I dont need to provide evidence when their own statement in October confirms most of what I've said.

      Putting a game up on Steam as Early Access has its own T&c's.
      One big point is basically that you can't use it to crowdfund a project, which is what they've done here.
      They got initial investment to get the game to a somewhat playable state and then were using the money from Early Access to effectively bank roll the rest of development.

      Then, they've taken it out of early aceess, released a statement saying they've abandoned the game… failed to mention that anywhere on Steam so it looks like a fully fledged game for $21, and then continued making money on it.

      It even says "Released October 22nd" on it when it's pretty much the opposite of that.
      That's very dishonest marketing don't you think? And pretty shitty on all the people that paid early access who thought the game would be finished.

      Also to counter your point about game companies like Valve nearly going under, these guys have not gone under…. they're just no longer going to work on this game and have released it "as is" and have moved on to making another project instead, according to their statement.

      Anyways, there's plenty of this sort of thing on Steam, so nothing new.
      Looks like a good attempt at the game, but the way they handled their exit was poor.

  • Just checked. Its not free. $21.50
    edit: sorry didnt see the "In 3 days"

  • +8

    From the PCMR Discord:
    There are so many FREE games on Steam right now. So many. Their free-ness is all different and listed next to the links.

    Apr 8: Project Mercury
    Apr 1: Nephise Begins
    Mar 30: Acceleration of SUGURI 2
    Mar 30: 200% Mixed Juice
    Mar 30: Between Two Castles - Digital Edition
    Mar 30: 100% Orange Juice
    Mar 30: HELLION

  • Goodluck to anyone running this on a normal computer this thing runs mediocre on a beast.

    • damn must be pretty hardware intensive….

      • from Jugga's tone I'd say it's poorly optimized.

  • hmm, looks like its a half arsed release…..devs ran out of money to support the game and even if they didn't, they had issues trying to resolve current technical issues….

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