‘Atlas’ Launches in Early Access After Multiple Delays

The pirate MMO called Atlas has now launched on Steam in early access after a bumpy release filled with delays and a staggered rollout.

Developed by Grapeshot Games and coming from the creators of Ark: Survival Evolved, the new game released on Saturday in early access, though it was planned to release prior to that and was delayed more than once. The game supports 40,000 players in one Globe, according to the game’s Steam page, but thousands of players instead spent their time watching streamers wait to play the game over the weekend. People eventually got to watch those streamers play to get a first look at the game after the creators gave streamers the initial access to Atlas before launching the early access servers for everyone else to take part.

The game’s Steam page offers a bit more information on the pirate-y PvP, ship-building, and other features that MMO players will find in Atlas. Not everyone has to take part in the PvP though, so if that’s a turn-off, you can instead sail the seas in a PvE mode.

“Physically sail in real-time across the vast oceans with the proprietary server network technology,” Grapeshot Games said about Atlas on Steam. “Explorers will voyage to over 700 unique landmasses across 45,000 square kilometers, with thousands of Discovery Zones, and ten distinct world regions each having their own unique resources, creatures, secrets, and environment hazards! There is a separate PvE ATLAS for players who don’t wish to play any PVP.”

While it gives more information about the game that comes straight from the developer, the Steam page for Atlas also has several thousand reviews already that peg the game as having a “Mostly Negative” score. Streams of the game show it bears some resemblance to Ark: Survival Evolved, but the similarities are a bit too much for some people who called the new game a re-skinned version of the survival game from Studio Wildcard. Some even found a menu from Ark hidden in Atlas. Other reviews highlighted problems that some early access games face such as rubber banding, FPS issues, login difficulties, and of course, game crashes.

Grapeshot Games also shared a list of steps it planned to take after the early access launch that include the investigation of issues that are impacting the servers among other problems, that full list seen here.

Atlas is now available through Steam as an early access title.