I’m relatively sure that this asymmetrical PvP fad began with the disastrously fated Evolve that pitted a group of players against a singular monster; the players had to make it out of the area, the monster had to evolve and kill all of the players. It was an absolute headache in terms of balance, and the studio struggled valiantly to keep the game balanced as feasibly possible. The servers inevitably shut down, and there was a developer exit interview that they stated ‘4v1 caused more problems than we ever imagined.’
Everyone took that as a green light for asymmetric PvP (somehow), and now we have the relatively successful Dead By Daylight and Secret Neighbor. As the genre grows more popular, we’re bound to inevitably receive indie titles that also look to exploit some of the newest trends, like the ungodly number of battle-royale games we’ve had to sit through after Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds reported massive financial success.
To hell with developing new mechanics and ideas, let’s all just recycle mechanics ad nauseam with newer forms of microtransactions to get our share of the metaphorical slice of the pie.
Regardless of how you feel about mechanic repetition across mediums, there are times when it all comes together with a breath of fresh air by combing them in new and innovative ways.
Last Year has had a bit of a struggle since its launch. Developed by Elastic Games, it actually came out roughly a year ago in 2018 on the ill-fated Discord store. After the Discord store closed, and Last Year still had a bit of a time period before launch on the Steam Store, the developers seemingly went into hiatus. Gameplay stagnated, balance patches were decidedly sparse, and fans of the title were left to presume the game simply died (or the developers did).
As the Steam release date approached, the developers once again took up the proverbial mantle of supporting their title for the Steam re-release, and the title is free to play on the Steam platform for this weekend only.
To be frank, everything about this title points to it drying up relatively soon if this free weekend doesn’t cause the game to explode in popularity. SteamCharts lists the peak player count at roughly 100 users, and the developers at Elastic Games have added a microtransaction shop for skins to help support the studio.
As is always the case when it comes to a free weekend, there’s relatively little to be lost by jumping feet first into the fray and looking around. Worst case scenario, you’re out an hour of your life. Best case? You find a new title to add to your rotation.
