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Not Even R.A. Salvatore Can Save Neverwinter – Player Numbers on Steam Have Been Cut in Half Since Last Year

Not Even R.A. Salvatore Can Save Neverwinter – Player Numbers on Steam Have Been Cut in Half Since Last Year

It’s no secret that Neverwinter is in trouble. The game has been on a steady decline for the past few years, and things aren’t looking good. While there haven’t been any big controversies in the game for a while like the Refinement and Enchantment rework of last year, the player numbers are still in a steady decline.

Northdark Reaches, the latest module released yesterday, was the veteran MMO’s biggest chance in a while to turn things around. But by the looks of it, not even renowned fantasy writer R.A. Salvatore has been able to make players return to Neverwinter.

Salvatore and his son Geno Salvatore worked together on the storyline for the module that ties in with The Way of the Drow trilogy, and fan-favorite characters from the series make an appearance in the module, but this seems to have barely made a difference to the games player numbers, which can be seen below.

Not Even R.A. Salvatore Can Save Neverwinter - Player Numbers on Steam Have Been Cut in Half Since Last Year 1
Concurrent player peaks barely increased after the release of Northdark Reaches.

If we take a closer look at the Steam charts, we can see that the player numbers have been cut in half since just last year.

Not Even R.A. Salvatore Can Save Neverwinter - Player Numbers on Steam Have Been Cut in Half Since Last Year 2
Neverwinter’s player numbers started dropping last year after having pretty steady numbers since 2015.

So why is it that not even a big profile like R.A. Salvatore, the creator of the legendary Drizzt Do’urden, can’t even get people back to Neverwinter? The main reason seems to be these lackluster modules that don’t really bring anything new to the game.

Northdark Reaches finally introduces a new area to the game, and not just another reworked and reskinned version of old zones, but other than that it brings very little to the game. The Wizard class gets a few fixes, an old dungeon is re-introduced and new items are added to the Zen store for the players to sink some money in. Other than that there is very little.

Not Even R.A. Salvatore Can Save Neverwinter - Player Numbers on Steam Have Been Cut in Half Since Last Year 3
Northdark Reaches sees the return of the Temple of the Spider Queen.

Reskinned old content, new gear to grind for, and reworked systems that didn’t really need fixing. That seems to be the plan when it comes to Neverwinter content.

The game was once a great MMO, with one of the best action-combat systems in the genre, that had managed to maintain a small but dedicated player base for many years.

Even the MMORPG streamer Josh Strife Hayes, who started his YouTube career making Neverwinter guides, has said on numerous occasions that despite the game being flawed it is one of his favorite MMOs. Just imagine what it could do for the game if the Neverwinter developers managed to actually make good content again that brought a profile like Hayes back to the game.

The graphics in Neverwinter are surprisingly holding up decently for a ten-year-old game, and it has plenty of great features.

It is also set in one of the most beloved fantasy settings of all time, which should enable it to draw in more players than it currently is doing.

Neverwinter game needs a full expansion, a slightly bigger budget and development team and it can make a comeback, but at the moment it seems like the devs have chartered their course and are insisting on running the game into the ground.

See the trailer for Northdark Reaches below, and notice the measly 89 likes on nearly 170k views.

Have you tried Northdark Reaches? What did you think of the module? Let us know in the comments!

Bobdredds

Tuesday 29th of November 2022

I like the changes and have no plans to stop anytime soon. I have been playing for many years and I ignore the naysayers. I plal on PC and there are still plenty of players around.

aoeuhts

Wednesday 16th of November 2022

game isn't the problem. problem is shit community.

James

Saturday 12th of November 2022

The game went to crap when they permanently banned players for their own crappy glitches that they knew about in the betas and still released to ban the player base in an attempt to increase profits. They did it to themselves.

Gareth

Friday 11th of November 2022

And what do the PlayStation, Xbox and Arc numbers tell you?

See if your going to write an article please actually do your homework and fact check instead of making false claims. This is in fact a hack article with no basis on over all factual evidence.

Jenny

Thursday 10th of November 2022

Thats because they banned all the big streamers like Malebot, FNhusa, Enna etc