When Hollow Knight: Silksong announced its September 4 release date, other games ran for the hills. Indie titles like Demonschool, Baby Steps, and Little Witch in the Woods all picked up their skirts and dashed away into the depths of September to avoid trying to compete with the massive attention Team Cherry’s sequel was certain to receive. But not Atari. No, those brave folks decided to stick to their guns and plans, and released tough-as-nails 2D Metroidvania Adventure of Samsara on the very same day. Silksong saw over half a million simultaneous players within a few hours of launch. Take a guess how Samsara fared.
Twelve. Adventure of Samsara, the Castlevania-inspired hardcore platformer from Brazilian indie studio Ilex Games, has seen a peak player count of 12.
This, to be clear, is absolutely unfair. I’ve had a play of the game, and it sports splendid pixel graphics, a really pleasingly weighty sense of movement, and proper heft to its sword-swinging combat. It’s also just how everyone seems to want these games to be: easy-peasy in general, and then ludicrously difficult in specific moments. I don’t get it, but that’s what people seem to love. My only real criticism is that the player character is perhaps too small on the screen, but on another day, perhaps in a different month, Adventure of Samsara could have been the darling of the Soulslike lovers.
12 people showed up. That’s concurrent players, of course, meaning Samsara could have sold anywhere up to, maybe, 50 copies? Perhaps in fact it’s sold many more, and everyone who bought a copy also picked up Silksong, deciding to play that first? I’m trying to be optimistic. But it really looks like a worthy Metroidvania might have been completely drowned by making the inexplicable decision to release against such an obviously dominating competitor.
I’ve reached out to both developers Ilex and publishers Atari to ask what the thinking was here. However, I’ve noticed that Atari really doesn’t seem to have put a great deal of effort into promoting the game. The game appears on the official site, but I’m unable to find even a press release for the game. It was announced only three months ago, then released across consoles and PC without any fanfare at all, on the worst day possible for a game like this.
Which seems a big shame. The scant 12 reviews (that number again) on Steam skew very positive, with words like “wonderful” and “awesome” being used with merry abandon. And the game has received a grand total of two professional reviews, an 8 from Video Chums, and a 7 from Nintendo Life. Fair play to both sites for putting in the effort.
We’ll update you if we hear answers on why this was allowed to happen to the poor little game.