XIII remake devs apologise for horrendous technical issues and disappointment

Developer PlayMagic was tasked with developing a remake of Ubisoft’s 2003 cult-classic first-person shooter XIII. That task wasn’t finished in the way many would expect.  

Upon its release last week,  PlayMagic’s XIII remake was slammed for not only being a poor return to the beloved original,  but also for its horrendous technical issues that you can view in the video below.

Following the negative critical reception of the game from critics and fans alike, the remake’s publisher Microids released a statement that blamed the game’s shoddy quality on the team’s movement to remote working.

“In its present state, XIII does not meet our quality standards and we fully understand players’ frustrations,” the publisher wrote in a statement. “The pandemic has impacted the game’s production on many levels. Pivoting to home working for the teams has added unexpected delays in the development schedule and the QA process. We hoped we would be able to provide a Day One patch fixing all the issues but the development of this update is taking more time than expected.”

The publisher explained that there is currently a patch in development that will address some key areas of concern regarding the game’s recent buggy release,  including “the controls, frame rate, collisions, rendering and sound.”

Following the game being patched up,  Playmagic will release free updates that include “free additions to the game content like new levels, weapons, skins and modes for the local multiplayer.”

None of this addresses another major complaint that fans of the original have with the new remake: its visual style.  While the original game was heavily reliant on its unique cel-shaded comic style, like Borderlands,  the XIII remake scraps all of that for a modern rendering look with simple black linework around characters and objects. While it doesn’t look bad,  it misses the point of the original entirely.