Atlas

Atlas's December 2018 launch is a masterclass in how to piss off an entire gaming community. Developed by Grapeshot Games (a Studio Wildcard spin-off), this pirate MMO was announced at The Game Awards 2018 and immediately hyped as "ARK but with ships." Then the delays started. The game was supposed to launch December 13th, got pushed to the 19th, then delayed again with a countdown timer that ended in... another delay announcement. Players revolted. When Atlas finally launched on December 22nd, it was a disaster: server queues, massive bottlenecks in starter zones capped at a few hundred players, rampant bugs, clipping issues, inconsistent AI, and server-side instability that made early ARK look polished. Influencers got preferential treatment with early access, fueling rage from paying customers stuck in queues. The game peaked at 440 viewers on StreamerHouse during its 2018-2021 run, a respectable showing for a title that launched to "Mostly Negative" Steam reviews. Players documented blatant asset reuse from ARK—same animations, same UI, same jank. Many called it "a glorified ARK mod." Atlas symbolized everything wrong with Early Access: overpromised, underdelivered, and transparently unfinished. Grapeshot's reputation never recovered.