RollerCoaster Tycoon World is coming out later this year, apparently — and it still looks awful.
It’s easy to forget that amongst everything being released in the last half of this year, a sequel to the RollerCoaster Tycoon series — no, not the spiritual successor the Elite: Dangerous developers announced during the PC Gaming Show at E3 — is coming as well.
Problem is, it looks horrendous.
The project has been maligned from the start ever since Atari announced it alongside RollerCoaster Tycoon 4 Mobile. Handballing the development from Pipeworks Software to Area 52 Games and then to Nvizzio Creations — without explaining why the project was passed along in the first place — certainly didn’t help.
Adding more fuel to the fire was the fact that RCT World was originally due to come out early this year, but that date passed by like a fart in the wind. The Steam page now, which has been updated with the minimum PC specifications, gameplay information and the news that a SteamOS and Linux port is on the way, claims the game is being released in the final quarter of this year.
Which still seems like rubbish to me. For one, look at the screenshots. They’re all at that awful 4:3 aspect ratio, a legacy of the last decade. At the time of writing, only two of the screenshots are actually viewable. The project is so off the rails that even the Steam page doesn’t work properly.
Unfortunately our site automatically rescales images so you don’t get the black bars, meaning that our automated software is so far more efficient than the three developers Atari has paid to trash the image of this classic franchise. Even if the other screenshots were clickable, it wouldn’t matter because if you look closely the screenshots are exactly the same.
The last trailer, published in March, is depressing. The textures and models would have looked ugly next to Startopia. There even appears to be a problem with the frame rate at one point. And those water effects. Dear God.
Could Nvizzio and ATARI make this look any worse? Does anyone have any faith in this project at all? Thankfully Planet Coaster is still being made. Theme Parkitect was successfully crowdfunded last year too, although it doesn’t look like it will match the level of polish Frontier Developments can produce.
RollerCoaster Tycoon World 4 is due out in the last quarter this year on PC, SteamOS and Linux. Probably. Maybe. Doubtfully. Eventually.
Comments
12 responses to “RollerCoaster Tycoon World’s Steam Page Gets Updated, Still Looks Awful”
Dippa
Those two screenshots look good to me?
While I have massive doubts about this game after the trailer and their “sorry, that big reveal was using placeholder art, soz LOL” response, I don’t think that screwing up the aspect ratio of some screenshots on the Steam store page will make or break this game.
That said, even if this does fail horribly, there is hope yet. Between Parkitect, Planet Coaster and Theme Park Studio one is bound to be good. Right? God I hope at least one is good, I’ve been craving a modern theme park game for a while now.
Not one mention of the substance of those screenshots however.
“BWAH! Judging by the obscure aspect ratio of the screenshot, THIS GAME WILL BE TERRIBLE!”
Not very professional TBH.
Yes the initial trailer was pretty bad, but this looks like a step in the right direction. Can Alex Walker get his head out of his ass, do some research on the game and come back to make a RCTW article with a much more appropriate manner,
Thanks!
the new screenshot are great!!
This article makes very irrelevant points…
If the author followed the dev blogs, he would realize this game is no longer nothing like the trailer posted in the article…
I feel like this guy works for frontier and planet coaster
Alex Walker, author of this article above, in “your opinion” the game still looks awful. However the new information and screenshots of the game sound and look very promising! The screenshots look great so what exactly looks awful about it??? I think you’re just nit-picking here.
I think you are being very picky… (by the way the trailer is old it was from Area52 not Nvizzio)
Alex, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe if you took the time to check out the development blog, and if you could manage to nuance the work done by previous studios from that accomplished by Nvizzio, you would understand why RCTW is still one of the most anticipated games out there. *rant over*
Stop jumping on the bandwagon kotaku. The game has been remade since that trailer released. And you are complaining about aspect ratios. Be professional. Is this even news.
As far as I’m concerned as long as it’s fun the graphics won’t be that much of an issue. Of course that relies on it being fun.
You call that jornalism? This article sounds to me like a hate-comment on a forum. Throughout the whole article you can see it is entirely based on prejudices. Who the hell cares about the format of the screenshots. It isn’t even 4:3. Furthermore I don’t see how you could get to the conclusion the graphics would be that terrible. Of course they don’t looks like in the newest FPS games, but what did you expect? If the graphics would be good enough to satisfy you you’d probably need a 10000$ PC because it is a simulation where a lot of stuff is happening and if all of that stuff would have too many details it would be a problem to handle for normal PCs. That’s why they went for a slightly comic-like style. It looks fine while not making too much effort for the PC. If you don’t like it it’s your opinion, but it’s no reason to call it ugly. Also it happens to the best game developers that they don’t finish a game in the time they said, but what’s better: publishing a unfinished game or taking the time to make it perfect? It looks like you didn’t even read the dev blogs. Probably you saw the terrible trailer, you saw many people hated it and now you just go with them. Mattlab (I guess you don’t even know who this is) emphasized that the trailer was made with an outdated engine and before the graphics work was actually done.
This article is just a shame.
Sounds like someone’s venting some personal hate… The screens look fine.
Can’t wait to see how it turns out…
What a load of rubbish this article is the new screenshots look good to me and also the gameplay is more important anyway, look at Minecraft massively successful game because the gameplay was good, the graphics are rubbish, to many games focus on graphics and are actually not that great to play, but anyway as I said I think the screenshots look good and way better than originally.
You say the game looks awful, and I do not agree. “Awful” is what we were shown in that trailer. I not only think the screenshots look nice, but also notice the second screenshot includes free-form sidewalk placement, which is something the trailer didn’t include. I think that, given the previous things I’ve mentioned in this comment, the game is well on its way to becoming something wonderful and fun for everyone. Also I must respectfully disagree in your decision to speak about the trailer released in March, as the game’s development has come along way since then, both with graphics and gameplay elements, and therefore I do not believe the old trailer’s contents matter anymore.
Your article is still too optimistic and still too friendly to Atari. There is no hope for Atari and their RCTW for this year and no hope that it will get any better than Planet Coaster from Frontier.
People seem to have forgotten that RCT3 was developed by Frontier, which have left Atari and are now finishing their own RCT named “Planet Coaster” early 2016. They have the expertise and knowledge to do so and this game will probably the true spiritual successor of RCT3. And as the article already mentioned Atari is using completely unknown small dev teams and hiring and firing them in record time.
I’ll play the devil’s advocate and say they still have no team that can do the job. They can’t release before 2016 and just won’t tell the fans. They want their old fans to keep their eyes on RCTW and away from “Planet Coaster”, so they keep promising and promising.