Hi-Rez Studios, the game publisher that released a variety of free competitive games “SMITE” and “Paladin”, brought a new multiplayer action competitive game “Divine Knockout” (DKO) again this week (12/6). It was originally sold on Steam for $20 (Taiwan’s price is NT$451), but it was suddenly changed to free for a limited time yesterday (9), and it will be permanently stored after receiving it.
“DKO” is a multiplayer competitive game created by the Red Beard Games team. The basic gameplay is to transform the 2D operation of “Nintendo All-Star Super Smash Bros.” into a 3D stage, and players can play the mythical heroes of various civilizations to fight .
In the game, you can play Amaterasu, Izanami, and Susanoo in Japanese mythology, Thanatos, Athena, and Hercules in Greek mythology, Thor, the sun god Sur, and giants in Norse mythology. Ymir, and 10 mythical heroes such as King Arthur of British legend.
Overall, the operation of “DKO” is similar to that of “Super Smash Bros.” It also has the settings of double jump, sprint avoidance, and the higher the cumulative damage, the easier it is to be knocked into the air. In addition to the main content of the game, there are also settings In-app purchase mechanism for battle pass and store skins.
However, according to Steamchart data records, the sales of “DKO” after its release on December 6 were not satisfactory, and the peak number of players was only 200-300. This may be the reason why Hi-Rez changed its release strategy and launched a limited-time free release.
After launching the limited-time free event, the online peak value of “DKO” players has obviously increased by more than 15 times, reaching 5,037 players online.
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According to the description of the Steam store, the limited-time free version of “DKO” will only end at 2 am on December 15th, Taiwan time. At the same time, the original price of 451 yuan will be changed to the original version, and the limited-time free version will only provide 4 heroes (days According to Okami, Sur, Hercules and King Arthur), but all map modes are free to play.
As for whether “DKO” can be commercially successful due to this limited exemption strategy, it depends on whether the game content meets the expectations of players.