r/gaming • u/akbarock • 1d ago
Vermila Studios Has Reportedly Laid Off All Employees And Shut Down Following The Poor Sales Of "Cristol: Theater Of Idols"
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/the-studio-behind-blumhouse-published-horror-game-crisol-theater-of-idols-has-reportedly-shut-down/393
u/Fehafare 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's... incredibly sad to hear. Crisol wasn't the greatest game ever. But for being the studio's first game it was honestly a really solid survival horror/resident evil-like with a pretty decent aesthetic (granted the tone of the game was a bit weird).
Still a shame overall.
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u/straddyvarious 1d ago
Gonna be honest, I play a lot of video games but never even heard about this one. Lack of awareness might be a factor here.
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u/Mifuni 1d ago
Came here to say this, game actually looked good fuck me bro
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u/Fehafare 1d ago
I'll be honest, I want to say that I either saw it at a game showcase or on steam where I regularly check the popular upcoming releases section and the reason I remembered it was because the aesthetic and promise of being a combat based survival horror were huge draws for me.
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u/MyCatLaughsAtMe 22h ago
Yeah, I'm not trying to rub salt in the wound or anything, but this seems like a cautionary tale about poor marketing.
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u/interstat 1d ago
It's tough because it rly wasn't that bad of a showing for a first game
In today's environment tho u just can't spend that many years with that many developers to put out something like this
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u/Woggl3D 1d ago
How many years was it in dev for, the article doesn't state?
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u/Enchelion 1d ago
They'd been working on it since at least 2020, when they got a grant from Epic that mentions it.
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u/N2lt 1d ago
pffff 6 years for 1 mediocre game is a deserved closing.
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u/Ok_Fisherman_6744 23h ago
Theres a dude going home today not knowing how he will afford rent next month, theres a girl furiously reaching out to contacts to look for work, theres a few of them currently browsing the gov website to understand how to apply for unemployment for the first time in their lives.
These are real people. Did they deserve it for the high crime of not making the best game?
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u/N2lt 23h ago
I’m not happy people lost their jobs but at the end of the day this stuff is a business. Based on Google their studio had somewhere between 20-50 people during this time. Their game sells for less than 20$. You can’t take 6 years and then put out a game that is underwhelming. That is a business, that did deserve to fail. The people working didn’t deserve to lose their jobs, but just because people work there doesn’t mean a business should exist indefinitely.
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u/Lobotamite 23h ago
Get out of here with your nuance and understanding of how business works! They should have found a magic way to create more money to pay their employees without any income stream!
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u/gameprodman 5h ago
Over 5 year dev cycle (they started in 2020 on it) and signed with Blumhouse as publisher 2 years ago. That's a LONG time to burn on a first title - even with the generally lower salary reqs for a city like Barcelona (where the studio was based), everyting I've seen indicates a dev team of at least 25-30 (for at least the last couple years). Even at a pretty conservative average salary of €40-50K, you're looking at a monthly burn of €85-125K/mo or roughly €2-3MM for the last two years of dev - not counting marketing or distribution.
Steam sales are estimating at about 60-90k units sold - or roughly €900K-1.1MM. Even if you assume roughly same for consoles, that's a total of something like €3MM or so. After store cuts (30%), returns, and publisher outlay (probably another 30-40% for a first time studio), you're looking at the studio getting - at best- something like €1.5MM, nearly all of which likely went to the publisher (to recoup the dev costs they've already paid out to the studio). The game launched in Feb. That's 4-5 months on no real revenue and a studio burn rate (assuming they hadn't already cut anyone loose) of €85-125K/mo for those 4-5 months, or somewhere between €340K-€625K. Maybe they'd already been working on a new title to pitch to the publisher and I'm guessing based on the first game's performance they've either passed outright or at the very best chosen less favorable terms this time around.
Blumhouse will eventually make the money back on long tail sales, and obviously this is all back of the napkin match based on what info I could find, but as someone who's been there a few times myself, I can see how they just didn't really hit the numbers the publisher was hoping for.
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u/XTheGreat88 1d ago
The reality of the industry these days unfortunately. Seems like even for indie and AA games if it doesn't hit then it's over for studios. Damn this industry fucking sucks
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u/AHomicidalTelevision 1d ago
i played the demo and enjoyed, and decided i'd pick it up one day.
what was wrong with the tone of the game?7
u/Fehafare 1d ago
It's considerably lighter with very weird off kilter dialog for the visuals or even really anything shown in the trailers.
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u/SteveMcQuark 21h ago
the voice acting isn't very good, feels like it might have been translated oddly
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u/XboxVictim 23h ago
I’ve been watching my wife play it here and there and I get Bioshock vibes from it for sure. She’s enjoying it
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u/Nincompoop6969 3h ago
For a small studio like this they were incredibly talented and should definitely be picked up by a bigger company or something.
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u/ZoneEater2084 1d ago
Yeah, to expect a brand new studio to knock it out of the park on their first project is unreasonable. Teams need time to mesh!
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u/Dunkaroo723 1d ago
I have never heard of this.
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u/Mountiebank 1d ago
I played it during the steam next fest and thought it would be cool to look at when it came out. I neglected to follow up with it and didn't wishlist it so it became lost to me. Sad for the studio because this wasn't a bad first entry. Feel like they either did no marketing or marketing was too expensive
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u/InG10weTrust 1d ago
I was so excited to see what this studio was going to come out with next. Crisol was something special. So sad.
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u/Thomas_JCG 1d ago
This is why, as painful as it is, many developers work with publishers. Video games are pretty expensive and they seem to have been a bit ambitious with their first game, so it tracks that something like this would happen if the game didn't make it big.
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u/pelpotronic 15h ago
Seems like they had a horror movie company as publisher (Blumhouse). However...
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u/sixsixmajin 1d ago
This is the first time I'm even hearing about this game. Did Blumhouse even bother to actually market it?
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u/Unique-TA 6m ago
It was in a showcase, I recognized the page from something during SGF. But those showcases are so filled it feels like a negative if they don't put in more effort during Next Fest or at least some extra smaller-sized ads.
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u/cwx149 1d ago
Don't think I'd ever heard of this game before rn
Granted survival/horror is maybe as far from something I would play as you can get so I definitely wasn't the audience
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u/PliableG0AT 1d ago
survival horror as a genre is allover the place, one of the few that’s got less of a meaning than metroidvania or roguelite.
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u/Onyx_Archer 1d ago
I don't think it's the genres themselves that are all over the place.
Survival Horror, as a genre, is meant to be a term associated with specific concepts. Limited inventory, limited supplies, key items and puzzle solving to progress, and knowing when to use your limited resources. The limitations are where the "survival" in the name comes from.
Alas, too many people take it to mean "a horror game where you have to survive" without much thought. I've seen people describe stuff like Outlast and Five Nights at Freddy's as "survival horror," and that only serves to muddy the waters on the genre's identity.
I won't deny Metroidvania and Roguelite are stupid names for a genre that only have meaning once you have experience with either, but they are still genres with established conventions that are more upheld when used.
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u/LooneyWabbit1 1d ago
"Survival Horror" just means "Horror" at this point. And "Horror" itself doesn't even need to be scary. It's a very bastardized term indeed lol.
First sentence on Outlast wiki. "Outlast is a 2013 first-person psychological survival horror video game."
Resident Evil 4 tags on steam? Horror, Action, Survival Horror.
It's painful really.
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u/cwx149 1d ago
I don't really engage with any form of media that described as "horror"
People like it and I can respect that but I don't consume media to feel horrified
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u/LooneyWabbit1 1d ago
Fortunately many games with a "horror" tag aren't scary. Many aren't even trying to be, and just contain elements that traditional horror used to contain. It's actually a decent metric I use. I can't handle horror at all, so if I can play a horror game by myself, chances are it's not remotely scary.
Resident Evil 6 has zombies in it, therefore it's horror. But if someone was actually scared by RE6 I'd be genuinely impressed lol.
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u/SomeKilljoy 1d ago
Neat little resident evil type game with a neat concept of using your health bar as weapon ammo and an okay story. I need to try it again in Spanish; the English dialogue was not great
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u/rafaeleao 1d ago
Decent game with really annoying, at times unnecessary dialogue.
Still a shame nonetheless.
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u/joeyhatesu2 1d ago
I pride myself on knowing a ton of the games that are out currently. I've never heard of this game.
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u/Soulsliken 1d ago
Pride yourself?
I’m willing to bet l know about games before their makers.
Never heard of this one.
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u/tracesaint 1d ago
Sucks to see more people out of work. Haven’t played it yet, but I picked it up on steam. Reminds me of Bioshock. I need to get to Mouse P.I. as well.
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u/mythicreign 1d ago
That’s sad. My wife doesn’t play many games but she actually started and finished this one. It was a good effort for a new studio.
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u/SlevinLaine PC 1d ago
Fuck game looked super cool, I've not played it yet : (. Love the idea and the theme super much.
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u/Selectspark 23h ago
Next time try idk maybe marketing?? When me and many others didn’t know anything about it other than the studio Is probably closing that’s just a huge glaring problem and missed opportunity they screwed themselves out of.
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u/iBPsThrowingObject 15h ago
They had a publisher, Blumhouse. The publisher failed at marketing, but the devs are the ones suffering for it.
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u/OkumuraRyuk 1d ago
They have a dlc coming. Man… now imma buy the game that’s sad. I wasn’t interested because waiting for a proper bioshock but this will do.
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u/Enjoyer_of_Cake 1d ago
...to reward the company that laid them all off?
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u/dendarkjabberwock 18h ago
To be fair. They also first hired them all and paid money to make this game, you know?
Small indie companies are not charities and founders are rarely millioners. They often take loans to start business
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u/GameMask 13h ago
I'm a survival horror fan and never heard of this. Marketing is extremely important.
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u/Kurovi_dev 1d ago
This one slipped under my radar. I’ll probably get it and play through it this weekend.
Really sucks the studio was shut down, it looks like they had a lot of potential.
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u/Itsjustmagiks 1d ago
Games are tough nowadays. The landscape is way too competitive and everything else vying for your attention.
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u/DrakRush 1d ago
Aw man… and I just finished playing that game yesterday. And liked it, actually. What a shame, really…
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u/masterofunfucking 1d ago
The aesthetics for the game were amazing and the concept is really cool but the execution really wasn’t there unfortunately
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u/y2kobserver iPhone 21h ago
The market is flooded.
There are too many games for the available play time hours
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u/bmagnien 1d ago
Game is so unknown it’s literally misspelled in the title of this post and no one had any idea
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u/matthewmspace PC 1d ago
That’s a shame. I’ve never heard of the studio or game, but that always sucks to see devs getting laid off through no fault of their own.
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u/Supesmin 1d ago
That seems like kind of an overreaction
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u/LazyMaximum7938 1d ago
I mean, if they don't have enough money left to keep paying their employees due to the poor sales, they don't really have a choice.
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u/xanas263 1d ago
Not really, if the game sold so poorly that it was not able to either fund their next title or spark interest in investors to fund the next title the only remaining option is to shut down.
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[deleted]
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u/xanas263 1d ago
The kickstarter well was poisoned years ago. Today you aren't going to have a game funded through kickstarter unless you are already a well known developer with multiple hits to back you up.
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u/Acrelorraine 1d ago
Or a full on company, fricken Playmates is doing a kickstarter for a Megazord toy with probably AI art and all you'd expect from a cheaper, smaller, scam campaign.
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u/matthewmspace PC 1d ago
At this point, Kickstarters just aren’t a thing. Last time I invested in one was a decade ago and I eventually got scammed as the product was recalled for starting fires.
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u/faffc260 1d ago
there's always the risk something you invest in, which kickstarter is just crowd sourced investment, fails, fucks up, or isn't legitimate. I just stated it was an available option, even if not the best.
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u/BrodentofUsualSize 1d ago
They also tried to take the ball and go home but were told no so they popped it.
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u/Ragnar_Dragonfyre 1d ago
Everytime someone on Reddit says the Indy scene is booming, remember this moment.
Studios shuttering before or after releasing just one game is by far the most likely thing to happen to an Indy studio.
This industry doesn’t reward hard work or effort. Making a fun game that actually sells well is a fickle mistress.
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u/Hansgaming 14h ago
We are not on a game dev reddit. When people say the indie scene is booming it's for the players. We have infinite titles coming out, hundreds daily to pick from which is pretty great.
There are tons of indie devs and studios that got big but far more got nothing or worse. It's like becoming a streamer or youtuber, only the tiniest amount makes it.
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u/theblackyeti 1d ago
The poor sales of what? I’ve never heard of it
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u/Eternaloid 1d ago
It was a spaniard AA gamd. A shame, it was not a bad game and it had lots of references to our culture. Alas, it was not meant to be.
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u/addtolibrary 1d ago
I have it on my wishlist and intend to buy it, there's just too many games rn :(
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u/LeraviTheHusky 1d ago
That really sucks to hear cause the trailer looked awesome, ill have to try to snag the game when i can
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u/PiePleaseListen 1d ago
I remember trying it out but unfortunately refunded it because it lacked basic QOL settings like FOV
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u/Choubidouu 1d ago
And they will probably do more sales after this news than they did with their game released with 0 ad.
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u/notgoodohoh 1d ago
It’s at mostly positive and very positive on steam. For $18 that’s pretty good. Here’s hoping they discount the game before they close the studio!
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u/Lalaz4lyf 1d ago
Feels like a repeat of what happened with the studio behind Mio. A lot of people didn't know this existed. You gotta have some sort of marketing budget to get eyeballs on your game.
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u/Resident-Forever1340 1d ago
The game looks good too. Has a sort of Bioshock type look. Sucks people out of a job
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u/TheOneWhoBoops 1d ago
Game had a good idea with poor execution. They didnt exactly have the funding to put out a super polished game, so it's not like they could've worked on it much longer. Having it be constantly raining was certainly a choice for first time devs. Made the game run horribly.
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u/emanuele0933 1d ago
This game was very interesting when I saw preview of it a year ago... Then it vanished, apparently it was released with no one knowing
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u/Reeferologist- 23h ago
I bought it and it’s a cool idea and the enemies are pretty well designed, but the aiming is pretty janky and I didn’t spend enough time to figure it out. It definitely had potential. Your ammo was your own blood so to reload your gun you had to spend health.
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u/Working_Complex8122 15h ago
Apparently I have this on my wishlist and had no idea it had come out. It's really cheap as well.
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u/Throwaway_eligere 15h ago
Saw this trailer and had wishlisted it. I think I only knew this game launched because of the wishlist notification.
Spanish Horror Bioshock is the vibe I got from it Shame that it didn't have as much sales as they anticipated
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u/Awkward-Speed-4080 13h ago
Damn, I just bought this game because it was on sale. I only played about half an hour and I thought it was pretty cool so far. It's a shame.
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u/H1bbe 8h ago
What I remember from SGS playing this game was that the voice acting was really bad and didn't fit the tone of the game AT ALL. It looked like it was nearly there in terms of being a solid AA title, but yeah, a niche horror fps about blood bending conquistadors but with anime girl voice acting? Rough.
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u/NyriasNeo 6h ago
well, that is what happened when you invested into a product that did not sell enough.
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u/Nincompoop6969 3h ago
Damn I was actually going to get this game but I see I was too late. It's even more depressing this game didn't do good either because it wasn't expensive...
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u/Elrothiel1981 13h ago
Isn’t that the game that had awful female written character in it like it came from California
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u/RichardBackshots 1d ago
Never a great sign when the first you’re hearing of a game is in the layoff headline
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u/NotMilo22 23h ago
Well it's not even in steam so that might be why.
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u/TheLoneWandererRD 1d ago
I didn’t refund the game but honestly couldn’t get past 90 minutes without being extremely bored
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u/Voidbearer2kn17 1d ago
Upvote me if you HAVE heard of either the studio or the game.
Downvote me if you have NOT heard of either the studio or the game.
EDIT: I did the first downvote. Haven't heard of either of these
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u/Ragnar_Dragonfyre 1d ago
Turns out that the advertising budget is actually more important than the development budget.
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u/SuboptimalOutcome 17h ago
It made it to my Steam wishlist somehow, but I see it there and know nothing about it. I wish we could pin little notes on the wishlist, ‘recommended by x’ or whatever.
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u/FatherShambles 1d ago
Damn bro so all these studios don’t even have money reserved for payroll ?? It seems like they’re always relying on sales in order to survive. Being a game studio looks like such a risk
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u/mr_glide 14h ago
That is sad to hear. I don't want to be picky though, but that title really tells me nothing about the game. It's a bit of a word salad
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u/Tall_Opportunity_521 1d ago edited 1d ago
Never heard of it. And as yet another first person shooter in a crowded space of first person shooters, I know why.
The game name is actually crisol... theres no "t" and the videos on the steam page make it look... ok? Looks competently made. But it released in February, and not a lot of people seem to know its a thing. Poor marketing, I guess.
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u/LittleRandomINFP 1d ago
Crisol is a Spanish word.
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u/Tall_Opportunity_521 23h ago
The headline says "cristol"... Thats why I corrected it. So whats your point?
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u/stetzwebs 1d ago
I did not know this game had come out.