With the likes of world-class content creators such as Fresh (7.6 million subscribers) and Lazerbeam (20+ million subscribers) having been closely associated with the project since its announcement, many would have been correct in believing that World Boss could become “the next big thing”, after all, if just 10% of the famous streamers subscribers played World Boss, it would quickly become one of the most viewed games on Twitch and top played games on Steam with around 2.7 million players.
Unfortunately for Fresh, Lazerbeam, and the developers, this did not occur, and World Boss would go onto peak at less than 250 Twitch viewers at launch before swiftly plummeting to single figures, while the concurrent user count struggled to rise above 75 concurrent players within hours of launch.
While a miracle could save World Boss if the backing of two of the most influential streamers could not generate hype for a free-2-play game, there is little they or the developers can do to turn it around, especially after its Keymailer campaign, which offered free DLC and a generous amount of premium currency to content creators, (myself included), failed to generate any hype, or entice streamers to play the game more than once or twice before returning to more popular games.
At the time of writing this review, World Boss has 0 viewers on Twitch and just 42 active players on Steam, its sole distribution platform.
Image credit World Boss - Published by PlaySide Studios and developed by PlaySide Studios.
World Boss is set on a map that looks worse than what many amateur developers design via Fortnite creative mode. This comparison becomes all the more apparent when you look at the default player models, which appear to be off-brand versions of default Fortnite characters.
I have played some truly terrible games over the last six years of reviewing games. While I would be lying to say that World Boss is the ugliest game I have played, World Boss comes pretty close, and its awful, in-organic map design only highlights just how bad its visuals are.
Image credit World Boss - Published by PlaySide Studios and developed by PlaySide Studios.
Due to the small player base, most lobbies are populated with barely functional bots. Because of this, the few real players that play World Boss are nowhere near as good as they think they are, as they rarely have the opportunity to test themselves against a real player, let alone a skilled one.
In my most recent play-through, I joined the only EU lobby with actual human players (just 7 of us) and won the match with 104 kills and 0 deaths.
While I am fairly skilled at first-person shooters, I am not THAT skilled, and being able to come away with such a victory shows just how unskilled the small community is and how incompetent the bots are.
Image credit World Boss - Published by PlaySide Studios and developed by PlaySide Studios.
While World Boss is an unmitigated failure and is unlikely to remain with us much longer, it did introduce several new mechanics to the Battle Royale genre, and hopefully, all or at least some of them will appear again in future in other titles.
In World Boss, matches do not end until the World Boss (player) corrupts and holds three separate cores on the map, meaning matches can go on indefinitely, with each player being given multiple lives, and even losing all lives only resulting in a reset to level 1, matches, in theory, could last for days, however, due to how small and unskilled the World Boss player base is, matches normally end in under 30 minutes if at least one skill player is present.
Image credit World Boss - Published by PlaySide Studios and developed by PlaySide Studios.
Players can choose from various passive and active abilities with each successive level up, allowing for near-unlimited build diversity. For players who want to go a step further, at level 25, players are given the option to return prestige (reset back to level one) and retain one of their previous unlocks, allowing players who prestige three times (maximum) to have access to an additional three skills/upgrades during important endgame clashes.
Unfortunately, this isn’t needed again, and I could shut down a server (victory condition) without prestiging (or dying) even once.
Image credit World Boss - Published by PlaySide Studios and developed by PlaySide Studios.
While World Boss can be played with a controller, the developers have opted to include no aim assist, meaning players using controllers are at a nearly impossible disadvantage when playing against mouse and keyboard users.
While World Boss’s combat works on a base level, it is incredibly lacklustre. It is on par with the combat in many asset flip games, with only upgrades such as explosive or ricocheting rounds, making it even slightly more engaging than the rudimentary point-and-shoot system.
Image credit World Boss - Published by PlaySide Studios and developed by PlaySide Studios.
World Boss is a battle royale video game developed and published by PlaySide Studios, it was released on 27 June 2023 and it is Free-2-Play.
World Boss is available exclusively on PC.
World Boss offers the following matchmaking options:
The World Boss in-game store sells:
The following peripherals are officially supported:
World Boss is unrated and contains the following:
