Once Human Dev Struggles to Cope With Huge Number of Players as Steam Hit Exceeds Expectations

After a weekend of server problems, Once Human developer Starry Studio has revealed how it struggled to cope with the unexpected number of players who have descended upon the game.

Once Human is a free-to-play multiplayer open world survival game from Starry Studio, a developer owned by Chinese games company NetEase. It launched on PC on July 9 and quickly found an audience, with a huge peak concurrent player count of 231,668 on Steam.

It’s a big success for NetEase, but some players have faced frustration simply playing the game. Specifically, players found they were unable to play with friends because they were already playing on a server that was full due to newly imposed player limits, or had lengthy queue times.

Now, in a post on Steam, Starry Studio said the increase in the number of players over the weekend “exceeded our previous expectations” and in turn caused big server queues. Because of this, Starry Studio said it had “no other choice” but to limit the number of players on each server.

“But we’ll admit that this has indeed caused inconvenience for some players, so we are working on improving that,” the developer added. “We apologize for the inconvenience.”

Starry Studio went on to explain exactly why too many players on a single server causes problems for Once Human. It’s a helpful insight into the way the game works and the challenges developers face when it comes to MMO-style games such as these.

“Once Human is an open-world survival building game where resources on the map are limited in numbers,” Starry Studio said. “If too many players get on the same server, they will have a hard time finding a suitable spot to create their territory. Additionally, some late-game content such as the Stronghold Conquest for PvP servers will be affected. According to our previous test data, we discovered that the current scenarios could offer a better gaming experience if the number of players on each server was limited between 6,000 and 8,000. That’s why we’ve set a limit. Once that limit is exceeded, players will have to wait in queue. This is all for the online players to enjoy a better gaming experience.”

At the time of this article’s publication, nine of Once Human’s servers are completely full. Starry Studio suggested players play on other servers instead in order to get in the game. In the meantime, Starry Studio said it will soon raise the limit for each server, which should mean players can play on the server of their choice, “but this measure is not a long-term solution, so you should still try to avoid servers that seem too crowded.” An August update will add an invitation code feature so you can invite players to join your server even when the server is already full.

In the shorter term, a patch scheduled for July 18 will make some initial improvements, with plans to offer compensation “for those who spend too long waiting in a queue.”

“We understand that you eagerly want to have fun with your friends. We assure you that our team is hard at work resolving issues related to server loads, and we are doing all that we can to improve the queuing issue,” Starry Studio said.

Last week, Starry Studio responded to a backlash about how cosmetics work in Once Human, and promised changes. Once Human has a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam, with some players expressing concern about everything from the game’s privacy policy to the use of the NetEase Launcher. In gameplay terms, players have hit out at mandatory seasonal resets and how they can affect your sense of progression and attachment to your character, as well as cosmetics being tied to individual characters.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.