Steam chart-topping survival game Once Human has launched to mixed reviews, but its biggest problem has been solved in the first hour

Once Human
(Image credit: Starry Studio)

Open-world survival game Once Human has finally landed, and following player push-back, developer Starry Studio has announced that multiple-character creation has been officially launched into the game.

"Now, multiple-character creation is available," Starry Studio says of its decision to launch the feature within the first hour of the game's release. "We initially closed multi-character creation because the experience wasn't up to snuff. We wanted to perfect it by August 1, but that plan backfired. Sorry about that!"

The breakout Next Fest star climbed into the top five most-wishlisted games on Steam ahead of its July 9 launch date, but fell short of victory following a slew of unfavorable reviews. The inability to create multiple characters across multiple saves was perhaps the biggest offender, but according to information shared on Reddit drawn from the official Once Human Discord server, the issue has been rectified.

Relieved as many players might be, the survival game is still not without its share of teething problems. Many of the mixed Steam reviews praise the developer's attentiveness, especially the speed at which Starry Studio mobilized itself to launch the withheld multi-character feature. However, a bug that prevents server-switching, as well as installation errors and concerns over publisher NetEase's privacy policy are still rife among them. 

This isn't the first case of Steam review bombing this year – Dragon's Dogma 2 suffered a similar setback – and it likely won't be the last. But it's still early days for Once Human, and if Starry Studio's attentiveness holds up, there's still hope that some of the more negative reviews could be flipped with a little dev TLC.


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Jasmine Gould-Wilson
Staff Writer, GamesRadar+

Jasmine is a staff writer at GamesRadar+. Raised in Hong Kong and having graduated with an English Literature degree from Queen Mary, University of London in 2017, her passion for entertainment writing has taken her from reviewing underground concerts to blogging about the intersection between horror movies and browser games. Having made the career jump from TV broadcast operations to video games journalism during the pandemic, she cut her teeth as a freelance writer with TheGamer, Gamezo, and Tech Radar Gaming before accepting a full-time role here at GamesRadar. Whether Jasmine is researching the latest in gaming litigation for a news piece, writing how-to guides for The Sims 4, or extolling the necessity of a Resident Evil: CODE Veronica remake, you'll probably find her listening to metalcore at the same time.