Failed Early Access Steam Game, Soccer Legends, Offering Refunds

There’s no shortage of Early Access games on Steam that put up their project as if that’s the full product, only to never finish a full release. The latest title, Soccer Legends, has been in muddy waters for a while and will now offer refunds to its owners.

In its latest update, publishing company Soedesco assumes responsibility for the mismanagement. A few weeks earlier, the company announced that they had bought the intellectual property (IP) from developer Digital Lightning, who had been lacking in communications. From the select few reviews there are currently on Steam, most complain about no updates and no word from the developer, who took €19.99 from consumers for the football and roleplaying game (RPG) hybrid.

Soccer Legends divides the football pitch in a turn-based strategy model. Players can use special powers to trigger scenes akin to old sports anime series, like Captain Tsubasa. Recently, the Inazuma Eleven series has taken up the banner for that type of style. According to Steamspy, fewer than a thousand people bought Soccer Legends since its release on August 5, 2015. So, at least not a lot of people have been affected by this botched development cycle.

Soedesco claimed that the game, as it stands now, is not up to standards to be published. As such, the latest post states:

We recognize that we need to take the project back to the drawing table and for that reason we would like to offer a full refund to everyone who owns the game. Details are still being finalised, we'll give a heads up as soon people can start refunding.

Buying Steam games through Early Access is always a risky venture. Recently, zombie survival game, The Dead Linger, announced that they’d likely stop producing their project, after several setbacks. Infamously, developer Double Fine’s Spacebase DF-9 was dumped out of Early Access, despite needing additional work, because it lacked the funds to continue. Its recent reviews show an absolute 0% recommendations and the overall approval is only 22%.

What has been your most disappointing Early Access game on Steam? Let us know in the comments.

Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed (@Daavpuke)