A new game in the vaunted Commander Keen series was announced yesterday, June 9th 2019, at E3. That's where the good news ends!
Unlike the classic MS-DOS platforming games that fans know and love, the new game published by Bethesda Softworks is a mobile-only free-to-play game (think ads and/or microtransactions) that eschews the aesthetic of the old games. The gameplay also looks nothing like what fans will remember. It almost seems like the Keen license has been slapped onto another generic mobile game!
See the video for yourself:
The developed, ZeniMax Online Studios, previously developed Elder Scrolls Online. Why they were tasked to make a new Keen game is anyone's guess.
I wonder who the target market is for this game? Old-school gamers who remember Keen's glory days will likely have no interest in this game, while new gamers who don't know Keen's former exploits will have no reason to check this game out.
This sums it up for me:
(Thanks goes to QC on Twitter for the image!)
Seen also at: Kotaku, Ars Technica, Variety, and many others.
