Finally, it became clear what was meant by the "reboot" of the Ukrainian online shooter Shatterline, which became known in mid-June 2024. Unfortunately, the news is disappointing for players. Frag Lab starts cooperation with Faraway, adds NFT, and moves from Steam to Epic Games Store. This became known from the Shatterline Q&A session on Reddit.
Let's be honest, everything about this news is bad. The Ukrainian game that was able to - failed.
Let's start from the end. Shatterline is moving to the Epic Games Store because Steam is blocking all games with NFT. Why would that be, maybe it's a sign? Players hate NFT, it just makes them angry at any mention, I wonder how Frag Lab is going to bring players back to the game with this attitude? It's no wonder that Shatterline's Steam rating has gone down and now stands at 24/100 (out of 334 reviews over the past 30 days). What's more, YouTubers are raving about the game. This video from BigfryTV has already received 104 thousand views. Players draw offensive memes, etc.
And on top of that, Faraway is a Russian-founded company with a lot of Russians and Belarusians working there, as you can easily see if you look at the Faraway LinkedIn page. Yes, there are Americans and even Ukrainians there, but there are plenty of Russians and Belarusians, and both founders, Alex Paliy and Denis Zhdonov, consider Russian their native language and seem to be hiding the beginning of their careers.
It's a shame, Shatterline was a really good game, some people spent hundreds of hours on it. It's a shame that the idea of creating a normal story-driven single-player/co-op game on the same assets in the same universe seems to have never been considered. RIP Shatterline.