Crayta (PC) Review

 

Crayta was a game creation platform, similar to games like Core and Roblox. Crayta shared, especially with Core, many similarities and you will see me comparing them a couple of times. I was initially quite surprised, that a game like Roblox happened to be massively successful, while Core or Crayta have become pretty much unknown. Than I found out, that Crayta released as a Google Stadia Exclusive Game in 2020 and it cost 35 Euro/40 Dollars at release... That explains everything. Crayta later on also released on the Epic Games Store and Facebook Gaming (does that even still exist?) and made the switch to a free-to-play model. At this point however it was probably too late for a good first impression and the game never managed to leave the space of anonymity. On the 3th of March 2023 the game finally shutdown its servers on all platforms.

Since I have always been more interested in playing and reviewing games, than creating them, I can't give the most sophisticated verdict on the quality of the gamecreation elements in Crayta. I can however point out, that there was a good amount of templates and predesigned elements, which made the creation for development noobs like me a lot easier. A standout feature of Crayta was also, that two players could simultaneously and cooperatively design a game together. That was a very cool feature (if you could find a second player).

Since Crayta was a game creation platform, you could find games of all kinds of genres and types in it. There were plenty of Racing, Platforming, Shooter, Puzzle, Sport, Horror games and so on. I even managed to find some Unreal Tournament and Call of Duty Zombies clones. Like with all game creation platforms, the overwhelming majority of these games were rather small and not comparable with the quality of real games. Crayta was therefore more of a minigame simulator. A big part of the enjoyment of the game was consequently depended on the involvement of other players, preferably friends. That being said I did enjoy the games, I found in Crayta, a bit less than the best games in other platforms like Core, Roblox etc.

Some other aspects I liked a lot less in Crayta, in comparison to other games, were the camera perspective, the performance and loading times. Most games in Crayta used the default third person perspective from the Hub area of the game and this one wasn't great. It was not entirely focused behind the character and instead positioned a bit sideways of him, which made the controls and overview in a lot of games more sluggish than it needed to be. Despite changing various settings the framerate also generally seemed more unstable than in Core and Roblox. Not a gigantic deal, but it was a bit annoying. Since the visual engine didn't really look any better (probably even slightly worse) I would assume it is based on lacking optimization. Loading times were also comparatively longer in Crayta, which might also be linked to the optimization. Some of these aspects might be influenced by the hardware of the users, but watching videos of other players on YT seemed to confirm my impressions.

I do want to give a bit of praise to the Live Service component of the game. Not only did the developers regularly upload guides and tutorials to help users learn how to create games, but Crayta also featured a good Season/Battle Pass system. Every couple of months there was a new season with themes like Halloween, Wizards, Scifi, Summer Party or Tabletop games. Not only did they all feature Battle Passes, which were granted for free to all users, but they also changed up the Hub area to fit the theme of the season and also released new season fitting templates for the game creation.

 

Pro:

- Cooperative Game Creation

- Variety of Games

- Relatively strong Live Service component

 

Contra:

- Disastrous launch price and accessibility

- Bad camera perspective in third person

- Weaker performance and loading times

 

Result:

Crayta was a fun game, but lacked a good reason to exist. Other titles did the same in at least the same quality and Crayta scarred away all potential interest with its disastrous launch. There was nothing totally wrong with the game, but it was overall not strong enough to keep up with the competition and this in combination with the unforced errors ultimately lead to its demise. It is only a shame for the Cooperative Game Creation element, which was the game's best part.

 

6.5/10