Developer apologizes for poor reception of game two years after launch

One Grey Skies: A War of the Worlds Story dev says they're now aware, over two years later, of "just how bad" the reception for their game was.

Heidi Nicholas

Published 18 Jul 2023

Stealth adventure game Grey Skies: A War of the Worlds Story launched in 2020 and still sits with low ratings, but developer Nathan Seedhouse was only recently made aware of its "extremely" poor reviews.

Grey Skies: A War of the Worlds Story was "reviewed extremely poorly"

"After a couple of years of crippling personal issues that kept me away from development, I came back to find that Grey Skies has issues, and has been reviewed extremely poorly. I was unaware of just how bad it was until recently," says Seedhouse.

It's been more than two years since Grey Skies: A War of the Worlds Story's November 2020 launch. 50% of the reviews on the game's Microsoft Store page are one-star reviews while on TrueAchievements, it sits with a rating of 1.95/5. On Steam, its reviews are "mostly negative."

"I came back to it with fresh eyes after more than two years and completely understand the issues most people have taken with it," Seedhouse continues, adding, "I still think that underneath these issues we made a decent game."

On that note, Seedhouse promises to remaster the game — for free — "with new technologies that have become available, and my own improved knowledge of development" along with all the feedback players had. This remaster will be free to anyone who owns the game (unfortunately, it's not yet clear whether this offer extends to Grey Skies owners on other platforms besides Steam) while the original game will be delisted — again, it's not clear if this delisting will happen on the Xbox Store too.

"I hope it will go some way to rectify mistakes we have made on this and that some of you might be willing to give it another go. I'll give an update on this as soon as possible."

We have reached out to Steel Arts Software for more information on how this will affect Xbox players.

Written by Heidi Nicholas

Heidi tends to lean towards indie games, RPGs, and open-world games on Xbox, and when not playing Disney Dreamlight Valley, happily installs every new wholesome game that appears on Xbox Game Pass, before diving back into favorites like The Witcher 3. She's looking forward to Age of Mythology Retold, Everwild, Fable, and Avowed on the Xbox horizon. Heidi graduated with an MA in English Literature before joining the TrueAchievements team.