As a mecha fan myself, I think the answer as to why these never take off is pretty simple. Any mecha fan worth their salt is all for customization. You want to build your dream mecha, take it out and tear face. The problem is this raises the bar for a lot of FPS fans. Look at how easy it is to get into a lobby of Call of Duty or hell, even Fortnite. Pick your initial load out, and go in. Imagine them facing a large menu of options and being told, make a thing and go. I think the best, closest thing we've sort of gotten is Armored Core 6, bit the PvP scene is tiny and there's no PvE which sucks. But I think thats around the ball park for what it would take.

I remember being unable to run this game on my dads work computer. Thanks for the nostalgia.

Wait, you mean there's someone who's acknowledging that Exteel existed ??? I still feels like there was never like it that released, even today. I could retry with the private server and yeah ... it's still quite something

Next one's gonna be a heart break. RIP Titanfall.

Oh my God, for the past few years this game would come to my mind and I would remember how much fun I would have playing it while blasting anime openings at 2am as a kid. I always noted to myself I should find out what the name of this was for nostalgia, but here you are bringing it and all the memories to me on a silver platter. Thank you

Goddamn, this game. Every 5 years or so my brain just reminds me that there was this robot game I used to play, and I have to go back and go through lists of all F2P multiplayer games to remember this name. One thing I vividly remember about it is that you could dual-wield shields, which I'd often do on capture-the-flag maps. Probably wasn't a good strategy, but it made sense to me.

As someone who played this a lot, my takes on this are probably gonna be out there and quite big. I loved this game. Combat was never smooth for any game that came after it in this genre. It was one of the only games where 'netcode' wasn't the issue in hitting your shots and slashes, making combat ultra smooth unless the servers had hiccups or your own connection did. Hit detection was also very solid for this game, something I can't say about many games going forward with this.. The mechanaught designs were clearly inspired by Gundam, and that made them quite good. No game does this as closely as Exteel did though going forward, even CyberStep took a bit of distance in doing this but eventually did it through their AXIS Series robots in their games. Unfortunately, NCSoft would have flown too closely towards the sun with these designs as BN thought these were blatant rip offs of Gundam and filed a suit against them, which, BN would win (and it would explain some of Gundam's ongoing creations today). Ultimately, it came out much too early, it's decisions made were perilous right outta the gate, and because of the early release, it led to catastrophe after catastrophe. It makes me stress why success like XDefiant's is very important to remember. You don't need to launch a game early to have it dominate. And you certainly need it to be completed at the core, which that game was. Exteel wasn't, and because it didn't try to go broad with it's audiences and only went for the big boys, that's where it failed in getting the numbers. In addition, the game clearly had lore, but.. It simply didn't think that was important. Huge mistake. Gundam and many other worlds at least tried. I have to mention CyberStep here too as they actually tried in both their mecha/humanoid shooters. Exteel simply did not and that left out massive potential for a company all about their MMOs... I remembered one more core thing that also defeated it: Durability. I'm sorry, but this was also a CrossFire problem... Thankfully, CF today doesn't have this, but nothing should be durability focused. It leads to in-game currency being practically low everytime you needed to repair. I remember wanting the best gear in Exteel but had to basically buy it because the prices were too steep and Durability being repaired cost too much points for the higher tier gear you would have wanted.

I remember playing this when I was in high school on my family's computer. It didn't have a gpu, so it ran at like 10-20 fps, but I still had fun.

This was the shit back in the day. Mecha Break and Steel Hunters, two upcoming robot arena shooters in the spirit of ExSteel are hitting live in the near future for anyone interested in or missing ExSteel. Theres also Gundam Battle Operation but Bandai has dropped the ball with that. EDIT: Came back to add after watching, there actually was a lot of depth to the combat, especially in the melee patterns/weapons and parts builds (think souls like, very committed animations to every swing and jab with hard punishes for being bad or failing) as well as some rock paper scissors in parts and weapons being hard counters or hard shut downs to each other. I miss it a lot honestly.

I still have an Exteel hacker video on my channel from 2010. Love this game. Damn you, NCSOFT. Edit: also NCSOFT was extremely incompetent in delivering updates to the NA servers to the point where “where’s the consumables?” became an in-game/forum meme. Edit2: I also wrote the team death match guide on the forums, this game was by no means slow paced and higher level gameplay involved and demanded CSGO-pro level coordination on then-popular Ventrillo.

I remember playing Exteel when I was a kid, I still miss it to this day.

there is a fan game in production called Steelx which has some decent mech models in it, but i've been in the discord for years and nothing has come from it sadly

I played the hell out of this and was hoping we would see a private server. I know there was one that was in the works a few years ago. I played all the way up to the server closure. The game was amazing. Nothing has ever been like it.

God ExSteel lives rent free in my mind as one of the first online games i ever became obsessed with

I've been waiting for this for so long. I was such a hardcore EXTEEL player back in the day.

I remember the ads that came with Guild Wars for this, Tabula Rasa, their racing combat MMO, and City of Heroes

Mmm, this does bring back memories. Quite a nostalgia trip you've taken us on. Thank you. The US release wasn't actually region locked TOO restrictively, so my partner and I still managed to get in on the action on the US servers despite being in the Philippines~. I remember we were residents of "Bend, Oregon," at least on the signup sheet. The latency WAS problematic for us, but also for our opponents. Our reticles would have a noticeable delay displaying that we had a lock, so early on we felt like we were being outranged somehow, taking an extra shot from an enemy with identical rifles. On the other hand, locking onto US was a little problematic for NA players, and the occasional "lagshield/lagswitch" accusations would get tossed out. Of note, there was an even shorter-lived release in some parts the SEA region around 2009... Just before the global closure. We basically smurfed so hard during what little time we had~. It was an odd release in that it didn't include all the mecha parts, weapons and variants that the US release had, but had MORE of the PVE co-op modes from the KR release. iAM Interactive, the publishers, actually had a pretty cool marketing push during the launch week here in the PH. In some cities, they'd have company reps go around the internet cafes with a ton of Exteel merch; Posters, CD installers, etc. They'd challenge patrons or staff to a 4v4 (at least it was a 4v4 in my town), and if the reps lost, the winners get to bring home some merch! (Our Rushnik and Zeeker posters remain proudly displayed in our living room.) Our NA experience was a mixed bag, but generally a good one. The community was small, but quite dedicated, and as you went up the rank you'd get familiar with the rather few names you'd always see in your matches past the "Chief Master Sergeant" rank (It's basically your level, not a real "rank" would be like being bronze/silver etc in League or something similar). "Kick that CMS" was a bit of a meme on the forums, since this was the rank where most people would get stuck on, or just flat out filtered. It took a LOT of matches to get to the next one, but you've essentially entered the unlimited rank bracket as far as matchmaking was concerned. CMS's were considered "unproven" so you would often get kicked to make room for a more established player. Kind of a catch 32 if you wanted to progress, (or hell, even just play) and we certainly could have done without that BS. Once we got past CMS though, we were kicked a lot less, and all the matches we've had to go through alongside vets had at least established us as actual assets to have in a team. Remembering all those times we'd crash those Territory Control EXP farm rooms still makes us laugh~.

Man I miss this game so much. Played it a lot when it was alive

guess i was living under a rock, i never heard of this

Seeing this and hearing that main screen music again nearly brought me to tears. I miss this game so much. It was really the sole game I played aside from WoW in high school. Friends still reminisce about this game to this day. I still have screen shots of my mech on my PC. The Sidewinder and Spazmok suits will always be top tier mecha design in my eyes. Really loved AC6 as it brought back memories of Exteel with how it plays, but there's no online death match or modes like that in AC6. Thank you for bringing back very fond memories.

This is the game that sometimes pops up in my head and makes me actively look it up because I always forget what it was called lol

Thanks for finally making this. I loved Exteel, had amazing times playing it!

OMG!!! an EXTEEL video!!! i feel seen LOL. My whole channel is like my own Exteel time capsule from back then. My brain even somehow remembers the player names i would see online all the time. Miss this game, Hopefully i see you guys on Mecha Break.

YO! I was just looking at this game again last week! I still miss this a lot since then.

not ready for the next one maaan

I remember during 360 era I 2008 we would have had a battlefield like gundam game that obviously takes place in the 1 year war. Where you can use tanks, mobile suits, and even just be a regular soldier, shame they pulled that game out for the US.

I dont even remember how i found it. Just that at the time i was desperate for games that didnt require money to get. Lucky enough that it could run on the family computer. Many fond memories and havent played anything like it sense. Like many games on this channel i wish i played them more, never knowing they had such a limited run.

Still wish this woulda come back.

This is a great throwback thank you

Fond memories of this game. Scoring flags in Capture the Flag as a "fast" heavy mech was the best feeling.

haven’t even started the video but thank you for covering this game. I loved it so dearly and I don’t know a single person who has played this game I dropped so many hours into. ❤

Ah damn this is straight to the heart right here. I remember playing this so much back then...

Total nostalgia trip. Forgot how much I used to play this game during middle school with friends.

I used to play this religiously when I was a kid, glad to see it being acknowledged lol wish it would come back tbh

I loved Exteel when I was a young teen. I'd dabble on and off since the monetization and my ping were so fucked so I mostly played the PVE missions. I was sad when it got shut down, the designs were really cool and the gameplay was fun.

I miss playing CTF while duel wielding shields. Not many games let you dual wield shields.

Had no idea this game even existed. Nice video. Keep up the good work.

Man I never thought you were gonna cover this game. Put a ton of hours into this game since it was the closest thing we got to an Armored Core mmo in aesthetics and gameplay. Disappointingly that's still true to current day.

Nice, time to get invested to story of a game I've never heard of!

I still have the Exteel disc that I got from the NCSoft Booth from PAX '08.

I played this game when I was young, it was the only mecha game my PC was able to handle and I loved it a lot. I even went out of my way to pay for premium items for it. It was funny getting called a "NCoiner" in chat but I don't think the players at that time understood why I loved playing it so much that it was worth putting money in. Both Exteel and City of Heroes were my go to games so you could understand how devastated I was when they went offline at that time, nothing was going to fill that hole for me until I was able to get a 360 for Armored Core 4 (and much later, Virtual-On OT).

Something I didn't see mentioned in this video is just how unbelievably slow currency gain was. If you were a poor free-to-player, like myself. You were pretty much stuck with your original mech and weapon, possibly one or two other weapons you saved up for. No second mech, no customizing.

Drill lance and smg. Those were my go-to weapons... because I was free to play and couldn't buy anything.

When I first saw the notification for the vid, I am honestly shocked to learn that there are people out there who also remembered that Exteel existed lmao.

This one hurts my heart. We need more mecha titles!

gawd I miss this game... I remember creating my mech based on Duel Gundam from Gundam Seed and practicing cancel animations of melee and ranged weapons.. .the theme song still slaps to this day

I have literally joked to my friends for the past decade about this game and how we miss it lol. Hoping Mecha Break is also great

I miss Exsteel the custom setup did it for me. I could spend hours min maxing builds and weapon setups. Happy I still have Gundam Battle Operation 2 for my multiplayer mecha fix. Game has been running for 5+ years. Had a bad launch on steam but is still getting updates weekly.

"Steel Hunters" is having alpha testing currently, it's a third person PvPvE mecha/hero shooter where some of the mecha you can play got an animal body.

I remember looking at this when the announcements were coming out, with how much of my life City of Heroes claimed, I was always willing to give NCSoft games a look. However, being a shooter only, let alone a pre-MOBA, killed anything beyond liking the basic art design.

Et eel gosh ! That game was everything during my high school years

Really fun game for mecha fans. I remember the official forums were really friendly and welcoming. Found a lot of mecha anime that I still enjoy from those forums. Thanks for being an awesome giant robot game, Exteel! Shame it didn't last longer.

I played this game for years was even in a Clan. Great game for the time.

I immediately recognised it from the thumb nail, I played this game a lot as a kid. I'm still hoping that someone will make a private server for this.

Another geezer here who remembers FilePlanet. While not a game, I think it also deserves a DoaG (or rather DoaS), as it was THE place for downloading demos and anything game related in the early 2000s.

I remember this game when I was young, mainly because I got the game winning kill at 1 second left on the timer.

This one hits close to home. This was the only proper mech game I could play at the time on PC. Even had the install disc.

Exteel was quite the fun game, and the community was generally helpful from what I recall. Some days I do think about it, and never found anything to really replace it, granted it was not necessarily the best game without the community. Glad to see you cover this one, even if it is a painful reminder.

my experience with exteel as an european player: >do tutorial >load in to a multiplayer arena >see ping >go back to s4league instead

I remember the family computer barely able to run the game and having I believe only 2 skills, Blast Helix and Phoenix Fire. Good times.

Omg! I loved this game growing up! I still think about it to this game.. all the different combinations of robots you could make was awesome!

I definitely would have played this. Didn’t know it existed.

I really want a chrome hounds MMO. Make them grounded, make them heavy, make their weapons hit like a semi crashing through your living room wall. I don't want my three hundred tonne walking weapons platforms to be doing backflips...

dude, i never heard of this game and i feel i lost the opportunity to have played a game that i would adore.

Ayo, I remember playing this game during my student days. It's the first Online Mecha combat I played and it is fun as Gunz.

I was not able to play this during those days as the ping was too high for me and I probably didn't have a system that was able to run it. But I do remember playing RF Online which scratched that mecha itch during the early 2000s.

Fond memories of this. Though it was a bit janky, as a kid it was still cooling playing an online mech game and making your first kill.

My biggest gripes with the game was the pay to win going on with cash shop exclusive items, and the frankly gameplay destroying aspect of skills turning you (and potentially your opponent) invulnerable during their animation.

I played this game back in 2008 for a month or two because i just built a gaming PC with two Geforce8800 in SLi at the time(in other words, i high-end gaming PC). Exteel looked and played well, and yes the hit detection was off at times, but it felt pay-to-win. It felt pay-to-win because if you just started playing first time and bought a new mech better than the default, with cash outright, you would have the 1up over another player. Grinding out for another mech to a point later in the game as you verse higher leveled players, you'd feel tempted to dish out the cash to buy another more expensive mech to stay competitive. I remember trying to grind up for a new mech, then later they released a new mech with higher stats for higher price. I realise the calculations to buy that new mech with higher stat's would take me 1 or two years to buy without buying it outright with real cash, but by then there would probably be 4 or more stronger stat mech put out by then. It was ridiculous. From then onwards, I new it was pay-to-win and it put me off being competitive at a game that is only PvP. You can say it was just another "mobile game" before smart phones existed.

Exteel had a PVE survival mission, but it was based on one map that already was used for CTP, DM, TDM. Maybe there were more maps, but whenever PVE started I was always connected to the same map.

Defietly sank a lot of time into this in college. I loved the look of it but gave it up b/c there just wasnt enough to do

yooooo, i remember this!!! i played this and gunz on the regular, it was highly unbalanced and i like there were macros when you got a kill to say something about getting served like mcdonald's style or something lol

Saw this video - remembered about RF Online. Another one of those that got away.

I would love to see You talk about “Dust 514”. I have some memories of being super confused Yet somewhat entertained by this bizarre free to play shooter that was supposed to be somewhat connected to EVE online somehow. I remember it was supposed to somehow be intertwined with EVE, like events in one game were supposed to impact the other one. There were some stories going around of deathmatches being interrupted by orbital strikes shot by players from entirely different game. I have no idea how advanced those systems were in reality though. It is mostly forgotten now despite EVE still kicking. Might be an interesting watch.

There are few things i regret in life and i still vividly remember regreting not playing Exteel enough, before NA version got shut down.

i played this game and back when i was a college kid with limited funds i whaled for this game. so sad it had to close so soon.

So hyped for the Titanfall video. We all need to speak more about this series, it truly deserves this

Next case gonna be an emotional rollercoaster :(

everyday i miss this game dude....

One of my favorite games of all time, and nobody Ive met had ever played it 😂😂

Man I loved this game. I didin't know what I was doing, but I loved the mech play.

One of my earliest memories is my dad helping me construct a Gundam model despite the fact that he never watched anime(Nigerian Immigrant born in the 50s, the closest thing he had ever seen to anime was Scooby Doo), and I was 3. Ever since then though, I have been obsessed with mecha. I remember trying Exteel when it came to NA and immediately disliked it. It was like the seltzer of mecha games when you are expecting a sugary soda. It looked like mecha, but there was no customization, and the non-hitscan, non-projectile nature of the combat was a huge turn off, especially since I was, at that time, really into PC shooters(specifically Soldier of Fortune 2 if my memory is correct)

Wow this takes me back; i really enjoyed it for it's small run; there was nothing like it at time and fighting bot waves was fun. Can i request a DoaG for Land of Chaos Online(LOCO)?

In all honesty, Gundam could print insane money if they turned the concept of Build Fighters into an MMO. Think about it, building your very own custom mobile suit from the ground up, going on missions to fight NPC MS for parts, making squads to tackle iconic super bosses like Psycho Gundam. You could even top it all off with a pvp arena with either team fights, battle royal or one vs one fighting. They'd print money with something like that! But no, closest we get is a gotcha game with super crummy pvp mode.

the next one's gonna make me cry...

I missed this game so much

The most distinctive thing I remember about this game was that it had a Rental system for parts, where you could buy them cheaper for a limited time using F2P currency, but maintaining any kind of long term playability either needed a huge time investment or coughing up premium cash.

Never heard of this. Tho I badly wanna try it. A shame it's lost

I remember playing this for like an hour and then uninstalling.

Wow.. I remember suggesting a video on Exsteel YEARS ago.

Oooohhh, so this wasn't a fever dream of my childhood....

Ah yes. Titanfall 1. the always multiplayer online live service headshot kill from afar.

i loved play this game !!

I see the thumbnail and think… oh that looks interesting. Wonder what happened? Video starts: “NCSoft…” Me: oh. Got it.

this looks so cool

reminds me of those days when i was forced to topped-up so i can get those cool parts for my mechanaughts (mechs in this game) but yeah... seems every mecha online game is doomed to be downed (RF online doesn't count as it has space elves and dwaves)

The game might be a bit too unknown for a KZfaq vid, but I would live if you covered Bright Shadow at some point. It was an MMO by Gamepot. I think it had like two or three releases/deaths in NA

For how they are handling their game, I think we are going to see Helldivers2 here pretty soon.

This game looked so cool when i was a kid, but sadly i was living in a mac only household and couldnt play it : (

This game was great but the part that was not talked about enough was the parts system, where legs arms and most of your weapons had a usage gauge that would run out after each match causing you to spend money to heal your best parts when there health depended. Nc coin parts had better health and stats. This system made ex-steel pay to win