Image credit: Eurogamer

Gunz the Duel, the cult classic 3rd-person action game first released back in 2006, is back on Steam. But the long-awaited return of the genre-defining game has been tarred somewhat by technical issues, and allegations of AI usage.

Gunz the Duel was first developed by MAIET Entertainment, but has been brought to modern platforms by Masangsoft. This resurrection of Gunz the Duel has been in the works for a few years, and has built up organic hype from older PC players with fond memories of Gunz.

Here's an old trailer for Gunz: The Duel.Watch on YouTube

However, with the game releasing on Steam over the weekend, expectations were met with reality, and a wave of criticisms hit Gunz the Duel. For one, the game is reportedly suffering from significant technical issues.

"Masangsoft is a group of talented individuals. Not only did they manage to ruin a 20 year old game, but they consistently discover new ways to make it worse," wrote user Fizzion. They go on to say that in-game events and gifts aren't working properly, and that the beloved gameplay experience itself is different than it was in the original title. They explain: "When slashing a blocking enemy - even with angles taken into consideration - flinching/stagger almost never happens and seems very inconsistent."

Others are alleging that generative AI has been used throughout the game, despite the lack of a generative AI disclosure on the Gunz the Duel Steam page. Another player, EclipseRT, wrote: "From the extremely obvious AI use everywhere in this game, [to the developer] not even following Steam guidelines about disclosing AI use, over 2000 ping in matches because they cant seem to fix a NAT connection issue, old bugs from the beta reappearing, the devs being completely silent and ignoring all player feedback. Over this past year not a single one has even talked in the Discord, it's gotten to the point where people are starting to call the devs themselves AI. Honestly I can't blame them either."

It goes beyond Steam, too. The Gunz the Duel Reddit, which has been a hub for fans of the game for over a decade, is awash with complaints. Hackers are seemingly present in-game, standing around and being invulnerable from damage. Others are pointing to the plain-looking UI, network problems, and "AI slop".

It is of course worth noting that not everyone is having a bad time. Some players are taking the rough aspects of Gunz the Duel in stride, and seem happy to just be playing an old favourite. In addition, the game did undergo a stretch of server maintenance to improve those aforementioned networking issues, so perhaps some of the worst problems players are facing will be resolved in time.

Even so, it's a rough start for Gunz. Here's hoping the developers at Masangsoft can turn the ship around somewhat, or at least make it air dash off the walls or something.

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