Ashen is a new action-RPG from developer A44 that I have been interested in since it was publicly unveiled at E3 2015. The game is part of the Xbox Game Pass, and initially advertised as a Play Anywhere title. This means that if you subscribe to Game Pass, you’d be able to install the game on both Xbox One and PC, and your progress would carry over between the two. You can see in the image below that it was being advertised on the Xbox Game Pass website as a Play Anywhere title.
It was announced at the Video Game Awards last night that Ashen would be available immediately, which is a cool way to launch a game. Xbox One owners who subscribe to Game Pass were able to boot up their consoles and download the game, but Game Pass subscribers on PC noticed something different. It wasn’t even listed in the Windows Store. It was announced that Ashen would be available only on the new Epic Game Store. Just like it’s stealth release, the news that it lost its Play Anywhere status came out of no where.
As of this posting, it is not known if Ashen is a timed exclusive to the Epic Game Store, or if it is a full exclusive. The Steam page for Ashen still exists, with a release date of TBD. Earlier in the week the release date was listed as 2018, so it is possible it is just a timed exclusive on the Epic Game Store.
There is a lot of confusion surrounding the PC release of Ashen. I’m not about to speculate on what happened, but it would be nice to get some clarification. As a Game Pass subscriber that does not own a Xbox One (there are dozens of us!), it’s frustrating to have the rug pulled out from you like this at the last minute. I was very interested in playing Ashen, and with Play Anywhere, I could have checked out the co-op aspect with some friends that play on Xbox One.
I’m not a super opinionated person, but I am against exclusivity in gaming. I believe that people should be able to play the games they want to play on the devices they want to play them on. I understand why console exclusives exist, but it doesn’t change my opinion about them. But PC exclusivity is even worse! Usually it doesn’t work well, like earlier this year when CD Projekt Red tried it with Thronebreaker, but eventually released the game on Steam. For being a new digital store, I don’t think this is the correct way for the Epic Game Store to bring in new customers. If anything, it will hurt their reputation with the PC gaming crowd that is tired of all the different game launchers they have to install. But usually games come out on multiple launchers, so you get choice where to buy your game. Making Ashen exclusive to one launcher will bring about negative opinions with the Epic Game Store at a time when they need only positive opinions.
I’ve reached out to the publisher of Ashen, Annapurna Interactive, for clarification on the Play Anywhere status, and will update if they respond. In the mean time, enjoy the game Xbox One owners. I hope to be joining you soon.
