Lost Soul Aside’s Steam Stats Prove How Much First Impressions Matter

Lost Soul Aside is one of those indie projects that once showed a lot of promise, if not simply due to the blend of its ambition with its solo-dev origins. Even just by looking at it from afar, it’s hard not to see it as something that could topple even the most recognizable AAA fantasy titles. Unfortunately, that isn’t quite the reality of things, as Lost Soul Aside is off to a rocky start, showing itself to be a rather janky and shallow action RPG experience with bad performance to boot — and there may not be any clearer indicator of that reality than its current Steam stats.

At the time of writing, Lost Soul Aside has been out for less than 24 hours, so while its Steam stats could eventually change, it doesn’t seem likely they’ll change all that much if they do. This is largely due to the fact that the action RPG has failed to make a strong first impression on many of those who were already interested in it prior to launch, so those who might arrive late to the party probably wouldn’t be sold on it immediately either. If nothing else, this just goes to show how much first impressions really do matter, especially for an indie studio’s debut title.

Lost Soul Aside’s Opening Hours Show the Cost of a Weak First Impression

Steam Achievement Stats Tell a Harsh Story

Achievements aren’t everything in a game, and some players even consider them to be meaningless. However, Steam games can’t hide from the platform’s global achievements stats and the story they tell, and that unfortunately applies to Lost Soul Aside as well. Currently, Steam is showing that around 92% of players have completed the first part of Lost Soul Aside‘s prologue, which, at first, sounds like a good sign of player interest. Unfortunately, it all barrels quickly downhill from there.

The final achievement for Lost Soul Aside‘s prologue, “Sacrifice, or Cost,” shows that around 68% of players have completed just the prologue in its entirety. This part of Lost Soul Aside‘s story is only a couple of hours long, depending on how players pace themselves, which means the game lost over 30% of its players before the first chapter even started. If that wasn’t enough, the Steam achievement for the first part of Chapter 1, “Ancient Guardian,” shows that only around 25% of players have acquired it. So, not only have roughly 68% of players completed the prologue, around 75% of players haven’t even made it through Chapter 1.

Early Steam Reviews Reflect the Same Pattern

Now, this could be due to the fact that Lost Soul Aside hasn’t been out long at all, but considering these achievements make up just the first few hours of gameplay, it’s hard to believe the game’s lifespan would be the sole reason behind such low achievement completion rates. This is even further evidenced by early Steam reviews, as many of the negative reviews were posted with under an hour of gameplay. Some of these impressions are based on the game’s poor performance — which the developer has already committed to resolving — but a considerable portion of them have something critical to say of Lost Soul Aside‘s gameplay, story, and characters.

Thankfully, if players want to, they can try out Lost Soul Aside‘s demo before shelling out the cash required to purchase it, but even that might leave some players waiting for a sale. Again, these stats could and likely will change over the weekend, but if there is any change, it’s unlikely to be significant. At this point, Lost Soul Aside might have failed to make a strong enough first impression for current players to stick around and non-players to buy in.