A grittier take on post-apocalyptic MMOs like Fallout 76, Pioner finally lands on Steam to mixed reviews

I've had my eye on Pioner for a while. I like my MMOs in 'shooter flavor,' for the most part - Destiny 2, Fallout 76, and the like. So when I saw GFA Games taking Stalker-esque vibes and a post-apocalyptic setting and throwing them in the MMO pot, I was immediately interested. Now, it's finally hit Steam Early Access and is firmly on my weekend to-play list (admittedly, alongside about a dozen other games right now). While that's cause for celebration, and it's achieving four-figure player counts already, it does appear to be in slightly rough shape, with performance issues and bugs being the main reason for a rather bleak user score.

Mixing story-driven exploration, social spaces, and PvE and PvP zones of various difficulties, Pioner takes place on a sprawling, 50km² island in the aftermath of a huge disaster. Formerly a Soviet territory that's now dilapidated and plagued by anomalies, Stalker enjoyers will absolutely feel at home here. A faction-based progression system lets you grow your reputation with the island's various key figures, and the more you side with them, the better the items you'll be able to buy from associated vendors. Oh, and even in these post-apocalyptic wastelands, there's still time for fishing. It's an MMO essential, at this point.

Your survival skills will be tested just as much as your aim when embarking on activities. You must manage your hunger and rest levels to ensure your strength remains as high as possible, and you better make sure you've got enough resources packed for whatever quest you're embarking on - make good use of crafting benches to construct what you need before heading out.

It all looks and sounds right up my street, and even though this is an early access launch, Pioner's drummed up a decent amount of support for an independent MMO - at the time of writing, its player count sits at over 1,200 players and it's still climbing.

However, as with so many early access releases, there appears to be a long list of issues to sort out. While a hotfix has already gone live today, Wednesday December 17, to improve major pain points like load times, facial animation bugs, and server stability, these issues have led to a lot of negative reviews that are diluting the positive ones. In fact, players are pretty split down the middle in these early hours of Pioner's life, with the game sitting on a 'mixed' user score of 50%, based on over 400 reviews.

Work to be done, then, but I still think the premise of Pioner will carry it through. Plus, GFA is going to waste little time progressing the game's sci-fi-inspired narrative, with the first drop of new story content arriving "as early as January 2026." The developer also says that a roadmap of its future plans will be released very soon. If you want to check the game out, you can do so at its Steam page here.

While I think it'll take a small miracle for Pioner to become one of the biggest multiplayer shooters on Steam, I definitely don't see those early wobbles and negative reviews as a death knell. It's a tough time to launch an MMO, but so long as you can keep a modest but dedicated community coming back for more, you've always got a chance of survival.