Following 3 years of radio silence, Kingpin remaster releases only to get slammed: 'Is it too late to hand this over to Nightdive?'

Shooting a man charging toward you in Kingpin Reloaded.

I have strangely fond memories of Kingpin: Life of Crime, a 1999, vaguely dieselpunk-y FPS that I played far, far too young. It was ultraviolent, ultra-sweary, and had a light smattering of RPG elements that made it feel very novel to me back when I played it. I was pretty excited, then, when 3D Realms announced a remaster called Kingpin: Reloaded in 2020.

After three years—including a long period where it felt like the project had dropped off the face of the Earth—that remaster finally released last Monday and, well, oh no. Buyers of the game on Steam have not responded well to the game, which currently sits at a 30% "Mostly Negative" score on the platform's user review system. From the sounds of it, it's another case of a remaster releasing before it's fully baked, much like what happened with The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition earlier this year.