Tencent has high hopes for its new live service shooter Delta Force. And early metrics of its Open Beta are promising, though the launch has been marred by mixed reviews from players.
Delta Force launched in Open Beta on December 5, reaching over 58k concurrent players in just a few hours. When more players amassed to the game later that day, it peaked at 102,167 CCU (via SteamDB).
It is worth noting that Delta Force is also available on the Epic Games Store and through the official website. So the total CCU count is likely higher.
Despite impressive numbers, Delta Force Open Beta received mixed reception from players. At the time of writing this, only 56% of the 7.9k reviews on Steam are positive. According to Steam Scout, 47.6% of all reviews are written in English, followed by Simplified Chinese (14.57%), Spanish (6.1%), German (5.24%), and Portuguese – Brasil (5%).
There are several key factors that are lowering the rating right now:
- Australian users had troubles creating an account required to play Delta Force (the issue has already been fixed, but many are still complaining about customer support on the game’s official Discord);
- Others cite various issues, including cheaters, bugs, and monetization;
- The most popular complaint is the kernel-level anti-cheat required to play Delta Force (some users say its files remain in the system even if you uninstall the game).
Note that Valve now requires devs to disclose their use of such software on the store page to be more transparent with players, and Delta Force has a warning sign that it installs Anti-Cheat Expert (ACE) kernel-level anti-cheat. However, there is no information that it requires manual removal.
Developer Team Jade, an internal studio of Tencent’s subsidiary TiMi Studio Group, has already addressed the latter issue by replying to some reviews and releasing a statement on Steam. The team said ACE runs on the kernel level to “detect and block cheat software in this highly privileged environment, ensuring a much higher level of security and making it significantly harder for cheaters to bypass the system.”
The company also apologized for the fact that ACE remains on PC even after Delta Force is uninstalled, saying that “our technical team is actively addressing the issue and will provide a hotfix as soon as possible.”
Players were first able to try out the game in August during a limited playtest on Steam, which peaked at over 21k concurrent players. Delta Force was also the top demo by number of unique players during the latest Next Fest in October.
In January 2025, TiMi Studio plans to launch the Black Hawk Down single-player campaign, which will be a reimagining of the classic Ridley Scott film and the 2003 game of the same name. Delta Force is also expected to launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and mobile.
In its Q3 report, Tencent said it sees an evergreen potential in the game. The company also announced that Delta Force Mobile, released in China on September 26, has already achieved several million daily active users and surpassed 25 million registered players.