GTA 6 Competitor Lands On PC To Enormous Backlash

The notion of a game like Grand Theft Auto VI having competition is laughable at best, as even if this is somehow terrible, it’ll still sweep this year’s Game Awards.

However there are a few games out there that have been lovingly hailed as potential competitors, or at the very least alternatives to Rockstar’s next Grand Theft Auto game.

One of these games is Samson, an open-world beat-em-up game that's finally launched on PC after a lot of anticipation.

Developed and published by Liquid Swords, the open-world game follows, you guessed it, Samson, who “returns to Tyndalston, a city that shaped him hard, where every fight is close and every escape is earned”.

While it looks a lot like a Grand Theft Auto game, it features no guns whatsoever. Players must rely on their fists to get in and out of trouble, dodging and weaving out of incoming strikes before following up with their own devastating beatdowns.

It sounds exciting on paper and the reviews were decent enough but that it’s in the hands of players that it’s an entirely different story.

At the time of writing, the game is sitting at a Mixed rating on Steam with over 1,000 reviews.

Many highlight the game’s poor performance and lack of variety in its gameplay though there are some players having fun with it.

Like Cyberpunk 2077’s launch, though, the majority of clips being shared online are of game-breaking bugs ruining the overall experience.

"Samson is not very good,” said ShirrakoGaming on X, accompanied by a clip of Samson stuck in a t-pose sliding his way through combat encounters.

Commenters shared their own clips below of similar instances in their own playthroughs.

One particularly scathing post read: “F**k no. Every fight here looks like this. Often even worse. I can't believe someone tested all this, checked it, looked at it, and then said ‘we're releasing it.’”

A little bit of leeway is in order here though as Liquid Swords is not a huge development team.

READ MORE: GTA 6 Rival Finally Releases On PC This Week

There were bound to be bugs and a lot of what’s been shown so far can easily be ironed out in fix updates so don’t judge the game too harshly based on what you’ve seen online.

It probably didn’t help that the game was overhyped as something to play in the build-up to GTA VI, as it clearly set expectations much higher than they should have been.

At the end of the day though, there are plenty of players who are currently enjoying their time with Samson despite the flaws, and with such a reasonable price-tag attached it’s hard to be too critical about the game.