Nobody – The Turnaround Is Getting Torched by Chinese Steam Users

I love stumbling upon games that I hadn’t previously been aware of, especially when they have interesting trailers. Such was the case when I happened upon Nobody – The Turnaround while browsing for deals on Green Man Gaming. I was immediately captivated by the almost-granular indie art style and top-down presentation. I mean, check out this trailer:

C’mon, what’s not to like? You get to play as an everyman dude, miring in the turmoil and doldrum of a menial day-to-day life; struggling to make enough money to try to better your position and live out your dreams. Plus the dude in that thumbnail looks like Aiden Pierce — remember Aiden Pierce?! And shoot, one of the game’s descriptions even pegs it as “the most realistic life simulator,” which is a hell of a claim (definitely not hyperbole, most certainly not…)

But even though Nobody – The Turnaround just came out a few days ago (November 17, 2022), it already has a “mixed” status in the Steam user reviews. I decided to wade into the comments to learn more about this when I was struck by an odd revelation: All but one of the most recent comments were thumbs-up positive. That’s when I stumbled upon a review from user MiAh The King that opened my eyes to a perhaps more sinister reality:

Okay so at first I saw there were mixed reviews for this game.

Then I saw mostly positive then back to mixed reviews. But the only thumbs downs I could find involved the chinese chess minigame inside the game. I mean…;seriously?? What kind of review is that? It’s not one. What I’m doing now THIS….THIS is a review.

MiAh The King

Consider my curiosity piqued. So I decided to broaden my filter to include all languages and not just my regional default of English. And boy howdy, the wave of downward-pointing thumbs that washed over me was nothing short of tsunamic in force. So I fired up the old trusty Google Translate tool to try to understand what the drama was all about. What I discovered only compounded my already nigh-insurmountable confusion.

Take user zhxilo for example. If Google translate is at all accurate, this person’s review doesn’t really help me out:

中国公安帮大忙是吧 The Chinese police are very helpful, right?

zhxilo

Like, what am I supposed to do with this? This in no way informs me of wonky game systems or mechanics. I am only left with the knowledge, as prescient as it may be, that the Chinese police appear to be very helpful, right?

Another review, from a user simply known as Green all but broke my brain:

牛魔酬宾 女朋友比工作难找，好不容易迪厅触发对话解锁了一个女性朋友第三天就发好人卡，现在已经35天没有触发过女朋友了，jb我现实中委屈游戏里也找不到女朋友是吧 偷10次电瓶被抓10次 为啥不能跟妹妹谈恋爱 我的创意工坊呢

It’s harder to find a girlfriend than a job. After a disco triggered a conversation, a female friend issued a good card on the third day. It’s been 35 days since I’ve had a girlfriend. Jb I’m wronged in reality and I can’t find it in the game. To my girlfriend, right? Stealing batteries 10 times and being caught 10 times. Why can’t I fall in love with my sister? My creative workshop

Green

I don’t know what to even make of that. The crazy part about this one is — considering Nobody is “the most realistic life simulator” — that this could actually pertain to gameplay. It could also be the ramblings of a fever dream. It’s hard to say.

Following a similar theme, user 强尼·淫手 seems to also be struggling with girlfriend issues. But again, these could be more personal in nature and not at all related to Nobody:

给女朋友口了一晚上才买的，很辛苦

I bought it for my girlfriend all night, it was very hard

强尼·淫手

I did at least find one moderately helpful Chinese review from user Elf Lieutenant Ma Guocheng (translated) that at least mentioned other games, and ones that I had heard about, which did at the very least give me a reference point, even if only a brief one:

不如改叫闪退模拟器和重生之我是富家大少

How about changing the name to Flashback Simulator and Rebirth: I am a rich young man

Elf Lieutenant Ma Guocheng

That’s when I finally found one that I felt like had a legitimate criticism regarding specific game mechanics and possibly even a specific quest line:

EARLY ACCESS REVIEW
偷电瓶车必被抓 然后给你科普法律 我不明白 如果必被抓为什么不直接取消偷电瓶？ 就为了正能量？ 现在连玩个游戏都要搞一波教育？ 你们真吃屎了是吧？恶心不恶心人？

EARLY ACCESS REVIEW
You must be arrested for stealing battery cars, and then I will give you a popular science law. I don’t understand. If you must be arrested, why not just cancel the stealing of batteries? Just for positive energy? Now even playing a game requires a wave of education? You really eat s***, right? Disgusting or not?

wdxwnnm11

So, I was making some progress, but aside from a somewhat helpful review from user Elf Lieutenant Ma Guocheng, and a slightly more specific and detailed review from user wdxwnnm11, it seemed like I wasn’t getting any closer to understanding why the Chinese market seems to be at odds with Nobody: The Turnaround.

That’s when I decided to check out all of the reviews for all of the individual languages one by one instead of grouping them together. And that was a tad bit more eye-opening because it made it clear that it really was the Chinese market that was bringing what would otherwise seem like a mostly positive user review score down to a mixed one.

I did find one negative Spanish (Spain) review, from user tyto01. This seems to be a grievance specifically related to — and I am only slightly sure about this — Nobody‘s perceived lack of a Spanish translation:

el juego va mal el tema que iva a saliren español como siempre se olvidaron

the game is going wrong the topic that was going to come out in Spanish as always they forgot user

tyto01

The only other thumbs-down I recall coming across from a different language region was from user Heknerr, which comes from France but was seemingly written in English:

Haul brick for 30 days and then sell you sister to the mafia to make 200k, that’s the true chinese way of life. 🙂 Recommend!
Seriously, the story is pretty good and you can just skip it and play free mode if you just skip the 30 days. Ends up doing that because it’s f***ing hard to make 10k… i’m just to lazy, just sell the girl. 😉

The songs are great though. Just can wait for what come next.

Heknerr

And this is where I decided to climb out of the user-review rabbit hole and instead focus my attention on the developer of the game, U.Ground Games Studio, as perhaps some answers lied with them. But this only took me for an even murkier turn, because I was not able to locate any concrete information on U.Ground. I couldn’t even nail down what part of the world this developer calls home. The publisher of Nobody, Thermite Games, is a Chinese company, so maybe U.Ground could also be located in China, but there is no indication that is the case, nor is that anywhere near enough information to come to a reasonable conclusion about the matter.

I even found a post on indiedb.com that had a comment from user Disciplyne on April 20 asking this very same question, with no other user input or company follow-up:

We just received a press release for the game “Nobody – The Turnaround” today and it only listed the publisher Thermite Games based in Bejing. Does anyone have more info on this developer? Is this their first game, Are they also based in Bejing?

Disciplyne

So at least I know I’m not the only dog barking up this tree. But I also wasn’t able to get to the bottom of this murky controversy, and I still have no idea why Chinese consumers seem to be at odds with Nobody – The Turnaround when, by and large, the rest of the player base seems to be keen on it.

If it weren’t for this discrepancy, Nobody would more than likely be sitting at a mostly positive — if not very positive — review aggregate. But all of that aside, there is just one last wrinkle to this whole affair, one that gives me the most pause when considering whether or not to gamble on purchasing a copy of Nobody.

Nobody – The Turnaround is currently in Early Access, with a release date on the Steam page of November 17, 2022, which one would expect to mean that it should be available to be purchased. But there is no option to actually buy the game. And even worse, the game has been removed from Steam temporarily due to the game not working on some older versions of Windows.

Nobody – The Turnaround is still listed on Green Man Gaming, which, you might recall, is where I came across this game in the first place. It has a status of both “Released” and “Coming Soon,” which suggests that the game was live on this service before being removed, similar to the situation on Steam. In light of the aforementioned review controversy and mystery surrounding exactly who U.Ground Game Studio is, this only adds fuel to an already blue-flamed conspiracy.

I will, of course, be watching this closely, because how could I not? I am already heavily invested in Nobody – The Turnaround, and I can only imagine that my snooping has already alerted shadowy authorities to my online presence. I’m probably on a watchlist by the Chinese authorities. So I guess at this point I’m all in, for better or for worse.