I’ve been playing it on two very different machines with the latest drivers for everything, and it’s crashed or hit a game-breaking bug every ten minutes. The tactical mode for playing out battles works one time in five. Half the AI races don’t leave their starting town or attempt to defend it. And the promised multiplayer simply isn’t switched on yet.

Developer and publisher Stardock are generally a great company. A small patch soon after release fixed some of the crashes and tactical battle problems, and they released a larger one last night that they’ve been working on for a month. They’ve made much of the improvements it’ll bring, but that’s cold comfort to anyone who bought the game on Monday expecting it to be stable.

I’m certain Stardock will fix Elemental. They may even keep working on it until it’s as good as their last game, Galactic Civilizations 2. But putting junk like this in a box and charging money for it is not okay, however rapidly you try and patch it afterwards. It punishes you for being a fan, it punishes you for buying on day one, it punishes you for pre-ordering, and it punishes you for having faith that a great company like Stardock wouldn’t ask you to pay for a game until it’s fit to be played.