No one’s feeling Club Penguin’s replacement

Club Penguin died last night after more than 10 years as a popular browser game. Today, it’s been reborn on mobile devices as Club Penguin Island, but many people already would prefer that it just stayed buried.

Club Penguin Island is an iOS and Android version of Club Penguin that loses much of what was endearing about the Flash-based original. There’s a heavy emphasis on story, with a mandatory tutorial walking players through some clunky controls and a much blander setting.

In our experience, Club Penguin Island is plagued with an unstable server — not atypical on launch day — and some tepid gameplay. It wasn’t just us; reports of constant crashes are on social media, too.

None of this should matter for Club Penguin, though, whose charm was in being a sandbox for people young and older to just chill out, make a virtual pizza, and chat up friends and strangers.

Much of this is in Club Penguin Island, but you wouldn’t know it if you were playing the game for free. There’s a $4.99 monthly membership, which the game reminds you of constantly. Although you can keep on playing without signing up, the majority of the content is blocked off.

Club Penguin fans caught onto these glaring issues quickly. Maybe they’re biased, as they’re still mourning the browser game’s death — but the overwhelming consensus is that Club Penguin Island is a pretty poor replacement.

Your mileage may vary, but either way, we’ll always have the memories.