How did we get here?
Hello Games had a similar issue with No Man’s Sky.
Having played at release, Hello Game’s issue was much less “large scope games take long to make” and much more “we explicitly lied about features that are strictly not in the game”.
Features that had to be cut because they lack the time to implement it, so basically “large scope games take too long to make”.
One feature was also removed because of player feedback, so the issue there is talking about features before they were tested. This issue stems from their lack of PR expertise, but it means they weren’t lying when they said it.
Except weren’t they still promoting those features at launch? And they had taken preorders before review embargoes were lifted.
Both No Man’s Sky and Cyberpunk both had dishonest marketing and significant bugs. Call me crazy, but if a game isn’t ready to launch, it shouldn’t launch. The developer sets the launch date, and if they didn’t give themselves enough time, it’s not reasonable to ask the people who have paid for he thing as advertised to wait because they couldn’t deliver the features as promised.
As much fun as I’m having with starfield(150 hours since September 1st, because yes I pre-ordered but it was also the first time I’d pre ordered a game in a very very long time ) that was my take on a lot of its issues. I won’t say they did no QA playthrough but it certainly feels like they didn’t do enough and that was after delaying the game even for like an additional 2 years. Supposedly they were all set to launch the game in late 2021 but Phil Spencer paid them to work on bug fixes for longer. Then nonsensical design choices like not having med pack counters where your grenade counter is or a “current equiped power” info area above your current equiped weapon info area on the HUD in 2021 or 2023 is laughably unthinkable. But the meat of the game has been worth the questionable sourced veggie “bugs” on the burger as a whole imo.
