Death Stranding came out in 2019. Death Stranding 2 will come out in 2025. That’s six years for two games. If these were the PS2 days Kojima would have cranked out 3 Death Stranding games by now and we’d be getting Death Stranding 3: Subsistence along with a teaser for Death Stranding 4 next year.
Remember when video game trilogies used be to a huge thing in the sixth and seventh generations? You’d typically get 3 games in about 5-7 years
See: Halo, Gears of War, Resistance, Killzone, etc
Maybe an unpopular opinion but:
I like games with good mechanics and satisfying loops. I take a Teardown over Horizon Zero Dawn any time. Both games are great, but one focused it’s resources on one thing they really owned, the other is a playable movie.
A GTA clone with simulated reactions of the environment, based on player actions would be as fun as the designed stuff. Even if it’s wonky it feels more real.
Imagine Rockstar would do Dwarf-Fortress. They could never reach this depth with their team of 1000 in 10 years because they would do the mechanics “manually”. Look at GTA5 and how sterile the world feels while it looks amazing. Shooting down a Plane? No reaction at all. Give me Minecraft graphics and simulate the emergency/social/media/physical response for such an disaster based on existing game rules. That would be fun. (And is the secret of Indie games like Rainworld, DF, Teardown, CDDA, Minecraft, Project Zomboid, … and the new Zelda Games or Space-Engineers).
I would even like to see how a game like “Facade” would turn out today with the support of LLM for the dialogue.
Or: Remember Serious Sam? 100ds of enemies at once? Why are there no games with Serious Sam 2 graphics and 1000nds of Enemies? Why does everything have to be that “polished”.
And it’s not even chief evil for gigacorp games, if anything, corpos tend to have better, though still sucking development times, but new norm is sitting on popular franchises doing nothing for years and decades. Indies and small companies got real fucking problems with dev hells. I follow games that are in development for a literal decade, they aren’t fake since some progress is done, but release is nowhere close. Or the ones which are in development for years and when they release it’s still early access with years more, and this can’t be even explained by lack of manpower, those games aren’t substantially different in scope of those from 20 years ago.
FF7 Rebirth PC when?
I think a lot of it isn’t due to developers as much as it is bonehead executive speculation plays. There also wasn’t chasing the live service dragon.
How many Yakuzas have we had? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza_(franchise)
Someones doing something right over there.
uncritical support to no crunch time
Idk supergiant (I think I’ve heard they are fairly tight inside) seems fine doing one small game in three years? Instead of yearly ubisoft slop (they make them like in 2? Or did they switch to 3?)
Larian or rockstar do like one in 5 years (although rockstar sucks on working part)
rockstar do like one in 5 years
yeah rockstar makes games that take so much effort that they probably shouldn’t exist at all, so they take a long time to make even under awful crunch conditions
Same. The things I’d change to reduce game dev time are game scope and photorealistic graphics, haven’t finished a AAA game in years because they’re too long.
I’m kinda fine-ish with eye candy, it could be neat on a budget 5 years later, scope though grinds my gears, don’t need your square kilometers of procedurally generated forest with dick to show for it except randomly placed animals. I want to get lost in a forest I will go to a real forest. Same for half the cities, like I get how gta landed there, but as a result walking in that game feels just wasteful in time
Hades 2 needs to come out faster though
The next patch is coming any day now!
I tell myself this every day for the last month because I want to see what comes next so badly.
(I’m also fairly tight inside)
i personally think that death stranding 3 should be an MSX/NES game and the only inputs you should have to hold to carry stuff is A+B and it should have four-directional movement and the game audio should be on an 8 track and the game tells you when to press play on the walkman and hideo should have it done in time for my ascent to the nearby bell tower when im really gonna show em
If you suggested that to Hideo Kojima, he might think it’s genuinely a great idea. I’d play that
if you mention konami he would probably cry though
I almost do too. They’ve got a lot of my NES era favorites like Contra and Ninja Gaiden, Metal Gear which is a series I hold very very deeply to my heart, I wouldn’t br posting here if they didn’t push me in a direction as an early teen. And then there’s silent hill. Don’t even get me started on castlevania. Konami owns a lot of my favorite vidya series
hey shut up i’m trying to develop a video paremovedo machine over here!!! holy crap what profits!!!
edit: hexbear hates pachislot
Ohhh! I had to play slur wheel of fortune there. As far as Konami goes, they should give me their properties cause I know what to do with all of em. Including not making any more metal gear games except one that I’ll call MGS6: The Metal Gear and it will just be a disc containing a video of me reading an affidavit that metal gear ended with mgs3 and there was no 4 or 5 and peace walker is on thin fucking ice. Then it would show Hideo Kojima signing it at gunpoint (I’d use a prop gun), then I’d let him make whatever he wants and keep kojipro for himself and just kinda give him whatever he asks for. I’d be so busy making awesome 2d sidescrolling action games that cost like $5 and a new one is out every few weeks cause I’ve got modern day Konami just making snes level games. Really the only high budget thing would be Silent Hill and I’d hire fucking David Lynch to write it before emphysema gets him
can i support you on kickstarter or change dot gov or what how do i make this happen
You’ll need to infiltrate Konamis headquarters on Shadow Moses Island and destroy the final weapon, capitalism
Surely this means games are higher quality and more enjoyable now right?
higher quality
Of course! It’ll use generative AI to bring us 8K graphics.
Star Citizen is on over a decade of development time and is approaching a billion dollars in rube investments.
I’m not up to date with the latest lore. What’s the next “after server meshing NOW the game will be ready?” technology or are we still waiting on server meshing?
They’ve started live testing server meshing and its hilarious because when it actually works you realise they didnt design any facet of the game for more than 20 players at a time. There literally arnt enough habs for people to spawn in, way to little elevators and screens. Everything is diagetic but in such limited quantities that when they did the 1000 player test (Which only got to 750 before crashing) people had to form actual queues to use the terminals to spawn ships. Unlike a lot of people I’m pretty confident they’ll eventually release a proper game I just dont think it will be any fun at all. They just keep making the game more and more tedious in the name of “realism”.
They just keep making the game more and more tedious in the name of “realism”.
This is common theme in the games “made by players for players” because the players making this game are always hardcore minmaxers and anti-fun brigadiers, which is pretty logical since only they get so royally pissed by devs not catering to them specifically that they attempt to do better. Normal player would just leave unfun game behind and move to next one.
Server meshing is the “Jesus tech” that the true believers are praying for that will somehow make all the jank evaporate in a puff of euphoria.
I’m just glad to get another Civ game this decade. I just hope it’s as good as Civ 6
Oh, another Civ 6 enjoyer! I’m actually not the biggest Civ fan (I just prefer some other 4X games), but I do enjoy the series and have been playing it since Civ 4. The thing is, these games usually need two expansions before they really feel complete to me. That was the case with Civ 4, Civ 5, and Civ 6, and I assume it will be the same with Civ 7.
On a different note, I actually really like that each modern Civ game tries something slightly different (looking at Civ 7). It always leads to some backlash, but it also cements each entry as a new spin on the series.
I’m aware Civ 6 got some pushback, especially from older fans, due to the art style (I think it’s totally fine, if a bit Pixar-esque). But Civ 6 is also the biggest Civ game so far in terms of numbers and success.
So I’m almost certain they are going to cook for CIV 7 (Im of the opinion they cooked with every single CIV game …they are just different and appeal to different people at times)
I’ve tried to get into other 4X’s like Europa, Stellaris CK but the learning curve is pretty high admittedly! I’ll give Europa another shot someday.
I actually welcome how each Civ tries to do something different, but the districts in 6 are such a huge addition that I’m a little sad they won’t return in 7 in the same fashion. Nothing lights up my monkey brain like finding a +6 Campus/IZ/Harbor tile
If there’s one thing I worry for 7, it’s that the fanbase for 5 is very vocal online. I enjoyed 5 for what it was at its time but going back now it seems TOO simple with the streamlined culture tree and the overemphasis on building Tall. It’s a 4X game, turtling at 4 cities is no fun!! The less influence the better.
I started with Civ Rev I for the PS3, I appreciate the goofy art style in 6 haha.
Not to be “that” guy, but Stellaris and especially Europa Universalis fall more into the Grand Strategy genre than 4X. Grand Strategy games are usually more complex than 4X games (such as Civ, Endless Legend, etc.). So if you’re looking for alternatives to Civ, maybe focus specifically on 4X games? They should offer simpler gameplay by comparison.
There was plenty of civ-like games in recent 2 years, but all of them were boring.
There are enough 4X games I prefer over Civ, but in regards to Civ-likes, I’ve heard excellent things about Old World. Mind you, I’m not that much of a fan of the heavy focus on warfare/combat, but it’s quite popular, especially with some older Civ fans.
Take it with a grain of salt but from what I know of the industry it’s mostly a management problem. Sure games are ambitious but we have so many tools at our disposal and game developers are, in fact, extremely fucking skilled. However the suits thought that the SCRUM methodology was cool and now instead of having a general direction for the project, devs have to vomit code and assets until the amount of slop is enough to look like a game
SCRUM
doesn’t know what exactly SCRUM is
looks up SCRUM
Our project uses waterfall disguised as agile.
Real Agile has never been tried™️
…but unironically. Incompetent middle managers get hung up on ritual over purpose, and think that the whole methodology is a one-size-fits-all approach that will magically solve budget, delivery timeline, and quality control problems.
For my own small projects I use plain old waterfall and shit just gets done. No idea how it works on larger projects but if I’m not mistaken this was how we made games back when Majora’s Mask was completed in 1 year (they reused OOC’s engine so it was real easy stares at all UE5 projects taking decades to release)
Waterfall was literally presented by its “creator” (Winston W. Royce) back in 1970 as an example of how not to manage a software project due to the lack of testing and validation until all implementation is complete (meaning, no integration or regression testing is performed as features are added during initial construction). This is also kind of the source of the axiom that, “The first 80% of the project takes 80% of the time, and the last 20% of the project also takes 80% of the time,” in reference to the prevalence of budget overruns and missed deadlines/estimates once integration testing actually starts.
It’s fine for trivial projects, and iterative methodologies (e.g., Agile/Agile variants, XP, etc.) use sort of a mini-waterfall phase on a per-feature basis. You’re still performing the same activities, and often in the same sequence; you just toss out the rigidity of only performing each of those activities once for the entire project and thus introducing a fuckton of risk. Unfortunately, Agile became a weird cult religion at some point and a lot of managers are more interested in holding constant meetings than letting developers build software. Honestly, it has been hilarious watching my own IT org try to adopt some semblance of Agile principles while absolutely not changing their mentality or approach to anything; it’s like watching a monkey sodomizing a football, but like, with my paycheck. I hate it here. Send help. Or nukes.
Leave your job, start a construction firm doing agile housing builds
That’s more or less how our various faux-Agile software projects turned out, between lack of defined requirements, half-assed architecture, and a parade of revolving-door third-party contractors with little to no oversight beyond endless stand-up meetings. No code reviews, no documented QA standards or coding standard, no documented testing requirements, just “git 'er dun” followed by dawning horror when they see the issue backlog get worse with each bugfix since all of the contractors left without leaving behind any real documentation or knowledge transfer. Again, I’d find it hilarious if my own paycheck weren’t on the line in the midst of all this. Oh well; toxic management gonna toxically mismanage.
Yeah it sucks
Back when I dreamed of being a game dev I went back to college for it and they taught this bullshit in the class
This got me curious so I, too, went and looked it up. Here I thought it would be something like Object-Oriented Design, Functional Programming, or Procedural Programming.
No. It’s literally just micromanagement bullshit used by suits to make themselves look useful when they don’t know shit about shit. Why the fuck would schools teach that instead of ways to push back against it?
One look at the fucking incestuous flow chart made me feel nausea. How the hell does anything get fucking done?
That’s the neat part. It doesn’t, not without lots of wasted hours of labor and squandered resources
I am a victim of agile and we spend probably half the work hours in a week on agile shite alone. But it generates pretty graphs for the useless execs because its not about producing anything but about control.
I broadly agree but I don’t think that Kojimbo is the best example lol, isn’t part of why he got fired from Konami that he was taking too long on MGSV?
I also think that part of the reason for longer dev times/cycles between games is that everything wants to be a GaaS, so development is continuing for a longer period after release.
When it comes to Elder Scrolls 6, idk, Todd just don’t got the magic anymore.
Elder Scrolls 6 is pretty easy to explain, they simply were not working on it, focused entirely on Starfield. That teaser from years ago was a distraction to make you think they were still working on it, and to get shareholders to shut up about them not putting out the next installment.
That teaser was outright fake, they published it literally 2 days after failout 76 caused nearly a literal riot with how shit it was.
90% of my interest in Elder Scrolls 6 evaporated when I read that Starfield was the basis of the game’s engine and that the upcoming game would “continue the exciting exploration and discovery themes of Starfield.”
I’m more interested in that Daggerfall spiritual successor honestly
Where’s my Redguard sequel.
Yeah, something is definitely wrong. It’s easy to point to complexity or whatever as the problem, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was microplastics rotting the devs’ brains or something.
It’s not that hard to pinpoint the problem. The problem is capitalism.
I think about this a lot. So much time is wasted due to bullshit like copyright laws. Imagine if all games were open source and you could copy+paste assets, then focus on changing things to match your gameplay/artistic style/whatever. Instead, games have to be built from the ground up because no one shares their progress. Despite every game having something like trees, each game has to waste time programming trees, sculpting trees, making tree textures, and so on and so forth.
What if instead you could just download the tree file everyone has worked on, added more to it if you wanted, then re-upload the tree file for someone else to use? Now you have multiple iterations of the tree with varying levels of fidelity and no known bugs for the Generic Gaming Program.
The closest we have to this are various game engines like Source and Unreal. But even those have limitations because the companies working on them don’t share with each other (it’d turn into a monopoly and made illegal). And of course this could apply to any field, from automotives to food products.
I’m sure I’m just describing Dengism or some shit but I’m too much of a lib that hasn’t read enough theory to realize smarter people than I am wrote books about this decades ago and it’s foundational to multiple schools of communist thought.
RGG’s Yakuza games are the only good games at this point.
And they have like half the dev time because they don’t make everything from scratch every time
Even indie games take years and years, although it makes more sense for them. Silksong still has no release date right?
I mean, if I were to start my dream game tomorrow, it would take a while since I’d also have a job. Plenty of indie games are like that
Talking more about the ones that aren’t side-projects.
UFO 50 was announced in 2017.
Didnt they drop a teaser for OD as well? Not just death stranding 2. There are so many games coming out all the time i’m always falling behind anyway, I dont think more slop faster is necessary
Death stranding was announced in 2016 (probably been in dev since 2015) and released in 2019, that’s 3-4 years. With the basic gameplay already done, and a lot of systems already locked down, how the fuck does Death Stranding 2 take 5-6 years to make? What are they making?
I do think they (Kojiprod) didn’t even consider a sequel until after COVID. If I remember well, in some interviews Kojima mentioned that the first game would have been completely different if the lockdown had happened during development time, and it is implied that DS2 is a direct response to it.
Now here’s the thing, even with that information in mind (let’s say Kojima starts writing in 2021, and preprod follows), they should still not take as long, because the core systems are already there, so I’m not sure what’s taking so long. My guess would be scanning/filming for cutscenes, because at this point it’s going to be more of a movie than a game
That’s a good point, I imagine the new environments take some time to build too.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
