look i love that your not forcing a game that you dont love out when its not ready and I fully believe that you would not allow this to happen but, dont keep pushing back the release date because eventually the game will simply be out of date and all this hard work will be for nothing this has happened with Dikatana and duke nukem forever. as well as the fact that if you push back for too long Xcom3 is likely to be release and many will forget about this brilliant game. But I have full confidence in the snapshot team and that you guys will deliver
We’ve been working on Phoenix Point for less than 3 years. XCOM took more than 5, and that wasn’t out of date. Games take years to develop in many cases. That is unfortunately the way it is. We don’t like having to delay either, but we’re committed to putting our a good game, not just a quick one.
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Is your pipeline complete and you are in polishing or still adding new features?
Regards!
Most of the assets are done (apart from some of the customisation and cosmetic options). At this point it’s mainly putting it all together, balancing, bug fixing, tweeking - there’s a lot of work going on with the UI, as we’re working on feedback to make it more intuitive (and more polished of course).
The next development update will talk in a little more detail about what we’ve been working on over the last couple of weeks, and what we’re working on now.
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2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Epic exclusive announcement and refund process?
I will get the annoying part first:
You couldn’t pre-order steam. The only pre-orders ever available were for Epic store. Anything sold before was crowdfunding, which is quite different.
Anyway, the actual point I wanted to make:
While delays might be annoying/disappoinging, you only get to release the game once. Do it poorly and repercussion will most likely haunt the game even after all the issues are addressed. Considering Snapshot burned a lot of good will by taking the Epic deal, rushing the game would be a dangerous move. Fanbase might not stick around and support the game, if it’s not fun on launch.
It’s an independed studio, investing their own resources into their own game, which they have full control over. If they can spend more time on it, before releasing it to the world, good for them.
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How do we opt in to the analytics? And when do we submit the player names for the builder backer bonus?
Opting in to the analytics will be an option in Backer Build 5.
We haven’t started collecting soldier names yet.
Can you explain more about that option - what will be collected?
I cannot at this stage. I’m sure details will follow.
Comparing to XCOM development time is absolutely not fair.
They took years to reinvent the squad based tactics from scratch to make it fast, fun and interesting for a new generation (and console friendly). Phoenix Point will copy the squad based mechanics for 95%.
Watch this movie to understand the research and pioneering they had to do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5pifFENHfQ
Also 5 years is not the standard for development of games:
XCOM: Enemy Unknown has had a longer development cycle than most games. Whereas the average project takes between two and two and a half years, XCOM: Enemy Unknown took four and a half, a period that consisted of various prototypes and even a reboot 18 months into development.
They had to do complete overhauls of the game and UI to figure it out, thus greatly increasing development time. Phoenix Point does not have any mentionable setbacks. Everything still looks and feels as during fig campaign except the release date.
So the release date was either:
- Overly enthousiastic and unprofessionally chosen, OR
- Intentionly for the success of the Fig campaign, that it would not interest enough people if the release date is too far in the future.
Well I think you guys are very professional and I might have done the same thing with the release date if it was my campaign.
XCOM took 4,5 years, but they never gave release dates to backers, so it couldn’t be out of date. This is your project and your deadlines that aren’t fullfilled. Please no more pointing to other kids and stop making excuses.
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XCOM was also not an indie game. They had a publisher with very deep pockets to pay for years of development. The game was pretty much completed and in beta before people were even told that it existed. Unfortunately, with crowdfunding, you have to give a date, right from the very start of the project.
Maybe comparing it to XCOM isn’t 100% fair. But, for an indie studio, we are quite large. For an indie game, we’re delivering a high level of polish. 3 years for the development of a game (including the design and concept) is not an unusual, unreasonable or unrealistic length of time.
Would we have liked to been able to release sooner? Of course we would. But we would still prefer to release the best game that we can.
Since we started, the scope of the project increased. We were able to hire more talented people and produce a game with more features than we have hoped with a higher level of polish.
Even the best estimates for a timeline can go out of the window on a project of this scale. With so many people working on so many different systems, all of which have to work together, it’s very hard to make an accurate assessment in the early stages. The closer it gets to completion, the easier it is to see the finish line.
Then there are other unforeseen issues such as key team members moving on to other opportunities, or major software/engine updates which can throw previously working systems into turmoil.
We never set out to deceive anyone - and every release date we have given has always been our best estimate.
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Whilst it’s disappointing, the quality of the game comes first.
However, I would much rather they simply said, ‘We don’t know when we’ll be ready and will only give a release date when we are absolutely sure and just 6-8 weeks away’.
I mean, how sure are they about this December date?
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False. It is the same genre, and PP is another upgrade of this genre. Gollop had to develop something new and fit new ideas into old systems.
On the other hand with XCOM - reinventing UI and stripping old game from many interesting mechanics is not such great invention. 
PP adds a lot of new mechanics and has it’s own challanges.
Current release date is not that strange ~3 years. Agreed.
I don’t want to critisize the work, I see a lot of good work and a lot of new elements added to the genre that hopefully will be inspiring for future games.
The statement that 5 years development for this type of game is normal is incorrect and based on a false comparison. I settle with not 100% accurate. 
In my opinion, PP development time should be compared to XCOM2 since they are both inspired on XCOM mechanics.
Or compare it with XCOM but remove 18 months reboot (4,5 year - 18 months = 3 years)
But that is ignoring you guys also had to ‘set up shop’ and hire people, while 2K just assigned staff.
Still a deadline has been given by you guys, multiple times. Though its perfectly understandable you didn’t reach it. Comparing with others cannot justify it. It’s like being an hour late on an appointment you arranged: Blaming traffic or pointing to a collegue who is also often late does not justify the miscalculation.
But forget about this, I’m way more interested in an answer to oldboy77’s question
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I beg to differ, @Yokes. The UI’s reinvention was FiraXCom’s major improvement, and I would say most of the resources were channeled for that specific component. It may seem simple but, you know, simplifying is so hard. Aside from the UI, I can’t recall a single component that Firaxis didn’t take from the original games. And it must be a really great UI, because Snapshot went to take it all as well.
100% agree
Can’t agree with that. Developing XCOM2 after XCOM is a lot different that developing PP after seeing a different team making XCOM.
XCOM 2 runs on a heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 3.5 (Firaxis’ customizations are too extensive to easily move to Unreal 4), which in some ways has been rewritten to the point of being “unrecognizable,”
Which means they already had lots of tools, dev-environments they were familiar with, and that means a lot, one should never underestimate the time consumed by that. Sure, design (and re-designs after failed iterations) takes time too, but developing the game is not just thinking about gameplay and stuff.
I don’t think comparing PP point to XCOM reboot is 100% accurate, but even more far off is a claim that PP copies XCOMs design.
UI might look similar but pretty much everything we have seen works differently then in XCOMs. Fig campaign material was more of a representation of the vision - after all earlier builds didn’t even have working aiming system. And I doubt UI was the issue Firaxis was facing - it was figuring out how to make convoluted mechanics of UFO valiable in modern age. While PP borrows a lot from new XCOM design, it’s engine runs completely differently.
Not to mention, that Firaxis XCOM1 got away with murder. While they did spend quite a bit of time, exploring, experimenting and rebuilding, the final prodact seemed to fall apart at the seams - multiple pretty major bugs, be it issues with various hight layers, teleporting enemies and many many others. Add to it pretty major design flaws, like pod system, boring/linear enemy progression, boring/linear tech progression. Until Enemy Within and more importantly Long War came along, XCOM1 offered little staying power. As Firaxis stated, they didn’t expect people to be interested in it after initial playthrough. XCOM1 proved how many things players and critics are willing to forgive, if the game is inspired and fresh. I certainly wouldn’t want PP to be of XCOM1 quality.
Comparing PP to XCOM2 isn’t fair either. Even if PP was a clone (which it isn’t - outside of paint, it’s mechanic vary quite a lot from XCOM, not to mention strategic layer, which is supposed to offer a completely different depth, then inbetween mission shop of XCOM1&2), Firaxis built XCOM2 using and improving engine they already build. They had at least some of the technology, tools and experience. Snapshot had to adapt Unity for PP.
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- Class system
- Varied mission objectives (council missions)
- Most of the content from Enemy Within (Mecs, Genemods, stalkers, the entire Exalt storyline)
- Storyline characters such as Vahlen, Shen and Bradford, for better or worse
- Psionic powers (once again, for better or worse, but certainly more varied than panic/MC)
- Grapples
FiraXcom has its flaws, but they definitely brought in their own touch.
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