Hey folks. I’m going to qualify this by saying I know how ill-advised it can be to go to bat for a game developer during a difficult period in their game’s life.
I bought the no-man’s sky collectors edition for the original release on ps4. I got it on launch day. I sunk hours into it everyday for about a month and then I couldn’t ignore how incomplete it was. So I put it down and visited again a few months after that repeating that process until the present where it has become a rather precious part of my library. It came to meet and in a lot of ways exceed expectations. But it certainly didn’t start that way.
I’m not going to ramble too much on that. I do however think a parallel exists with this particular game. To be blunt I felt let down on my first playthrough. I also have a few days worth of playtime over a couple attempts. I’m going to take a break from playing the game until some basic substantial finishing touches are put in place. The imagination of the creative team of this game is honest; the concepts are there and the bones of the game are promising and the kind I would expect from an evolution of X-COM.
I notice a parallel too between how Hello Games and Snapshot Games are approaching this, communicating with updates and pertinent announcements going largely silent otherwise. As long as the process going forward is keeping disentangled with media, steadily producing content and updates, and being straightforward and honest with customers there is a very bright future in this game.
It of course is at present disappointing. There are trust issues that stem from the Epic Games Store exclusivity deal, but I don’t feel as badly lied to as with No Man’s Sky. No game is eternal and this game at present is a breath of a fresh air, even if it too quickly becomes stale.
I would hope the time commitment I have with the game is indicative of how much I like it, I just want and have paid for more. I believe in the integrity of the team behind PP and gave my money in good faith. I appreciate the approach to updating it so far and believe in the work you’re doing, I’ll just be checking in periodically until I get hooked again.
All the best.