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The major underappreciated factor for this release is the impact of COVID lockdowns - particularly enforced WFH - on the final development of this title. For m

The major underappreciated factor for this release is the impact of COVID lockdowns - particularly enforced WFH - on the final development of this title. For me this is the single factor which has lead to so many of the problems inherent in the game. You cannot just pickup a multi-hundred person digital interactive art project (ie. a video game) and shift it online overnight. Still, I think CDPR were right to release the game. Its good enough, content is complete, and they need to have the product on shelves before Christmas and before people lose interest in last-gen consoles. Having the product out there will motivate its staff - still stuck at home in Lockdown Poland - to work on the very public bugs. Its also interesting that Poland seems to have had basically the same COVID case and death profile as Ukraine, despite Ukraine having a significantly less strict lockdown (bars, restaurants, workplaces never shut this Autumn or Winter).

jontaydev 6y ago
There is a theory that development was restarted several times, most notably in 2018 to incorporate Keanu into the main story. It seems like they couldn't stick to a singular vision and shifted goals too many times.
- f6v 6y ago
  Which I never understood: how is an actor supposed to suddenly carry the whole game? I mean, he's got those cool movies(where he plays the same guy over and over again), but he's no Jesus to be worshiped like that.
  - angelbar 6y ago
    Or Maradona
  - platz 6y ago
    You make it sound like having a leading role in a game is the highest honor in the land one can bestow upon an individual.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    He's also, bluntly, not a very good actor
    - meibo 6y ago
      His lines in this game... Sometimes I'm really just cringing at how demotivated/drunk/high they either want him to sound or he sounds by default.
    - Quarrelsome 6y ago
      some actors are just pretty faces. Orlando Bloom also springs to mind.
    - f6v 6y ago
      I take Tom Hanks or Bill Murray over Keanu any time, but he's extremely dedicated. The amount of work he put into gun and martial arts training...Maybe that's part of being a good actor, after all.
    - mcv 6y ago
      He's a great person. His acting range is limited, but within that range, he's good at what he does. Whether that makes him a suitable actor for a computer game is debatable, but on the other hand, he's also a beloved actor, so it's probably good PR. I have no problem with them including Keanu in the game. I do have a problem with crunch and releasing a very buggy game.
  - themacguffinman 6y ago
    His impact on the game is probably similar to that of a celebrity in an ad: the celebrity isn't cast because of their acting/posing ability, they're just very likeable, recognizable people that you want to associate your product with. The electric reception he received at the game announcement show and the reddit memes he has generated seem to prove this. No one was under any illusions that Keanu was going to elevate the story, they just really love Keanu.
- TT3351 6y ago
  I hope we get a sequel to Schreier's Anthem article for this game [he now works for Bloomberg]. Many repeating patterns. https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964 https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964
- rowanG077 6y ago
  Yeah. It's pretty obvious. It's quite interesting how more games end up like that. Final fantasy 15 was restarted twice as well. And it ended up having potential but alas it was unfinished.
- overgard 6y ago
  I really don't understand why they have Keanu in this. I mean the _character_ he plays is fine, and Keanu's performance is fine, I just don't understand the appeal/necessity of getting the likeness of a real world actor in a digital game. I imagine it also must have cost a fortune.. It doesn't detract from the game or anything, but it just seems like an odd way to spend a limited development budget.
  - mekkkkkk 6y ago
    I think the hype speaks for itself, doesn't it? You want people to talk about your product, and having an A-list celebrity involved does just that. If you then categorize the extra expense under "marketing", I'd say it's not a bad ROI compared to other, incredibly expensive, marketing efforts.
  - burntoutfire 6y ago
    For the same reason why Hollywood producers pay $10m for a Brad Pitt, where they could get some rando who looks and acts just as good for $100k - Brad is marketing device, the movie will get much more publicity because of him, and people will go see the movie just because of him. Same for Keanu here.
    - overgard 6y ago
      I'm curious if that's actually true though. A lot of recent huge hits in TV at least were made up of casts of either relative unknowns or people that didn't have huge star power anymore. "Stranger Things", as one example. Mad Men and Breaking Bad created a lot of stars, but they weren't famous to start with. The Walking Dead was the most popular show on TV for a long time and I can't really recall an A-lister. Even a lot of much older shows didn't need star power. Think about something like Star Trek TNG. The most famous person on that cast when it started was Will Wheaton. Obviously Patrick Stewart became huge but he was a total unknown prior.
Merman_Mike 6y ago
FTA: > We have an internal QA department and we’re working with external companies as well. One thing that perhaps didn’t help us is COVID: internal testers are able to test the game working from home because we provide them with our own connected machines and so on, but external testers working for external companies were not able to test the game from homes –they have test centers and if they’re not there, they’re not able to work. So, we have seen a decrease in the number of testers, but I wouldn’t point to it as a major source of problems.
- voter101 6y ago
  With how badly this game turned out, I can only guess that lack of testers and bug reports was last on the priority list of problems.
BitwiseFool 6y ago
I still have no idea why all these big game developers are releasing new titles and still supporting last gen hardware. You would think games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Halo Infinite would be launch titles that would entice people to buy new consoles.
- Guthur 6y ago
  Market reach, the new consoles have just released and are very hard to get. Big AAA need plenty of market reach to be profitable unless they have some exclusivity deal.
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  Cyberpunk 2077 is ~2 years delayed and was marketed heavily as the pinnacle of what the last generation of consoles could do, to the extent that they released a limited edition Xbox One X bundle for the game [0]. They couldn't exactly do that and then not sell it on that console, could they? [0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/xbox-one-x-1tb-console-cyberpunk-2077-limited-edition-bundle/94ffrq8swhzd?activetab=pivot%3aoverviewtab https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/xbox-one-x-1tb-console-cyb...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- save_ferris 6y ago
  Two problems with that. A) New consoles are pretty tightly supply-limited on release, so people won't buy the game until they know they can pick up the console. You've totally killed the preorder market. B) You risk losing even more game sales towards the end of the console lifecycle, as soon as rumors start flying around about new hardware about to hit the market.
- mdoms 6y ago
  You really have no idea? The number of people on previous gen consoles dwarfs the people on new console, especially in a world where new consoles can't even nearly keep up with demand.
  - 6y ago
Pfhreak 6y ago
> For me this is the single factor which has lead to so many of the problems inherent in the game. This is absolutely not the case. The game was in dire straights long before Covid. (When did Poland lockdown?) It's not clear to me that you can make the claim you made without providing some additional evidence as everything I've read about the project suggests that it has been in development for 8+ years, and has had a real rough go of things.

jontaydev 6y ago

There is a theory that development was restarted several times, most notably in 2018 to incorporate Keanu into the main story. It seems like they couldn't stick to a singular vision and shifted goals too many times.

f6v 6y ago
Which I never understood: how is an actor supposed to suddenly carry the whole game? I mean, he's got those cool movies(where he plays the same guy over and over again), but he's no Jesus to be worshiped like that.
- angelbar 6y ago
  Or Maradona
- platz 6y ago
  You make it sound like having a leading role in a game is the highest honor in the land one can bestow upon an individual.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  He's also, bluntly, not a very good actor
  - meibo 6y ago
    His lines in this game... Sometimes I'm really just cringing at how demotivated/drunk/high they either want him to sound or he sounds by default.
  - Quarrelsome 6y ago
    some actors are just pretty faces. Orlando Bloom also springs to mind.
  - f6v 6y ago
    I take Tom Hanks or Bill Murray over Keanu any time, but he's extremely dedicated. The amount of work he put into gun and martial arts training...Maybe that's part of being a good actor, after all.
  - mcv 6y ago
    He's a great person. His acting range is limited, but within that range, he's good at what he does. Whether that makes him a suitable actor for a computer game is debatable, but on the other hand, he's also a beloved actor, so it's probably good PR. I have no problem with them including Keanu in the game. I do have a problem with crunch and releasing a very buggy game.
- themacguffinman 6y ago
  His impact on the game is probably similar to that of a celebrity in an ad: the celebrity isn't cast because of their acting/posing ability, they're just very likeable, recognizable people that you want to associate your product with. The electric reception he received at the game announcement show and the reddit memes he has generated seem to prove this. No one was under any illusions that Keanu was going to elevate the story, they just really love Keanu.
TT3351 6y ago
I hope we get a sequel to Schreier's Anthem article for this game [he now works for Bloomberg]. Many repeating patterns. https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964 https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964
rowanG077 6y ago
Yeah. It's pretty obvious. It's quite interesting how more games end up like that. Final fantasy 15 was restarted twice as well. And it ended up having potential but alas it was unfinished.
overgard 6y ago
I really don't understand why they have Keanu in this. I mean the _character_ he plays is fine, and Keanu's performance is fine, I just don't understand the appeal/necessity of getting the likeness of a real world actor in a digital game. I imagine it also must have cost a fortune.. It doesn't detract from the game or anything, but it just seems like an odd way to spend a limited development budget.
- mekkkkkk 6y ago
  I think the hype speaks for itself, doesn't it? You want people to talk about your product, and having an A-list celebrity involved does just that. If you then categorize the extra expense under "marketing", I'd say it's not a bad ROI compared to other, incredibly expensive, marketing efforts.
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  For the same reason why Hollywood producers pay $10m for a Brad Pitt, where they could get some rando who looks and acts just as good for $100k - Brad is marketing device, the movie will get much more publicity because of him, and people will go see the movie just because of him. Same for Keanu here.
  - overgard 6y ago
    I'm curious if that's actually true though. A lot of recent huge hits in TV at least were made up of casts of either relative unknowns or people that didn't have huge star power anymore. "Stranger Things", as one example. Mad Men and Breaking Bad created a lot of stars, but they weren't famous to start with. The Walking Dead was the most popular show on TV for a long time and I can't really recall an A-lister. Even a lot of much older shows didn't need star power. Think about something like Star Trek TNG. The most famous person on that cast when it started was Will Wheaton. Obviously Patrick Stewart became huge but he was a total unknown prior.

Merman_Mike 6y ago

FTA: > We have an internal QA department and we’re working with external companies as well. One thing that perhaps didn’t help us is COVID: internal testers are able to test the game working from home because we provide them with our own connected machines and so on, but external testers working for external companies were not able to test the game from homes –they have test centers and if they’re not there, they’re not able to work. So, we have seen a decrease in the number of testers, but I wouldn’t point to it as a major source of problems.

voter101 6y ago
With how badly this game turned out, I can only guess that lack of testers and bug reports was last on the priority list of problems.

BitwiseFool 6y ago

I still have no idea why all these big game developers are releasing new titles and still supporting last gen hardware. You would think games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Halo Infinite would be launch titles that would entice people to buy new consoles.

Guthur 6y ago
Market reach, the new consoles have just released and are very hard to get. Big AAA need plenty of market reach to be profitable unless they have some exclusivity deal.
InitialLastName 6y ago
Cyberpunk 2077 is ~2 years delayed and was marketed heavily as the pinnacle of what the last generation of consoles could do, to the extent that they released a limited edition Xbox One X bundle for the game [0]. They couldn't exactly do that and then not sell it on that console, could they? [0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/xbox-one-x-1tb-console-cyberpunk-2077-limited-edition-bundle/94ffrq8swhzd?activetab=pivot%3aoverviewtab https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/xbox-one-x-1tb-console-cyb...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
save_ferris 6y ago
Two problems with that. A) New consoles are pretty tightly supply-limited on release, so people won't buy the game until they know they can pick up the console. You've totally killed the preorder market. B) You risk losing even more game sales towards the end of the console lifecycle, as soon as rumors start flying around about new hardware about to hit the market.
mdoms 6y ago
You really have no idea? The number of people on previous gen consoles dwarfs the people on new console, especially in a world where new consoles can't even nearly keep up with demand.
- 6y ago

Pfhreak 6y ago

> For me this is the single factor which has lead to so many of the problems inherent in the game. This is absolutely not the case. The game was in dire straights long before Covid. (When did Poland lockdown?) It's not clear to me that you can make the claim you made without providing some additional evidence as everything I've read about the project suggests that it has been in development for 8+ years, and has had a real rough go of things.