I think it's kind of weird that this trend is happening that early access games, games that are not finished, get title updates that are practically advertised as expansions would've.

I always figured early access meant early access to a game until it is a fully developed base game, then start to do "named" expansions.

It's not exclusive to this game, but it just seems like a strange development and frankly not a fan of it. Some games linger in early access way too long, but they can always use it as an excuse to get away with bad optimisation or game breaking bugs and what not.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I have noticed this trend as well, but I think it’s actually pretty good. Your package bunch of features you have been working on under a common theme and that builds some excitement.

Consider the alternative: “Get ready for build v1053” or “Prepare yourselves for update 1.2.24” that just doesn’t sound exciting and it’s probably not gonna draw in players who haven’t played the game in a while.

And also keep the psychology in mind a little bit, It seems less impressive to release seven small updates where each update only adds one relatively minor feature rather than one big update with seven new, but still relatively minor features

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

I also can't see complaining about free content. This isn't an Ark situation.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I dunno... I kinda think it's actually more genuine? More honest? It's early access because it's not feature complete, and all the major milestones are just making it closer to completion, and generally are not charging for them. Using new features to advertise the uncompleted game makes sense, because maybe it wasn't ready for some users in the first few iterations, but after a few milestones they might feel it's worth it to jump in.

Meanwhile, a AAA game will label itself complete, then sell you things that they had planned right from the start of creating the game bit by bit, claiming they are extras. It's not like they just spur of the moment designed and made them after release. They were already working on it when they released the base game.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I can feel that, some games can really abuse the system. It can be beneficial when we're talking about large feature sets being released, both for developers as well as people keeping track of what's currently in the game.

Hades 2 I would argue makes sense as they just added what's essentially another chapter of the story. Its initial release was also in a really decent state which helps a lot.