Less than halfway into 2022, it’s already clear that this year is going down in gaming’s history books — Elden Ring’s jaw-dropping success alone set that in stone. Though giant blockbusters have been the focal point of conversation this year, most of this year’s most impressive projects are much smaller in scale. It has quietly been a tremendous year for indie games exiting early access.
Embracing early access For a long time, most video games followed a similar launch path. Developers quietly worked on a new title for years, releasing the occasional demo or holding playtests to gather feedback. A game would launch in a 1.0 state and either be done or receive post-launch tweaks based on feedback . Early access reshuffles that timeline, widening the player feedback phase and folding it into the road to 1.0.
Part of the decision was logistical. Cellar Door wanted to raise the scope of the sequel, but that would have required a significant scale-up in the studio’s staff too. Starting with early access would help mitigate that challenge. It would start testing early, which would in turn let the studio tackle complex problems like game flow and difficulty balance early.
“We just had to dig deep and generate the willpower to finish the game,” Lee says. “Ignorance is bliss in this regard, where you think it’s going to do well and you realize it’s not doing so well, but you have to keep going.” “Every time a new patch comes out, it’s a massive amount of work,” Lee says. “Tons of bugs come out, you have to prepare marketing materials … It’s a mini heart attack every single time. And it doesn’t get easier!”
“Early access is far more stressful than releasing a game once, but it’s a sacrifice you have to make if you want to make a better game,” Lee says. “I don’t know if we could have even made Rogue Legacy 2 if we didn’t go into early access.”
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Source: DigitalTrends - 🏆 95. / 65 Read more »
Source: DigitalTrends - 🏆 95. / 65 Read more »