Over the weekend I did some lanning with friends, for my one friend’s birthday and we decided to play some Planetary Annihilation.
Back when PA released it really wasn’t in the best shape. The 1.0 version after the early access period was still lacking in a lot of areas and frankly disappointing for Kickstart backers like myself.
Now, a few years later playing it again it really has improved dramatically. Being able to locally host a game has helped greatly with performance. The AI is pretty smart and challenging. And the game finally lives up to its lofty goals of interplanetary warfare. So well done to the dev’s for sticking it out.
What games have you revisited and have been impressed by how much better they are now?
It’s difficult for me to think of an example other than early access games where this would occur. When a game is in active development, you expect to see major progress as development moves towards completion. If you are an active player, that progress seems more incremental, whereas someone who only checks in occasionally will see more dramatic changes.
Other than early access, most titles these days get a major patch or two after release to fix the glaring bugs that were inevitably missed due to the publisher deadline. After that, support and interest from the developers end shockingly quickly as they simply move on to the next poorly optimized title they want you to throw money at. So if you let it lie for a while, far from returning to an improved experience, you are more likely to walk into a dilapidated ghost town with tumbleweeds blowing in the wind.
Another possibility just occurred to me: MMORPG’s. Assuming the game is supported over a number of years, you should obviously notice significant changes if you return after not playing for a while.
I think one other example - although I haven’t played the game myself is No Man’s Sky. The suffered a very disappointing release, missing many of the hyped features. The Dev’s didn’t abandon the game though and it seems that the game is vastly better today, a few years later.
NMS is a pretty good example, yes (or so I gather). The difference in this case being, I think, that it is basically one guy’s passion project with a small team making it their sole focus. The game received some hefty criticism after release for what was perceived as missing content or features, but to their credit, the devs stuck with it. They had little choice, to be honest; when you only have one game in the market, you either make it a success or go bust. Bigger studios will simply abandon ship and move on to the next project.
MMO’s are probably the best example, in any guise. Destiny 2 got a lot of flack initially for its lack of content and unfriendly weapon slot usage. They rectified most of it since The Forsaken and had been piling content into the game. It’s at a point now where it’s just too daunting for new and returning players to jump in…
I have mixed feelings about this. There is way too much new player hand-holding these days in my view. You can barely walk five steps before you get another on-screen prompt that explains some keybind or how to perform some action. Such things should be reserved for a tutorial. Don’t interrupt my playing experience with reminders that this is actually a game.
