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4 hours in before they patched it. It's wild how easier it is. Completely different game.

I imagine this game would’ve been much closer to a 90 on the aggregate sites if this had been fixed pre-review window. It seemed to be the biggest mark against the combat, the thing stopping it from being an all-timer.

tbh I don't understand how reviewers struggled, even at launch. While there may have been more auto fails, in nearly every base you have to sneak in is a very obvious back entrance where you can skip most enemies. The main mission stealth sections, especially, are basically on the rails.

Totally understood and agree. I was more suggesting something along the lines of a notation. Like, this game is a 8.5, but if this thing ever gets fixed it would be bumped to a 9. Sorry, didn’t mean to imply a whole review or podcast.

The transient nature of modern gaming makes in-depth pre-release reviews obselete. Very weird that it seems they used journalists to QA their game for them

@jakesteinberg.substack.com found a guest with a topic for critical error 👀 (should games be reviewed after launch)

"Should games just not be reviewed until like a week after launch?" - YES

day one balance nerfs mean the reviewed game and the shipped game are two different games now, rescores should just be standard for patches this big

I’ve often wondered that myself since most games now have a day 1 patch, or nefarious micro transactions get turned on or multiplayer is live or whatever. That first month sometimes almost changes a game so much that it could add or take away a point for a review score.

This is just going to be a recurring thing huh? I played Star Wars Outlaws well after the updates and DLC and yeah, it kind of isn’t the game that released two years ago.

Anyway combat balance and repetitiveness is what kept me from saying it was a 10 out of 10 so take that for what it's worth lol

It's only gonna change the beginning opening hours of the game to feel more like the parts of the game you definitely enjoyed so I imagine you can save yourself a replay of the first 10 hours, although making those bosses easier is honestly HUGE so YMMV

Its a difficult line to walk. Pre-release reviews are tricky. Like if someone reviewed Fallout New Vegas today vs what it was AT LAUNCH it'd be a night and day difference of bugs. I guess best practice is to review what's on the retail disc (for however much longer we have those I guess).

That'd be awesome lol (honestly though so many reviewers had this complaint)

But then how would they know to make changes? Are reviewers just game testers these days?!

Yeah I was playing the early access and used the assist mode because I was sick of how frustrating it was. The game is great but the enemies have too much health

Maybe it would make a good short/tiktok?

Funny snafu to be in with modern games and updates day 1 and over time

There’s no right answer. Some games it feels like you gotta wait 1-2 years to properly review it.

the price you pay for being a cool cat video game journalist ™

#progamer

your pre-release experience and review had a non-zero impact on making the game better for others - it shouldn’t have to be that way, but its still a net positive!

I found it really easy as long as you leveled up everything, even weapons you're not using. It wasn't clear that it worked that way though, so I get the nerfs.

Me too. But it seems odd that they're doing this when you already can tinker the settings to your heart's content. Main thing I didn't like difficulty wise was the enemies levelling up whenever you killed a resonant.

I preloaded on steam and now its downloading the whole thing again :(