Same. I have a general rule that I don’t pre-order. I also tend to wait for reviews to come in. This is because I’ve been burned in the past. I made exceptions to this for CP2077 and KSP2, and we all know how those went.
So what used to be more like general guidelines for myself have now become strict rules.
But Factorio has earned an exception. They’ve proven time and time again that the game is a product of passion and not (primarily, at least) profits. This has been clearly visible since I first bought it during early access in 2016 or thereabouts.
So its expansion will be instabuy for me. The game has simply given me so many hours of entertainment that one could argue that if anything, at least I will now have paid full price for the game I already have (I don’t remember what I paid for Factorio, but it was dirt cheap).
Yup. ES6 is going to sell like condoms on an STD themed swinger convension no matter how many bugs are going around.
And the saddest part is that too many have learned nothing about AAA titles, and will preorder the game, making the game a massive financial success even before releasing anything of quality.
ShadowZone on youtube has a pretty good analysis of what we know, what we don’t know, and lays out some possible (and realistic) scenarios as to what’s going on.
My personal (un)educated guess regarding the lack of official news is due to the fact that T2 will be releasing an earnings report shortly, and needs to keep things quiet. I hope the release more detailed statements once the quarterly is done.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Portal 3 is released at some point. I’m skeptical, but I’m not outruling it. The game is whacky enough that there are probably a lot of interesting and cool things that can be implemented into a worthy successor.
I am, on the other hand, utterly convinced that HL3 is not going to happen. The previous two were groundbreaking, stretching limits of what one can do with a physics engine. I’m having a hard time imagining that it can be pulled off a 3rd time, simply because I am unable to imagine any sory of content that would all: a) fit with the series so that it still feels like a HL game
b) interesting enough to allow for the innovation that the previous two games had
c) good enough to justify a new game rather than just a tech demo
I sincerely hope that my opinion on the matter is simply a matter of failure of imagine, and that a good HL successor is released at some point, but sadly I think I’m right on this one.