It’s not required to play the previous games, there is some reference to them and the emotional impact of one scene may be diminished but that’s about it. I’m sure there are video recaps you can watch if you decide to skip the previous titles
Hard to disagree with the article, it seems it’s safer to wait at least a few weeks or months to play a new game because there are often things to be fixed after launch. Many games have multiple ambitious and complex systems that need to be tuned post launch. Combine this with high expectations/hype that marketing teams foster and you have a recipe for regret and disappointment on day 1 experiences
It’s mind boggling when the costs of games get leaked (or revealed during court cases). It makes me sad that so many studios have pivoted to the strategy you’ve described because it means we’ll have less games of a franchise I enjoy since the development takes so long or the developement is never even started because people have decided the profit won’t be as high as making a blockbuster game. Hell, look at Rockstar milking whales with GTA V, that’s a slightly different conversation, but it’s crazy how long the gap between GTA V and GTA VI are
I get everyone’s sentiment here, boiling it down to “better games are better” but also keep in mind the development costs and times for making new games are constantly going up. Yeah of course there are fantastic indie games out there (and I love them myself) that have a fraction of AAA game budgets and dev time but those are the gems in the rough, not the norm.
I’m all for better gaming experiences but they do come with tradeoffs. Also, flops are now death sentences for studios so the pressure to perform is even higher
One of the funniest ones that happened to me was when I ran my cyclops aground in the shallows and I tried to deploy out of my prawn to push it but the hatch was right next to the seafloor so I immediately clipped through the ground while in my prawn and fell through the entire game world. Good times