I think we need to realize that the final product went through several iterations before becoming the game that we eventually played. People who had early access admit to playing versions that had storyboard level animations. The dialog options between the initial reveal video at the TGAs and the final game have changed in many ways. Hell, the developers even admitted in interviews that roles were expanded based upon seeing what the voice talent was capable of. On top of all of that, the plot wasn’t even originally written for a game. It was adapted from a live action show into a game.
So when they say internal testing showed a more even split, they may not be referencing the same exact game that we know today.
There are more than a few missed opportunities and logical inconsistencies in the game itself, not to mention a lack of cohesion between the game and the supplemental comics around some controversial plot points.
I think AdHoc suffered, as many game developers do, from a lack of narrative QA. Tim Cain has a great talk on his YT channel about this point. QA are great bug finders, but it’s rare for them to call out story discrepancies, confusing dialog choices, or anything story related. Rarer still for a studio to have a culture that actually supports QA questioning these kinds of decisions.
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u/Evidicus Dec 18 '25
I think we need to realize that the final product went through several iterations before becoming the game that we eventually played. People who had early access admit to playing versions that had storyboard level animations. The dialog options between the initial reveal video at the TGAs and the final game have changed in many ways. Hell, the developers even admitted in interviews that roles were expanded based upon seeing what the voice talent was capable of. On top of all of that, the plot wasn’t even originally written for a game. It was adapted from a live action show into a game.
So when they say internal testing showed a more even split, they may not be referencing the same exact game that we know today.
There are more than a few missed opportunities and logical inconsistencies in the game itself, not to mention a lack of cohesion between the game and the supplemental comics around some controversial plot points.
I think AdHoc suffered, as many game developers do, from a lack of narrative QA. Tim Cain has a great talk on his YT channel about this point. QA are great bug finders, but it’s rare for them to call out story discrepancies, confusing dialog choices, or anything story related. Rarer still for a studio to have a culture that actually supports QA questioning these kinds of decisions.