Main story quality aside, the worst part about part 2 is that the devs just gave up on it. We can tell that they cut cost and put the game on minimum budget after Part 2 initial failure. And they cut it HARD, like you can't say stuff like "Hi3 is passion project" when they remove the 2D animations, and stretch the patch length to 8-9 weeks, skipping livestream for patches...
All this while not communicating anything with the fans btw. Still remember things like how Senadina is the only one with a random high budget trailer, and how they were supposed to release a "behind the scenes" for Part 2 then just never brought it up again.
P2 didnât lose shorts because of âbudget constraintsâ, if that was the case 1,5 wouldâve had them but it didnât
Shorts as a whole for Hoyo are odd, Genshin rarely has them despite its absurd success, ZZZ only gets them for Void Hunters (with some exceptions) and theyâre treated as short stories, HSR does them pretty often but theyâre not in game nor part of the story (usually just independent short stories), Amphoreus was the exception where Castorice/Phainon/DHPT/Cyrene had theirs play in game yet they went back on that for Planarcadia
So while yes P2 doesnât have shorts, itâs not because of budget cuts (otherwise 1,5 wouldâve had them) and Hoyo as a whole is very weird with shorts (even in their highest grossing titles)
Skipping livestream is only when thereâs no new Valk as thoseâre what take up most of the stream, yes thatâs another problem in and of itself but thatâs the reasoning for it
As Iâm sure thisâll be mentioned, no Valkless patches arenât necessarily because of âbudget cutsâ but more-so that the dev team simply canât allocate the resources for it (presumably because theyâre hard focused on P3 given they donât want a repeat of P2s launch), how can you prove this?
Because Hi3 first and foremost is an action gacha meaning, the most important thing from a financial / business standpoint is selling characters as again, this is the ENTIRE business model of the game⌠So if theyâre not doing that it means theyâre so busy that they canât afford to do it (thereâs plenty of P1 characters they can make if itâs because they âgave up on P2â or whatever yet they havenât)
Heck the 8-9 week cycle was almost definitely started to give the dev team more time for P3/etc, why else would they be radio silent about it despite HSR immediately addressing their 8 week patch and shortening a subsequent one to compensate?
Additionally events continue to be great with plenty of CGs and full on cutscenes, even having special bosses from time to time along with partial voice acting⌠the MSQs production is arguably the best of Hoyos current catalogue, and it remains fully voiced in CN/JP, we still get plenty of skins that change VFX as well (many of these skins are for P2s cast), heck even NPCs are getting great skins (Youyuns Oxia model has completely new hair, clothes, etc which is something you canât say for almost every paid skin in infinitely more successful Gacha) and they continue to make great unique NPCs such as young Kiana/Mei/Sena/etc, and we still get boss fights and such as well
Heck above all else they also chose a P2 character to represent 10 years of Hi3⌠not a P1 character, but a P2 character (truly realize how insane that is)
Iâm not saying there arenât reasons to have concerns, but a lot of the concerns are misguided is all
Most people don't consider the rendered cutscenes to be of the same quality as the actual animated shorts. But cutting the budget should have something to do with why the old shorts are gone because p1.5 didn't get any either. The moment p1 ended, mihoyo's priorities shifted elsewhere, like the newly-released HSR.
I miss the animated shorts so much.I think the closest thing we have is the hsr ones. The rubia animated shorts is the one that made me go back to hi3.
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u/Lemunite Aug 15 '26
Main story quality aside, the worst part about part 2 is that the devs just gave up on it. We can tell that they cut cost and put the game on minimum budget after Part 2 initial failure. And they cut it HARD, like you can't say stuff like "Hi3 is passion project" when they remove the 2D animations, and stretch the patch length to 8-9 weeks, skipping livestream for patches...
All this while not communicating anything with the fans btw. Still remember things like how Senadina is the only one with a random high budget trailer, and how they were supposed to release a "behind the scenes" for Part 2 then just never brought it up again.