I don't understand why there are so many people defending this game and getting annoyed at people when they're making comments about not trusting the studio, nor the head of the studio after all the lies he spouted and the pile of rubbish that this was on release. People expected a certain product and got something entirely different rammed down their throat, and then had a whole month of absolutely nothing from the studio. Steam actually removed this game from their store, something which very rarely happens. The game was an utter shambolic mess and the hype that was generated around it, whether through Sony or whoever, was undoubtedly pushed further by Murray's constant lies on every platform that he was interviewed on (look up the videos if you need the evidence). The whole situation reeked of "we can give whatever we want to gamers and they'll pay up for it and who cares what happens afterward".
Now, two years on (which is a crazy amount of time to be honest) they're releasing an update and promising that it'll come close to what the game should have been on release, how can you blame people for not trusting any of this? All we've got now is another trailer (don't forget that it was trailer and pre-rendered footage that caused all these issues for them in the first place) showing very little substance and everyone is expected to get massively excited about this?
I understand that some here paid for the game and are happy to support it, but you can't blame the rest of us for feeling let down and annoyed at how we've been treated by the studio. I didn't pre-order the game because I felt that, although it was an exciting concept when I first heard about it, I felt that the project was a little too ambitious. After not preordering it and watching it spontaneously combust into a pile of ash after release I decided it definitely wasn't getting my money then because it simply wasn't worth it. I didn't want to invest in a broken game made by a studio that had effectively ignored it's fanbase. Since then, I've watched plenty of live streaming of it and also YouTube videos of actual play throughs and decided that it wasn't for me after even the newer Atlas Rises update because the gameplay looks shallow, samey, and a bit boring after a while. The space stuff doesn't look great, the way you fly into space and then everything just pops in doesn't work for me as it breaks the immersion. That doesn't look to have changed given that the same thing happens in the new trailer. It seems to me that, whilst it's an endless universe, your options within the game simply aren't. It isn't really a sandbox, there's only a finite amount of things that you can do and once you've got a few ships, it seems that there's little reason to go for newer ones because they don't give you a huge amount of benefit over others in the end. That's just my take on it and I may be way off.
And finally, it's a flippin' joke that they expect you to pay full price for this game still. After the shambolic release and removal from Steam, how can they possibly justify the £39.99 price tag on Steam and on the Xbox? Sure, it's new to the Xbox, but it isn't new to Steam and after the amount of face that the studio is trying to save, you'd think that the least they'd do is lower the price. I've had more fun in Astroneer which is an early access title, have provided everything they promised, looks colourful and vibrant and cost me under £15. The fact that they expect us to pay £40 after two years just shows what they actually think of gamers in general. That we'll just eat up whatever they put in the palm of their hand because that's just how it goes. Sorry, but it's not for me at that price. If the game comes under £15, I may consider it, but the fact that they've had all the historical issues and they still think that they can justify full price for the game makes me feel negative toward them as a studio.
Are you getting paid to defend Hello Games?