Cities Skylines 2, Kerbal Space 2, Planet Coaster 2, Frostpunk 2... What Went Wrong?

Submitted ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨grill@thelemmy.club⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

Last few years I’ve been excitedly waiting for sequels from several small-to-medium sized studios that made highly acclaimed original games—I’m talking about Cities: Skylines, Kerbal Space Program, Planet Coaster, Frostpunk, etc.—yet each sequel was very poorly received to the point I wasn’t willing to risk my money buying it. Why do you think this happens when these developers already had a winning formula?

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circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
I think CS:2 was far too ambitious, and there were very strange design choices around subsidies which effectively removed any challenge from the game – at first. I just played it the other day, and frankly it has turned around a lot. Decent game now.

KSP2 was just a corporate shit show – devs were well intentioned but ultimately were unable to continue based on factors out of their control. It really sucks because KSP1 is one of the best games ever made and KSP2 had a lot of promise.

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commander@lemmy.world ⁨57⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
Cities skylines 2 was way more ambitious than the first game but they barely scaled up the size of the studio over the years and then pushed out a half baked product. I remember they tried to play the scrappy indie studio in defense of the games state at launch as if they hadn’t released the most popular city builder of the last like 15 years and oodles of DLC since along with niche hits in the City in Motion games

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rtxn@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I was there with KSP from the early days. Squad was not in the video game business, they were a billboard advertisement company. The lead dev HarvesteR started it as a passion project. It found success with the alpha and full release in 2015.

Then in 2017 Take-Two bought the rights to the game. Squad kept working on the original, but development of the sequel was handed off to Star Theory with Private Division publishing. The game was delayed, then development was moved to a new studio, Intercept Games, which was owned by Take-Two. They also poached a third of Star Theory’s personnel, which resulted in the studio’s death. They fucked around for a few years, released the early access version, then sold Private Division, closed Intercept Games, and abandoned the game.

In short: corporate interests.

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- cecilkorik@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  That’s exactly right. They also had managers/publishers telling them to do shit like make the rockets even wobblier than KSP1 because it made for funny viral videos that would get more PR.
  
  Nobody who actually played the game wanted wobblier rockets than KSP1. Nobody really wanted wobbly rockets at all. Sometimes a bug can actually be a feature, but in this case, it really was just a bug. The people in charge didn’t ever care about the people who actually played the game, they just wanted sales, and they made decisions accordingly. That’s why it looks nice, but plays like shit.
  
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- Lupus@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  I was there with KSP from the early days
  
  Same, I am still so mad about the whole ksp2 fiasco that I block all of take twos games on steam, they ain’t getting any money from me. I am so glad I didn’t buy it in EA although it looked promising.
  
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  - MysteryMeatbag@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’m with you. I was excited to learn the other day that some of the KSP developers are working on a game called Kitten Space Agency that might fill the void left by KSP2’s demise.
    
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slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
C:S2 is likely too ambitious. Doing too many new things at once instead of incremental change.

KSP2 was a management fuck up. Let’s take this IP and give it to a completely seperate studio with no experience in this kind of work while not allowing the original Devs to help despite being part of the organisation.

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- lockhart@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  C:S2 is likely too ambitious. Doing too many new things at once instead of incremental change.
  
  And C:S1’s bar to clear was SimCity 2013. C:S2’s bar to clear was C:S1 with several years worth of content updates
  
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  - FireRetardant@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I never played cs1 on release, only played after it was nearly 10 years old, but my understanding is it vastly improved over updates and dlc (which unfortunately did cost more but did at least add meaningful changes for the most part).
    
    Im curious to see where CS2 stands in 3-5 years when mods have really taken off and the devs had made most of their major tweaks.
    
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- victorz@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  Let’s take this IP and give it to a completely seperate studio with no experience in this kind of work while not allowing the original Devs to help despite being part of the organisation.
  
  The decision making behind this is incredibly hard for me to understand. Just a very, very nonsensical way to ruin the project, on paper. I wonder about the circumstances.
  
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  - themeatbridge@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    You see this a lot in project management. People go to school to learn to manage projects, and they think that all projects are pretty much the same. You define the deliverables, set the schedule, track the progress, and everything should work out fine. When the project is a success, they pat themselves on the back for getting everyone to the finish line, and when the project fails they examine where in the process unexpected things happened.
    
    Video games are an art form. Creativity can’t be iterated into existence, and the spark of fun is more than the component parts of a good time. Capitalists believe that they can invest in the creative process and buy the value of the talent of extraordinary people. They have commoditized creation, dissecting each step and then squeezing it into a format that fits into a procedure.
    
    Here’s a Kanban board of game features, pick one and move it to the next phase. Develop, test, evaluate, repeat. What are your blockers? Is this in scope? Do we need to push the deadline?
    
    That can help you make something, but it won’t be art.
    
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  - kartoffelsaft@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I believe the reason it happened, in short, is that Take2 (the publisher) were really obsessed with the release being a surprise, at the cost of far too much.
    
    For one, this meant that basically every job listing for the game never described what the game you’d even work on was. Most of the devs they got were juniors who:
    
    were willing to sign more restrictive contracts without the confidence to push back
    
    did not necessarily know much about the game, or even the genre (supposedly, besides Nate, only 1 dev was an active KSP1 player and another was aware of the game but never really played)
    
    this game was their first sizeable project
    
    For two, it meant that a lot of management roles were taken up by people from Take2 to enforce the secrecy (who also saw KSP as having franchise potential, but that’s a rant for another day). Few of them intimately understood what makes us dorky nerds enthusiastic about KSP.
    
    This is also part of the reason they avoided talking to the KSP1 devs; they were afraid of some of them even hinting that a sequel was in the works. As to why they continued to not talk to them after announcing the game I’m not sure. Perhaps they were afraid they’d tell the uncomfortable truth that the game was making the same development mistakes as KSP1 and more.
    
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  - raltoid@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    The decision making behind this is incredibly hard for me to understand. Just a very, very nonsensical way to run the project, on paper. I wonder about the circumstances.
    
    The rights were aquired by Take-Two Interactive, who immediately wanted a sequel.
    
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- 1984@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I didnt know it was a new studio too. Thats a classic mistake.
  
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  - dustyData@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Oh, the fucks up are massive. They hired a new studio, but also, they pulled the funding then the project without warning. Then they poached the devs, forcing the studio to close and sending them to a newly funded studio. Then, when it became obvious it wasn’t a massive success, they cut their funding too without warning, and sold the IP without telling the studio about it.
    
    KSP was mishandled so wildly that it should be a case study of how profit oriented management kills creativity and destroys IPs. This is why you never let the MBAs run anything.
    
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- Deceptichum@quokk.au ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  What new things did C:S2 add? It felt like a slight graphical and qol improvement at best.
  
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Konraddo@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
A great product does not necessarily mean there is a winning formula though. We have a trash sequel when the new game does not do something that the existing game does. Even worse, the existing features are locked behind additional payment, so why would players not continue to play the existing game?

KSP 2 - Let’s forget the technical disaster. A lot of features are missing at the start. You could argue that it’s in early access, but why would I pay for a product that does less? Then we add in the many bugs and performance issues, and you know it’s game over.

Cities Skylines 2 - Again, you can’t do everything you already can in CS1. Plus, the first game is supported by a huge number of mods. There’s really no reason to play the new title. Again, it does not perform any better.

This is a weird take but I think remake or remastered these days are more like sequels than sequels, just because they keep the story and mechanics.

I find that game developers or many businesses try to reinvent the wheel when there’s no reason to. Say the Subnautica sequel, why waste money on voice over, add a land mass, cut the beloved submarine, shorten the story and overall map size, all that. I will never understand and sincerely hope the next Subnautica title does not reinvent the wheel.

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- SwampYankee@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  Cities Skylines 2 - Again, you can’t do everything you already can in CS1. Plus, the first game is supported by a huge number of mods. There’s really no reason to play the new title. Again, it does not perform any better.
  
  CS2 looks and performs better than the original now that a lot of the bugs have been squashed and optimizations are in place (in my experience, anyway). Its memory management in particular is way better than CS1. I don’t get the simulation slow down to the same extent that I did in CS1 as the population increases.
  
  The new road tools alone are reason enough for me to never go back to CS1. The service building upgrades are an added feature that’s a big plus as well. I also find that the economy is a little more functional and transparent than in CS1 (again, after multiple patches).
  
  I don’t find the lack of bike lanes, quays, or modular industry to be so important as to ruin my enjoyment of what is otherwise a state of the art city building game.
  
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- 1984@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I wouldnt go that far. Skylines 2 has a new game engine. If it wouldnt have turned out to be incredibly slow, it would have been a very successful launch.
  
  And I cant imagine anyone buying Skylines 2 if it used the same engine. Then it truly would have been no point. The new engine was supposed to make cities more beautiful and more realistic. They just didnt manage to make it fast.
  
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Deestan@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
In order:

Overscoped

Wrong people in charge on all levels

Unfocused

This turned out ok?
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- Shiggles@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I would sub in like maybe Darkest Dungeon 2 over Frostpunk? Less well received but still better than any of the other three. Both were distinct changes of pace, darkest dungeon just sold its soul to the epic games store and lost the bond you formed with characters over a long campaign in exchange for the roguelite shorter runs.
  
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- glimse@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Frostpunk 2 is great. I think it’s way harder than 1 but maybe that’s just because I haven’t sunk nearly the same hours in
  
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  - Pheonixdown@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I had a decent time with it and probably would’ve played a 2nd run had the game not failed me because every faction (including the rebelling one) was too happy to pass the final law or whatever. They probably fixed that by now, but it was pretty souring.
    
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SwampYankee@mander.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
KSP2 is a unique situation, there are no improvements coming because the studio was shut down. I’m not sure the others belong alongside it. I have the most experience with CS2 and I can say confidently, even at launch, it was better than the original in a lot of ways. It was buggy and unoptimized, and lacked content, and it deserved the criticism it got for those reasons. Since then, most of the bugs have been ironed out, performance is way better, and they’ve released a bunch of content packs, several of the most substantial ones for free. Even at launch, I never wanted to go back to CS1 just because of how much better the road tools are. Now? No contest. CS2 is a great city builder.

On the one hand, I’m glad for the pressure that people with less patience than I have are applying to these companies to release their games in a better state. On the other, I think there’s a lot of unwarranted criticism and vitriol that goes along with it that’s disappointing to see.

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Baggie@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
So I’ve been playing Tropico 4 for a bit, and it looks pretty good. You’re always zoomed out, so you don’t need to have more than like 8 polygons for a limb.

I literally could not run cities Skylines 2 or KSP 2 at a good frame rate. Everything was modelled incredibly well and looks great, but that doesn’t mean shit if I can’t run the game. I strongly suspect that’s a big contributing factor.

In addition to this, they’re going to against their biggest competitors: the previous game. It’s literally the same game with more content, runs incredibly well by comparison, has a huge mod library, and is much cheaper to boot. Might not be as pretty, but it actually might not matter given what you’re playing.

I think there’s probably a lot of issues that contribute to this to be honest, but it feels like at it’s core it’s a fools errand to begin with.

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