Red Hook did decent job with Darkest Dungeon 2, even when their first roadmap had to be trashed they were open about implementing feedback and actually reworked most frustrating mechanics, so if there is one studio I trust to do good job it's them. Once the game was officially released, it was day and night between early access
I haven't heard of them either. Sounds like they are worth looking into. And that's a good point rendemption makes about comparing studios. I guess I was thinking more about market trends in which more and more studios are participating than in trying to do an apples-and-oranges comparison, but it's still worth keeping in mind.
Even timing is a factor. Who knows what lingering effects pandemic shutdowns are having as to a potential backlog of work for voice actors, or various industry strikes that might touch on the gaming industry. And, at some point in time, there has to be a return on investment or there's no future for a project at all.
Still, as a trend, it seems the gaming industry expects more and more from me as a consumer of their products. Some of that expectation has returns, so that's not all a bad thing. Like Early Access. It was a great opportunity to get the first look at BG3. On the other hand, I think the expectation was that a finalized release would be substantially more stable, which hasn't proved to be the case. Larian got my attention with BG3 Early Release. Just the title was enough for me. It earned continued attention and a product purchase by what it showed me during early release. But as of today, I can't even play the game as a persistent Act III bug means I would have to drop everything I was doing and either start a new Tav, or replay an old one.
I'm happy to heap praise on what I like as well as draw attention to what I don't. But Larian already has my money and my attention. All I'm saying is that, if they want gold stars, they need to turn in a better performance and earn them. Overly critical reviews can have a negative impact on a game or even on a studio, I am sure. But so do reviews that only talk about positives and don't mention any of the negatives, as they set up unreal expectations about what a new player is going to experience.
At any rate, I sort of trailed off into the reeds there with a little soapbox that was just my opinion and not intended to "correct" anyone else's at all. Thanks for the info on Red Hook, and maybe I've just hit a bad patch of coincidentally timed gaming problems lately that are leading me to be overly-cynical.
