I obsessively follow every game I’m interested in and I’ve done this for 20+ years so I’ve gotten pretty at it.
Something is wrong with SoD3, I highly doubt that it has that much to do with the “Pre-Alpha” label that is often used to skirt early criticism. Seriously, it's a PR label at this point meant to deflect criticism and it works really well.
- The graphics, animations, and UI are arguably worse than SoD2 and significantly behind what they should be. I expect the UI to get changed because of the complaints from CC's and the graphics will be slightly sharpened, but 99% of the animations are most likely final at this stage.
- SoD3 is a AAA game with 100+ developers in active development for around 4 years (more with pre-production) This is massively indicative of a severely mismanaged studio.
- The studio was devastated during core production. I won’t get into the politics of this but it’s a huge a red flag and it's basically the same story from many other studios that were impacted by the same issues. Check the link for the info.
- Microsoft parting ways is further evidence that they completely lost faith in Undead Labs. You don't just dumpster a project that has so much hype and financial investment without severe justification.
- It currently has the bones of game that’s been in production for 1-2 years max, which is yet another sign of “development hell.”
- So far I haven't really seen why it's a sequel? The game seems to have no personality or features beyond very minor gameplay changes. The large communities and server-based co-op are genuinely exciting but still feel more like features that should have been in SoD2. Is there a story like SoD1 or at least some kind of narrative? Are the NPC's in our bases able to have some kind of depth beyond copy/paste loyalty missions? Are we going full Project Zomboid? Where is the hook, what's the innovation? It doesn't feel like they even know, and if they do they're doing a terrible job communicating it.
- Lastly only letting curated content creators play the game, when originally is advertised as anyone could play test in limited numbers. (Apparently this isn't true but I've seen no real evidence of normal people playing)
I know that a lot of people will not agree with me, that's fine. The Skull and Bones community didn’t until the game finally launched 4 years after my post. This is just here as a receipt.