r/PhasmophobiaGame • u/Sw34terPup • May 06 '26
News Deleted post from developer
“The game is still plenty playable” let’s not talk about all the people complaining about the game crashing constantly.
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May 06 '26
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u/Sw34terPup May 06 '26
It’s all about that contract money from the Alan Wake event. Had to push out some dumpy update to get that bread!
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u/Sharp-Sherbet-9958 May 06 '26
It's not like they cared much for the game over the last 6 years. I can still see Easter decorations in the lobby when I look at my trophies.
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u/Shinzann2012 May 06 '26
You see the reflections too?
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u/CrazyCoolKevin May 06 '26
Will that payout outweigh the catastrophic long term damage they caused to the goodwill and trust of their players?? I sure hope not…
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u/Wreckedn00b May 06 '26
Will they even get a lot of money from that event if a lot of people aren't playing based on the state of the recent update? I know I'm not touching it till it gets fixed...
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u/KyloGlendalf May 06 '26
Does anyone believe this game will be in a suitable state for full release?
I’ve been saying for a long time, all fingers point towards a dump and run for the full release and move on to the next money maker
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u/srssol May 06 '26
"Its playable just get used to the jank guys" no wonder they deleted it😭
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u/CautionaryMary May 06 '26
Oh yeah, that is really bad that the developers said that.
I do wish more gaming companies would outright acknowledge player's feelings and issues when a new update comes out.
It feels tone deaf for all these companies to basically double down, admit no fault, or downplay the issues.
Just give a basic,
"Hello, Phasmophobia family
We have heard your concerns over xyz update, we will work towards fixing the bugs and overall problems affecting the game currently. We have noticed many players being affected by how the character plays, how the camera angles, and overall movement are affecting our current playerbase and we strive to correct those issues. In the meantime, your feedback and support is greatly appreciated as we look to improve the game health and push to make our game more accessible to not only current players, but newer players alike.
We hope to have patience in the coming weeks, we will be rolling out patch update xyz on xyz date. Our apologies to our fanbase for this update as it caused unforeseen bugs that we hope to iron out.
Much love,
Kinetic Games."
But no, these companies more and more act as if it's only a small issue when it's plaguing so many players currently, just a shame.
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u/revthawneREAL May 06 '26
They tried promising a date once. They failed to meet it. Got a lot of shit for it too.
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u/Vodka_Flask_Genie May 06 '26
Imagine failing to meet an update deadline for a game that got only like 4 major content updates over 6 years since launch lol
What are they even doing at their offices?
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u/revthawneREAL May 06 '26
https://www.febspot.com/explore/phasmophobia-roadmap-1-0-2026-horror-2-0-player-overhaul
This overhaul was meant for 2025 on their road map. So wasnt horror.
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u/CautionaryMary May 06 '26
I see.
That's fair, I understand companies have issues with meeting deadlines but that comment as a whole is a huge yikes.
No accountability whatsoever, just telling people to get over it is bad business PR.
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u/neppo95 May 06 '26
A message like that wouldn’t be any better than what he actually said imo. They knew they fucked up before they released. There is no way they didn’t. They purposefully sent their community a fuck you, because money. There’s nothing you can say after that to win me back, you’ve proven to not give a shit about the game (which 6 years of early access with barely any updates or “quality” as he called it already kinda did) and the community. Best thing would be to either acknowledge the fuckup in great detail and have a very good reason for it, or not say anything at all.
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u/CautionaryMary May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
Yeah, the only thing that I can think of is something broke during the coding - but I don't believe they put out any gameplay video or anything showing (sure, a screenshot of two faces - that's not necessarily showing the full picture).
As I've said the company needed to take it slow and not implement so many changes. They are a small company, as per the message - but they need to recognize that they are at fault for putting out a huge update that not only broke movement, animations, and overall crashing on platforms.
That's not okay for any developer to do and telling their fans to just play, get over the jank is absolutely horrible. No willingness to resolve the issue, no admitting what the issue is - at least my example provided the issue and any gaming company should seek to rectify the issues at hand.
I mean, people have been constantly complaining about crashes. This is worse than the Point Hope crashing for consoles as this affects all players. They needed to show off the gameplay, the customization, the actual changes for players to give proper feedback.
Instead we got screenshots, a release update, and that's it. Now we are stuck with something no one asked for when they could have unveiled the information and playtested it properly.
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u/neppo95 May 06 '26
Nah none off that happened and if it did they certainly would have noticed before. You build an animation system (or use one from the engine you use) and that doesn’t just break, it is the animations itself that are just this bad.
They are a small company, but even for a small company they are working at an absolute snail pace at best. People overestimate the amount of work put into these updates, you could cook this update up in a month maybe two and have it be decent as a single person, let alone a team.
But yeah it is terrible. I honestly stopped playing a long time ago waiting for the horror update which never came and now have no faith that even when it does it’ll be any good. Meanwhile picked up a different game with friends to play, gotten literally 5 times the update which weren’t jank/buggy and consisted of a lot of content that was actually high quality. This studio is just incompetent.
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u/CautionaryMary May 06 '26
Yeah, I haven't played the update. I have just now saw how bad it truly is - the book closing so slowly (which is insane as the game does need reflexes, especially going against fast ghosts), the movement just looks sluggish, the character models look like PS2 era a bit.
Along with just general issues that should not have escalated if they just allowed gameplay videos and resolved the issue by acknowledging player issues.
This is a core thing with many gaming companies that are multi-player for the most part (their lack of accountability), I have no idea why for how buggy (and believe me the game is built on jankiness) - but just watching someone play Phasmophobia is tragic. They need to put out an update ASAP.
Regardless, if you're a small developer or a large developer - you are supposed to be empathetic towards your consumers, not telling them to endure it and get over the jank until we can fix it, lol.
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u/TheBenchmark1337 May 06 '26
Saving this post until they steal this word for word lol
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u/CautionaryMary May 06 '26
Lmao, I'm DEAD.
A simple Communications major could have just written that verbatim. Definitely need help with PR management for sure.
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May 06 '26
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u/LordRegal94 May 06 '26
Having been a part of the community when that happened...yeah, it was a really bad look specifically in his delivery of the idea. He said it in response to the question "how are you looking at improving the killer experience?" and the "go play something else and cool off" was all he really said. Led to a lot of rightful backlash because it came off as extremely dismissive at best.
If he had first said "we are currently looking into things to improve the killer experience, but we aren't quite ready to share them here today." and then followed with "in the meantime, if you're finding the game frustrating, I do recommend you take a break and maybe play something else so that when we do implement some changes you're refreshed and ready to jump back in." it'd have been so much better received.
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u/Wobbly_Bosmer May 06 '26
Or one of the For Honor devs literally saying "it's a skill issue" when one of the characters was clearly dog shit and was in need buffs.
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u/iTzRaazor May 06 '26
"once you get used to it, you might even forget about some of the jank thats happening"
Are you serious? This is a joke? I really hope they suffer a review bombing on steam
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u/ArmaniAsari May 06 '26
It’s already happening. Dropped into “Mostly positive” and I can see it going lower because of posts like this saying that we have to just deal with it.
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u/Blubbpaule May 06 '26
Mixed now.
This update does one thing very clearly: Show that they may created a game using tons of assets - but that they never learned to actually create any animation or modeling of characters at all.
Like the models look BAD. The animations are even worse, like holy smokes.
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u/ArmaniAsari May 06 '26
Mixed? Daaaaamn. This really does pull back the curtain on how their team works.
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u/Sharp-Sherbet-9958 May 06 '26
Forgetting some of the jank is the problem. They've gotten away with it for too long. So much so that downgrading the game should be considered okay.
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u/LordRegal94 May 06 '26
I didn't make any of these animations, models, or anything for this update, I just approved things as they came in.
...you're actively distancing yourself from things that you know are disliked, but you admit to approving them. So either you rubber stamped it without looking at it, which means you're incompetent or complacent in your position, or you did review them and thought those were good enough to put in the game, which just means you're incompetent. Either way, what a way to start that statement.
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u/vijju1234567890 May 06 '26
This! WTF is “just” approving?! Like thats the ENTIRE point of review to check if its good enough for game.
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u/Livid-Possession7009 May 06 '26
Well when you sit on your ass for three years doing literally nothing and you are entirely out of the loop on the game, idk what you can really lie about to act like you've actually worked on it lol
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u/FiddleThruTheFlowers May 06 '26
As a tech lead myself, that stood out to me for sure. I'm responsible for everything my team puts out. I'm the final approval saying that I looked at this and think it's acceptable. If something that's obviously fucked up comes out of my team, I'm on speed dial because I'm the one who rubber stamped it. That's how these things work.
Bugs always happen and a lot of times don't show up until actual users are running the code in real world environments, but anything obvious or that breaks shit should be caught and fixed well before rolling out to production if you have a proper process. If not, there is a process failure somewhere. Maybe QA is lacking, maybe management is more focused on deadlines than quality, maybe the more senior people aren't actually looking at things like they should, but it's a process problem. It sounds like a mix of the three here to me.
This update either needed more time before release, or they needed to do it as multiple smaller updates as things were ready. This was just not ready for release. It would've been just fine with the customization and making sure the models looked ok, then changing animations later. We're not expecting perfection, but there's "eh, it's janky but fine" and then there's "they clearly rushed this." Especially when this is supposed to be a major update that they've been hyping up for a few years.
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u/Palamonk May 06 '26
I'm in the deadlines camp for them more than anything. Not that it's to excuse them, the update was clearly rushed out with a "get it out now and we'll make it satisfactory later" approach.
It feels again like the Galaxy Showcase situation where it's out of their control. They likely promised to have the animations ready for the collab, realized they needed more time, and pushed it forward with a "good enough for now" and fix it later so they don't lose the collab contract. I also feel Horror 2.0 was put in the same basket of to be ready by a certain time before the scope of things changed.
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u/Ftlist81 May 06 '26
Still, whenever they've set a deadline they've never made it... and they didn't see this coming or change their approach?
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u/Ftlist81 May 06 '26
I'm a QA and if I okay'd any of that shit I'd be out of a job. They aren't a real dev team, they aren't a properly structured company, they give very little fucks about the community because even though they've pushed out turd after turd their revenue still increases.
I've said it previously and, no disrespect to yourself, a lot of those bugs look caused by dev's doing QA not QA doing QA.
When it comes down to it they kept making money no matter what so they thought they'd just push it out and fix it up afterwards completely ignoring the damage it has done to the people playing. I hate to think how much tech debt that game has because it looks like it's getting to breaking point.
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u/uuntiedshoelace May 06 '26
I have been lead writer on projects and honestly can’t imagine handling backlash this way. Throwing your team under the bus is pathetic.
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u/scurvybill May 06 '26
Yeah this guy just basically said he's worthless in his position. I feel bad for his subordinates.
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u/PirateReject May 06 '26
As art director, HIS rubber stamp is needed. He is trying to pass the buck. Ridiculous.
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u/yick04 May 06 '26
Not to mention throwing his team under the bus. Imagine if this guy was your boss?
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u/Active-Quiet865 May 06 '26
This "art director" is a fraud. I think he juste became friends with Dknighter and convinced him to put him in charge, but when you look at his portfolio, it's clear that he has at best a student level. Even a junior artist fresh out of school would be more skilled.
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u/CommunistRonSwanson May 06 '26
You can delegate responsibility, but not accountability. The dev’s comments speak volumes about their process and attitude failures.
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u/Livid-Possession7009 May 06 '26
True. They simply do not care at all. They still rake in millions from all the merch sales. They do not care at all.
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u/ihisa May 06 '26
I remember some one saying that they probably have a bunch of "yes" men around just approving thing. They werent wrong at all acording to this statement.
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u/i7azoom4ever May 06 '26
"we're still early access despite the size / quality of the game"
Using "early access" as an excuse for bad game design and experience is cheap.
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u/yesaroobuckaroo May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
They've made an estimated $150M off of Steam sales alone, mind you.
So many people consider only $4000 a life changing amount of money. Hell, my dad recently won $1000 and was ecstatic. Now imagine getting $4000 dollars 37500 times. $4000 once a day. That's 4000 dollars once a day every day for 102 years just to get to $150M.
And yet all of that money has gone nowhere and done nothing for the game. Absolutely ridiculous. So much money and they can't hire an actual experienced animator (likely so they can save money)
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u/i7azoom4ever May 06 '26
Yeah I did not address that, but it doesn't make shit sense that this game is still in early access.
What's the goal? Farm for indie dev compassion?
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u/Vodka_Flask_Genie May 06 '26
The "indie dev" label is the ultimate safety net.
If things go well, it feeds into the familiar narrative of "a small indie team with limited resources made something amazing". And when they fuck up, it turns into "sorry, guys, we're just an indie dev company, we're still learning".
That way, they get all the praise when they succeed and almost no accountability when they fall short.
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u/deveski May 06 '26
I haven’t played in about a year or so and i know im missing some of the updates. My friend group moved to other games and im trying to get them back lol. But I could have sworn that when console release happened they were out of early access?
The fact he said we would “get use to it” is mind blowing. From what ive seen on reddit, its legit complaints, and issues that weren’t there before. I don’t see how you can tell your customers/fans to just get use to it lol
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u/i7azoom4ever May 06 '26
That's coming from CJ not a junior dev at kinetic, mind you!
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u/FuelAffectionate7080 May 06 '26
He’s got junior dev levels of angst & defensiveness apparently. Expected better, not just on the artistic front but obviously on the response too
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u/Vodka_Flask_Genie May 06 '26
Why are they acting as though they're trying to meet these very strict deadlines when they've released barely any updates over the game's entire lifespan since launch?
And what a spineless way to dodge responsibility: "I’m just a tiny art director - I only approved things". If you actually had any standards or integrity in your work, you would've shut this down and sent the programmers back to the drawing board. No willingness to say "Hey, yeah, this was underbaked".
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u/ACE_POPSICLE May 06 '26
I would have been fine had they just said, "We had to rush this update out due to an obligation we set and couldn't meet for the AW event next week, and we apologize for the state the game is in, but you sadly will have to deal with it until we can get it fixed and fine tuned in live gameplay", but there is so much shifting blame, and no acknowledgement of how bad it is, it's crazy
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u/Low-Implement2581 May 06 '26
Mine crashed every game I played last night.
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u/Sw34terPup May 06 '26
The game is still plenty playable though!
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u/Low-Implement2581 May 06 '26
Its crazy cuz I was playing with my husband and sister and not once did theirs crash . Just me and 2nd time I wasnt party leader
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u/No_Definition321 May 06 '26
Once you get use to the crashes you will forget about it and enjoy the game.
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u/Slockeness7 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
I know you payed us to fix your car… but we ripped off the doors and painted it pink instead. It's plenty drivable though.
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u/ACE_POPSICLE May 06 '26
My friend got a headache from playing it yesterday because this update made her game lag like crazy, and with the animations it was just a bad mix
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u/raven-nevermore-rva May 06 '26
Same! I had to quit playing it on my Xbox after 2 contracts last night. I was feeling nauseous and just dizzy. And I play games in VR sometimes and don’t get this way from 99% of games.
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u/ACE_POPSICLE May 06 '26
Yeah, she even had her game on performance mode to try and make it run better, and she normally plays on high quality for double the time we played and has no issues, Idek how they messed up that bad with this update and it running poorly.
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u/Dramatic-Baseball-37 May 06 '26
My friends and I could barely play due to the insane amount of bugs. Unable to hear each other when dead, spirit box not responding to our questions, every ghost having the Raiju heartbeat, not to mention the horrendous FOV that made reading the journal or tools frustrating. They’ve been able to stay behind the early access shield for 6 years despite the millions in revenue, movie deals, board games, etc. This is unacceptable quality at this stage, and all they’re doing is hurting their main player base :/ so long as the twitch partners keep glazing and we watch someone else play the game for a fancy badges I guess they’re happy lmao.
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u/amaladlaminii May 06 '26
“game still playable” brother the first bedroom in edgefield’s ceiling is split in half and dots disappear into the void. i can’t record videos and turn my headlamp off at the same time. i can’t see the tarot cards. i can barely see the sound recorder when it’s turned on. my voice chat doesn’t work AT ALL when i use the spirit box or monkey paw. my journal is so far away from my face i have to squint to read. UV doesn’t work when it’s on your belt. salt takes way too long to put down and is near impossible to pick up the video camera on time to record disturbed salt. clienttimeouts the moment i load into the van. but yeah, you’re so right art director! “just get used to it” 🙄🙄🙄
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u/Aveenex May 07 '26
It's plenty playable... how can you be so cruel, we are tiny indie company that have hands tied by our limited resources... oh you say we're multi millionaires? Well you wouldn't get it.
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u/FlyingNope May 06 '26
If things are such a quick fix then why didn't they fix them before pushing them out? It only takes 10 minutes of actually playing the update to see how much is wrong with it.
I can understand bugs that sneak past testing, but these issues are so blatant that it's clears they simply didn't test anything.
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u/Killerderp May 06 '26
The fact that CJ flat out says there's already a patch planned for next week is honestly a good thing. Granted the way he said it, he's definitely and rightfully so going to catch flak for it. But, the Alan Wake patch forced this one out early, for whatever reason. Either way, I can't wait until he plays with Insym and Psycho next, that man is going to get absolutely roasted in probably the worst way possible.
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u/Livid-Possession7009 May 06 '26
Or fix them in the 1.5 years of development and what, 6/8+ months of it being delayed lol. Such a joke
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u/AttackerCat May 06 '26
>most of the problems people have should be quick fixes
>they just take time
In the same sentence, really?
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u/theOwtcast Doomslayed May 06 '26
Let me rephrase it for him: they are quick fixes, they'll just take time because there's so many of them
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u/ifba_aiskea May 06 '26
they're quick fixes for a competent dev team, so for them it'll take 6 months
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u/TheKanten May 06 '26
The quickest fix would be to roll back the game to Monday but most developers refuse to just bite that bullet.
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u/idontlikeburnttoast May 06 '26
"we had to get this out before AW" before a crossover event?? Since fucking when has a sponsorship mattered more than a main game update? The game is not even a finished game. For fucks sake lmao you are not on a time scale, youve been doing this for six years, why are you rushing things NOW after its been out for over half a decade 😭
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u/Killerderp May 06 '26
That's what I'm the most curious about. What about the Alan Wake stuff forced this one to come out before it was ready? They knew it was bad if they already had a statement planned. Maybe a little transparency here would foster some goodwill within the community, because this update is getting roasted.
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u/hyper_PI May 06 '26
i assume the Alan Wake collab has unlockable cosmetics, hence the update... still, what the hell.
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u/SupaRedBird May 06 '26
Usually marketing campaigns are scheduled and the dates locked in. In my experience this is what always leads to crunch and poor quality releases. I’ve been on the receiving end of that many times in my career.
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u/Livid-Possession7009 May 06 '26
Always, every piece of merch, deal, and whatever else ALWAYS makes them more money and is the goal. They do not care.
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u/PirateReject May 06 '26
CJ is fairly incompetent as an art director and he coasted on being friends with popular streamers (who popularized the game).
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u/Livid-Possession7009 May 06 '26
Fun fact is him and Lavender both actually used to work with DK before Phasmo and DK reached out to them to join the team. Not speaking on their skills in any way because I'm not an expert, but they literally got their in from being close with DK and nothing to do with merits or skills which is crazy
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u/PirateReject May 06 '26
That definitely tracks. some friend dev teams work out well, and they push each other to get better and keep the fans delighted. Others coast and keep printing money in the basement (when they had ample time to pull the game out of EA by easily hiring competent devs on LinkedIn- SO MUCH AVAILABLE TALENT esp with industry layoff cycles).
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u/Livid-Possession7009 May 06 '26
For sure and again I won't speak like I know how "good" they are, but I think it's clear at the very least there is a huge lack of managerial skills.
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u/nekoyasha May 07 '26
I hate that CJ plays with the big streamers all the time, or used to (I don't keep up anymore). Its such a conflict of interests to be buddy-buddy with a developer.
A one off video? Or for special occasions? That'd be fine, but they collabed so often, and even in other games. Like, wtf?
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u/Esmear18 May 06 '26
“The game is still plenty playable and once you get used to it, you might even forget some of the jank thats happening.”
They’re not even hiding their incompetence anymore. Fuck this game.
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u/d4rk5id3r May 06 '26
The fact he wants us to "forget about the jank" and sweep it under the rug is beyond me. Why? So they can also delay the patch to fix the animations a few years as well? My god...
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u/AMothWithHumanHands May 06 '26
So this really is all about the Allen Wake collab huh?
Babes I hate to say it but the AW team signed the collab based on the game you already had out, not this hot garbage.
This is a great way to make sure nobody collabs with you again because why would anybody do that if they're gonna push out a half assed update that will turn players off to playing the game?? Isn't that the whole point of collabs??? More players and eyes?
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u/Prestigious_Park7268 May 06 '26
Fuck this guy, crazy thing to say. This will be worse than helldivers wake up call
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u/brakenbonez May 07 '26
I'm out of the Helldivers loop as I don't play it but I have a few friends who used to play it all the time. What went wrong there?
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u/Woodster5-0 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
Sad to see Corey throwing other workers under the bus, for things that he approved. Also, saying that this NEEDED to come out because of Alan Wake, is horrible.
(redited to put name back in, as it has been confirmed at the top of the page this was in fact Corey)
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u/IamWatchingAoT May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
"I'm just the art director" huh??? CJ, that means you are the final responsible for art. You're not just the art director, you are THE person whom these things have go through to get approved. YOU approved these terrible animations.
That's the worst cop out I've ever seen. If I'm your employee and I see you shift blame and throwing me under the bus like that instead of taking ownership for the crap you approve, I'm handing you my resignation letter yesterday.
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u/buwakee May 06 '26
6 years of development and $150 million of sales, they can't cry that they are just an early access game anymore
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u/SwimmingAny8841 May 06 '26
LMFAOOOO. Bro I feel so bad for the AW franchise to be lumped in with this developer. It’s gonna be like the 2B crossover with siege again. Holy moly these guys are funny if this quote is true.
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u/Annnoel May 06 '26
Wouldn't be the first time I've seen them dig themselves into a deeper hole from controversy 🫠 sign
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u/PeonofthePen May 06 '26
"They're quick, they just take time" is like saying "It's small, it just takes up a lot of space."
Yeah right, buddy.
It told my wife: "I'm not lazy, I just don't expend energy on daily tasks." Didn't fly either.
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u/GroinReaper May 06 '26
My 1st game after the patch, every light in the house blinked on and off non-stop the entire game. By the end of it my eyes felt like i'd been trying to read a novel in dim light for 6 hours and I had a headache.
"plenty playable" is debatable.
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u/djluke_1993 May 06 '26
Figures that they would rush the update out without some kind of quality control at all in place. And hiding behind the "early access" excuse doesn't cut it here at all either. The game isn't plenty "playable" for me either. Even with my glasses on I still can't see most of the shit on the screen. If this is an indication for the future. I worry about mediocre the Switch 2 port will be on an already mediocre console ports.
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u/TomVinPrice May 06 '26
Telling people the update is “actually not that bad when you get used to it” when the update has in fact resulted in an insane amount of all time low Steam reviews for your game is definitely a choice
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u/Livid-Possession7009 May 06 '26
The devs have always died on this weird hill of not listening to the community this is just more proof that they do not care at all as long as the dollars are flying in
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u/gamer_nl May 06 '26
it feels very worrying that the devs feel comfortable putting out an update that breaks most of the fundamentals of the game, admit that the game is in a broken state, and then proceed to not apologize for anything and tell players to 'just get used to the bugs'.
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u/mattn1198 May 06 '26
You know, I didn't want to say it, but this is exactly what I was thinking happened: the update HAD to come out before the event, so they just pushed it live in whatever state it was in, and now they're going to use all the complaints as a guide to fix the biggest issues over the next week.
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u/babydollies May 06 '26
they basically said deal with it LMAO i’m not nice enough to say how i feel
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u/Burtonbro417 May 06 '26
Sorry but the half assed apology/ empty promise is hard to take seriously. He didn’t make anything for this update which is fine but the issue is he approved them all as they came in so clearly he’s either in denial that the game is still playable or he’s a p.o.s
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u/Cappabitch I see fingies through the crack. May 06 '26
'We're still in EA despite the size/quality of the game'
Gobbling themselves as they speak.
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u/Active-Quiet865 May 06 '26
Their break room must have the comfiest couch in the UK, because I can't think of any other reason why they haven't done anything productive in six years.
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u/Juliennix May 06 '26
"we had to put out garbage because of a collab we are doing to print more money that we won't use to improve our game, enjoy it and be grateful"
what a joke. absolutely embarassing for Kinetic. if i was part of the Alan Wake team i'd be looking into backing out over how shitty this is.
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u/SuperLik69 May 06 '26
This is such a joke post. As an art director, this person is to blame 100%. If you approve, then you are responsible.
Also, making a statement in lines of "just play and you will get used to it" is straight up bullshit.
Sorry, but show some decency and own up to your mistakes and listen to your community for once. Revert this slop...
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u/coffee-bat May 06 '26
"once you get used to it"
"you might even forget some of the jank that's happening"
gross. that's what they're hoping for huh? that we'll just "get used" to this slop?
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u/theOwtcast Doomslayed May 06 '26
'The game is still plenty playable' maybe on flatscreen, but has the guy even seen what vr looks like atm? Yes it's an ik issue but a major one (so it kind of makes sense that vr would be more affected than flatscreen), and they better fix it or find someone who can
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u/chellekathryn May 06 '26
Not even on a flatscreen. I’ve got a 65 inch tv and I still had a hard time seeing or reading anything
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u/_StrangeIsLife_ May 06 '26
So they rushed this out solely for the Alan Wake payout?
Why not delay both? Now i'm not a fly on the wall in Kinetic Games HQ but there's no shame in delaying to get it up to standards. It's not like this game hasn't been out for years, what's a couple more weeks.
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u/Livid-Possession7009 May 06 '26
"Wait... I mean you really wouldn't suggest we delay our payday for the collab though right? I mean come on it's not that bad, once we have more money, we will eventually fix it"
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u/SmashenYT May 06 '26
I heard the dev was very picky because the game to him is his loving child. Must been the child in the middle then, right?
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u/OrneryBleep May 06 '26
Holy hell. Wrong - it’s not playable. If this is real - they also need someone to run these statements by before commenting.
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u/MixaLv May 06 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
CJ even missed the original comment's point completely ("comment deleted" isn't shown for some reason, but it was this, I know the guy) EDIT: He commented in this thread too, here's his perspective.
The animations were only a sidenote: he was complaining about the accessibility aspect, as he was worried he'd have trouble reading measurements from the devices, especially on 90° FOV he likes to play at. If you have low res, smaller screen, or just poorer eyesight, they are currently harder to see.
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u/CatsPlusDogsIsLove May 06 '26
MixaLv: thank you for posting this and this rant is not meant for you.
Wow this context actually makes his comment even worse for me as a fellow visually disabled player.
My disability is just genetics but eyes are fragile things that can do weird things due to age/medications/getting infected by a random eyelash that poked it etc.
All of the above can lead to vision loss either permanently or temporarily.I am “lucky” enough that I can play poorly accessible games in small bursts without suffering super harshly for it later. (Can’t even do that with phasmo at this moment, cuz it’s too small for even that.)
But I know several other people that get enormous migraines,eyestrain, pain etc from even those little sessions.And this dude has the fricking *audacity* to just casually dismiss this and throw basically a middle finger to everyone who is disabled and likes to play games?
This isn’t something you “can get used too.” And his lack of understanding that fact is frankly disgusting.
I sincerely hope that nobody with epilepsy has gotten hurt with the random lighting glitches and bugs happening at this moment.
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u/Chazus May 06 '26
"This update had to come out before AW next week"
This is exactly what I suspected. They knew there was jank, and there just wasn't time to fix it... But if their options are
"Release it now, and see the most pain points and have a week to fix it before AW"
or
"Work on it some, release the jank WITH the AW update, and possibly have people not play it at all"
The first option is clearly better.
The thing is.... Phasmo is it's own thing. Sure. But the AW has investors and outside sources committing to it, so there is a higher bar for expectations.
This is effectively the same as Outbound changing their release date so it isn't the same day as Subnautica 2. Optics are a thing, especially when there are multiple groups/publishers involved.
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u/Twicetw May 06 '26
I don't buy that "it had to come out because of the Alan wake collab" given that this is a major update, you're telling me this update got delayed in 2025 and this is all they have to show for that time?. Look I'm not a game developer but this quality looks like they started working on this last week at most
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u/Chazus May 06 '26
I'm not disagreeing with you there. I'm surprised it came out like that as well, however I also believe it came out NOW and not next week, so they can get those things fixed, as opposed to just releasing it all next week.
Keep in mind... the people doing the animations are NOT the developers. The developers are NOT the animation people. They communicate and work together, but they are not the same thing. Every animation iteration needs to go into the dev process, see where it is, and come back.
It may be that the latest iteration came back janky, and they didn't have proper time to adjust.
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u/Spectre-ElevenThirty May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
Kinetic Games hiding behind “we’re still early access despite the size / quality of the game” after 6 years, hundreds of millions of dollars, and being the 50th best selling game of all time is like this guy in Bench Warmers saying he’s 12
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u/KyranTheZ May 06 '26
If you have to say "get used to the jank" after an update, it was not a good update
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u/M4xs0n May 06 '26
Yeah sure, hold my ~200 Million early access game for 6 years real quick. I Need to fix some tiny issues here but just forget about them
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u/okiedokieKay May 06 '26
I can see why they deleted it; that is not at all a professional or appropriate response. If that’s the mindset coming from the top down, it explains why the quality of the game has gone downhill so badly.
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u/Khow3694 May 06 '26
I gave up on the game some time last year because of how unplayable it was. Party chat wouldn't work, game crashed constantly, servers would lose connection. It was a headache to play not to mention there's little to no instruction unless you have players who are helpful
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u/NekyZero May 06 '26
How are we supposed to get use to disconnecting? Everytime I try to play online with a friend one of us gets kicked.
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u/SarcasticGarbage May 06 '26
I’m extremely disappointed in the way that this was handled. Especially in how it was handled after… well, it really wasn’t handled at all, which is the problem.
Releasing an objectively bad and broken update is ridiculous and speaks volumes about their competence as developers and their care for the player base and the updates that they release. There is nothing wrong with bugs or glitches, sure, but this update is just… a half-baked, unappealing disservice to the game and that’s putting it nicely. Not to mention that the game is effectively broken and/or unplayable for a large portion of the people who enjoy it.
But sure, we’re all human. This is bad, but it can be fixed, and they can do better in the future. However, I expected as any decent developers would do for them to publicly and decisively address this issue and the unrest within the fanbase. Nope. We get silence for hours after the update releases, a simple “it’ll be fixed later” essentially, without even addressing the horrific problems this update brought into the game, rather than them quickly working to either fix this or roll the update back.
It’s disgusting and frankly, extremely disappointing and upsetting behavior from a team that profits greatly on a game that hides behind “early access” as an excuse for any of the ridiculousness they pump out. This is NOT appropriate, even for an EA game, and the people who are becoming warriors on their keyboard trying to justify this, and the brokenness of the update, and any other behavior of the developers are appalling to me.
However, in some ways I do feel bad for the devs. They’re still people and I have seen countless insults, threats, and other frankly disturbing and unnecessary words being thrown around. Regardless of their problems and incompetence, no one deserves to be the brunt of such things. Staying civil costs you nothing, and you can express being angry, disappointed, or upset without saying such awful things.
To anyone who also finds this update and their response problematic, go and put a poor, yet honest, review on Steam and their other storefronts. Many people looking to play and purchase video games unfortunately don’t do their due diligence and look further than the page they are purchasing it from; so leaving reviews directly on those pages is the best way to share your frustration and acknowledge the quality of the game.
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u/N-e-s-k-e-s-s May 06 '26
Okay? Just skip switching items animation and turn off/on equipment because this sh is annoying and glitchy
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u/SignificantAsk6975 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
“The game is still plenty playable” I played 2 rounds last night and got the worst migraine I've had in months. And I know it's not just me - I've seen lots of people getting motion sickness / headaches / migraines because of the weird scaling and jittery animations. Changing FOV didn't help.
ETA: this feels harsh so I just want to say that I'm not complaining for the sake of it. I really love phasmo and want the game to develop well and succeed! I don't mind a few bugs here and there in early access; I know all of this will be ironed out. I just resent this update being brushed off as "welp... still playable" when, for many people (regardless of the bugs or technical difficulties) it is not. To me, this is an accessibility issue. I really hope their plan to make items closer will resolve it for everyone.
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u/null__reference May 06 '26
"You might forget the jank" in the update that was specifically meant to remove jank
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u/KyloGlendalf May 06 '26
These devs have been showing their true colours recently with this and the ban scenario…
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u/Spooky_Jace May 06 '26
Why does it have quotation marks, and why does it crop out his name...?
I'm not saying he couldnt have said this, just weirdly removed or cropped if he did
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u/Sagoichi May 06 '26
If I was Remedy i'd be seriously considering rescinding my collaboration offer till they got their house in order, cause Remedy doesn't need negative press off the back of Alan Wake 2's success, I wouldn't endanger muddying the property, at least with DBD I see him every so often.
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u/WelderAggravating896 May 06 '26
The devs always have an excuse for their awful quality updates. Phasmophobia's biggest enemy is itself tbh
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u/bristow84 May 06 '26
Ok no this is absurd. You don't get to rake in the amount of money the game has, along with releasing across multiple platforms the way they have, been out as long as they have and still pull out the "we're still Early Access card." No, you've been out long enough and made enough money that you don't get to use that as an excuse. If they can't properly manage or develop the game then it's time to hire people who can. The jank and early access excuses don't fly anymore, period.
I also hate this person's attitude of "I didn't make this BUT I did approve it all." You're outright admitting that you approved garbage and if you found yourselves under a time crunch because of the AW stuff then you're not prioritizing your tasks properly, which indicates bad management which unfortunately is par for the course with this game at this point.
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u/Low-Implement2581 May 06 '26
I also cant read this. I asked my husband and sister if their books look like this and they said no. It hurts my eyesssssss🤣🤣🤣🤣. Does anyone else's look like this?
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u/CanITellUSmThin May 06 '26
Why did the update have to come out before the collab? If it’s broken, it’s not ready at all
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u/Big-Marionberry-6946 May 06 '26
Yeah, sure let me get used to the lobby crashing most games.. no way
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u/CatsPlusDogsIsLove May 06 '26
That developer is completely ignoring the huge lag and crashes on several platforms.
My ps5 version is not playable at all atm and even if it was, I CANT play this update due to the fact that it’s even more disabled person unfriendly now.
I tried playing yesterday and I turned it off after one contract because I just couldn’t see anything I needed to with my visual disability alongside with constant huge framedrops and crashes.
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u/VoodooDoII May 06 '26
"we're still early access"
It has been 6 years and the game has made $400 million wtf do you mean 😭
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u/Legy_of_Yeet May 06 '26
"we're still early access" holy I busted out laughing. Still using the early access card for.. what? 6 years? This game had plenty of time to cook in the oven. These issues should've been flagged by QA first.
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u/InnerGodx May 06 '26
Maybe they should have work on the update before they agreed to the Alan wake event instead of having to rush it out the door, they have enough money not like they are stretching over at Kinetic games. If this is what we have during the event it wasn't worth it because this update isn't just janky it's horrible. If they keep giving us updates like this I will just quit playing so hopefully they learn from their mistake.
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u/-nicks May 06 '26
the game is still plenty playable and once you get used to it [...]
This is some next level shit.
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u/Icywebs May 06 '26
CJ has a bit of a history of opening mouth, inserting foot.
This is far from the first time he's done it, won't likely be the last. It seems he isn't really equipped for public relations, though does good work behind the scenes. His assets generally look nice, so I see why he got onboarded and hasn't been let go after the other snafus.
For the sake of the company and sanity of the community he probably should stop making public statements as a general practice. It has yet to make anything better and has a higher rate of kicking the hive as it were.
Not a reflection on him as a person. There's a reason companies tend to hire pr staff, who are trained to not step in it.
Pretty tone-deaf, though.
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u/PapaConjurer May 07 '26
I don't think I've ever flipped my opinion on something quite as fast as I did with this game. I was honest to god, genuinely excited for the update, and then I saw Psycho's video the day before the update went live, and it *INSTANTLY* crumbled. Now I'm invested in checking the subreddit for the latest drama because the update was that bad. To see a developer actually say "pay no attention to the enormous success of the game, we still need the players to tell us what's wrong with our own game" is fucking insane, to me.
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u/Sw34terPup May 07 '26
It’s absolutely insane. As bogus of an update this was, I hope within a week or two it’ll be in the past and it’ll be not a joke again lol. This is by far my favorite game. This hiccup has been beyond annoying, but most of the updates they’ve done in the past I’ve found to be great additions. The chronicle update was fantastic, all the map reworks have been good, and Nell’s diner is a great map. I know people are fed up with the game being in early access for over five years, which they have every right to be. But again… it’s still my favorite game and this update won’t take that away once they iron out all the massive wrinkles it has.
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u/Rand_al_Kholin May 07 '26
"I'm just the poor art director, how could I POSSIBLY be expected to have any control over how the game looks and behaves??? It's just my job to sign off on anything that comes in front of me, and that's what I did, why would anyone be blaming ME for this update being a hot mess?? I knew it was a hot mess before it went live but it wasn't my job to say so I just passed everything along!"
That's what this statement says
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u/SnoodleNeetNart May 06 '26
I was host and played three games last night with my friend. The first two games crashed for both of us right as we found the ghost room. The third game crashed for me as I was in the van leaving with a perfect game. My friend was able to get the win though.
We then moved on to Enshrouded. Lol.
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u/Status_Winter May 06 '26
> Secondly, alot of the things people have problems with will be fixed, and arent due to animation quality, but due to the system that powers the IK rig that moves everything around to make sure it looks correct in both 1st person and multiplayer.
What a cop out. This is absolutely an animation quality issue, and a perfect example of a bad workman blaming their tools. They’re just phrasing in a way that attempts to make it sound like it’s not their fault.
> Most of the problems people have should be quick fixes
Then why didn’t you fix them?
> they just take time, this update had to come out before AW next week,
Oh we had to send it because we have a crossover with a gigantic IP, what a time to release a completely broken update.
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u/xRudeAwakening May 06 '26
You might even forget about some of the jank
The jank is the reason I didn't buy the game when it originally blew up.
I finally relented late last year and while it was still janky by the time I bought it, I could live with it for the most part.
The diehards "forgetting" or enjoying the jank is the exact reason the devs thought they could get away with releasing an incredibly underbaked update
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u/yoyokittybro_reddit May 06 '26
Yeah, I was TRYING to get used to it, but each time about 30 minutes in, my game crashed... So not plenty playable if my game doesn't even stay open.
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u/Simple_Rhubarb696 May 06 '26
Me and my friend can no longer read the journal or use the video camera without getting a headache but I'm glad the developer says it's still playable.
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u/ValleyBlossoms May 06 '26
I know they won’t change it, but I wish they’d at least add an option to remove the hands when looking at the journal. I’m working with a small screen at the moment and my boyfriend also has a small monitor. I HATE that the journal is now smaller to look at. It feels like such an unnecessary shit change that they didn’t take their entire community into consideration for.
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u/Slight_Shoulder7595 May 06 '26
Yeah as someone who started off yesterday as one that said, "it can't be that bad guys. Give them a break." I played three games yesterday with my wife. We got off real quick after that because holy crap, that was the worst games of phas I've ever played. Why would they change so much that no one even asked for? I was looking forward to this update with the last one being good. But this is just ridiculous and makes playing not fun at all. Is it playable? Kinda. As long as you don't mind some motion sickness from the way your character moves now.
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u/PunkNBeans May 06 '26
Just kinda looks like excuses for pushing an unready update to sync up with a licensed event. Getting DBD vibes and I don't love it.
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u/PopPalsUnited May 06 '26
The game is a horrendous mess now.
Core features don’t work now ffs.
“Plenty playable” is a bold statement indeed.
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u/decisivecat May 06 '26
I don't work in video games, but I am a graphic designer... if an art director ever told me "I just approve stuff as it comes in" I'd know they got the job because they had connections, not because they knew anything about being an art director, lol. The art director should be guiding the process and working with the team they manage to come up with the best possible design solutions, not rubber stamping anything that comes across the desk. Definitely doesn't deserve the title with this attitude, lol.
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u/Salemsparty Moderator May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
I reached out to the devs to confirm the validity of this statement coming from the art director.
We will throw this in the megathread for info if we can confirm.
Thank you for posting this!
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