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[The artful mincer]

Can people who say it doesn't look like DLC finally stop lying to themselves now?

We now know why it does

No.

I hated on GOT long before it was cool to do so but this argument is fucking retarded.

DLCs are DLCs because of the amount of content they have, they are expected to be smaller and therefore cheaper than full price titles. THAT'S IT! It has nothing to do with graphics improvemnts, features added or anything else

GOY is obviously gonna be a 50+ hour bloat fest similar in length to GOT so it's definitely not DLC. It's an incremental sequel like 99.9% of sequels ever released.

Maybe some of you are struggling to process that because it's been 5 years between GOY and GOT. I could sympathise with that if wasn't the case that literally every FUCKING AAA GAME from every FUCKING AAA DEVELOPER takes that long to be developed this generation.

We clear?!

 

[Doggyred]

So this game is going to basically be an asset flip because if you take inflation into account it's actually costing less to develop

 

[Dirk Benedict]

The Cell processor architecture flexing its muscles right there. Who knows what will be achieved with it at the end of PS3's gen.

Ah!
This brings back memories. Talking up the Cell Broadband Engines and all its benefits.

 

[Sanepar]

I can't understand Spiderman 2 budget. Graphics almost the same from the First. Main story has 18h only. Side content has almost nothing diff from main game.

 

[Bernardougf]

I think this is the way..lower budget with a shorter dev time.

The problems with this game for me at least its not its graphics.

 

[digimaster7]

So if it's the same budget, same project timeline, and the same number of people, that sounds like they're spending less money on the employees given inflation? If that's true, that would mean as people left the studio, they replaced them with lower paid people?

yeah, definitely only the number is similar… no way its the same set of people who made tsushima years ago because all their sallary would've increased since then

tsushima released in 2020 with 5-6 years of dev time… so it started around 2014-2015, that's a long time ago

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

I cannot wait for it to be released so we can stop having a thread on this boring ass game every five minutes.

 

[Team Skoda]

 

[Negotiator101]

The Cell processor architecture flexing its muscles right there. Who knows what will be achieved with it at the end of PS3's gen.

Is that actually from the game?

 

[Astray]

So if it's the same budget, same project timeline, and the same number of people, that sounds like they're spending less money on the employees given inflation? If that's true, that would mean as people left the studio, they replaced them with lower paid people?

The far simpler solution here is they have a base to build on and can get content and assets done much quicker than before. Like consider that the trees the sky boxes etc can all be brushed up and reused.

This is actually the way the vast majority of games that people like here are made, iteration that tries to figure out new ways to use what's already been made.

 

[bitbydeath]

I can't understand Spiderman 2 budget. Graphics almost the same from the First. Main story has 18h only. Side content has almost nothing diff from main game.

It's because these sites often leave out the quiet part.

300M was spent by Insomniac over the lifetime of Spider-Man 2's development.

Big difference.

 

[Kuranghi]

It's because these sites often leave out the quiet part.

300M was spent by Insomniac over the lifetime of Spider-Man 2's development.

Big difference.

Can you elaborate on what that means?

 

[LectureMaster]

Ghost of Tsushima cost around $60 million, so the sequel also had a similar budget.

---

Source is the paywalled Game File interview with Sucker Punch

The Sucker Punch interview

Ahead of PlayStation’s biggest release of 2025, Ghost of Yotei, I chatted with Sucker Punch studio co-founder Brian Fleming: talking Ghost, Sony deals, sequel-making and the elephants in the room

www.gamefile.news

 

[bitbydeath]

Can you elaborate on what that means?

It included all their teams which worked on numerous projects at the time.

Including:
Spider-Man Remaster
Ratchet and Clank
Venom
Wolverine

And other titles yet to be announced, X-Men etc

 

[Radical_3d]

 

[pulicat]

Is that actually from the game?

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Can people who say it doesn't look like DLC finally stop lying to themselves now?

We now know why it does

The first game was a new game from a newly created IP...this on was built under that foundation like most sequels. a DLC that costs 60 million? Are you okay?

 

[kazuyamishima]

pulicat doubling down lately on anything Sony related is something never seen before.

Is his paying from Nintendo increasing or something?

 

[Represent.]

And God of War Ragnarok still took 4 years to make. Almost like that's at least how long it takes to make a AAA game.

Ragnarok took heat for it too. Not for the length of the development time, but for the lack of ambition.
it was also the most un-inspiriing and non ambitious game, tech wise Santa Monica ever put out

The first game was a new game from a newly created IP...this on was built under that foundation like most sequels. a DLC that costs 60 million? Are you okay?

Its a derivative sequel. what exactly do you think looks ambitious about it?

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Its a derivative sequel. what exactly do you think looks ambitious about it?

New character, new story , more moves, more weapons, new locations, etc...what else do you need? Not every sequel needs to be MGS >> MGS2 kind of jumps to be good sequels lol.

Otherwise all Ratchet & Clank games are also "derivative sequels" or the latest 2 Zelda games, or plenty other sequels.

 

[Represent.]

New character, new story , more moves, more weapons, new locations, etc...what else do you need? Not every sequel needs to be MGS >> MGS2 kind of jumps to be good sequels lol.

Otherwise all Ratchet & Clank games are also "derivative sequels" or the latest 2 Zelda games, or plenty other sequels.

That's fine for most devs... But not from Sony 1st Party. We should be holding them to a higher standard.. I do.

1st Party are the ones that should be pushing the console, and Sony should be using their own studios to make games that act as showcases to justify their PRO console

Not just low budget low effort shit like this. Sony 1st party should all be in competition with each other trying to out do each other. They used to be like that. Now they just move and operate like any random 3rd party. They dont even make the best looking games on their own platform anymore.

 

[mayham2199]

No.

I hated on GOT long before it was cool to do so but this argument is fucking retarded.

DLCs are DLCs because of the amount of content they have, they are expected to be smaller and therefore cheaper than full price titles. THAT'S IT! It has nothing to do with graphics improvemnts, features added or anything else

GOY is obviously gonna be a 50+ hour bloat fest similar in length to GOT so it's definitely not DLC. It's an incremental sequel like 99.9% of sequels ever released.

Maybe some of you are struggling to process that because it's been 5 years between GOY and GOT. I could sympathise with that if wasn't the case that literally every FUCKING AAA GAME from every FUCKING AAA DEVELOPER takes that long to be developed this generation.

We clear?!

It's insane people on a gaming forum need this explained to them.

 

[Loomy]

No.

I hated on GOT long before it was cool to do so but this argument is fucking retarded.

DLCs are DLCs because of the amount of content they have, they are expected to be smaller and therefore cheaper than full price titles. THAT'S IT! It has nothing to do with graphics improvemnts, features added or anything else

GOY is obviously gonna be a 50+ hour bloat fest similar in length to GOT so it's definitely not DLC. It's an incremental sequel like 99.9% of sequels ever released.

Maybe some of you are struggling to process that because it's been 5 years between GOY and GOT. I could sympathise with that if wasn't the case that literally every FUCKING AAA GAME from every FUCKING AAA DEVELOPER takes that long to be developed this generation.

We clear?!

Seriously.

Like, I would love to go from Canada to Australia in 5 hours. But with the technology and services available today, it takes about 20 hours. I would love sequels to AAA games to come out in 2 years or less, but with the technology and services available today, that's not always possible.

 

[Durin]

I'm fine with it, the escalating budgets have done dick to tangibly innovate core gameplay systems across many of these AAA series, and enough of them that push fidelity are giving me broken performance in return.

The game's art style looks better than many other AAA games to me anyways, but gameplay hasn't evolved much, and nothing they've shown with the story hooks me. Hopefully they make the open-world more compelling this time.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Otherwise all Ratchet & Clank games are also "derivative sequels" or the latest 2 Zelda games, or plenty other sequels.

Rachet & Clank and TOTK are very derivative. I mean TOTK is even worse because it isn't an asset flip, the majority of the game uses the exact same world as BOTW. Same textures, same music. What do people want from sucker punch? The kinda games that pushed the ps4 to its limits at their time like infamous second son and ghost of Tsushima. This looks like every other Sony sequel this gen, lazy ass shit. Games that use the same engine as the previous game and barely pushing the ps5 (like cross gen games). And that's just on a tech level, you still got way too much asset reuse. And writing has constantly been a fucking dumpster fire for other Sony games, i expect the same for this.

 

[pulicat]

Sucker Punch vs GameFreak( Pokemon scarlet and violet developer ) on PS5

 

[Represent.]

Sucker Punch vs GameFreak( Pokemon scarlet and violet developer ) on PS5

a damn shame.

1st party should be leading the way every single time

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Sucker Punch vs GameFreak( Pokemon scarlet and violet developer ) on PS5

I'm sorry but this comparison makes no sense, literally.
One is aiming for more realistic visuals and the other one isn't, which is Ghost of Yotei.

Also...gotta love the selective gif to try and make the game look terrible when you could do much better:

 

[Perrott]

Truly next-gen SSD shit right there.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Well you can pay antifa members in bus tickets and bricks, so not that surprising.

 

[Katatonic]

All I know is that I was just playing GoT and it looks and plays insane on the Pro. Even if GoY slightly improves on that, it's gonna be awesome.

 

[SlimySnake]

Sucker Punch vs GameFreak( Pokemon scarlet and violet developer ) on PS5

Sucker punch should just resign. This is embarrassing. I wonder what changed in five years that made everyone at SP become so lazy and mediocre. They used to care about pushing graphics. Did everyone just get up and quit?

 

[Danny22]

How is reduced budget a good thing btw? Why do you people buy your expensive ass consoles, hang out in forums, buy the latest games, are enthusiast as hell if you just want subpar 'more content' sequels? Money is what gives that extra production quality oomph. And Even if they reduced the launch price by a measly 20 dollars, why would you be satisfied given Sony, the creator of these expensive console, barely releases games anymore. I'd rather they charge more to the US (they already do in the rest of the world) than this 'no increasing the budget even if the original game was a hit'.

I'd also understand if it was a situation like astro bot but Sony isn't Nintendo. Reduced budgets mean more ubisoft copy and pasted 'quality over quantity' approach, not a focus on risky innovative projects. PS2 Sony is long gone.

What's depressing to me is how so many people just want the game to fail, regardless of the quality. They don't even want to give it a try.
It's really sad.

Anyway it's nice to see that the team has managed to keep the costs down.
For me the graphics look fantastic, most importantly to me is I hope the performance is rock solid

How did this series go from 'lets upvote it to oblivion until its competing with an obviously superior TLOU 2 and then complain it didn't get goty' to 'lets hope it fails' with just two entries.
Murican culture wars are like a drug to permanently online. Wind blows in differrent directions and they go crazy proving the majority desire is the correct one, which flips all the time.

 

[PeteBull]

Sucker punch should just resign. This is embarrassing. I wonder what changed in five years that made everyone at SP become so lazy and mediocre. They used to care about pushing graphics. Did everyone just get up and quit?

We all know what changed, and its not just at SP dev studio but basically all sony studios(bluepoint and team asobi definitely humble exceptions) heads at those studios got different agenda/priority from pushing best quality product like that had back in ps4 times.

 

[Xbox 360 slim]

Damn WTF happen to the Marvel Spider-Man budget? non-sense even with the Marvel Fee.

Sweet baby inc

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Sucker punch should just resign. This is embarrassing. I wonder what changed in five years that made everyone at SP become so lazy and mediocre. They used to care about pushing graphics. Did everyone just get up and quit?

Its all about budget and development time that devs get.

All studios hire from same pool of developers. Its not like they hire 50 ppl from Rockstar, and suddenly they will turn every game into GTA 6.

Sony has decided that to sell consoles, they dont need to invest $200 million per SP game. Thats about it.

Give this same studio another year for polish and it will look like ps6 game.

 

[Ar¢tos]

New character, new story , more moves, more weapons, new locations, etc...what else do you need? Not every sequel needs to be MGS >> MGS2 kind of jumps to be good sequels lol.

Otherwise all Ratchet & Clank games are also "derivative sequels" or the latest 2 Zelda games, or plenty other sequels.

That is exactly the problem.
It's not a sequel, it's a second Ghost game. It's relation to Tsushima is the same as Final Fantasy 8 to Final Fantasy 7.
Everything is different, characters, location, dates, etc.
Specially date, the game happens 300 years later!

Yet... It looks barely different from Tsushima in nearly all aspects.

 

[Ozzie666]

So on one hand, I get why people bitch and complain.

But why does the game have to look any better? Does it not look good enough? do you enjoy seeing developers lose control of their budgets and close down? do you enjoy 5-7 year development cycles? But where are the Sony first party games??

Stop chasing graphics.

If you want to bitch about replacing the main character or agendas, that makes more sense in this case.

I'm fine with these half step games like Ragnarok, Spider Man Miles/2. etc.

 

[Fabieter]

AW2 uses real time lighting (GI) even in raster mode so they save time/money on baking as well.

I mean they could have done the same

 

[Trilobit]

Edit, wrong game

 

[vkbest]

What's your point......oh I see, Sucker Punch is American so High Budget/Long Development/Average Results is on the menu and is expected.

American salaries are 2x to 3x compared to polish salaries in the same job. 3x to 5x compared to Chinese developers.

 

[SamuraiEdge]

I want SuckerPunch to do another Infamous please. Second Son was too good.

 

[ZehDon]

Concord flops and the rest of their devs have to make up for it. Brutal.
Can't wait to see which games get lower budgets once Fairgame$ and Marathon crater.

 

[Kikorin]

The thing is that it not only looks the same as the first one, but give a worst impression because of a more uninspired art-style and other games looking better than when the first one released on PS4.

But considering the multiplatform approach and handheld coming from Sony too, heaving more affordable games hardware wise seems a worth choice for the future.

 

[Bojji]

American salaries are 2x to 3x compared to polish salaries in the same job. 3x to 5x compared to Chinese developers.

And they have those studios in the most expensive part of the country:

+ highest rents and cost of living.

Sony needs to buy/open up studios across Europe and in Asia. Cheaper games and much less woke push (or even zero).

Concord flops and the rest of their devs have to make up for it. Brutal.
Can't wait to see which games get lower budgets once Fairgame$ and Marathon crater.

Marathon is probably expensive as fuck, entire useless Bungie is...

 

[Synless]

Honestly, they will be lucky I buy it at all, even on sale.

My hype for this game nosedived… that's saying a lot considering there hasn't been a Sucker Punch game in the past 20+ years I didn't own day one, let alone considering not buying all.

 

[dope4goldrope]

Once you adjust for inflation over 5 years since the original's release, using some of the most conservative estimates this equates to a 20% budget cut relative to the original title and probably closer to 30-40%.

The original sold 13+ million copies, WTF Sony?!

 

[Physiognomonics]

Sucker punch were their best when they were creative with superheroes powers. Where is their creativity put into with those AC clones? Story?

I just hope they won't do a third and be back to Infamous next. At least those games deserve a remake.

 

[MCasey]

Love reading all the negative comments about a game that they haven't even played yet. Truly next level stuff here.

 

[SkylineRKR]

I am not looking forward to this game that much but whats the problem? They release a sequel after 5 years, factoring in covid too, and they kept the budget at reasonable levels. Isn't that like, the point? This industry suffers from too long development times and ridiculous budgets. 5 years for a similar looking sequel is too long as well, but they're here. Maybe it could've been 3 without the pandemic inbetween, idk.

That the game seems to be a half step like Ragnarok and Spider Man 2 is separate problem. This is how Sony studios roll these days. I'd like if Santa Monica got out and just blatantly released God of War 4, based on the GoW3/Ascension blueprint instead of these fucking walking simulators.