I've got about 1k hours into this game. It's fun. It's cinematic. Some of the best unscripted gameplay experiences I've ever had, and some of my favorite clips I've ever recorded. I've cleared 1500+ kills in one drop, I've fought everywhere from Malevelon Creek to Meridia to Calypso to Super Earth to Oshaune.
I've stacked clankers, bugs, and squids like firewood and burned them all in democracies name.
But that's never why we're gonna lose this war.
It's just obvious at this point Arrowhead doesn't care.
It's been increasingly apparent that they don't want the same game their players do. They've been downright petty, abusive, lazy, and they create problems to then sell the solutions.
The recent modding breakthroughs have shown some of these issues, many that have been present from day one, were not fixed simply because they didn't give a crap. Some were as simple as a mouse click toggle. They just didn't care.
Remember when they said they would "Never" have a backpack minigun because the engine wouldn't allow it?
Yeah, I love getting lied to. Only for them to bust it out when Oshaune blew up in their face as a rancid, bug ridden mess. More divers dies to the bugs than the bugs.
Then I pop over to their competition in the genre of 'things have gone sideways, send four idiots!' and I see so much care and respect for their communities.
Space Marine 2: year three, still new free content dropping like nuts. oh snap, this astartes mod is super popular. Welp, you can still use our servers, just not public lobbies, but hey, go for it. We're unlocking the steam workshop to allow twelve players at once, go nuts fam!
Deep Rock: we're at year eight and still constantly dropping new and free content, and the only thing that you pay for dlc wise is paid cosmetics.
Darktide: yeah we had a rocky start, but we've ironed things out hardcore, the only premium content is skins and cosmetics, and we've listened to nearly every player suggestion and complaint, and made nearly all of them happen! Year four and still going strong!
Arrowhead: we can't make armor cosmetics changeable! Except we can, buy it now! We can't fix the AMR, here's a new one to buy! Backpack weapons will never be a thing, here's the minigun now! Whoops we put new content in warbonds, oh snap, better make the next warbonds content FOMO stuff you have to log in for or possibly miss forever!
It's just petty, it's abusive, they have a golden goose they don't care about, they're doing big standard lazy work at best, and their competition is dumpstering them at every turn. If their game wasn't the most fun coop game in a decade, it'd be dead already from their neglect, abuse of the community, and their petty, punitive nerfs alongside lazy development.
