Hades 2 handled early access really well. The game was mechanically pretty much done, but they were still working on the rest of the story, weapons, and upgrades. The game played very similarly when I originally got it and after three content patches and the eventual launch. To your point, though, I’m honestly not even sure if I ever went back and finished the story.
Hades 1 early access got me through the pandemic lock down.
Tbh they had such a vibrant community discord, different branches for you to try if you wanted to help improve the game (“see if the technical demo runs well on your hardware”) lots of fun artwork bonuses, little surveys and votes, peeks behind the scenes, and the placeholder content was so charming too.
I loved playing the game as it was changing and getting better, even if i had to shun the Chaos Shield once they nerfed it so it wasn’t broken any more.
I also haven’t gotten to the end of Hades story content and I’m not sure i ever will.
I have no idea how many hours of playtime it would theoretically take to see every line of dialog and do everything possible in that game.
I think most games seem to handle it pretty well, actually. It’s a tough balance to strike, though. Having to carefully manage and schedule essentially two releases seems difficult. v0.5 and v1.0, where the first release is often to secure additional funding to make it the whole way; especially for indie games
Hades 2 handled early access really well. The game was mechanically pretty much done, but they were still working on the rest of the story, weapons, and upgrades. The game played very similarly when I originally got it and after three content patches and the eventual launch. To your point, though, I’m honestly not even sure if I ever went back and finished the story.
Hades 1 early access got me through the pandemic lock down.
Tbh they had such a vibrant community discord, different branches for you to try if you wanted to help improve the game (“see if the technical demo runs well on your hardware”) lots of fun artwork bonuses, little surveys and votes, peeks behind the scenes, and the placeholder content was so charming too.
I loved playing the game as it was changing and getting better, even if i had to shun the Chaos Shield once they nerfed it so it wasn’t broken any more.
I also haven’t gotten to the end of Hades story content and I’m not sure i ever will.
I have no idea how many hours of playtime it would theoretically take to see every line of dialog and do everything possible in that game.
I think most games seem to handle it pretty well, actually. It’s a tough balance to strike, though. Having to carefully manage and schedule essentially two releases seems difficult. v0.5 and v1.0, where the first release is often to secure additional funding to make it the whole way; especially for indie games