I was convinced this was going to be a dumpster fire, but I have to give them props for being so faithful to the original they're even going through development hell.

I think I'll stick with my preorder and take full advantage of the 30 days refund period too.
As much as I'd like to get back at Paradox immediately for just kicking Brian Mitsoda and the lead designer off the project like that I'm still going to give it the benefit of the doubt and hope that their undoubtedly integral contributions will remain intact and untouched in their entirety.

If I don't like what I'm playing come launch sometime 2021 - off the digital library shelf it goes.

I didn't liked the writing in Bloodlines 1 that much and I have no idea how bad or good Mitsoda really is. According to credits there were several key people for Design, dialog and story: Brian Mitsoda, Chad Moore, TJ Perillo, Jason D. Anderson, Leonard Boyarsky. So I also don't understand that fixation on only one person.

And for some reason I think that publisher decided that his work is done and they really to focus on polishing the game mechanics. Firing him and *restructuring* the others will save their money and Paradox is really good at counting every penny.

With out a solid reason given for firing him it's a very bad move on their part. His reputation was such a big part of their marketing campaign.

Welp, and there goes all my interest in this game.

I do think a year delay and bringing in a new lead guy shows the game is getting retooled somehow, but I doubt it's in story and general look and feel. Those things come around early and all the assets and whatnot are built around them, so I can't see a sudden radical change there. Maybe tweaks, but not big changes.

Hopefully the game was just too janky and Paradox brought in a guy with AAA experience to get it up to the standard they're obviously shooting for with big trailers at big events and whatnot.

I've heard a lot of bad things about this game - things like them trying to shoehorn in some sort of political message.
I don't know how much is true, but I have no expectations. Will wait on the reviews.

Both Mitsoda and Cluney very likely being NDA'd and having to keep stumm about what, in their opinion might have been the reason to just nonchalantly get sacked is a real kicker in all of this too.
I might be wrong though and there will be some spilling of beans rather sooner than later.

I like the Far Cry games but I agree that's not what I want this to be. I really doubt they could turn it into that in a year though, or even longer. It would be a massive redo from almost the ground up. I think it's much more likely he was brought in for his "shipped several AAA games" experience rather than to change the game radically.

My fear would more be that with Mitsoda gone other creative voices succeed in tweaking the game to be less dark or challenging in themes.

Was about to post in the pre-order thread. :D
Yeah, my interest in the game vanished in an instant the second I saw the news, oh well, I'm going to save some money this way. :P

Avellone I can understand, but the others I'm puzzled by.

I was going to joke about how Paradox eliminated what it saw as the biggest obstacles toward its future plans to hack the game into a 20+ piece DLC nightmare but as I think on it and consider Paradox's track record, I really just want that thought to not be true.

They prolly brought in a "DLC expert" to see how they can outdo themselves with the DLC for this one. ;)

This sure adds to the poor expectations for it, especially with the way it was apparently done.

May be off-topic, but reminded me of that RPS interview with him from 2009.

Or maybe the bosses wanted to add more pandering for all the delicate heteros out there who've clearly been so upset at the rumor of pronouns and a gay character. Maybe Mitsoda was fired for refusing to add more hetero content, because 98% wasn't enough, and he refused to kiss the hetero flag.

One way to understand a person's perspective is to see how they fill in the blanks when an explanation is unknown, since they'll usually fill it in with their own beliefs/biases. Seems to me your perspective invariably has a negative, oppositional attitude about sexual minorities in games, gamerager, which is why it's confusing when you then wonder why sexual minorities have to clamor so much in the first place for the few tiny crumbs they actually get.

In the article Mitsoda said his firing came out of the blue, and he had no idea why he was fired. He made no mention that the bosses had any problems with his writing, so blaming his writing suggests personal bias on your part not based on fact. Implying he wouldn't cave to the "sjw agenda" is as plausible as suggesting he wouldn't cave to the ajw agenda. And since there's no evidence for either, MAYBE people can discuss this game without more of this drivel polluting it. Thanks.