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NieR Automata was made in less than 2 years! That's really impressive
- Thread starter Son Of Sparda
- Start date
ya i am pretty sure witcher 3 is cdpr's biggest project and it didnt take them 3 years. also, didnt they have like 80 million dollar budget?
Yeah, those games only use half a dozen dev teams and a thousand people...
Witcher 3 was in development for 4 years with a core develoment team of 240 people, where as the entirety of PlatinumGames has less than 200, many of which were working on different Projects like Scalebound and the Activision titles.
Risk Breaker
Member
How much was reused from previous projects? How many people in that project? How was the budget?
Awful Falafel
Banned
But that's typical Ubisoft throwing tons of money and manpower at a problem. We're talking teams of over 900 people here!
www.pcgamer.com/assassins-creed-4-d...-game-director-says-multiple-worlds-unlikely/
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
I think this thread probably shouldn't be about dev time and more about resource budget > quality of product.
The actual production (as in, after the scraping and rebuilding) was more leaning to a bit more than 2.5 years iirc. I understand the difference between the studios, and I love Platinum, but they could get better. After all they have some of the brightest people on the business there.
There are a lot of textures like that in the game, which you constantly see, and look horrible every time. That is the worst one though, considering how often you save in the camp.
Platinum is a very efficient studio. They work quickly and turn out solid work, but the corner-cutting employed to deliver is pretty obvious. In Nier's case it's the amount of no-fucks-given invisible walls.
Ganondorfo
Junior Member
Final Fantasy VI was made in a year. Thats more impressive.
It is definitely a "stylish character action" game going open world, and it works perfectly. Maybe that's what the genre needs to do to survive. Not like we have many of those games these days, anyway. Only this one and the dream of a DMC5.
ArkhamFantasy
Member
For retail games? more like 4-6 now.
Was CDproject sitting around for 2 years doing nothing after Witcher 2?
Assassins Creed teams reuse assets from each others games and have 500-1000 man teams, its also 6 metacritic points lower than Automata.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
I think it's more people not really understanding how game production works, which is fair enough.
A lot more goes into making games than dev time.
Leona Lewis
Banned
lol
Team sizes and budgets absolutely matter. Don't be daft.
Well, the OP is about overall efficiency.
"...is really impressive for a game that had limited amount of development time and budget."
Just because the title only mentions the timeframe doesn't mean the goal posts are being moved when people refer to other aspects of efficiency, like the budgets and staffing size.
Awful Falafel
Banned
It is definitely a "stylish character action" game going open world, and it works perfectly. Maybe that's what the genre needs to do to survive. Not like we have many of those games these days, anyway. Only this one and the dream of a DMC5.
I love the stylish qualifier for the genre XD
Sorry Nioh and Bloodborne, you just ain't got the swag to represent.
I'd say FFXV is a counterpoint that the open world action combo is inherently a natural fit for the future of the genre. Yakuza games have helped me survive the droughts but yeah I do miss launchers and air juggles in those games.
tfw you realize the stylish character action genre will never have the swag of Persona 5
So you're saying that Black Flag wasn't efficient? Any reason for that?
OmegaSmash
Member
Even if it was actually 2.5 years, it really puts into perspective the whole Scalebound situation and why people are much more keen on blaming MS.
Primethius
Banned
Platinum is a really efficient studio and I'm glad they're able to make games in a speedy manner with limited resources (as opposed to large, massive budgets that require way more sales to be profitable).
With that said, Nier is a game where it's incredibly obvious that the game had an extremely limited budget and was facing time constraints.
Aside from the music, most things just aren't done that well. Even the combat is a step back from what you'd expect in a Platinum game.
With that said, Nier is a game where it's incredibly obvious that the game had an extremely limited budget and was facing time constraints.
Aside from the music, most things just aren't done that well. Even the combat is a step back from what you'd expect in a Platinum game.
ArkhamFantasy
Member
Some of these posts make it sound like Automata is a 75 metacritic game. "Well duh, its bad at this this and this", its a 90 metacritic game. if its bad at those things then they must not be very important.
NeoRaider
Member
88 actually.
AlexFlame116
Member
Man when did all of these negative downplayers come bursting in?
I've never seen so many! Then again I don't frequent OTs ever since XV's release so that's probably why I'm surprised. That said, I love this game and am very surprised about how long it took. Gives me more hope for future NieR titles.
I've never seen so many! Then again I don't frequent OTs ever since XV's release so that's probably why I'm surprised. That said, I love this game and am very surprised about how long it took. Gives me more hope for future NieR titles.
You're getting really defensive about Black Flag aren't you?
Primethius
Banned
That's ridiculous. Nier got that high in spite of it's other failings because what it did good resonated with a lot of reviewers to overcome those shortcomings.
In other games, the issues Nier has would drastically bring down the score.
One can think of ubisoft what they want, they are really efficient at putting out high production values open world games. They use a lot of people to make them but they still churn out at least 2 of them every year... that's pretty impressive.
Just how it's pretty impressive that platinum can churn out some of the best games in their genres with really limited budget, dev time and team sizes. Doesn't mean the constraints of that don't show. It'd be pretty strange if they didn't.
There's a reason AAA games are as expensive to make as as they are.
At some point it's about money and time. Platinum generally doesn't have either. No amount of genius can compensate for that.
Look at obsidian for a dev in a similar situation. Brillant game designers but their games were broken as shit at times due to the constraints they had to work in.
Link not working.
Also, 6 months were spent in pre-development stage so yes, actual development is < 2 years.
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
Is that what the poster you quoted pretty much said?
Nah, he said things like polish, graphics ect. aren't important. When one looks at popularity charts it's patently obvious that they are.
Some games can overcome that gap. Doesn't mean these things don't matter.
hey_it's_that_dog
benevolent sexism
Is Assassin's Creed really an exemplary achievement in efficiency or is it just what happens when you make almost the same game over and over again for a decade?
Technically, that's efficiency, but I don't think it's the kind the OP is pointing out as worthy of admiration.
Efficiency is a product of budget, team size, time spent, and quality of outcome. If a game has a smaller budget, smaller, team, and took about the same amount of time to produce a very good outcome, isn't it fair to say that game was made more efficiently?
I don't even know why I'm arguing about this. I haven't played Nier yet and Platinum's games are all pretty cut-rate in some areas, and I have almost no respect for the AC series after Brotherhood, so I don't even have a dog in this fight.
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
It's hard to argue it mattered in this particular instance given how well received the game has been. If other elements are good enough for people to overlook things like polish, perhaps the latter only matters situationally.
ArkhamFantasy
Member
It has the same metacritic score as Horizon Zero Dawn.
There are super good and successful games that are terrible at everything Nier:Automata is good at.
If you wanted to, you could make very good arguments that a well told story which integrates into the gameplay only matters situationally and a polished execution of a simple but deep gameplay system is all that matters.
We don't need to grade different aspects of games on an importance scale. Different games are good at different things and especially smaller production need to make decisions on what to focus on.
Design-wise is 9/10
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
I agree. If a game does Thing A amazingly well, Thing B might not be all that important in that context, regardless of what Thing A and Thing B are. It's not just situational, it's subjective. For instance, there are quite a few people out there who adore State of Decay, enough to warrant a sequel, and that game was a technical catastrophe (I loved it).
That's why I think Arkham suggesting polish (or whatever) isn't 'important' actually isn't all that 'ridiculous' a statement to make. If he values those elements Nier does well above others like polish, that's his prerogative.
I don't mean to debate on your behalf, Arkham...
How About No
Member
Platinum in general have a quick turnaround on their games and often their gambles on what corners to cut and what to polish pay off. I was more satisfied with MGR's dev time to polish ratio but I give them some slack on Automata because of open world complications.
That said this texture still triggers me and I really wish there'd be an HD texture pack by now.
So I wasn't the only one lol
Flat box or no still one of the best games I've ever played and still looks decent-to-great most of the time
It's incredible, isn't it? What a brilliant game.
Regardless of when development actually started, to have an announcement from Square-Enix with nothing but CGI and concept art come out and be great in less than 2 years is just amazing.
People can bring up other games (that probably would be considered a failure if they only sold as much as Nier is celebrating for having achieved), but in context, it's truly remarkable.
I loved FFXV, it was my second favorite game last year, and I still think Automata is just a much better game. And I'm sure S-E cares about that in some way, not only the amount of sales, otherwise Yoko Taro wouldn't be working with them for a long time now.
Regardless of when development actually started, to have an announcement from Square-Enix with nothing but CGI and concept art come out and be great in less than 2 years is just amazing.
People can bring up other games (that probably would be considered a failure if they only sold as much as Nier is celebrating for having achieved), but in context, it's truly remarkable.
I loved FFXV, it was my second favorite game last year, and I still think Automata is just a much better game. And I'm sure S-E cares about that in some way, not only the amount of sales, otherwise Yoko Taro wouldn't be working with them for a long time now.
This is a very small game by comparison to other major games on the market. Saito and YT actually categorize the budget and effort put into it as "A level" compared to "AA or AAA" level of other projects.
Most of the time was just probably spent making the actual map, and then all they needed to do was place the characters inside of it and have quests and situations occur. You play through the same areas a lot to help with different events to help mask the feeling of deja vu
YT even said at one point that the reason he includes multiple endings is to artificially stretch out his games on a small budget because otherwise they would be finished faster than acceptable for what SE had to charge for a new game at retail
Most of the time was just probably spent making the actual map, and then all they needed to do was place the characters inside of it and have quests and situations occur. You play through the same areas a lot to help with different events to help mask the feeling of deja vu
YT even said at one point that the reason he includes multiple endings is to artificially stretch out his games on a small budget because otherwise they would be finished faster than acceptable for what SE had to charge for a new game at retail
This is such a bizarre game to bring up in this thread, but sure, absolutely.
NieR: Automata is a critically acclaimed, small studio title that took a short amount of time and includes lots of variety and content. Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed is a massive production with gigantic budgets and teams quickly pumping out similar games notorious for unremarkable open worlds and repetitive icon-chasing design. It doesn't sound efficient to me. Considering their assembly-line cookie-cutter system requires about a thousand people across the world to pump out an unoriginal game after two years of work... I wouldn't label it as efficient at all. The first two games in the series took almost $50M to create, at which point they annualized the series to recoup their expenses and profit on their foundation.
Ultimately, my point is that the work of that small team led to something far more unique and remarkable in the same amount of time it takes for another massively-produced fabrication from the Assassin's Creed machine.
One has finesse and is efficient. The other is the product of brute force iteration.
Son Of Sparda
Member
I think it's really easy to pick a game apart and say "see it has these flaws so it's not impressive at all" rather than looking at it as whole and see why despite the said flaws, it might still be a very impressive achievement.
Neir Automata was made with around 2 years of active development time. It had a pretty moderated budget so much so that according to Yoko Taro, they didn't even had the resources to make the simplest of DLCs such as cosmetic stuff. Yet, it is an open world game, with a relatively good amount of variety in its environment, combat, and enemy design (both visually and gameplay wise). Not only that, but the game is quite long and has a lot of contents in it (some top quality, some not).
On top of all that, almost everything about the story and music are on a very very high level, and the game connects every parts of itself through story in a really interesting way. Not to mention the quality of performance that you see in each cut-scene by both Japanese and English voice actors/actresses.
As I said, you can definitely look past all of these stuff and focus on the problems that are undoubtedly present in the game. But that's not really being fair to the game and the development team behind it. You can do that with literally any game regardless of how good they may be. I love Yakuza 0, but I can take that apart and say it's a bad game because it lack these features, or falters in these parts. I can do the same with Resident Evil 7, DMC3 and so on.
I think part of the reason why we are forgetting this and a lot of people are focusing solely on negatives, is the fact that we had an amazing Q1 this year. When you have Gravity Rush 2, Resident Evil 7, Yakuza 0, Nioh, Horizon, Zelda and Persona 5 all releasing in a short span of time, it's a lot easier to look at a game like Nier and say "yeah that's not really impressive."
Neir Automata was made with around 2 years of active development time. It had a pretty moderated budget so much so that according to Yoko Taro, they didn't even had the resources to make the simplest of DLCs such as cosmetic stuff. Yet, it is an open world game, with a relatively good amount of variety in its environment, combat, and enemy design (both visually and gameplay wise). Not only that, but the game is quite long and has a lot of contents in it (some top quality, some not).
On top of all that, almost everything about the story and music are on a very very high level, and the game connects every parts of itself through story in a really interesting way. Not to mention the quality of performance that you see in each cut-scene by both Japanese and English voice actors/actresses.
As I said, you can definitely look past all of these stuff and focus on the problems that are undoubtedly present in the game. But that's not really being fair to the game and the development team behind it. You can do that with literally any game regardless of how good they may be. I love Yakuza 0, but I can take that apart and say it's a bad game because it lack these features, or falters in these parts. I can do the same with Resident Evil 7, DMC3 and so on.
I think part of the reason why we are forgetting this and a lot of people are focusing solely on negatives, is the fact that we had an amazing Q1 this year. When you have Gravity Rush 2, Resident Evil 7, Yakuza 0, Nioh, Horizon, Zelda and Persona 5 all releasing in a short span of time, it's a lot easier to look at a game like Nier and say "yeah that's not really impressive."
This is clearly not true anymore if you've played Automata.
There's so much new stuff in Route C that if anything it's counterproductive when you look at how many people even get that far through achievement/trophy percentages. And this is a game that allows you to buy achievements with in-game currency.
Sure, you don't keep discovering new environments all the way through, but that can be said for most games using this more open structure. FFXV's world is much more static than Nier's, even though it's also much bigger. There's like Cauthess changing and that's it. Nier offers a lot more variety, and events that permanently change the world as well.
EDIT: Hell, I'd question if it was ever true. He loves to give joking answers in interviews, but every once in a while he gets serious and it's very clear that he puts a lot of thought into every facet of the design, and using the medium in unique ways is something he's very concerned about. So having more to the game and the story after the credits roll is definitely one way to do it.
After all, you don't need credits rolling to reuse assets. Games without this structure do it all the time, it's nothing new. His games are also not unaccetably short, even for a single playthrough. It's definitely not a case of a game that's over in 3 hours if you only go for ending A, they have average length. Again, using FFXV, if you just mainline the story quests, I've seen people finishing it in less than 20 hours on their first playthrough. But if you take the time to do a lot of side stuff, that is, other than dungeons, going from A to B and back to A on the same map over and over again, it'll take you a looong time. No need for a bunch of credit sequences between those segments to make the game seem more worthy of its price tag.
83/88 to be exact, they didn't only release the game on one platform.
Most of route B is stretched out over the same content as route A, its still in his work philosophy clearly even if its not as much as making you replay the entire game over again with most of the same content like in D1 or Nier.
We shoulden't mince words and try and made Nier A into something its not. Its a work clearly on a very constrained budget and development period and so they obviously have to make common sense cutbacks on what they can do and such compared to other games. Its not a negative, its just a fact.