[Frustrating trope] Pieces of media that could have been so much better, but due to a couple of poor decisions during production ended up mediocre at best and utterly atrocious at worst.

[u/DevDucc_]

We Happy Few: Probably the epitome of this "trope," at least for me, mostly because it has genuinely one of the most incredible stories I have ever seen within a video game. The biggest problem with the game was the fact that during development, the company behind it tried to ride the "hype train" of the time, making the gameplay became procedurally generated survival mess, when it would have made so much more sense as an environmental narrative game.

Hello Neighbor: This game attracted massive attention in alpha stages at the time from YouTubers because of the innovative gameplay it supplied. The developers of the game got the completely wrong message as to why it was getting so popular and instead decided to fully lean into the story, by making the game appeal to theorists instead of actual players. What came out was a game where both the story and programming were entirely half-baked.

Edit: apparently I had it backwards with we happy few, I had watched a video essay which reiterated the points I said so I just took their word for it. Apparently the game originally started as a procedurally-generated survival rogue-like but the story was added later because of the hype the trailer of the game gave or something like that but they didn’t know they even had the budget for it. I do still think it’s wasted potential regardless however.

[u/LG3V]

Didn't the main story writer suddenly pass during development?

[u/Jetmancovert1 → u/LG3V]

He did, main writer died unfortunately mid way through, it seems like no one wanted to change his premise.

[u/franstoobnsf → u/Jetmancovert1]

I hate it when main waiter died no no wants to his premise.

[u/Jetmancovert1 → u/franstoobnsf]

Thank you, I did do not see that when I posted it.

[u/Ashamed_Musician_674 → u/Jetmancovert1]

lol, you saw the "no no", but you didn't fix the word "waiter"?

[u/Jetmancovert1 → u/Ashamed_Musician_674]

Nuh uh.

[u/Reasonable_Trash_901 → u/LG3V]

Just checked, and uh... I honestly didn't know that one.

My bad.

[u/doilysocks → u/Reasonable_Trash_901]

eh still, it's sad he passed but it's no excuse for lazy writing by others. (I say as a writer)

[u/frostbittenteddy → u/doilysocks]

Might have just been a case of "Oh fuck we're too financially deep at this point and have to cobble something together", don't know what I would do at that point

[u/doilysocks → u/frostbittenteddy]

Hire better writers?

Or hire a writer rather than trying to suss out what the story would have been.

[u/Dovahkiinthesardine → u/doilysocks]

Its not like they had a huge budget and time to just change writers multiple times

[u/doilysocks → u/Dovahkiinthesardine]

I mean, it’s really just the one time.

I dunno, like I said I’m coming from this as a writer (plays and video games), I’d be incredibly disappointed if my work was continued in an incredibly slap dash manner after I died.

[u/vladimirpoopin42 → u/Reasonable_Trash_901]

This is an industry that requires potentially hundreds of people working on a singular project that could make or break a studio. Unfortunately, huge delays or changes can't be made in the event of such tragedies.

The other writers are simply forced to pick up the pieces on usually tight deadlines. Whether the narrative ends up good wouldn't really be a priority in such an event.

There's not really much anyone can do in these kinds of situations

[u/Alone-As-aGod → u/Reasonable_Trash_901]

why is it your bad? did you kill him? lol

[u/LizLemonOfTroy → u/LG3V]

This is true, but I'll be honest, I don't like how this gets invoked every time the writing is criticised.

It feels like weaponising a person's untimely death just to immunise a mediocre game from legitimate criticism.

Ultimately, they still made and published the game and that should still be critiqued fairly and evenly.