Developers are cutting features in order to hit deadlines, claims report

It has been almost two full months of a complete lockdown all around the world. This new reality presented many problems for the video games industry, despite the fact that the sales are being higher than ever before. The problem lies in the current development of games and hardwere, which is significantly harder in work-from-home environment and shutdown of many key parts of the industry, such as distribution, voice recording and performance capturing studios, etc.

Many games have been already delayed for various reasons, mostly related to COVID-19 outbreak. RPGs such as Wasteland 3 and Minecraft Dungeons, a highly anticipated sequel of Sony exclusive The Last of Us, and the PC edition of Death Stranding saw a delay. Even mighty Amazon is not immune to this new situation, and their big MMO project  New World has been delayed for summer.

But, according to the New York Times investigation, some publishers want to hit planned release date at any cost, even if that means to remove some planned features from the game. Unnamed sources have told to NYT that because of slowdowns in productivity at their studios "they plan to cut features, levels and quests in hopes of making their deadlines."

According to the article, those two sources are developers of games planned for an autumn release, so we can only try to guess which game that could be. 

• Read more: PS5 will have limited launch in 2020 due to steep price, insiders claim

In the same NYT report, other representatives, from studios such as Larian and Ubisoft, suggested that although productivity is at 70-80%, they are still on course to hit all planned deadlines and release their games on time. Some smaller indie studios are afraid of the possible impact that economic crisis could have in the long run on an indie game industry since people will likely be less willing to spend too much money on the entertainment and video games.