I was super interested in this game from the stuff I saw of it.
Then I saw in reviews that there were a bunch of real time gated things. I don’t know the specific mechanics, but any version of that at all is unacceptable to me.
Those reviews really overblow the importance of that mechanic. It’s just little side things that happen while you play “the real game”.
It will probably be removed or reduced for the full release considering it doesn’t add much value to the gameplay either.
I don’t really care how “important” it is.
There’s no format of it I’m willing to consider tolerating. It’s inherently toxic design for anything but a specific type of MMO with a persistent world and economy. If they remove it I’ll consider the game again.
Honestly I think those type of mechanics can be fine, the issue is that they’re normally done to be predatory and try to get the player to spend money to bypass the delay. No Man’s Sky also has time-gated stuff, and it works fine.
Helldivers 2 arguably meets some of that criteria too, a lot of the medals you get are from community wide progress, meaning that less active players (like me) get the majority of their medals from time passing in between play sessions.
The key difference is whether the time-gates prevent you from playing when you want to. If it never actually blocks you from being able to play and progress, then there’s no issue or frustration with the mechanic.
Any real time gate keeps me from playing the way I want to, by definition. I will not buy or play a game which has any version of a real time gate unless it’s a separate game mode I have no interest in.
Hitman elusive targets? Whatever. They don’t touch anything real. They’re “not part” of the actual game. But the second it interacts with the game I have zero interest. I don’t care if the key is free and there are no microtransactions. The core premise of controlling when, in real time, I’m allowed to interact with content is not OK.
