The AI NPC crap didn't hit me until the game was released from 1.0. Though I didn't even know about the NPC Ai until someone in the comment section asked if it was still a "feature". Which it was. Still in terms of Early Access games as a Whole I will agree that many of them have turned from "promising roadmaps" and " Immersive Robust Gameplay" to HAHAHA GOTCHA thanks for the money SEE YA. There have been great games to come out of Early Access like: Subnautica, Rust, Ground Branch, Gloomwood, Slime Rancher 2 and so on. Some people will assume all Early Access titles are bad and should stay away from them until full release. But that right there is also a problem since most of the launches that have been released into 1.0 have gone from mediocre to HOLY SHIT WHY GOD IT"S SO BAD. Then again i'm a risk taker from the Kickstarter days so I guess i'm just different.

@@OneNutPunch Yeah. I've backed a lot of EA games but I'll never forget the first one I tried was a legit scam called Starforge. Nobody really knew what an asset flip was at the time and it showed promise for what it was. Osiris: New Dawn is another one that turned into a weirdly overt scam. I'd add to the success list Grim Dawn, Last Epoch, V Rising and even Wolcen (sorta). I'm still invested in more than a few that have been EA for years. That being said I'm more worried about devs over-promising (Farworld Pioneers) and publishers investing in bad devs (Superfuse). It's becoming more and more of a problem. The devs of Cygnus made a long post advertising the AI thing as a feature and it sorta flew under the radar because it was before the AI panic started. Even at the time it seemed like a scam to me because they made it sound like you were going to be having organic conversations with NPCs and I just don't see that happening anytime soon even in AAA games. Wayward Realms launches their Kickstarter tomorrow and I'm just... Ugh... So tired of this dance of waiting years for a Kickstarter to reach Early Access and then spend years to maybe one day get released.

Sadly how it goes nowadays plus you have many other studios doing the whole " Well they did microtransactions and Multiple DLC bundles why don't we try it?" Only to do it WAY worse then other studios. But those games you listed above I have also played Especially V rising when during Early Early Access there wasn't much to do while the bosses were literally so bullshit they could hit you through walls. Last Epoch I feel got a bad rap due to people assuming it was going to be a Diablo killer or that it was similar to Grim Dawn / Path of Exile. That didn't work in there favor even more so when the game had only ONLINE capabilities way before the developers thought of making Offline mode. In general I can't say with confidence that there is a sure fire way of knowing a studio that is good and will create games we've been waiting for or turn out to be a cash grab only to take our money and run like that game The Day Before or Fallout 76/ Starfield. I guess it just depends on the feeling an interest in which ever game we find and even then still have to be careful in telling others about it. The one thing I will say not many people talk about are the Big influencers/ Streamers that are partnered taking Ads or Sponsored games. They would be the main reason for misinformation since any times they do play a game that's paid for by the dev they can't be anything other then biased. Putting viewers in a position thinking anything they play or say the end all be all. Not saying all of them do while other streamers play games they find after purchase only to spend hundreds of hours in. They still exist just not as many like it was a couple of years ago.