@LeakNews Extra! Extra! Read all about it! The biggest leak in a long time, featuring... let's see here... almost entirely bad news!
1. Earlier reports that meshing was in testing are highly contested. Testing for meshing appears to be either non-existent or kept within an extremely small group. In digging more into this kind of information/expectation we have determined the following:
• CIG's staff are kept in the dark and are teased progress similarly to us. Like us, they were also told a vague "EOY" for 4.0 until, like us, it slowly slipped away from the mouths of management until it's all but moved back.
This is to say that 4.0 was in fact planned for the end of the year for a good portion of this year, this of course getting pushed back. The current release is unknown as meshing remains a CIG enigma, but things are not looking good as previously believed.
(Information above comes from several ex-devs and several active devs)
2. The tools are apparently in an abysmal state-RASTAR in particular. Some have reported multiple weeks of downtime, mainly down to a mixture of stability problems, Ul problems, and workflow problems. They have reportedly even considered cutting RASTAR entirely due to its state for a number of months (though obviously this didn't happen).
(Information above comes from several active devs,+ an ex-dev)
3. Squadron 42 is in over time mode. Developers are working hard, overtime in some instances, to shift towards an eventual release in the near (1-year) future." Development has been described as steady, but confidence in the final project is mixed. It's described as a very pretty game lacking in gameplay (when compared to Starfield). It will likely still release next year as we've previously mentioned.
(Information above comes from several active devs, + an ex-dev)
4. Management is what almost every single developer has agreed is the biggest problem with CIG. Management is a problem for a large number of reasons which can be mostly tied down to unrealistic goals/expectations, pee poor communication skills, and generally just not being good at allocating resources. Some particular instances we can corroborate include wanting to flood locations with "1000s of NPCs" despite the game not being able to handle it, lying about failures in documentation, failure of keeping certain projects organized causing months of work to go in the trash, and much much more. It's gotten so bad on some projects that developer infighting between studios over project ownership has occurred in multiple instances. This can all be traced to individuals in management who are arrogant, reject feedback, and cannot organize worth a damn.
(Information above comes from several ex-devs and several active devs)