There legitimately seems to be a strange phenomenon the past few years where sequels/reboots to established games by established companies have a sequel after a few years longer than usual, only for the game to legitimately feel like it was made by a company that has never touched a game before, or have any knowledge of the previous entries. Andromeda, 76, Saints Row 2022, i'm sure a ton of others I can't remember right now, but it's a very specific thing.
Like you will have a series that is very fleshed out, the game engine works well, there aren't any insane bugs, and then you get a game like Andromeda where it feels like the designers legitimately didn't know how to rig and pose a simple human face. You'll have bugs that will make a Bethesda dev blush. You'll straight up have zero NPCs in your game.
These are growing pains sort of issues that you'd expect and understand with a brand new indie game company trying to make something beyond their talent, but it keeps happening with triple-A game series and companies. Remember that terrible Man Vs Wild game from the early 2010s? The game with button mashing quicktime segments that you didn't actually have to have any input during? The game was made by game design college graduates that never made an actual game before, and those were the sort of issues you'd expect.
It feels like publishers are legitimately hiring newbies with no experience without anything to work on from the past. It's like they weren't allowed to see or play the previous entries in the games, only to have them described to them, and then remade shoddily in Unity. It's just... baffling.
