In a move that's already rubbing plenty of people the wrong way across social media, Tintin Reporter: Cigars of the Pharaoh developer Pendulo Studios has essentially just come out and admitted that the game is unfinished. Oh, and it's out today on PS5 and PS4. We hope you didn't pre-order!
"Despite our best efforts, those who play the game at launch won't be able to enjoy the experience as we intended it to be," reads the team's statement on Twitter.
"We are committed to fixing this situation in a promptly manner: we will deliver the necessary patches in the coming weeks while keeping all of our channels at your disposal for any issue you want to report to us directly," it continues.
Usually, this kind of statement arrives days or even weeks after a shoddy release, so we reckon this one might be setting some kind of record.
Snark aside, we're left wondering how this has been allowed to happen. You would think that a release date delay would be the answer to such a situation, but it looks like the developer's had to stick to a strict deadline. At this point, players have no real choice but to see how the game holds up, and hope that those aforementioned updates are coming sooner rather than later.
What do you make of this? Dare we ask if you've snagged a copy of Tintin Reporter? Let out a deep and weary sigh in the comments section below.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 56
You know what would be breaking news? When a game is actually finished on release date.
Another game associated with Microids turns out to be a shambles. Unshocked am i lol
It’s about time Gaming had some regulation.
Sorry but there are far too many unfinished games. Or games that are basically a scam.
You wouldn’t accept paying £20 for a movie and it not contain the last 5 minutes. Or a book missing the last 10 pages.
Why is it becoming more acceptable and happening more frequently in gaming?
Sadly I had this pre-ordered. Might just wait until all updates have been applied
I absolutely love Tintin and was looking forward to this but yeah, they just lost me until this is on a deep sale.
Seems to be normal now but at least they were honest
It's a sad state of affairs that this isn't shocking to anyone anymore.
This is in direct violation of consumer law so all refunds must be honoured.
Removed - flaming/arguing
Microids couldn't stand Daedalic and GameMill stealing its thunder and swooped in at the last minute to try and steal 2023. The video game industry is a rollercoaster.
Sony should have refused putting it on the store. The Cities Skyline devs also done this with the sequel and its a worrying sign that games that aren't even completed are being put on stores as full releases and not early access. This isn't a case of say Spidey 2 being a bit buggy and missing NG+ this is straight up an actual unfinished game being sold and the Devs basically doing a 🤷♂️
@Markatron84 Its really wild this has been one of the best years in gaming yet contains at least 2 games that will be a contender for the worst game of the entire generation.
@Mauzuri Devs are being treated like animals by their own bosses and ‘fans’ are just blaming them for problems outside of their control. Maybe just think about who’s actually to blame.
Yeah this is why I don't do pre-orders.
This is like a half dozen or more games In the last year or less that have knowingly been released unfinished.
This is just insane.
But why should we be expected to keep on paying £80 for unfinished games like this? Shouldn't this be an example of how any recent game is a gamble to the consumer and it's our right to speak regarding this matter?
@KundaliniRising333 this is just one of just many, I grew up with Tintin, with the comics and cartoons and it's my childhood but I'll be dammed that I would check first before anyone presents a game with rights to a franchise and botch it up like a horror slasher movie smh
Should be regulated against. Pisses me right off, especially all the folks defending the "poor developers".
Started with No Man's Sky (unless there was something earlier?) and seems to be an acceptable evil across the industry ever since.
Finish your games, else push back the release date. Simple.
@DonkeyFantasy don't do it man, gamers have to be self aware with their rights about putting £80 down for a game these days, those days before the internet with quality games are gone now
@Mossbergs yeah, that is the major one that is an example as to why no one should ever pay up before knowing what they are paying for
@nessisonett I agree, the fault really lies in people that preorder games way before they are even completed. Also the outrage if a game is delayed is usually pretty bad. So there arent a lot of options for developers/companies but also why wouldnt they if they still sell.
NEVER PREORDER. That is all.
@Dr_3ck1g but how can you sell a preorder then not deliver? Surely that's a breach of contract, you're selling a promise, then breaking the promise, so not only the fault of the pre-orderer (though deffo agree folks should learn lessons!)
Sounds like the 748374th instance of management absolutely screwing developers over with unreasonable deadlines, except this time the devs went and apologized ahead of the outrage instead of afterwards.
Either it was in the licensing agreement Which happen with one of the Stargate games or they were running out of money or both.
I could see if there was a new Tintin movie or show coming out this week, and not wanting to delay due to that. But as far as I know (which isn't much) there isn't. So yeah, this looks bad.
@Mossbergs Is it breach of contract though? Serious question cause I dont know, but I believe you are only paying for the license of the software which you are getting. I dont think it says it has to be working. Otherwise Microsoft would be deep in **** multiple times no? I do know that steam for example refunds games if they are unplayable but usually not for bugs that are likely to get fixed. Im not trying to defend games coming out buggy but I think the fact that people preorder and also buy day 1 is a major reason for this, when sites like pushsquare get to test a lot of the games before release and mention bugs.
Developers / publishers just straight up not trying to hide that they're releasing unfinished games now.
@Mossbergs On the other hand consider that games have gotten a lot more complicated than 20 years ago when games came out 'perfect', but now we have the benefit of life support with constant patches. Some games would take decades to come out before they are perfect and the player base actually helps find bugs in some if these huge games like Baldurs Gate 3
Awful business decisions all around. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Delay it or make it early access you *****!
Slightly off-topic, but wondered if Pendulo's Blacksad ever got fixed whether PS4 or PC as occasionally seen it on sale but no point if it remained near unplayable.
Its why the insert South Park BP We're Sorry gif PR apology rings as hollow as it sounds AFTER release than before!🙄
It's a shame that the PS Store doesn't have a Steam style refund system in play to incentivise publishers a bit more to delay these messes.
@DennisReynolds I'm assuming Gollum and Kong? It's been a strange year.
Watched a Tintin playthrough on Youtube earlier and it looks like a real stinker!!! Was getting irritated just watching the cheap Baldo-esque deaths and dreadful dialogue/voice acting.
@Czar_Khastik star ocean 2 has been finished on release date 3 times I'm surprised no one is talking about that 🤔
doubt anyone truly cared about this game anyways... including the developers themselves. who has money to spare or the time for this crap? well, 2023 will be remembered for gollum, kong and tintin. nice trifecta right there!
The normal is paying full price for early access and want digital only good luck with that disaster ready to happen....
Wow that's coming off my Christmas list.
@Dr_3ck1g It's gone way to far now people expect a broken game on release. Nobody is asking for a perfect game but I'm not paying for a broken mess that gets updates that are bigger then the total game.
@Dr_3ck1g If you see how good Baldurs Gate 3 it's a shock to see what garbage gets a pass how they are released.
@Mossbergs It's not the devs it's the publishers/suits that insist on deadlines being met because they have laid down money for a game and advertising and they want to see their return on that, they care little about quality and extra delays mean more money spent on readvertising further down the line so they choose to disrespect the customer base because they know it can be "fixed down the line with a patch". Honestly it's more refreshing to see the devs going against the publisher and outting this information about the game however last minute as it probably means the studio won't be releasing any more games after the publishers dissolve it in retaliation
This happens way too much. And almost every big name publishers are offenders too. EA's road to the masters was obviously rushed out to coincide with the masters tournament and it was bare bones at best but at least now it resembles a complete package. It's not just a recent phenomena either as back in the early 90's i purchased road rash 2 on the megadrive published by EA and that was a cartridge and it had a bug where the game crashed to a green screen upon completion of the final race and EA knew it was there and still released it. People extolling the virtues of the increase in the price of games really niggle me as when you see crap like this being allowed to happen makes their arguments defunct. Will sony pull this from the store and refuse to sell it as they did with cyberpunk or does it need to require more refund requests before they decide enoughs enough? Its such a shame as there have been a lot of superb releases this year that have required very little to correct the shipped product and i have to applaud neowiz and hexworks again for their superb support of their two games and larian deserve a mention for the support of baldurs gate 3. This is not good..
@Maaster89 If you insist on pre ordering games after seeing how this behaviour emboldens companies to release games in unfinished states then you are going to get heals more of this. If consumers refuse to buy games released unfinished and in horrible condition and it hit companies in the wallet they would stop it overnight it's that simple!. As it stands because companies know the knuckle dragging dribbling pre order brigade will pay for up front regardless of quality think I gotta be honest I don't have sympathy for you. Enjoy your broken game that even the people selling it admit released in an awful state you earned such and your pre ordering habits ensures everyone of us will receive plenty more unfinished gamea in future so thanks for that and we'll done for rewarding companies for treating consumers terribly 👏
Until customers accept to be robbed by unfinished products or preorder anything, nothing will change.
This is why Sony and Nintendo don't announce game a long time before they are ready to release. Don't set a fixed date until you're sure it's going to be ready. This should release pressure of the devs also.
@Mossbergs
First unfinished game I can think of was Robocop on the Commodore 64 released back in 1988. Games being much more difficult in those days, they made one level pretty much impossible, so customers didn't find out until many years later the game was actually completely unfinished.
This is obviously very poor but surely the devs were forced to release the game and this statement when they did. It would be illogical for them to defend an unfinished product on release and hope potential buyers give them the benefit of the doubt. Especially as this a low-key release. There are too many instances of unfinished releases which isn't acceptable given the price of a new game these days.
@LieutenantFatman I did own a buggy copy of C64 Robocop which I successfully swapped BITD, but have learned from one of the old Ocean devs on twitter it was actually a mastering issue where the bug wasn't picked up...apparently some later versions & also certain cracked ones fixed it so there were later levels. Not to say other games weren't back then...the PAL version of Predator was almost unbeatable due to a bug to set up the log trap on the Predator! C64 Karnov had an incomplete version given to Ocean by Activision for a compilation but none of the game testers could get far enough in to find out!😱😂
Apparently the Megadrive & SNES Tintin games I've seen on YouTube are super hard,but would be better options for fans of the classic series. At least there you got Captain Haddock etc.
@Robocod
That's interesting, cheers! Ocean did make some cool games. I played Predator on the Atari ST. Didn't get far though, the difficulty was indeed very high.
lucky cancelled my pre order the day before release will wait for massive sale on store
@PsBoxSwitchOwner well … yes, happens in every medium. Not acceptable, but have seen plenty of films that have been scraped together and pushed out because of budgets, or just lack of care. Still see unfinished special effects, poor sound mixes, rough takes, plot threads that go nowhere due to changes in scripts etc. and most of the time, none of this is ever fixed, and if it is, you get the pleasure of paying twice to see the “fixed version” if it ever comes.
Same with books, and some of those are just outright bad - typos, repeated words - only fixed in reprints if you’re lucky, and then you buy again.
None of that is defend releasing crap and expecting people to pay good money for it, but every form of entertainment does it, but at least with gaming it can, and often is fixed (some more than others).
if you buy a game on release day you pay more for a worse version
wait
@Flaming_Kaiser Baldurs Gate 3 also kind of cheated, as this 'new' way, doing early access is really like releasing unfinished games (You still pay full price most of the time). Also from what I heard Baldurs Gate later acts (that didnt exist in Beta) are also a buggy mess.
@Dr_3ck1g Did not hear people complain it was a broken mess? They communicated it if it was early access it's not like they said it a day after the release.
@Flaming_Kaiser True, but I think my point overall was that Early Access is really just a 'cheating' way of releasing unfinished games and honestly not much different. The the Tintin guys mentioned that its unfinished the day of release is a bit late and earlier would have been nicer,but still better than other devs/publishers that dont mention it at all.
Regarding BG3 later acts being buggy is just something I read in a few places/by some comments, but dont know so could be wrong.
@Dr_3ck1g Early access was the gateway for making broken releases acceptable I totally agree.
Removed - unconstructive feedback
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