Fallout New Vegas Designer Criticizes Setting Unrealistic Release Dates

Josh Sawyer, a veteran of the RPG genre and lead designer of, among others, Fallout: New Vegas wrote an interesting thread on X about setting game release dates.

1. He explained that CEOs planning unrealistic deadlines only harm the teams. This approach quickly leads to burnout for the developers, demoralizes the whole team, and ultimately results in the premiere being typically postponed.
2. Sawyer stated that if the creators don't show gameplay by the latest in the summer of a given year, there is usually no chance for the game to debut the following winter.
3. Sawyer acknowledges that it is often difficult to determine precisely when a particular game production will be finished due to the highly complex process of game development. However, it's possible to predict when it won't be ready. According to him, three criteria are most important. The first is when the content creation pace is so slow that even abandoning most unfinished elements won't allow the work to be completed on time. The second sign is when all the fundamental gameplay mechanisms haven't been completed yet, even if it's just because the completed content will need to be adjusted to fit the final version of the mechanics. The third criterion is the smooth operation of systems that enable the creation of content itself.
4. Sawyer explains that every experienced dev knows that predicting the release date is only possible when these three elements (systems that allow for the creation of new content, the content itself, and the completion of basic mechanisms) are functioning well. Nevertheless, there are plenty of bosses who, despite not meeting these criteria, establish deadlines from the top down that prove to be entirely unachievable.

Sawyer has a lot of experience working with unrealistic release dates. Obsidian Studio was given only 17 months to develop Fallout: New Vegas, which greatly affected the level of game refinement.

Let's remind that the latest game released by Josh Sawyer is Pentiment, which was released in 2022 on PC and Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S consoles. Meanwhile, editions for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 and 5 were released this year.

Fallout: New Vegas

October 19, 2010

Rate It!

• Overview
• Guide

• Obsidian Entertainment
• release dates / delays (games)
• Josh Sawyer