Unpopular Take - Story Mode Chapter 2 was never in the works and they all got fired for not upholding promises

[sudoMoses]

I notice all this review bombing and people blaming Maximum. I haven't kept up with this game in a hot minute (besides me loving it a ton since they corrected the gameplay from before the Shanty DLC released).

However one thing I find so amusing is how there was never much teasers or information from the devs that Chapter 2 was at least getting worked on. None of the devs have even told us what would come with Chapter 2 either, besides that it would be about Velvet and it was "Coming soon..."

Part of me believes that perhaps we were not even going to get a full story (or even never) for a long time. They wanted to shell out all their DLC characters and then release it. Even then, the DLC wasn't even completed.

Companies like deadlines and promises met, and if the game had to die and then just straight up tell us everything was being cancelled, I feel like there is definitely a good reason why the team got canned. Hopefully its not why, but its just something to consider. I hope we do get info that it WAS going to come at least, if its actually done. For now I will assume it wasn't going to. Usually when there's a project on the horizon, we've had devs show gmaeplay and content that is going to happen for the game, like Fromsoft and Elden Ring for example. We got the information abdout the game and so on. But Mane 6 NEVER once gave us any information about it or showed off anything. After 4 damn years...

WTF were they doing for the passed four years? DLC. Not finishing the base game we paid for first.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

At the very least we know the library stage was meant for chapter 2. So it's not like they'd done nothing. They were working on things, and that's the one piece we got salvaged.

Another thing I do know is a few Mane6 staff have mentioned that Maximum Entertainment wanted them to prioritize the DLC first. I've also heard that they were given kinda unreasonable deadlines for it all, without being given enough resources for it either.

Maximum wanted DLC since that's immediate money right now. And it's not hard to deduce that they canceled the rest because they weren't happy with sales. Most importantly, it was Maximum's decision to not even give Mane6 time to actually finish the DLC, shoving it out the door in this broken and unfinished state. This is entirely on Maximum.

[sudoMoses]

Originally posted by Missingno.:

At the very least we know the library stage was meant for chapter 2. So it's not like they'd done nothing. They were working on things, and that's the one piece we got salvaged.

Another thing I do know is a few Mane6 staff have mentioned that Maximum Entertainment wanted them to prioritize the DLC first. I've also heard that they were given kinda unreasonable deadlines for it all, without being given enough resources for it either.

Maximum wanted DLC since that's immediate money right now. And it's not hard to deduce that they canceled the rest because they weren't happy with sales. Most importantly, it was Maximum's decision to not even give Mane6 time to actually finish the DLC, shoving it out the door in this broken and unfinished state. This is entirely on Maximum.

Honestly though I still find it odd how they still had the time even before the buyouts.

[Moonkraisder]

I really hate to sound like this type of person, but Mane6 is not immune to criticism. Don't get me wrong, Modus is responsible of why this game is such a mess today. But the structure in order to develop the game was not there. One thing that PurrsianPlays pointed out is that there were no sort of management during the early stages of Them's Fightin Herds. Everything just feels like a haphazardly mess and it just ruins the game as a whole, making me not want to look back on Them's Fightin Herds ever again. Again, I'm not trying to hate on Mane6, but if you have no idea or some sort of plan to get things done, be prepared to get consumed alive in a competitive market.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

They were a small team that underestimated just how ambitious their goals were. But rather than fixate on what they couldn't pull off, I'm really happy with everything they could pull off. I wouldn't say anything has been ruined at all. It's still one of the best fighting games I've ever played, and it was ahead of the curve in many ways.

[sudoMoses]

Originally posted by Moonkraisder:

I really hate to sound like this type of person, but Mane6 is not immune to criticism. Don't get me wrong, Modus is responsible of why this game is such a mess today. But the structure in order to develop the game was not there. One thing that PurrsianPlays pointed out is that there were no sort of management during the early stages of Them's Fightin Herds. Everything just feels like a haphazardly mess and it just ruins the game as a whole, making me not want to look back on Them's Fightin Herds ever again. Again, I'm not trying to hate on Mane6, but if you have no idea or some sort of plan to get things done, be prepared to get consumed alive in a competitive market.

That makes more sense. Well, it was still a good run. Probably my favorite game. If only we would get some information about how it would play out though, even if its no longer going to be worked on.

[Shadowking58]

Considering that the Library stage we got was from Chapter 2 I'd be surprised if work wasn't done on it

[Dogman15]

In addition to the library stage, there's also evidence they were working on a crocodile enemy for Velvet to fight, in addition to the existing predators. Standing and crouching animations were finished, at least. And I have a strong feeling that most of the writing was finished for chapter 2, as well as the pixel overworlds. If I had to bet, I'd say that the main thing not yet done on chapter 2 was the boss fights and other unique enemy encounters, since that takes the most time and couldn't be worked on because of developing the DLC characters.

[Raxyz]

Not only an "unpopular take", also a wildly misinformed one. Although truth be told, those two tend to walk together very often.

First of all, updates on the development of Chapter 2 were given constantly up until their Modus/Maximum acquisition. By late 2020 they stated Chapter 2 was in preproduction and things would only move from there once the combat "team" (which was largely one person since Mane 6 wasn't even a 10 person team) finished work on Supers Level 3 and all resources could be diverted to story mode development. In 2021 their contract with Humble Games would expire, and later that year Modus acquired them. This kind of legal bs holds down pretty much any project, it diverts time AND resources to lawyers and meetings. And again, Mane 6 was not the kind of studio with a legal team able to do this for them while devs can keep doing their thing.

Level 3 supers were only completed well after Modus acquired them, around mid 2022. And some of the devs that were fired hinted that, instead of having them work on Chapter 2 which was always promised as free content, obviously the publisher wanted them to work on something that would be paid DLC. By then no further work could be done on story mode, it was just DLC until they fired most of the team in late 2023. All that they had to show for it was the library stage.

And if you still somehow think that there had to be some time where they could work on it, have you heard of a fighting game called Street Fighter 6? Capcom is a massive AAA company, and for all the resources and devs they have working on it, in a single year they could only develop four characters and add very basic interactions for each of them in World Tour, the game's story mode. When I say "basic interactions", I mean having them stand in a place that already existed in the base game, dispense un-voiced dialogue and very simple fetch quests, while occasionally fighting the player using the standard fighting game rules. Chapter 2 wasn't just a slapdash job, they had to create scenarios, stages, dungeons, progression elements, bosses and more. And let me remind you, 2D sprites are way harder to work with than 3D models. There's a reason Street Fighter doesn't use 2D since Third Strike and it certainly isn't because it looks prettier as SFIV and V were always criticized for uncanny models, weird proportions and bad physics (especially bad hair).

So here's the TL;DR: Updates were given on the story mode. And despite 4 years having passed, they had at best 1 rocky year where they could realistically fit some dev time towards completing story mode. Not nearly enough time for something that had to be at least as good as what they already had in Ch1.

And lastly

Originally posted by KtheSnake:

Companies like deadlines and promises met, and if the game had to die and then just straight up tell us everything was being cancelled, I feel like there is definitely a good reason why the team got canned. (...)

Know what companies actually like? Money. Mane 6 thought the acquisition was a cash injection towards helping them complete their game and give it longevity to make that cash back. Maximum obviously just wanted to reap a little bit off that Skullgirls-adjacent market and had them work on stuff that would be paid instead of free. They were told to not work on story mode, and then Maximum realized that people were mostly into TFH for the story mode since the Season Pass sales were nowhere near what they were expecting.

Assuming there has to be a "bigger reason" they would do this is woefully ignorant of how publishing companies do business. They don't like "deadlines" and "promises met" and certainly not customer satisfaction. They want the line to go up and then axe teams that had no say in their aggressive decisions when their clearly flawed approach fails. Look up "Embracer Group" if you want a clear-cut example of this.

Now. As the last point in this longer-than-it-should-be rant. Can Mane 6 be criticized? Absolutely. Anyone with mild knowledge of how games are made could see from Chapter 1 that TFH's story mode was incredibly ambitious for such a small team and that the game was massively underpriced if it was supposed to contain all further updates. There's RPG Maker games that are priced at 15 USD or higher, and those don't have anywhere near the complexity that TFH's story mode was aiming for. Mane 6 knew that - as a fighting game - they had to undercut their prices to have any appeal outside its niche. But taking on the promise of a single payment from day 1 was naive.

So yeah. Mane 6 can be criticized. But it really annoys me when the criticism is a shower thought with no actual research or knowledge in the subject. I think that the very lowest bar for any criticism to be held is at least a basic understanding of what happens and the right facts around it.

[sudoMoses]

Originally posted by Raxyz:

Not only an "unpopular take", also a wildly misinformed one. Although truth be told, those two tend to walk together very often.

First of all, updates on the development of Chapter 2 were given constantly up until their Modus/Maximum acquisition. By late 2020 they stated Chapter 2 was in preproduction and things would only move from there once the combat "team" (which was largely one person since Mane 6 wasn't even a 10 person team) finished work on Supers Level 3 and all resources could be diverted to story mode development. In 2021 their contract with Humble Games would expire, and later that year Modus acquired them. This kind of legal bs holds down pretty much any project, it diverts time AND resources to lawyers and meetings. And again, Mane 6 was not the kind of studio with a legal team able to do this for them while devs can keep doing their thing.

Level 3 supers were only completed well after Modus acquired them, around mid 2022. And some of the devs that were fired hinted that, instead of having them work on Chapter 2 which was always promised as free content, obviously the publisher wanted them to work on something that would be paid DLC. By then no further work could be done on story mode, it was just DLC until they fired most of the team in late 2023. All that they had to show for it was the library stage.

And if you still somehow think that there had to be some time where they could work on it, have you heard of a fighting game called Street Fighter 6? Capcom is a massive AAA company, and for all the resources and devs they have working on it, in a single year they could only develop four characters and add very basic interactions for each of them in World Tour, the game's story mode. When I say "basic interactions", I mean having them stand in a place that already existed in the base game, dispense un-voiced dialogue and very simple fetch quests, while occasionally fighting the player using the standard fighting game rules. Chapter 2 wasn't just a slapdash job, they had to create scenarios, stages, dungeons, progression elements, bosses and more. And let me remind you, 2D sprites are way harder to work with than 3D models. There's a reason Street Fighter doesn't use 2D since Third Strike and it certainly isn't because it looks prettier as SFIV and V were always criticized for uncanny models, weird proportions and bad physics (especially bad hair).

So here's the TL;DR: Updates were given on the story mode. And despite 4 years having passed, they had at best 1 rocky year where they could realistically fit some dev time towards completing story mode. Not nearly enough time for something that had to be at least as good as what they already had in Ch1.

And lastly

Originally posted by KtheSnake:

Companies like deadlines and promises met, and if the game had to die and then just straight up tell us everything was being cancelled, I feel like there is definitely a good reason why the team got canned. (...)

Know what companies actually like? Money. Mane 6 thought the acquisition was a cash injection towards helping them complete their game and give it longevity to make that cash back. Maximum obviously just wanted to reap a little bit off that Skullgirls-adjacent market and had them work on stuff that would be paid instead of free. They were told to not work on story mode, and then Maximum realized that people were mostly into TFH for the story mode since the Season Pass sales were nowhere near what they were expecting.

Assuming there has to be a "bigger reason" they would do this is woefully ignorant of how publishing companies do business. They don't like "deadlines" and "promises met" and certainly not customer satisfaction. They want the line to go up and then axe teams that had no say in their aggressive decisions when their clearly flawed approach fails. Look up "Embracer Group" if you want a clear-cut example of this.

Now. As the last point in this longer-than-it-should-be rant. Can Mane 6 be criticized? Absolutely. Anyone with mild knowledge of how games are made could see from Chapter 1 that TFH's story mode was incredibly ambitious for such a small team and that the game was massively underpriced if it was supposed to contain all further updates. There's RPG Maker games that are priced at 15 USD or higher, and those don't have anywhere near the complexity that TFH's story mode was aiming for. Mane 6 knew that - as a fighting game - they had to undercut their prices to have any appeal outside its niche. But taking on the promise of a single payment from day 1 was naive.

So yeah. Mane 6 can be criticized. But it really annoys me when the criticism is a shower thought with no actual research or knowledge in the subject. I think that the very lowest bar for any criticism to be held is at least a basic understanding of what happens and the right facts around it.

I mean I'm just someone who returned and not apart of the community at all, so take it as you will. In the end it doesn't really matter. It's over. They had their time. I appreciate the time for good answers though.

[sudoMoses]

Originally posted by Shadowking58:

Considering that the Library stage we got was from Chapter 2 I'd be surprised if work wasn't done on it

I acknowledge this was planned for it, but I am talking about the actual campaign itself. Not the side content.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

It was going to be part of Chapter 2, just like how ch1 has a few unique stages. Since ch2 got canceled, they repurposed it as a versus mode stage. But it is work that was done for ch2.