Otter on 13 June 2022
I don't feel like changes to the story would of had a massive difference to its sales tbh but we'll never really know. I think the whole leaking + drama which followed did put a bad taste in many's mouth, but that's ultimately a small% of sales that wouldn've been lost.
Sophmore slums are actually very common, so especially for story driven IPs, its really important Sony keep investing in new stories. This is also risk for them, which is why its important they build up IPs which are more gameplay centric (Mario/Zelda/Halo/Fortnight) etc
