We all know that developers like to announce their game with info or trailers to create hype, even if it's one or two years from release. It's quite normal.

However, sometimes it feels like they're going way too far. The Elder Scrolls VI is a good example. Game was teased back in 2018. Almost 6 years later, and we haven't heard much about it. Now, there's a rumor that Marvel's Blade may release around 2027. That's quite the wait.

PRAGMATA is another example, but on a minor scale. Game was scheduled for a 2022 release, then it got delayed to 2023, and now delayed again to a unknown date. But we see some gameplay, so it's not too bad.

So, what do you think? What is the best time to announce a new game? How many years would be Ok to wait for a announced title?

There's multiple reasons why industry wise, these kind of long far from release teasers are done. From building a continuous hype and relevancy, recruiting staffs along the development side, etc ...

But from a customer perspective, sh*t is aggravating sometimes.
Honestly it's not like I'll actually mind a barebone teaser but I'll get probably more angry when it comes to games advertising themselves with the "demos" which are total proof of fabrication concept not representing the actual game we'll have.

Not only that but as said, you'll have to wait to half a decade to maybe hope the resolution of it comes nearer.
This should honestly not be done in the name of our sanity but oh well, pick n choose what you want to be crazy for in the next 5 years if it makes you happy.

Not like game development isn't a thing too for multiple projects who have to be scrapped and re-tooled along the way.
I mean Dead Island 2 is the most recent example of this case and in the meantime, Metroid Prime 4 might finally see the end of the tunnel after a reboot production cycle to another dev which will have lasted the whole thing a whole console generation.

Anywoo, Monolith Soft stays winning by having their RPG ready to go less than a year from announcement and even advancing them from initial schedule while also not being a broken AAA western mess.

That's how things should be in the most ideal world ...

Helps marketing I guess. Theres people buying consoles thinking "eventually X announced game is gonna come out" for it, and they just wait. And wait. And wait.

Normally we'd have game announcements closer to release, or at least within a year to 6 months, like it used to be back in the day.

The past decade has shown that those days are somewhat behind us, in that we now get snippet/titlecard style announcements, with those advertised games being years and years away from final release (Like NMS, Cyberpunk, RDR2, GTA VI, Blade, etc).

These announcements today end up serving a slightly different purpose than what we're usually used to, in that yes, we do get to see a snippet trailer to get us engaged/hyped, but at the same time they feel more geared towards enticing talent into their studio pool. The Blade trailer in particular feels more like an ad to get more devs to join the team to make the game by 2027 (which is years away).

I do think that studios/publishers should really go back to the way things used to be, in that we get a trailer 1 year to 6 months, and not 5-10 years, because by then people will lose interest, or wait that many years only to be met with an utterly disastrous game (ones that already ask a high price).

I learned the hard lesson of buying the PS3 for Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Now I just forget about games with a long release date until a few months before.

I still think it is okay to announce these games ahead of time, like the next FF or the next Zelda or next Mario. Everyone knows they are coming, doesn't really matter when to announce them.

I prefer knowing what is planned to be released, instead of being in the dark.

Cancellations can happen to both announced, and unannounced games. That's a part of life.
And in that case I'd rather know that they worked on it.

So for me they can announce games as soon as possible.

However, I prefer if they do it when they at least have a trailer to show, even if it's a teaser.
But some times it can still be exciting when the trailer pops up unexpectedly years after they announced the project. (Resident Evil 2 Remake for example.)

Announcements in advanceis silly. See prime 4.  

I came from the Nintendo 64 with the venerable Perfect Dark...

Microsoft teased Perfect Dark for Xbox, which was one of the reasons why I bought the OG Xbox over the Gamecube or PS2. (That and Halo+Fable.)

Eventually the game dropped for the 360, but the tactic actually worked. With me anyway.

***

I don't think any developer/publisher intentionally announces a game years and years before release... Sometimes things happen, games may not review internally very well, sometimes technology and scope changes.. So it's sometimes better to restart development than cop a public shit-show and rubbish the company name.

It's bullshit. I'm tired of it. It gets you excited at first then nothing for years and you either forget or just assume it's dead. I feel a game should not be announced more than 1 year before release. This is just me but I don't buy a console on a promise that something I want may come years later. If I want a system for an exclusive I only get that console when that exclusive comes out. My OG Xbox I got because it had Shenmue II and JSRF already on it. My PSP because it had Ys 1 Chronicles on it. That way I had something right away and knew more games would follow. I held off buying an Xbox One because I wanted that Phantom Dust Reboot and Scalebound. When both were canned I lost all reason to be interested in the console. Glad I waited as nothing on that console was worth buying it over in the end.

It's bad enough when trailers are just CGI and show no actual gameplay. It's even worse when it's just a logo and they say early in development. Get fucked. I may not give two fucks about Star Wars but KOTOR Remake should be a cautionary tale for announcements like Blade or Metroid Prime 4. Some may come out or they may not. Or a Crackdown 3 where it came out but it was trash. Starfield announced in what 2017? Came out this year. Everyone made a big deal that this game is going to finally be THE game to own. Came out and well..sure some people loved it but it was ghosted at the TGAs. Now just making this forum and other websites the biggest disappointment. So not only can the game never come out. Or come out bad. Also can come out and be just fine but after so many years of high promises it can't live up to its hype after years of anticipation. I'd even put Bayo 3 here. I think it's a great game but maybe not worth the 5 year wait cycle from announcement to release and 8 years between sequels.

It's annoying. Wolverine was announced too early, and pretty much the entire Xbox lineup was announced too early.

Over 3 years from announce to release is too much. The Xbox Series event in July 2020 is probably the prime example of terrible.

Fable - Still not out
State of Decay 3 - Still not out
Everwild - Still not out
Avowed - Still not out
Hellblade 2 - Still not out
Forza - released now, but over 3 years later.

In hindsight that event was awful because they've completely failed to deliver in a reasonable time.

Here's a rundown of the 1st party game announcements Dec 2019 - September 2021. I think I got most of them. Out of the 11 games announced to this day MS has only released 4 of them. Sony announced 11 games, 10 of which are released and just 1 that will release a long time after being announced.