Vane developer Friend & Foe says the priority for its buggy PS4 adventure game is implementing a better save system. In a Reddit AMA, the indie studio also spoke about the various issues that have plagued launch.
In our Vane review, one of the issues which hampered the experience was the lack of save points. With only four specific areas where you can save the game, it means you have to keep plodding on to the next save point.
On Reddit, one player suggested that an auto-save option would have been a nice addition. Friend & Foe replied by saying: “We’re hard at work patching the game right now. The first priority is a better save system, and it should be done pretty soon. We’re also always looking at how to make the camera and controls better.”
Some players were even more forward. One writes: “Why did you decide to release a buggy unfinished game? Seems you’re already aware of all the issues with it”.
“Hey! We were aware of some of the issues, and unfortunately some reviewers did not get the day 1 patch, which colored initial impressions, writes the studio. “As a small team we’ve had limited resources for testing, but clearly some of the issues were bigger than we anticipated even after the update, and not catching them is nobody’s fault but our own. We’re of course not happy having bugs get in the way of the experience, so we are hard at work on patching them out!”
So, the size of the team impacted the final product, resulting in a game that currently has an average Metacritic rating of 57%.
In fairness, the studio apparently has a host of patches planned to fix a slew of issues. Two updates have already been released, including patch 1.02 which included performance tweaks, and some fixes for game breaking bugs.
Update 1.03, says the developer, will include the better save system.
To find out more about Vane, check out our interview with Friend & Foe.