But Driveclub isn’t an example of a game that launched on time and was bad because of it. It’s an example of a game where repeated delays were insufficient to get it into a decent launch state even about a year after it was expected. Deathloop seems like it’s fitting into a similar pattern, although fortunately the online aspect of Deathloop will be a much smaller component that it was for Driveclub, so even if that’s a mess, the game could still be solid.
As far as the pandemic, we were in a pandemic when they delayed the game from November 2020 to May 2021. Nothing changed during that time pandemic-wise (except the vaccines and potential loosening of restrictions). If they had delayed to September right off the bat, I wouldn’t have been saying this, but it’s the fact that it in November they thought May was reasonable and they couldn’t hit that.