Unless a game is sold as “pre-order for open beta access” or the more modern equivalent “early access”, I still expect games to be “complete” in terms of core content on release date. Bug fixes and quality of life changes later are ok, (but it would be nice not to need them) and games that never stop being updated are an exception (e.g. Minecraft).
Neither of those games was really “incomplete” on launch in terms of core features. Cyberpunk had some bad bugs, but the core of its controversy was poor performance on older consoles, which (as I understand it) was never really fixed. No Man’s Sky was missing multiplayer on launch, but the core of its controversy was people didn’t like the core gameplay loop and also didn’t like the randomly generated terrain and creatures. NMS has received a lot of content since then, but it hasn’t really changed its core gameplay loop and has only slightly improved the quality of random generation.

[–] Soup@lemmy.cafe 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

What about Outlaws is incomplete exactly?

And… BOTH of the games I mentioned were notoriously incomplete. Like- legendarily incomplete.

[–] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Idk what’s incomplete about Outlaws I don’t know much about the game.

I bought and enjoyed both NMS and Cyberpunk on release, and they don’t seem to have changed that much since then. My theory for why these games are well-received now is all the haters quit the game near release so now, years later, only the people who originally liked these games are still playing.

What was incomplete about Cyberpunk (besides it not working on older consoles, and having more bugs than I would hope for?)

What was incomplete about NMS (besides lack of multiplayer?)

[–] yamanii@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

NMS was lacking portals and the sandworm, both things that it has now.

Cyberpunk actually changed a lot: they tweaked the handling of cars and bikes several times, put in a dating system where you can invite romanceable NPCs to your apartment, they removed armor from clothing and remade all skill trees to be more active, put in shooting inside a car, actually made the police pursuit instead of just spawning on foot cops near you, now even Max-Tac drops from a flying vehicle at max wanted, and finally in the last update: the metro system.