If you could pair two top developers together to make one game who would you choose? Here's 5 suggested dream teams.
Former Naughty Dog artist Gabriel Betancourt explains why the "sweet spot" for game teams is under 200 people and how AAA "factories" kill creativity.
There’s definitely some truth to this. When teams get too large, coordination starts to outweigh creativity—layers of approval, risk aversion, and tight deadlines can turn bold ideas into “safe” ones. Keeping a team under ~200 people sounds ideal for maintaining clear communication and a shared vision. That said, massive AAA projects also come with huge technical demands and expectations, so scaling up isn’t always avoidable. The real challenge is figuring out how to keep that small-team creativity alive inside big studio structures.
More than that, it's logistically untenable. Inevitably, when teams get too large, how do you keep tabs on accountability? I suspect this massive team size is a consequence of the perfectionism streak Naughty Dog has.
I wish we could have so many people working on something and it turns out great because I'm all for collaboration in spirit - the problem is too many people as part of the larger team and smaller units. Suppose for example that you have too many people in the art department; you will very often come up against fiercely competing visions for how things should look. That competitive vision will cause friction between team members, team doesn't work as a unit, the back and forth can further delay parts that the other departments are waiting for, etc etc.
A 200-person team says, to me, that we need to scale back game development. Even if it means we go back to PS2 era costs and scale, why not? Those games are still great fun, the budgets were in check, and you could literally break the 200-man team into like 10 20-man teams working on different projects.
The Marathon Duo queue test ends as Bungie confirms its return in Season 2, with new experimental playlists already on the way.
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Its neat especially since not everyone might have two friends playing it. Makes it more personal to go at in duos.
It's 2026 and basic match making features in MP games are still being drip fed to an audience that still gets excited over said basic feature being implemented.
Darryl Linington from Notebookcheck.net writes: "Early hands-on time with Marathon, spanning roughly 10 hours, points to a distinctive extraction shooter with strong shell-based class design, layered faction progression, surreal presentation, and a dense UI that still needs smoothing out."
Almost 16,000 reviews on Steam currently has the game sitting on a very positive 90% Not sure if it has the player numbers but those who are playing seem to be enjoying themselves.
On Steam, you have to have bought the game, in order to play. On metacritic, ANYONE can review it. I'll leave it for you to decide which one matters more.
Replies(1)The game is really really bad. So generic boring and lifeless. UI is terrible. Bad and slow gameplay. Not sure who gives the go ahead for these games. Insane all that money companies just throw away for no reason. Nobody a asking for these games
You haven't played it. That much is apparent from your comment. Gameplay is FAR from slow and boring. I do agree the UI definitely needs to be re-worked. But then again, you're just repeating a complaint you're reading about, not actually experiencing.
Can you show any proof you've actually played it, by sharing your PSN ID or Steam profile? Nah, guessed as much.
Gunplay is the best thing about the game. To call it bad is wrong. Just because it isn't a twitch shooter doesn't mean it's slow, not everything has to play the same. Everything else is generic I agree.
Yes I am. But tell me ,with goty games do you play? Have you even played Marathon? If not ...S T F U!!
So sick and tired of the hate BS 🤮🤮
Naughty Dog and Remedy would be good.
Loving the Bioware/Bethesda partnership. That would perhaps just be too much for gamers though. Imagine a Mass Effect type game with Skyrim's scale.
Naughty Dog and Bungie?
Nintendo and Obsidian just because they balance each other out. Ninty usually get a more comfortable dev. time (thus the polish), but don't worry too much about story/choice; Obsidian usually receives shorter dev times than the norm (at least when considering the titles they're pushing) but I argue have the best group of writers in the industry.
capcom and naughty dog