Let'em Age

It's a commonly held belief that the flavor of wine improves with age.  While true for a few specific kinds of wine, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, the vast majority only really benefit from the first six months to a year of mellowing.  So, what does any of this have to do with video games?  Well...games, much like wine, aren't always ready for consumption when their bottled up and sent off to market.  Early access titles are the most obvious analogy, but there are many other titles that claim to be finished products when in fact they are in dire need of bug fixes, balance tweaks or simply additional content.  In some instances though, waiting doesn't result in a better game because the support team has moved on to other assignments or the post-launch funding dried up.  Regardless of the particulars, there a few games that (much like fine wine) just need some more time to realize their full potential.  Here are three such examples.

Phoenix Point, brainchild of Julian Gollop (creator of the original XCOM series) has recently moved from early access to full-priced retail game.  However, it's still rough around the edges.  Nothing here that can't be fixed with a few patches, but it will probably take some time to get right.  Combine that with the large amount of DLC in the works, plus a planned console port of what is currently an Epic Game Store exclusive, and it's not hard to imagine this game being a vastly better piece of entertainment software in a year or two.

Control feels a lot like a cross-gen game in that the rendering engine is being held back by the limitations of available hardware.  Granted there are a few PC enthusiasts out there with really high end graphics cards able to do proper ray tracing, but for console owners no such option exists.  Next-gen Xbox and PS5 both promise to support ray tracing though, so waiting until the hardware becomes a more affordable mass-market feature is probably a good call.  Oh...and the game also has two paid expansions in the development pipeline.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a typical example of media tie-in games having to comply with the timetable of the franchise they are based on.  In this case EA and Disney mandated that the game launch before the release of "Rise of Skywalker," the IX mainline film and final installment in the new trilogy.  Needless to say, it wasn't quite ready.  A number of minor bugs, annoying glitches and pervasive jankiness marred peoples enjoyment of the game to varying degrees.  Despite those issues, the game has received a lot of praise with regards to story and mechanics, so I'm sure Respawn Entertainment will get things cleaned up in due time.

There's an old saying that goes "patience is virtue," but when it comes to incomplete video games I'd argue that waiting is just common sense.  In all three of the examples I've sighted, each game will almost certainly be cheaper, less buggy, and more fun to play next year than now.  Then again, who am I to tell you not to drink red wine when it's rough and raw?