First, let me start off by saying that despite all the bugs I've encountered, I absolutely love this title. Contrary to a large amount of posts I've seen on here, Twitter and other forums, I believe it's an amazing title, despite the whole "this is what we waited almost 3 years for?!" mentality.

Secondly, let me give you a little bit of background on me. I've worked previously in the software industry as a tester and bug documentarian for various software revolving around productivity, so I'm familiar with the process itself and the inner workings of a dev company.

Okay, now onto my (I believe educated) POV.

There is clearly a stark difference in the experience between the PC and Console versions of the game. Overall UI experience, console specific bugs and lag issues (even when running on the internal 'performance' mode) as well as issues with progression of several quest lines due to it being possible to become softlocked when accessing certain things (ex. Princess Quest arcade cabinet).

There's also a failure of being able to navigate to certain parts of the Fazwatch menu (previous messages as a prime example) as well as overall jumpiness of the mission screen.

Now, the reason I believe these issues are console specific are for the simple fact that this game was clearly designed with the PC build in mind, and the version we received on console was a, I would dare to say butchered, port.

The first indication of this is as soon as you boot up the game and see the logo for the game. You'll notice a mouse icon, meaning that it's assuming and I believe actually searching for a mouse as an input. (side note, plugged one in, didn't work)

The second is the overall Fazwatch navigation. You're supposed to be able to expand or collapse the missions and messages drop down tabs, however it's not possible due to the above mentioned mouse input not being present.

The third is the clunky controls for the camera system. I've read from numerous people that the camera rotation doesn't seem to make sense a lot of the time in regards to where you'll move to next and how exactly to move to the one you want. Again, the game is possibly expecting a mouse click such as in the PC build.

There's others, but I don't want to dwell on these issues as much as I'd like to move onto my main point of all this.

Working in testing and a software company in general, a lot of the times deadlines are dictated more by the publisher or distributor than the actual team developing the software. This can cause serious crunch when your team is expecting 6-8 months more to do deep code checking and QA work, but then when the message comes down that they want to release a new "version" as it was for the company I worked for, you suddenly have 2-3 months... if not less.

What I'm trying to emote here is that I don't think the aggression and hate being hurled toward Steel Wool is justified, as I don't believe this was a Steel Wool issue; I believe this was a Sony issue.

It's been well documented that several news reports and analysts were talking about how light the holiday lineup was looking for Sony this year, with only a couple really major titles that were projected to drop around the typical shopping period.

With Security Breach being a constantly debated title online, I believe that Sony saw a build of the PC version being, let's say 90% complete. With that, Sony would have given a deadline (perhaps December 16th?) to complete and port the title.

Here's the issue with situations like this. It's not as simple as running something through a remapper for inputs or retexturing or removing some assets based on the limitations of the expected hardware. There is a fundamental difference between PC and console OS in the first place, despite Sony promoting the PS5 as being "as close to a high level PC as they've ever produced."

Think the old Apple/Mac vs PC discussion. Why did this come out on this platform so much later than the other? Because when the software is completed on one, you often actually have to develop an entirely new variation of the engine your software is based on to operate properly on the alternate OS, despite the hardware being "close."

Basically, I believe that Sony put a lot of pressure and crunch on Steel Wool to get this game out before Christmas, and while they got the engine working on console, there are still programming artifacts left behind from the conversion from the PC build. I don't believe they were given ample, if any testing time like would be standard for a title the scope of this game (not specifically run time, but the scale of the world they created).

Do I have proof of this? Of course not, I wasn't involved in these dealings personally, but I can speak from 5 years experience in the industry how common this type of thing is.

If you want me to TL:DR; this, please don't hate on Steel Wool, I don't believe this was in their hands to have a picture perfect release on console due to possible crunch from Sony to release it by Christmas. Believe in the devs though, as they are truly passionate about the franchise and the product... just try to be patient.

Thank you for coming to my FREDtalk.