Yes there was drama, but I feel like you're downplaying just how bad they overpromised and underdelivered. As a huge CDPR fan since The Witcher 2, (I even preordered TW3 collectors edition the first day it was available for preorder, even though I usually don't preorder). That release eroded a lot of the trust I had in them, even though I didn't preorder this one since I could smell the bs from miles away.

I actually got the game for like 6 bucks on Steam during the last sale and I'm now having a blast playing through the actually stable and release-ready version. But I feel like I can still see the scars of the rushed development on the game's main story progression. Like, I'm convinced that act 1 was supposed to be much longer and more fleshed out. Because I can't explain why a game that has quite literally the most immersive dialogue sequences in the entire industry (in a gigantic open world FPS, of all things) would have you watch a montage of you doing a bunch of cool things with a very cool character instead of actually having you playing through them. Also you can't convince me that montage was literally supposed to be a vertical slice of act 1 but they had to "salvage" it and actually put it 1:1 in the game because they were legally on the hook for releasing it as an early story trailer with a giant "scenes captured in engine" text.

They might go back on the "preorder worthy" list if they can abstain from blowing up the next game's hype to the moon and ride it regardless of the actual state of development. And burning out all their best talent on crunch death marches.

Edit: oh, also I have to rant about this trend I'm seeing a lot recently where uninformed gamers are now blaming the... publisher for all of this, apparently not realizing that they are self-published.

Ahhhhh that

I remember now thanks

About the grudge, yeah that's a gamer thing