Have you ever been in a project like Andromeda where the main pillar of the game (as you noted the seamless experience and the procedurally generated worlds) fell through and you had to crunch contents from the ashes? What was that like?

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It basically went the same way. I tried my best because that's what I do. Early in my career I didn't know any better, so I thought that "if I work harder, if everyone works harder, maybe we can save this thing." As I got more experienced, I realized that the project's direction is far more important than any individual contribution, and I got better at recognizing what I would need for myself in the future. I realized that even if I worked on a project that got cancelled or flopped on release, I would still need to speak to the choices I made and the quality of my work in the likely event a layoff was in the wings. Thus, my operating strategy evolved into doing my best at the office while reading the tea leaves and update my resume and looking at possible openings in case shit hit the fan.

On a larger scale, team morale falls as crunch increases and major features get cut. It just feels bad to see all that work end up on the scrap heap and know that the situation is bad. Typically one of two results would inevitably happen as things continued on. More often, executive confidence in the project would tank, the project would get cancelled, and (most of) the team would get laid off. Less often, the project would launch, we would miss our target numbers, continued development would get cancelled, and most of the team got laid off anyway. I've never actually been in the extremely rare situation where the team gets a bunch of additional resources to try to reinvent itself and succeed a second time.

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