HorseDongSub69, on 24 August 2019 - 09:35 AM, said:
They had ideas for pieces of a game they wanted to make. After Triptych took the helm these set pieces were put together with a story written by two women who had never written anything before. It feels broken, disjointed and on the nose because it literally is
Not entirely true, actually.
They had a spreadsheet with the general story beats present before 3D Realms closed down. That was basically the "Finally, finally we're on track." That was back when Bombshell was still in the game. After 3D Realms shuttered and Triptych was formed they basically took that spreadsheet and cut out huge sections. The Area 51 stuff with the Duke Clones and Proton was shrunk down a bit and made into the DLC, the other sections were rearranged, mostly truncated and then stretched out with some extra turret sections, and sold as the main campaign.
The game would have been at least more coherent had the story and character beats between Bombshell and Duke been maintained, and they wouldn't have been forced to pad out other parts of the campaign.
For example when you read the section with the Monster Truck and the way it's mapped out, gives the impression of a more opened ended section where you could traverse the environment in a few ways, instead of the straight linear trip it is in the final game.