So, no blocky environments or characters.

There are things that work perfectly alone but could not fit with the general vision of the game. Once we’ve done with this we proceed to check any possible problem in terms of look & feel because anyway there is no way to fix stuff (or even notice problem) without seeing everything running in a game-ready shape. When a new environment is ready, a new skill is implemented or a new enemy is working, we know for sure they are going to work in the merge 90% of times. Then we have gameplay which means iterating on daily basis on skills and combos and testing IA which is something completely separated in the flow. So, basically, we have graphic assets/environments/models and everything world-related that moves independently with its own scheduling. No turning back once you’ve entered production.

Pre-prod is when you can test processes and make mistakes. Our pipeline is very efficient, and this is the reason why we had a good pre-production in the back.

Software like crazybump free