It is. On their YouTube channel there’s a very interesting Q&A on their event earlier this year, here: https://youtu.be/os_fHy1mB_M There was a question specifically about making a smartphone. They explained it was very unlikely they’d ever do that and explained their reasoning behind it, so I’d highly recommend watching the video of you’re interested in how they think.
Fair, although it’s less open than it appears at first glance. The world is divided in parts that you unlock as the central story progresses, much like most RPGs.
Hell no, Mad Max was way more fun than it had any right to be. I’ll agree that on paper it didn’t look like anything special, with mechanics we’d seen lots of times in other games, but in practice everything came together as much more than the sum of it’s parts.
Elite Dangerous has been doing exceptionally well in the past year because FDev finally realised it’s a live service game and started to act like it in a way that actually aligned with what the user base wanted. So what you’re saying isn’t true any more.
He isn’t entirely gone, the second season of The Sandman is about to release on Netflix in a few weeks…