Hello Everybody! Thank you so much for watching this video! There are some things I'm sure I missed but I wanted to keep the video on track with the story I thought would be interesting to tell! I tried to credit all of the gameplay footage I used in the description, but if I missed anything please let me know and I'll add it in where it's due!

This took wayyyyy longer to make than it honestly should have, but now it's out and I can finally go work on something else. I hope you're all doing well! Thanks for being here.

Honestly, I find it really heartbreaking that Nikita's idea for the story of Hello Neighbor 1 got canned. The generational trauma plotline just has so much depth, and I love stories that are personal to the artist. Even if I don't specifically relate to it, it just adds more soul

Yo mama so empathetic that she says hello, to hello neighbor

holy shit finallyyy a video on hn that isnt just saying "the alphas were better" and actually shows the development issues that led to the games ending up in that state

THANK YOU SO MUCH  for bringing context to all this, especially nikita, its nice to see someone finally go in depth rather than juts surface level hate

by the way, an interview recently happened with nikita (entirely in russian) saying that the games story rewrite was texted to him in a paragraph, and alex had thought that the basement being a pantry wouldnt live up to expectations of the basement, so nikita was encouraged to change it to a story he had written in 1 paragraph.

he also said that the puzzles becoming convoluted was somewhat of his own fault, stating that for hn1 he had always wanted a sense of community coming together to solve puzzles, like children at the playground saying "did you figure this out?", but youtubers were solving the puzzles so quickly and people were copying the youtubers so much that he made the puzzles increasingly more convoluted

The only hello neighbor "documentary" video that has actual research in it

Such a great in-depth video, man! Thank you for covering this extensive topic and thank you for believing in us.

Lets introduce our new villian, put him in a single cutscene, release a whole update with a whole section thats unironically a better game on its own that the entirety of the actual game and lock it behind a secret tunnel

I asked Alexus *ONE QUESTION*, and now my screenshot is in every HN2 video under the sun. I don't know how to feel about it years later.

I think it's funny how instead of just swerving around the guest our character decides to just do a left turn in the middle of the road.

The sad thing about Nikita is that he seems to have a genuine artistic vision for the franchise. He's just not competent enough to pull it off. But maybe he's learned from everything and Hello Neighbor 3 will be great.

I think the takeaway from this is that even games that are considered kind of bad and low rent almost always have people putting some kind of effort or drive behind it.

Thank you, for using my interview. An incredible in-depth video, I hope to see more from you on hopefully more topics and higher recognition, cuz it deserves it! I am not interested in HN as much as I used to be, cuz I've got loads of work, but I got this vid sent by many people, that I had to check it out.

Fun fact, I once planned an in-depth HN video with a dramedy style in my local forest, similarly to this vid!

seems like at the start nikita had an actual story to tell, but a corporatized profit motive pushed him into a role he wasnt ready for and then punished him for that by meddling in his concept

16:00 proud to be a member of the presumably small "there was actually a plane outside my window when I got to this bit so I was genuinely terrified for a second" club!

You single handedly gave me hope for Hello Neighbour 3.

As a fan of Helldivers2 seeing Alexus pop up again made my blood boil. The dev team actively has tried defending his existence in the studio, despite the community, rightfully so, complaining about decisions he has say on. Since he got flack from the community he has stayed relatively silent since as if he is hiding (for the most part.)
I can tell that Alexus truly hasnt changed since Hello Neighbour because he has, and still is, continuing his behaviour. The man doesnt get enough hate.

thank you for this!! i havent finished watching but its great so far.
nikita is usually very open to interviews. if you were to ever want answers to anything else, im entirely sure he'd be open to doing one with you. he's a nice dude

I'm phucking sorry, Alexus worked on Hello Neighbor 2 AAANNDD Helldivers 2. OMFG suddenly everything makes sense, he is just the Embracer Group of team leads

EDIT: changed it to Alexus mb got the names mixed up

The guest at the end was actually just me coming with a big fat ‘I told you so’

Honestly, I'm REALLY glad how you told things and what happened behind the scenes, and about Nikita. When I learned that he has anxiety, I IMMEDIATELY related to him. I also REALLY appreciate how you said how most of us still genuinely enjoyed the games while still seeing their flaws at the same time. To me at least, I've always kinda liked to try to keep my expectations "50/50ish", because I know that the Devs do their best, I also don't want to unintentionally add more pressure to them and make their promises too much for them to handle, because to me at least, as long as the game is fun, engaging, and interesting to play, then that's something that I ALWAYS enjoy too!! That's just my opinion, though. 🙃🙃