>>723297387
>Also are monster designs the first to get done when making a game?
From what I remember seeing, they built the combat/gameplay side of the game early on and dealt with the cinematics last. So, maybe they focus on enemy designs early to help with combat encounter design which are also early.

This isn't always the case as other game developers will focus on building out the story and cinematics first, since those can take a lot of time to complete and are hard to change later. Then they build the gameplay around that which is easy to fiddle with until launch.

But it's been 18 months since the game launched on PS5. I think they're way past the conceptual stage of development for the sequel. They're probably close to having a playable alpha of the entire game at this point if they're aiming for a late 2027 release.