It depends what you consider pre-production. Witcher 4 was in pre-production for roughly 4 years. That doesn't mean that animators weren't working on the game during that time. I'm sure dozens of people have been working on SSM new IP since 2018 or 2019, but it obviously didn't go into full production until end of 2022, after GOWR released
It doesn't depend of anything: pre-production is pre-production. It's the work done for a project by a smaller team before production (with a bigger team) starts, preparing what its needed to be done before the produciton starts.
It means preparing budgets, roadmaps, securing funding, market research, early concept art, story and prototypes, securing the team needed and fitting their roadmap and schedules, securing support/outsourcing teams, deals with maybe some console platform holder, some game sub or some PC GPU brand.... That gets condensed in a business plan and marketing plan, plus pitch document that gets greenlighted or not by whoever has to approve it (editorial team, publishers, inversor, platform holder who could sign an important deal with them etc).
Once all these things are done, approved and reach a certain point when they are ready to scale to full production, pre-production ends and production starts.
CD Projekt and SSM grew and have multiple teams working on multiple projects on production unlike before, when they were only able to work on a single (big) project at the same time. SSM didn't have to release GoWR to start production on the new IP: they had a team for each project working at the same time. When GoWR was completed, they went to work in the next GoW, while a separate team worked in Valhalla and worked in the new IP. Plus tiny teams do other stuff like supporting ports or adaptations.
Same goes with CD Projekt: they work in multiple projects at the same time. Didn't need to release a game to start working in another one. In this case, The Witcher IV started pre-production early 2022 and late 2024 started full scale production, meaning it had a preproduction of under two years. While at the same time they were working on Cyberpunk, a The Witcher 1 remake (leaded by Fool's Theory), project Hadar (new IP), Project Orion (Cyberpunk sequel, leaded by their American office) and Project Syrius (Witcher MP game, leaded by their American office). And while they also released post-launch Cyberpunk and Gwent stuff plus some external teams made some mobile games.
Insomniac combat has been good for the action/adventure genre. However, combat has never carried any of their games, but that's not a problem when they also heavily emphasize traversal and platforming. And I understand having combat catering to casuals, but that doesn't mean it should lack any kind of depth. The recent God of War games are a great example of this. A pretty easy game to pick up, but there is enough depth for gamers who are looking for a challenge
There are different player types that prefer to focus on different things, and there are different genres or subgenres for each.
As could be story (RPGs), exploration (the typical open world game), platforming with minimal action (like Mario), accesible flashy action (like GoW or Stellar Blade) or very challenging and deep action (as could be Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden or DMC).
Bayonetta may be way deeper than GoW or Spider-Man, but the two recent GoW or Spider-Man games sold like 10x times more than the Bayonetta games.
