He said this in the context of their decision to start Haruspex' campaign with a flash forward to Day 12 in order to dissuade people from dropping the game after the first hour(s) due to the relatively unexciting first day (he actually considers what they did a mistake in hindsight), but hopefully this indicates a refusal to compromise their vision again, even if the new campaigns are going to be mechanically or thematically different from the first.
Elaborate on this?
I think the flash-forward works quite well to immediately set the stakes.
I personally found them effective (although I do hope they have the budget or intent to recreate Bachelor's intro when that rolls around), but let me quote the relevant bit from the translation that was linked above:
"Pathologic always had a very slow entre: the epidemic begins only on the third day, that is, it is preceded by four hours of immersion in a normal, painless life, where people have completely different worries and troubles. I always liked it very much: it is impossible to show the drama of the epidemic (which not only kills people, but also frighteningly changes their way of life, habits and moral attitudes) without contrast of what preceded it.
After the re-release of the first Pathologic as “Classic HD”, we noticed that even invested streamers quit the game after the first hour: they say, where are the adventures? Nothing happens, only conversations everywhere!
We decided to make a flashforward and show the epidemic and strangeness of the city immediately, from the first shots specially for the sake of these impatient players. In the “Marble Nest” this technique worked successfully (but the “Marble Nest” was thought up from the very beginning as a “nightmare”, as a fragment, and there the technique was appropriate).
But repeating it in the main game was perhaps a mistake. Moreover, as we see, this did not save the situation at all: people still either accept this game at once and as a whole (with any entry barrier), or do not accept at all. You should never try to please a “foreign audience” - in the end, you will not please them, and you won’t please yourself.
Nevertheless, we did everything possible so that these flashforwards fit well into the plot, so the game did not become worse: it just became so different that at the last stage of development it was foolish to hold onto the old structure - on the contrary, it was interesting to try new moves: what if it works out?"
Should note that the bolded part actually read "Но повторять его в основной игре, пожалуй, было ошибкой," which I understand more as a firmer declaration of error because 'пожалуй' ('perhaps') in this context reads as a kind of tactful flourish rather than something that is actually supposed to doubt the conclusion of the statement...if that makes any sense. My interpretation would, perhaps, (you see what I did there HEHCEHCEHCE) somewhat contradict the last paragraph so perhaps it is incorrect, and besides my ability to understand the nuances of the language has faded with time so perhaps someone else can interpret the sentence more confidently.
