Five Hyped Video Games That Totally Flopped
Some games are perfect from day one. Others are hyped up and then make you consider never pre-ordering another game again.
Sometimes video games are so good. They’re the perfect form of escapism and let you explore a rich world with a ton of lore. They let you experience a thoughtful and well written story in close-to real time. Other times, though, games can be so bad. We’ve been excited for games or had them hyped up by the production company, just to find ourselves disappointed and out sixty bucks. Even if they right themselves eventually – and sometimes they do – it’s hard to forget that initial flop.
Final Fantasy XIV
An almost tragic review by 1UP.com said that Final Fantasy XIV was “like playing with a toy stuck in a plastic bag: it can be fun for a while and you can get the general idea, but you can’t appreciate the full experience.” This is a game that had promise but totally failed to stick the landing. FFXIV ultimately released a product that felt unfinished and unfun. Final Fantasy XIV 2.0 was released a few years later as a total reboot. Because sometimes the only way to fix all of the problems ahead of you is to just start all over again.
Marvel’s Avengers
With an IP this big, making a generally enjoyable game should be a slam dunk. Instead one of the nicest things said about Marvel Avengers is that it’s “inoffensive.” Menu issues and bugs made it difficult to play, and when you do get around to gameplay it’s uninspired and annoying. Patches were released to help with gameplay issues, but a 96% decline in players since the game’s debut is a little hard to recover from. There’s a market out there for escaping from reality for an hour while playing as your favorite characters. But this one missed the mark.
Cyberpunk 2077
Unlike some other games on this list, Cyberpunk 2077 was not only played and completed but actually enjoyed. But it’s hard to deny that this game was off to a bumpy start. Even after multiple delays, the game felt rushed to release. This left the game with multiple technical glitches that made large portions almost unplayable. Numerous patches fixed these problems in small chunks, so if you had more patience than your average video game demanded, it was pretty fun. Though maybe it wasn’t as biting and critical as a cyberpunk-set story should be. In the end, this game earned favorable reviews and did decently in sales, but those early days were rough.
Fallout 76
Fallout 76 is the video game flop that taught my household to never trust again. We were so excited for this game. It looked so promising, and the previous Fallout games were good to great, so we pre-ordered it. And then the disappointment could have been measured from space. I don’t even think we pre-order games around here anymore because of Fallout 76. Critics called the game “half baked” and “pointless.” And to add insult to injury, performance issues kept people from walking the wastelands as smoothly as they wanted to. The Wastelanders expansion improved the experience a little, but for many, it wasn’t nearly enough.
No Man’s Sky
This is a game that’s seen some justice, but when it was first released No Man’s Sky was an almost universal disappointment. The technical and visual aspects of the game were great. But the game itself was monotonous and tedious, two words you never want to use to describe a video game. While there were technically nearly unlimited places to explore, there wasn’t enough variety. To their credit, the team took the criticism of the game’s players to heart and worked on improving those very things. A well-received update made for an enjoyable, playable game. But for many of us, the initial flop tuned us out and never drew us back in.
What is your (least) favorite hyped-up video game flop? What’s a game you were looking forward to that failed to deliver? Did you play any of our picks and find that they weren’t all that bad? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Adventuring!
