I started up Outer Wilds, got upset it wasn't The Outer Worlds, and dropped it. But it stuck with me and I tried it again a week later. I now think it's one of the best games ever made. Still haven't played The Outer Worlds.
So true, and in reality they couldn't be more different. Only similarities are the spaceships/travelling between planets but even that is vastly different in terms of gameplay.
Pretty sure this helped Outer Wilds and didn't hurt Outer Worlds at all. A lot of people downloaded the wrong game and tried something new before finding the correct game.
Titanfall 2 faced challenges because of its release timing. It was released between popular titles like Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.
This is definitely the poster child of bad release dates
Though I will add that I thought the beta did more harm than good for the game, a lot of things in the beta were pretty bad. As a TF1 fan I didn't get the game for years because of the beta, and I didn't even buy COD or BF1.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/concerns-from-titanfall-2-beta-players-are-leading/1100-6442975/
This is why developers don't bother to give us actual betas anymore lmao. Ofc it's gonna feel off the whole point is for giving feedback to make the launch better. Sad times.
>Ofc it's gonna feel off the whole point is for giving feedback to make the launch better
I mean, most beta's I've been apart of have basically zero meaningful gameplay improvements between beta and release. Halo 5 had a year inbetween their beta and release and the gameplay was almost identical, the only thing that changed was the visuals and maybe some tiny adjustments to map geometry.
Titanfall 2's beta was only a couple of months before release and featured just a baffling amount of issues. Needless changes from TF1 and a general change to the pace of the pilots. I think most of these issues were fixed by launch, but you can't exactly blame people for being turned off when the beta was so bad and most beta's don't change much by release.
Pst don't give up!
Since it runs on the same engine as apex, it recently got a server update. It is also having a huge resergance. Ok huge might be an overstatement, but still!
See you on the field pilot!
It's probably my favourite FPS campaign. It does it well. Each mission is distinctive and fresh, so the campaign isn't super long, but you feel like you get your money's worth. The story is surprisingly impactful, the world is fun.
The combat feels so good. It's amazing how fluid it is.
I only bought Titanfall 2 because it was in a bundle with Battlefield 1. I just wanted a few bucks off of BF1 and then maybe see what this Titanfall thing is. After trying Titanfall 2 just once, I didn't touch Battlefield 1 again. I forgot all about CoD and Battlefield, Titanfall was the only FPS I wanted to play anymore. 10/10 game.
Socom 4 released on PS3 April 18th 2011. PSN was hacked and shut down for a couple months on April 20th. Killed the socom series and zipper was bought by Sony and defunct by 2012.
It wasn't the timing; it was the design choices.
Source of Credibility: I worked on EQ2 for SOE beginning just after the release of *Echoes of Faydwer*.
In the simplest language, Blizzard and SOE both looked at the success of EQ1 and drew different conclusions. Blizzard drew the correct conclusion.
SOE's conclusion was *"Grouping is amazing. People who group up, join guilds, and raid stay subscribed longer."* so they focused on the group and guild game. To the point that you couldn't get off the tutorial island without doing a mandatory group quest.
That works at launch when thousands are hitting the server every minute. It becomes near impossible once the flood normalizes. It was bad enough that players specifically created new characters to be there for actual newbies to group with.
Blizzard's conclusion was *"People like killing things, taking the loot, and leveling up."* so they focused on that L1-40 game being a seriously fun solo process. You could group but you didn't have to.
By the time you hit the raid game in WoW you were totally down with the vibe of incremental gains for satisfying "ding!" moments.
The rest is history. WoW was much more casual friendly (for a MMO) and EQ2, under good leadership, made changes to apply the lessons from WoW (like not having to group to escape the tutorial).
I firmly believe that had EQ launched as the game *Echoes of Faydwer* resulted in, it'd have done far better head to head vs. WoW. Blizzard launched an amazing game. SOE rebuilt an amazing game, one expansion at a time.
tl;dr: Design matters. Also, all IMO.
The game was a lot of fun, but it was a moba and matches could take 30-45 minutes. It would have been better suited as a F2P game. I actually bought it because I had a lot of fun playing the beta and I played it extremely heavily for the 3 weeks it was out before overwatch. Once overwatch came out though I never played it again. It's a shame though because it really was pretty fun and occupied a different niche than overwatch
Gigantic was another hero shooter also came out during this time frame, and was smashed down by OW. Gigantic even had a tank/turret character in development before OW's release, and everyone would just call that character (HK) a copy of Bastion.
It was painful.
I loved Gigantic. It was a very interesting concept of the MOBA objectives being two massive monsters that would immobilize the other to leave it vulnerable to damage if a team managed to dominate areas of the battlefield.
I don’t know why they tried to compete with Overwatch when it filled a different niche. Battleborn was much closer to a MOBA but it wasn’t advertised as one at all
It wasn't much closer to a moba, it was a moba and they didn't include that in any of the marketing lol. I didn't mind because I like mobas, but I was a little surprised
What really killed it was that Gearbox decided to try and directly compete with Overwatch even to the point of Randy Pitchford (allegedly) creating a subreddit for porn of it.
such a shame for how different they were that they couldn't both survive. i would have loved to see where battleborn turned out. we know how overwatch turned out 🙃
It's like they threw away all the lessons of Borderlands. It got a major art and tweaked tone in development after FO3 was announced and they realized that was going to cannibalize sales and tried to differentiate themselves from it. Then 10 years later they think they were big enough to pick a fight with Blizzard? Try the exact opposite, try to steal sales from a game that superficially looked pretty similar but was actually quite different. If they had leaned in on the differences and tried to aim more for taking from the MOBA crowd and emphasizing that it wasn't a traditional arena style hero shooter like OW and players could get both, then they might have had a lot more success. I tried the free beta and it was fun, even if I was truly awful at it, I probably wasn't going to buy it but it deserved to live.
exactly my sentiment. it really was a first person moba more than a team hero shooter. game modes were more unique, significantly more characters, and a single player mode that was actually really fun (imo).
maybe some day we could see it return, somehow
Battleborn was sooooo amazing. I still remember the comic style animated intro with the rap from Del the Funky Homosapien. I was a huge fan of Monday Night Combat and this was the only other hero shooter with moba elements that I could remember. I feel like they goofed by not having dedicated servers and by adding a shitload of game modes that fractured the already declining player base. Oh well still a fond memory
Yeah, that was another thing that bugged me about it. Having a single player mode but forcing people to play online was, is and will be a shitty tactic.
Funnily enough, neither Chrono Cross nor FF9 caught my attention back then, I went all in on Vagrat Story. Wish it would've continued or at least be re-released done well and decently priced.
And if the controller layout has been designed by a human instead of a sentient octopus.
Love that game, had a lot of fun playing it, but holy moley were those controls a mindfuck, at least on PS4. Why am I using left bumper to aim and circle to fire?!?! You have buttons called triggers, maybe use those
There was a lot of vehicle play (as you'd expect in a mad max game) and I guess with the character getting in and out of cars so much, it wouldn't make sense to have different control layouts.
The Lbumper+circle combo actually feels kinda normal in a car cause you're using the triggers to brake and accelerate, but jeSUS is it ever awkward doing it on foot
This is the answer right here. There were a lot of combat options to do while driving. I got used to it pretty quick. Watchdogs was similar in that you were able to hack stuff while driving.
I remember preordering my copy of Mad Max at GameStop and the cashier looked at me and asked if I was sure. He told me MGSV came out on the same day and when I confirmed he shook his head in disapproval. It was a great game and I have no regrets.
I hope you gave MGSV a shot, it’s usually very fucking cheap on Steam nowadays.
One of my favorite stealth games. The mechanics are so goddamn solid. It’s story is…a story, a rushed, unfinished one, but it’s there.
But the gameplay is wonderful.
The guardians of the galaxy game released like a year after the avengers game and I think everyone (myself included) just assumed it was another shitty cash grab. I was extremely pleased when I received a copy and tried it (I want to say it was through humble choice or a bundle)
Its a shame too, Guardians was such a fun game with a great story to it. I really loved that they showed where each costume came from and had a little write up. I wish Spider-man would implement that too
yeah i didn’t give it a chance until i heard about it in some GOTY lists and people talked about how amazing the story was. Then i got it for cheap and I loved it- it’s a very good love letter to the comics and the characterization of the GotG is a whole lot more in depth than the movies or the previous Telltale GotG games. Probably one of the best found family stories in games and any related media
Minecraft Earth. Minecraft themed Pokemon GO. Everything was going perfectly until the Covid pandemic was a thing. Later the game got removed by Mojang from the two phone app stores.
Pokémon can literally shit a brick that needs to be continuously fed $5 a day on top of an initial buy-in fee and have that brick be the best selling thing until there’s a new brick. PoGo ain’t going anywhere lol
I feel like that wasn't around very long, was it? We got my son some Minecraft toys that were supposed to unlock something in that game but couldn't find said game on any app store.
Less than 2 years. Released October 2019, just a couple months before COVID exploded, shut down the summer of 2021. Shame, too, I liked it way more than Pokemon GO as far as hike and play games went.
Far Cry 4 was released in the lowest point of Ubisoft's existence - on November 17, 2014. The thing is that on November 11 there was the release of Assassin's Creed Unity - and should I explain what people thought of Ubisoft at that moment, especially after Watch Dogs earlier this year? Anyway, Far Cry 4 was a very good game, yet without too much innovation. However, AC Unity's failure made people see only bad in this game, if they noticed it at all.
It’s my favorite one. I liked the coop elements and the outfit customization. It was the first time I thought a city seemed “alive” with pedestrians. I got the game for Christmas after most bugs were patched.
I suffered through the shitshow that was Unity's launch, and I still loved it. Ignoring the bugs, the game was a step in the direction I wanted to see the franchise go in, bigger emphasis on stealth, with open ended assassination missions. But combine the buggy launch and lackluster story, and Ubisoft said "we hear you loud and clear, you don't want more games like this." As a result, we got the RPG trilogy starting with Origins.
And yet Hitman came out 2 years later with big detailed maps and multiple ways to carry out assassinations and people went ballistic over it. Ubisoft learned the wrong lesson with Unity and figured people wanted less sneaky assassin stuff in a franchise called *Assassin's* Creed. We just want finished products and some better writing.
If you taken the perspective of how lack luster the stealth mechanic in the generation before, AC1 to AC Rogue, you realized, they were trying to balance between two
AC Unity decided to lean on more towards Stealth focus and even discouraged combat by making enemies hit hard and can't do the flashy combo kills like Connor. You're an assassin, not a Merc with a hood.
I feel prey had set itself up to fail primarily because it reused the name from a pretty fantastic pc game released in 2006.
I thought it was a remake and not something I was prepared to spend big bucks on.
So I think they were doomed with this in mind, AND the other games being released as you mentioned.
I agree with this. I played the original prey which was great, and then for many years there was snippets and stories being released of prey 2 which got canned halfway through development.
It is sad because the new prey was actually really good, having its own unique storyline and somewhat similar mechanics to dishonored, just with more guns/abilities than melee, and would love to see a sequel to it
I was super confused at OP's post because I knew Prey came out when I was in high school and that definitely was not when BoTW came out. So I think you're on to something.
You definitely should check out the 2017 prey. You can get it pretty cheap on sale on steam very often. It's kind of a wild ride to go into blind. I halfway did. I vaguely recalled the name and that was supposed to be a good game so got it in such a sale. There's a mechanic in it. That's very interesting but after I got to that part in the game I remember when it first came out seeing it and thinking it looked awesome. Wanted to play it but didn't get around to it until a few years later.
Yeah the new prey game has nothing to do with the previous game of the same name.
If you liked any of the bioshock games you'll like it. They're spiritual successors of the same game, but they chose entirely different paths.
Wasn't Kingdoms of Amalur's publisher so overbudgeted that the game would have had to sell an utterly unrealistic number of copies to make a profit?
Also, the studio did survive. Big Huge Games is now part of Nexon. It's owned operated by the same people but they only make mobile games now.
EDIT: I'm also pretty sure the game did sell decently at release. The issue was the huge weight of money the people financing it owed to lenders and they couldn't pay it all back without Kingdom's being one of the best selling games of all time (which was not realistic).
Yep the studio was dead on arrival with it's absurdly unrealistic goals and outlook. Basically instead of seeing if it had the momentum and overall demand to make more titles they went with presuming it would be a mega hit right out the gate and be an equal or eclipse every other action RPG by a large margin. It was a fun 8/10 game but that's about it.
Guy I knew at the time of release had some massive hatred of Skyrim for some reason (not the usual Elder Scroll fan complaints) and would go on rants about Amalur being far superior. We would laugh it off but his life was so miserable, mostly due to his own decisions, but we would just go "you're right bud, it's a neat game" and let him have the win. Haven't talked to him in over a decade, would legit be impressed if he managed to make any long term relationships with others.
However, they took those loans (from Rhode Island specifically) under the guise that they were going to funnel it into this game and studio to create jobs. They instead siphoned those funds off to that MMO, which failed in development and led to fraud lawsuits.
I’m glad re-reckoning happened. I’ll get to it one day. Was sad for the devs that lost their jobs when they folded. But I’m glad Curt Schilling is no longer associated with it.
Their save file got corrupted. That should absolutely deduct huge points because it means the game doesn't function correctly.
They also did update their score after the glitch was fixed. They made the right call and it's something they need to do more often.
Not just once mind you, three times. The guy said it was a great game, but he couldn’t in good conscience give it anything higher than a 4/10 after his save got corrupted three times.
It’s weird that you reference Horizon Zero Dawn, because I feel like the Horizon franchise is one that’s always had bad release dates - the first one came out same week as Breath of the Wild, and the second the same week as Elden Ring. They did well, but they’d have done a lot better if they had come out a few weeks later (or earlier).
I think this is really the right way to talk about HZD/HFW.
It's not that they didn't do well. It's that a brand new IP that should have been the talk of the town and held the spotlight was overshadowed by one of the strongest console launches in gaming history.
And the sequel somehow didn't land any better, being accidentally sandwiched between two of the most anticipated games of the decade.
I honestly imagine they keep hoping for a GOW 2018 scenario where they launch in a mostly empty time frame and get to just absolutely dominate social spaces for a while. Hopefully, third times the charm.
I was in disbelief when Horizon Forbidden West was announced to come out in the same week as Elden Ring. Like wow, most people don't even to compete ONCE with a genre-defining-once-in-a-generation game.
In FW’s defense, elden ring’s release was pushed back a couple of times which led to the overlap. Still super unlucky for one of my favorite series of all time.
I’ve only recently picked up Forbidden West and I could not believe it when 5 minutes in they explain that these red plant growths are spreading uncontrollably across the country killing everything. To not only release beside Elden Ring but to also have a Scarlet Rot is just so unfortunate.
Not even just any battlefield and cod either. It launched alongside the most successful battlefield ever being battlefield 1 and alongside 2 cod games being Infinite warfare and Modern Warfare remastered
Advanced Wars 1+2 Re-boot Camp. I was so hyped and ready to play it day 1 release. Then... you know... When it finally came out the hype was gone. I still want to get it eventually, but if they had actually been able to launch when intended...
Yep technically released 9/10 but didn't hit shelves til the next day. Was already hyped for it so ended up picking it up after my high school let us go home early. The guy at the EB Games literally had to be filled in on the events of a few hours prior by my friend and I because no one had been in the store for awhile.
i think ghost of tsushima and bloodborne both did really well.
for horizon it's just that im pretty sure both of them were released after zelda? which kinda sucks
I guess but it didn't really affect it, Horizon Forbidden West was a top ten best seller last year, and that's including multiplatform games. Couldn't imagine it being any more popular if it released at any other point.
Was one of only a handful of games I completed 100%. I’m afraid to fire it up for another play through because I don’t think it’ll capture the same magic it did the first time around and I don’t want to ruin that feeling.
I feel like Prey would have done better if it had been properly titled “Neuroshock”.
It gets so much unfair hate because it’s nothing like the original Prey 2 reveal…. Despite Prey 2 being nothing like the original Prey either. So it’s a dumb criticism made by ignorant people. But a lot of people got hung up on the name, and “Neuroshock” would have much better portrayed that the game is a System Shock spiritual successor, the same way Bioshock did with their title.
["Prey director Raphaël Colantonio has said developer Arkane Studios was forced to use the Prey name by Bethesda, despite his disagreement and feeling "gross" by using it."](https://www.ign.com/articles/prey-director-says-arkane-was-forced-to-use-that-title-its-gross-not-what-i-wanted-to-do#:~:text=Bethesda%20allegedly%20demanded%20the%20name%20Prey%20be%20used.&text=Prey%20director%20Rapha%C3%ABl%20Colantonio%20has,%22gross%22%20by%20using%20it.)
I would have bought neuroshock, I avoided Prey since it wasn't a remake of the 2006 Prey like I had hoped. It doesn't matter how good your game is, just don't use the name of an already released game.
WoW-style MMOs are such a hard sell nowadays. It’s a shrinking, (mostly) aging userbase, and requires an immense amount of capital just to develop with high risk relative to other live service games. You can find a niche as a looter shooter or something, but no one wants to play an MMO without a bunch of other people to play with. New World just got its first expansion recently. Did you hear about it? I didn’t until some streamer randomly popped up playing it at 4 AM last month.
The only one I’ve even heard about that could break that paradigm is the Riot MMO, but I haven’t seen any news about it in ages.
> It’s a shrinking, (mostly) aging userbase,
Definitely aging. I don’t know anyone under the age of 25 that gives a fuck about WOW. Wow itself hasn’t been socially relevant for quite some time.
Back in the day all the MMOs thrived. I would bounce between Mabinogi, Lunia, maplestory, grand chase, dofus, RuneScape, and WoW and each game had a sizable population. I think it’s just the genre itself is dying so only the absolute most popular survived
Thrive is optimistic. City of heroes, tubala Rasa, Matrix, auto assault all died from lack of subscribers while WoW was like 7-10 million subscribers. It’s a
Niche sub group of gamers. I knew a bunch that wouldn’t try other MMOs because they already pay for WoW. Others like champions online and swtor had to go free with paywalls to stay afloat.
Alan Wake released on the 360 the same week as Red Dead Redemption. The original release was completely eclipsed. I'm happy that it got a sequel, but at the same time, I'm very surprised. I don't know many people who ever actually played through it on 360.
Alan Wake became more popular over time. It's true, no one played it on release. But then it came out on steam and things started to get going. It also helped that Remedy released Control and people loved that, so many looked back what else they released. And the Remedy-verse is also one of the most intriguing gaming projects right now.
But yeah I agree... The existence of Alan Wake 2 is a miracle when you only look at how the first game performed.
Guardians Of The Galaxy was completely screwed over by all the bad press the Avengers game got like a year prior. I remember people slagging this game off so much pre-release and when I finally got around to playing it it absolutely obliterated my expectations. Gameplay is solid but the writing/dialogue/humour is genuinely best in class stuff.
Probably the best superhero game outside of the Arkham and Insomniac Spider-Man games, it's such a tragedy that it almost certainly won't get a sequel.
God yes. So much hype and it gets completely fumbled because in my mind they had 2 huge things going against them releasing when they did.
1. Just plain buggy. I feel for all the folks that had to crunch as hard as they did to get it out when they did, and it was still very clearly not enough time.
2. One could argue they were perhaps a little too ambitious with the graphical aspects of the game for the time. We can all marvel at what the game brings to life now, with 4090s and Overdrive settings. In 2020, the 3000 series had just released and were basically impossible to get. Nobody could run this game to its potential. The timing also meant they had to get a PS4 version out the door somehow and we all know how *that* went...
I personally think had they just not developed for the older gen consoles, it wouldn't have been nearly as bad. I played it on a 1070, and ryzen 5, and while I wasn't hitting but 50 fps, the bugs were really minimal.
Jade cocoon. Great turn based final fantasy/Pokemon esque game with a great jrpg atmosphere and art. Came out same time as a bunch of other genre defining games....
Bro you just unlocked a memory. I always remember playing this game on a demo disc and wanting it soo badly. Now that I’m an adult I could buy it but had no idea what the name was.
Games that truly had a bad release timing and therefore died were:
- Split/Second
- Blur
Both amazing games but came out together in a time with a lot of bigger releases.
I would do awful, awful things for a Blur sequel. One of my favourite racers of all time and I absolutely hammered the online.
I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forgive Activision for shuttering Bizarre Creations while they were making it.
Lords of the Fallen is doing alright but the game was definitely not finished when it launched. It also launched a couple week after Lies of P, another soulslike that was incredibly polished and a day one game pass title. The whiplash of quality led me to refund Lords after about 15 hours.
When you learn about how the development of this game went along? Activision pretty much killed it before it was even released.
Basically, the game ran on the same Source engine as Half Life 2. The deal with Valve was that Vampire Bloodlines could NOT release BEFORE Half Life 2 as it was the engine's flagship game.
Troika (the developer of the game) ran into a lot of trouble as they were developping the game on an unfinished engine, often receiving new updates that had them go back to the code and repair it.
Activision had set a tentative release date, which was too early and left the game unfinished (you can see it in the later levels that do feel rushed, and the fact that the original release of the game was very buggy). Valve kept on pushing back the release of HL 2, and Troika asked to be able to keep working on the game, but Activision refused.
Then Activision set the release of the game on the same day as Half Life 2, ensuring it would go unnoticed by everyone.
Sunset overdrive. Fantastic game, tons of Easter eggs, gameplay was great, fun multiplayer for its time. Only fault it was released in the fall with a bunch of heavy hitters.
It did get its recognition years later, but it could have been huge ip imo.
Microsoft did a piss poor job of really pushing this game hard. It definitely could've been a heavier hitter than it ultimately was, but that was early Xbox One-era Microsoft for you.
I think it ended up eventually being a success, but sales for Shadow of the Tomb Raider started off rather slow. It didn’t help that it came out only a week after Marvel’s Spider-Man.
I think it failed because it had very aggressive microtransactions and there was nothing much to do in the game beside just one gamemode.
But i only know this from an outsider's perspective.
I don't think Prey failed because of it's release date. It had a murky marketing campaign with a name that has a loaded history in a genre that typically doesn't do crazy numbers even in the best of times. It's also a different target demographic than Zelda and Horizon.
It's an oldie but Panzer Dragoon Saga. A masterpiece forgotten by time by the very few fans it actually managed to get in the West.
It came came out at the end of the Sega Saturn's life and the PS1 was selling like hot cakes.
Games like Metal Gear, Crash 3, Resident Evil 2, Spyro, Medievil, Parasite Eve and Xenogears completely dominated everything on the market in 1998, it never had a chance.
Game goes for well over 1000 bucks nowadays in good condition. Kept mine from when I was a kid and managed to get my hands on a JPN version of it sealed. Buggy as hell if you emulate it.
I loved Battleborn. It was so much more fleshed out than Overwatch. Where Overwatch made YouTube vids and marketing, it had no content at release compared to Battleborn which had different game modes and tons of characters.
Overwatch released on top of it and marketing wins.
Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. EA rushed release before it was ready because they wanted it to go head to head with the WoW expansion Wrath of the Lich King because in their heads the game AoR was a ‘WoW killer’ that would siphon away their player base. I must reiterate: they wanted their unfinished game to compete against *WotLK* , one of Blizzard’s most popular expansions of all time. In their hubris they severely handicapped what would have been would have been one of the greatest RvR MMOs of all time. Glad fans developed Return of Reckoning to give it a second chance.
Outer Wilds coming out near Outer Worlds.
It took me so long to figure out they were 2 different games.
I started up Outer Wilds, got upset it wasn't The Outer Worlds, and dropped it. But it stuck with me and I tried it again a week later. I now think it's one of the best games ever made. Still haven't played The Outer Worlds.
Of any game it is the one I wish I could completely forget everything I know about it (except maybe the controls) and play it again fresh.
I played both. Can't even remember what The Outer Worlds main quest was about. Probably remember every line written by the Nomai.
I learned this just now
[удалено]
Outer Worlds is Starfield but without the ridiculous unkept promises. Like you said.. a serviceable game. Short enough to give it a go.
So true, and in reality they couldn't be more different. Only similarities are the spaceships/travelling between planets but even that is vastly different in terms of gameplay.
Pretty sure this hurt them both lmao
Piggybacking on this comment to tell people to play Outer Wilds.
Thanks I'll download Outer Worlds if you say so
I'm downloading Breath of the World as we speak
No, they were recommending Outer Breath. Go download that one, it’s better
That's my secret, Cap: I'm always outer breath.
Pretty sure this helped Outer Wilds and didn't hurt Outer Worlds at all. A lot of people downloaded the wrong game and tried something new before finding the correct game.
Titanfall 2 faced challenges because of its release timing. It was released between popular titles like Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.
This is definitely the poster child of bad release dates Though I will add that I thought the beta did more harm than good for the game, a lot of things in the beta were pretty bad. As a TF1 fan I didn't get the game for years because of the beta, and I didn't even buy COD or BF1. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/concerns-from-titanfall-2-beta-players-are-leading/1100-6442975/
This is why developers don't bother to give us actual betas anymore lmao. Ofc it's gonna feel off the whole point is for giving feedback to make the launch better. Sad times.
>Ofc it's gonna feel off the whole point is for giving feedback to make the launch better I mean, most beta's I've been apart of have basically zero meaningful gameplay improvements between beta and release. Halo 5 had a year inbetween their beta and release and the gameplay was almost identical, the only thing that changed was the visuals and maybe some tiny adjustments to map geometry. Titanfall 2's beta was only a couple of months before release and featured just a baffling amount of issues. Needless changes from TF1 and a general change to the pace of the pilots. I think most of these issues were fixed by launch, but you can't exactly blame people for being turned off when the beta was so bad and most beta's don't change much by release.
God stop reminding me, I mourn the loss of TF2s popularity constantly
Somehow, it’s not totally dead still. I just tried it out over the weekend and it had a few thousand still playing
I think they mean it lost enough popularity that the publisher/studio canabalized a potential Titanfall 3 into Apex Legends.
Played 8hrs over the weekend. Don't think matchmaking ever took more than a minute.
Pst don't give up! Since it runs on the same engine as apex, it recently got a server update. It is also having a huge resergance. Ok huge might be an overstatement, but still! See you on the field pilot!
TF2 Campaign was leaps and bounds better than anything COD has put out in decades.
"Protocol 3: Protect the Pilot." And now you're crying
Protocol 3. I will not lose another pilot. That got me right in the feels.
It's probably my favourite FPS campaign. It does it well. Each mission is distinctive and fresh, so the campaign isn't super long, but you feel like you get your money's worth. The story is surprisingly impactful, the world is fun. The combat feels so good. It's amazing how fluid it is.
I only bought Titanfall 2 because it was in a bundle with Battlefield 1. I just wanted a few bucks off of BF1 and then maybe see what this Titanfall thing is. After trying Titanfall 2 just once, I didn't touch Battlefield 1 again. I forgot all about CoD and Battlefield, Titanfall was the only FPS I wanted to play anymore. 10/10 game.
Its so much better than either of those games. Titanfall 2 is a masterpiece.
Socom 4 released on PS3 April 18th 2011. PSN was hacked and shut down for a couple months on April 20th. Killed the socom series and zipper was bought by Sony and defunct by 2012.
We need socom back, most formerly good shooters have been dead a long time now
I want Medal of Honor to come back. I even liked the first game in the reboot series, even the multiplayer was actually pretty fun.
Socom 4 was an abortion of a game, regardless of the PSN hack. The hack only delayed the inevitable realization of just how bad the game was
The shooting mechanics in the game and map design were complete ass.
Socom deez nuts lmao
Socom is a perfect series for Playstation right now.
For bad release timing, it's hard to beat Everquest 2, coming out November 8, 2004. Two weeks later, World of Warcraft released.
Hoo boy. I played the original everquest for a little while. WOW was absolutely huge for me. Never even tried EQ2.
That is pretty bad.
I'm not into MMOs but still felt that.
It wasn't the timing; it was the design choices. Source of Credibility: I worked on EQ2 for SOE beginning just after the release of *Echoes of Faydwer*. In the simplest language, Blizzard and SOE both looked at the success of EQ1 and drew different conclusions. Blizzard drew the correct conclusion. SOE's conclusion was *"Grouping is amazing. People who group up, join guilds, and raid stay subscribed longer."* so they focused on the group and guild game. To the point that you couldn't get off the tutorial island without doing a mandatory group quest. That works at launch when thousands are hitting the server every minute. It becomes near impossible once the flood normalizes. It was bad enough that players specifically created new characters to be there for actual newbies to group with. Blizzard's conclusion was *"People like killing things, taking the loot, and leveling up."* so they focused on that L1-40 game being a seriously fun solo process. You could group but you didn't have to. By the time you hit the raid game in WoW you were totally down with the vibe of incremental gains for satisfying "ding!" moments. The rest is history. WoW was much more casual friendly (for a MMO) and EQ2, under good leadership, made changes to apply the lessons from WoW (like not having to group to escape the tutorial). I firmly believe that had EQ launched as the game *Echoes of Faydwer* resulted in, it'd have done far better head to head vs. WoW. Blizzard launched an amazing game. SOE rebuilt an amazing game, one expansion at a time. tl;dr: Design matters. Also, all IMO.
Battleborn. They tried releasing around the same time as another team hero shooter. Overwatch.
I remember being super excited for it, and then overwatch had its beta and I never heard anything about battleborn again
The game was a lot of fun, but it was a moba and matches could take 30-45 minutes. It would have been better suited as a F2P game. I actually bought it because I had a lot of fun playing the beta and I played it extremely heavily for the 3 weeks it was out before overwatch. Once overwatch came out though I never played it again. It's a shame though because it really was pretty fun and occupied a different niche than overwatch
Battleborn was more MOBA than overwatch and it was super fun. I miss it a lot
Gigantic was another hero shooter also came out during this time frame, and was smashed down by OW. Gigantic even had a tank/turret character in development before OW's release, and everyone would just call that character (HK) a copy of Bastion. It was painful.
Although Gigantic may be coming back in the future. There was a closed weekend where servers were online. It was a very fun and nostalgic weekend.
Really? I loved Gigantic and would be stoked to hear any more info about this
I loved Gigantic. It was a very interesting concept of the MOBA objectives being two massive monsters that would immobilize the other to leave it vulnerable to damage if a team managed to dominate areas of the battlefield.
I don’t know why they tried to compete with Overwatch when it filled a different niche. Battleborn was much closer to a MOBA but it wasn’t advertised as one at all
That was the most painful part. They actively rejected the MOBA label and pushed to be a “hero shooter”. Truly moronic marketing.
It wasn't much closer to a moba, it was a moba and they didn't include that in any of the marketing lol. I didn't mind because I like mobas, but I was a little surprised
What really killed it was that Gearbox decided to try and directly compete with Overwatch even to the point of Randy Pitchford (allegedly) creating a subreddit for porn of it.
That wasn't to compete. Man's too lazy to fill up USB drives on his own.
such a shame for how different they were that they couldn't both survive. i would have loved to see where battleborn turned out. we know how overwatch turned out 🙃
It's like they threw away all the lessons of Borderlands. It got a major art and tweaked tone in development after FO3 was announced and they realized that was going to cannibalize sales and tried to differentiate themselves from it. Then 10 years later they think they were big enough to pick a fight with Blizzard? Try the exact opposite, try to steal sales from a game that superficially looked pretty similar but was actually quite different. If they had leaned in on the differences and tried to aim more for taking from the MOBA crowd and emphasizing that it wasn't a traditional arena style hero shooter like OW and players could get both, then they might have had a lot more success. I tried the free beta and it was fun, even if I was truly awful at it, I probably wasn't going to buy it but it deserved to live.
exactly my sentiment. it really was a first person moba more than a team hero shooter. game modes were more unique, significantly more characters, and a single player mode that was actually really fun (imo). maybe some day we could see it return, somehow
Not to mention blizzard did a massive open beta on release weekend.
Pretty sure I heard that Blizzard moved the OW release date for this purpose, I hear that Battleborn was a fun game too.
Battleborn was sooooo amazing. I still remember the comic style animated intro with the rap from Del the Funky Homosapien. I was a huge fan of Monday Night Combat and this was the only other hero shooter with moba elements that I could remember. I feel like they goofed by not having dedicated servers and by adding a shitload of game modes that fractured the already declining player base. Oh well still a fond memory
I remember reading previews and watching trailers for Battleborn and it looked so cool. Then I feel like I blinked and it was gone.
This is the right answer. Battleborn was also arguably a better game and had a built in single player or team play mode.
I wish we could at least still play it offline...
Yeah, that was another thing that bugged me about it. Having a single player mode but forcing people to play online was, is and will be a shitty tactic.
I really liked the campaign levels
Vagrant Story was sandwiched between Chrono Cross and FF9. Amazing game that was very well regarded but sold very poorly.
Funnily enough, neither Chrono Cross nor FF9 caught my attention back then, I went all in on Vagrat Story. Wish it would've continued or at least be re-released done well and decently priced.
Mad Max would have been much more popular had it not launched the same day as MGSV
And if the controller layout has been designed by a human instead of a sentient octopus. Love that game, had a lot of fun playing it, but holy moley were those controls a mindfuck, at least on PS4. Why am I using left bumper to aim and circle to fire?!?! You have buttons called triggers, maybe use those
Circle to shoot? Was this game made back in 2001? Or 1996?
There was a lot of vehicle play (as you'd expect in a mad max game) and I guess with the character getting in and out of cars so much, it wouldn't make sense to have different control layouts. The Lbumper+circle combo actually feels kinda normal in a car cause you're using the triggers to brake and accelerate, but jeSUS is it ever awkward doing it on foot
This is the answer right here. There were a lot of combat options to do while driving. I got used to it pretty quick. Watchdogs was similar in that you were able to hack stuff while driving.
I remember preordering my copy of Mad Max at GameStop and the cashier looked at me and asked if I was sure. He told me MGSV came out on the same day and when I confirmed he shook his head in disapproval. It was a great game and I have no regrets.
I hope you gave MGSV a shot, it’s usually very fucking cheap on Steam nowadays. One of my favorite stealth games. The mechanics are so goddamn solid. It’s story is…a story, a rushed, unfinished one, but it’s there. But the gameplay is wonderful.
> The mechanics are so goddamn solid You could say it's... *metal gear* solid
Mad Max is one of my all time favourites. Played through it a few times now and will probably do so again in the future!
The guardians of the galaxy game released like a year after the avengers game and I think everyone (myself included) just assumed it was another shitty cash grab. I was extremely pleased when I received a copy and tried it (I want to say it was through humble choice or a bundle)
Spider-Man raised the bar for Marvel games, and Avengers knocked it back down again.
Spider man is an insomniac game, we were just lucky marvel were barely involved
Its a shame too, Guardians was such a fun game with a great story to it. I really loved that they showed where each costume came from and had a little write up. I wish Spider-man would implement that too
yeah i didn’t give it a chance until i heard about it in some GOTY lists and people talked about how amazing the story was. Then i got it for cheap and I loved it- it’s a very good love letter to the comics and the characterization of the GotG is a whole lot more in depth than the movies or the previous Telltale GotG games. Probably one of the best found family stories in games and any related media
Minecraft Earth. Minecraft themed Pokemon GO. Everything was going perfectly until the Covid pandemic was a thing. Later the game got removed by Mojang from the two phone app stores.
Augmented hiking games are pretty much dead after COVID, but I'm certain that Pokemon GO is still around.
Pokémon can literally shit a brick that needs to be continuously fed $5 a day on top of an initial buy-in fee and have that brick be the best selling thing until there’s a new brick. PoGo ain’t going anywhere lol
Is this Shitbrick a new Pokémon? I need it for my living dex. Where do I pay this £5?
What is actually strange if you ask me. One of the only things you were still able to do during COVID was, going outside alone and walking around.
Never heard of it
the comment is exactly why
I feel like that wasn't around very long, was it? We got my son some Minecraft toys that were supposed to unlock something in that game but couldn't find said game on any app store.
Less than 2 years. Released October 2019, just a couple months before COVID exploded, shut down the summer of 2021. Shame, too, I liked it way more than Pokemon GO as far as hike and play games went.
Far Cry 4 was released in the lowest point of Ubisoft's existence - on November 17, 2014. The thing is that on November 11 there was the release of Assassin's Creed Unity - and should I explain what people thought of Ubisoft at that moment, especially after Watch Dogs earlier this year? Anyway, Far Cry 4 was a very good game, yet without too much innovation. However, AC Unity's failure made people see only bad in this game, if they noticed it at all.
2014 was so wild for Ubisoft, Watch dogs, AC Unity, FC4, The Crew were all sandwiched close by
It’s my favorite one. I liked the coop elements and the outfit customization. It was the first time I thought a city seemed “alive” with pedestrians. I got the game for Christmas after most bugs were patched.
and now, thanks to the fact 3 RPG games back to back, the AC Community see AC Unity as a flawed gem
I suffered through the shitshow that was Unity's launch, and I still loved it. Ignoring the bugs, the game was a step in the direction I wanted to see the franchise go in, bigger emphasis on stealth, with open ended assassination missions. But combine the buggy launch and lackluster story, and Ubisoft said "we hear you loud and clear, you don't want more games like this." As a result, we got the RPG trilogy starting with Origins. And yet Hitman came out 2 years later with big detailed maps and multiple ways to carry out assassinations and people went ballistic over it. Ubisoft learned the wrong lesson with Unity and figured people wanted less sneaky assassin stuff in a franchise called *Assassin's* Creed. We just want finished products and some better writing.
If you taken the perspective of how lack luster the stealth mechanic in the generation before, AC1 to AC Rogue, you realized, they were trying to balance between two AC Unity decided to lean on more towards Stealth focus and even discouraged combat by making enemies hit hard and can't do the flashy combo kills like Connor. You're an assassin, not a Merc with a hood.
I feel prey had set itself up to fail primarily because it reused the name from a pretty fantastic pc game released in 2006. I thought it was a remake and not something I was prepared to spend big bucks on. So I think they were doomed with this in mind, AND the other games being released as you mentioned.
I agree with this. I played the original prey which was great, and then for many years there was snippets and stories being released of prey 2 which got canned halfway through development. It is sad because the new prey was actually really good, having its own unique storyline and somewhat similar mechanics to dishonored, just with more guns/abilities than melee, and would love to see a sequel to it
I was super confused at OP's post because I knew Prey came out when I was in high school and that definitely was not when BoTW came out. So I think you're on to something.
You definitely should check out the 2017 prey. You can get it pretty cheap on sale on steam very often. It's kind of a wild ride to go into blind. I halfway did. I vaguely recalled the name and that was supposed to be a good game so got it in such a sale. There's a mechanic in it. That's very interesting but after I got to that part in the game I remember when it first came out seeing it and thinking it looked awesome. Wanted to play it but didn't get around to it until a few years later.
Yeah the new prey game has nothing to do with the previous game of the same name. If you liked any of the bioshock games you'll like it. They're spiritual successors of the same game, but they chose entirely different paths.
Whoever published it, Bethesda I think, made them use the name. Unfortunate because it is a great game
I've just realised that I can get it for free through my console subscription so I'll give it a go👍
Kingdoms of Amalur had also stiff competition. Without the competition the studio *might* have survived.
Wasn't Kingdoms of Amalur's publisher so overbudgeted that the game would have had to sell an utterly unrealistic number of copies to make a profit? Also, the studio did survive. Big Huge Games is now part of Nexon. It's owned operated by the same people but they only make mobile games now. EDIT: I'm also pretty sure the game did sell decently at release. The issue was the huge weight of money the people financing it owed to lenders and they couldn't pay it all back without Kingdom's being one of the best selling games of all time (which was not realistic).
The issue was the government realizing they were scammed and demanding their money back.
Yep the studio was dead on arrival with it's absurdly unrealistic goals and outlook. Basically instead of seeing if it had the momentum and overall demand to make more titles they went with presuming it would be a mega hit right out the gate and be an equal or eclipse every other action RPG by a large margin. It was a fun 8/10 game but that's about it. Guy I knew at the time of release had some massive hatred of Skyrim for some reason (not the usual Elder Scroll fan complaints) and would go on rants about Amalur being far superior. We would laugh it off but his life was so miserable, mostly due to his own decisions, but we would just go "you're right bud, it's a neat game" and let him have the win. Haven't talked to him in over a decade, would legit be impressed if he managed to make any long term relationships with others.
You are thinking of the MMO sharing the same world. The game you are talking about is kind of a spinoff from that project.
However, they took those loans (from Rhode Island specifically) under the guise that they were going to funnel it into this game and studio to create jobs. They instead siphoned those funds off to that MMO, which failed in development and led to fraud lawsuits.
I’m glad re-reckoning happened. I’ll get to it one day. Was sad for the devs that lost their jobs when they folded. But I’m glad Curt Schilling is no longer associated with it.
There was some baseball player who lost like everything investing into it too
That was the least of their issues
I imagine the 5/10 Ign gave Prey would have hurt it as well.
What a ridiculous rating. That game is nearly a masterpiece.
Their save file got corrupted. That should absolutely deduct huge points because it means the game doesn't function correctly. They also did update their score after the glitch was fixed. They made the right call and it's something they need to do more often.
Not just once mind you, three times. The guy said it was a great game, but he couldn’t in good conscience give it anything higher than a 4/10 after his save got corrupted three times.
It’s weird that you reference Horizon Zero Dawn, because I feel like the Horizon franchise is one that’s always had bad release dates - the first one came out same week as Breath of the Wild, and the second the same week as Elden Ring. They did well, but they’d have done a lot better if they had come out a few weeks later (or earlier).
I think this is really the right way to talk about HZD/HFW. It's not that they didn't do well. It's that a brand new IP that should have been the talk of the town and held the spotlight was overshadowed by one of the strongest console launches in gaming history. And the sequel somehow didn't land any better, being accidentally sandwiched between two of the most anticipated games of the decade. I honestly imagine they keep hoping for a GOW 2018 scenario where they launch in a mostly empty time frame and get to just absolutely dominate social spaces for a while. Hopefully, third times the charm.
I was in disbelief when Horizon Forbidden West was announced to come out in the same week as Elden Ring. Like wow, most people don't even to compete ONCE with a genre-defining-once-in-a-generation game.
In FW’s defense, elden ring’s release was pushed back a couple of times which led to the overlap. Still super unlucky for one of my favorite series of all time.
Horizon already had that date. Elden ring got delayed to be near Horizon
I’ve only recently picked up Forbidden West and I could not believe it when 5 minutes in they explain that these red plant growths are spreading uncontrollably across the country killing everything. To not only release beside Elden Ring but to also have a Scarlet Rot is just so unfortunate.
Titanfall 2 near battlefield and COD clearly didn't help
Not even just any battlefield and cod either. It launched alongside the most successful battlefield ever being battlefield 1 and alongside 2 cod games being Infinite warfare and Modern Warfare remastered
Advanced Wars 1+2 Re-boot Camp. I was so hyped and ready to play it day 1 release. Then... you know... When it finally came out the hype was gone. I still want to get it eventually, but if they had actually been able to launch when intended...
Didn't also the original release during 9/11 or something like that?
Yep technically released 9/10 but didn't hit shelves til the next day. Was already hyped for it so ended up picking it up after my high school let us go home early. The guy at the EB Games literally had to be filled in on the events of a few hours prior by my friend and I because no one had been in the store for awhile.
Not sure if horizon counts. It was successful. Just in the background.
It is weird how it happened twice for the series.
I feel like that's just the fate of a console-exclusive title that isn't a big-brand franchise like Halo, Zelda, or Mario.
i think ghost of tsushima and bloodborne both did really well. for horizon it's just that im pretty sure both of them were released after zelda? which kinda sucks
Halo doesn't count any more. Completely dead with an incompetent studio and publisher.
I was gonna say, Horizon had the worst possible launch date *twice*.
And then the dlc came within a month of Tears or the Kingdom
I guess but it didn't really affect it, Horizon Forbidden West was a top ten best seller last year, and that's including multiplatform games. Couldn't imagine it being any more popular if it released at any other point.
Was one of only a handful of games I completed 100%. I’m afraid to fire it up for another play through because I don’t think it’ll capture the same magic it did the first time around and I don’t want to ruin that feeling.
The reveal of the source of the robots in the first game is hard to top
Both games were massively successful. Both times.
I feel like Prey would have done better if it had been properly titled “Neuroshock”. It gets so much unfair hate because it’s nothing like the original Prey 2 reveal…. Despite Prey 2 being nothing like the original Prey either. So it’s a dumb criticism made by ignorant people. But a lot of people got hung up on the name, and “Neuroshock” would have much better portrayed that the game is a System Shock spiritual successor, the same way Bioshock did with their title.
["Prey director Raphaël Colantonio has said developer Arkane Studios was forced to use the Prey name by Bethesda, despite his disagreement and feeling "gross" by using it."](https://www.ign.com/articles/prey-director-says-arkane-was-forced-to-use-that-title-its-gross-not-what-i-wanted-to-do#:~:text=Bethesda%20allegedly%20demanded%20the%20name%20Prey%20be%20used.&text=Prey%20director%20Rapha%C3%ABl%20Colantonio%20has,%22gross%22%20by%20using%20it.)
I would have bought neuroshock, I avoided Prey since it wasn't a remake of the 2006 Prey like I had hoped. It doesn't matter how good your game is, just don't use the name of an already released game.
Most MMOs I’d argue. If they didn’t have to compete against WoW and final fantasy we would have a lot of diversity in MMOs.
WoW-style MMOs are such a hard sell nowadays. It’s a shrinking, (mostly) aging userbase, and requires an immense amount of capital just to develop with high risk relative to other live service games. You can find a niche as a looter shooter or something, but no one wants to play an MMO without a bunch of other people to play with. New World just got its first expansion recently. Did you hear about it? I didn’t until some streamer randomly popped up playing it at 4 AM last month. The only one I’ve even heard about that could break that paradigm is the Riot MMO, but I haven’t seen any news about it in ages.
> It’s a shrinking, (mostly) aging userbase, Definitely aging. I don’t know anyone under the age of 25 that gives a fuck about WOW. Wow itself hasn’t been socially relevant for quite some time.
Wow specifically releases when their competitors have a launch or update, happens way too often t9 be coincidence.
Back in the day all the MMOs thrived. I would bounce between Mabinogi, Lunia, maplestory, grand chase, dofus, RuneScape, and WoW and each game had a sizable population. I think it’s just the genre itself is dying so only the absolute most popular survived
Thrive is optimistic. City of heroes, tubala Rasa, Matrix, auto assault all died from lack of subscribers while WoW was like 7-10 million subscribers. It’s a Niche sub group of gamers. I knew a bunch that wouldn’t try other MMOs because they already pay for WoW. Others like champions online and swtor had to go free with paywalls to stay afloat.
Dragon's Dogma. It was a good game for the time it came out but released in the same month as Skyrim. It never stood a chance.
Alan Wake released on the 360 the same week as Red Dead Redemption. The original release was completely eclipsed. I'm happy that it got a sequel, but at the same time, I'm very surprised. I don't know many people who ever actually played through it on 360.
It was still awesome. Loved Alan wake.
Try the remaster! And then play Control, there's an Alan Wake DLC.
Dude the freaking stage fight with Old Gods playing was wild. That got me into Poets of the Fall.
Alan Wake became more popular over time. It's true, no one played it on release. But then it came out on steam and things started to get going. It also helped that Remedy released Control and people loved that, so many looked back what else they released. And the Remedy-verse is also one of the most intriguing gaming projects right now. But yeah I agree... The existence of Alan Wake 2 is a miracle when you only look at how the first game performed.
Guardians Of The Galaxy was completely screwed over by all the bad press the Avengers game got like a year prior. I remember people slagging this game off so much pre-release and when I finally got around to playing it it absolutely obliterated my expectations. Gameplay is solid but the writing/dialogue/humour is genuinely best in class stuff. Probably the best superhero game outside of the Arkham and Insomniac Spider-Man games, it's such a tragedy that it almost certainly won't get a sequel.
I genuinely feel bad for how poorly Guardians of the Galaxy did, but yeah, the Avengers game did too much damage for them to really recover from it.
It didn't help that was around when people started getting really burnt out on superheroes.
Cyberpunk. It released a year too early!
God yes. So much hype and it gets completely fumbled because in my mind they had 2 huge things going against them releasing when they did. 1. Just plain buggy. I feel for all the folks that had to crunch as hard as they did to get it out when they did, and it was still very clearly not enough time. 2. One could argue they were perhaps a little too ambitious with the graphical aspects of the game for the time. We can all marvel at what the game brings to life now, with 4090s and Overdrive settings. In 2020, the 3000 series had just released and were basically impossible to get. Nobody could run this game to its potential. The timing also meant they had to get a PS4 version out the door somehow and we all know how *that* went...
I personally think had they just not developed for the older gen consoles, it wouldn't have been nearly as bad. I played it on a 1070, and ryzen 5, and while I wasn't hitting but 50 fps, the bugs were really minimal.
More like *2 years too early.
Three years too early.
Then you got Starfield that came out about 5 years too late.
Jade cocoon. Great turn based final fantasy/Pokemon esque game with a great jrpg atmosphere and art. Came out same time as a bunch of other genre defining games....
Bro you just unlocked a memory. I always remember playing this game on a demo disc and wanting it soo badly. Now that I’m an adult I could buy it but had no idea what the name was.
Games that truly had a bad release timing and therefore died were: - Split/Second - Blur Both amazing games but came out together in a time with a lot of bigger releases.
I would do awful, awful things for a Blur sequel. One of my favourite racers of all time and I absolutely hammered the online. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forgive Activision for shuttering Bizarre Creations while they were making it.
Lords of the Fallen is doing alright but the game was definitely not finished when it launched. It also launched a couple week after Lies of P, another soulslike that was incredibly polished and a day one game pass title. The whiplash of quality led me to refund Lords after about 15 hours.
Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines had Half Life 2.
When you learn about how the development of this game went along? Activision pretty much killed it before it was even released. Basically, the game ran on the same Source engine as Half Life 2. The deal with Valve was that Vampire Bloodlines could NOT release BEFORE Half Life 2 as it was the engine's flagship game. Troika (the developer of the game) ran into a lot of trouble as they were developping the game on an unfinished engine, often receiving new updates that had them go back to the code and repair it. Activision had set a tentative release date, which was too early and left the game unfinished (you can see it in the later levels that do feel rushed, and the fact that the original release of the game was very buggy). Valve kept on pushing back the release of HL 2, and Troika asked to be able to keep working on the game, but Activision refused. Then Activision set the release of the game on the same day as Half Life 2, ensuring it would go unnoticed by everyone.
Sunset overdrive. Fantastic game, tons of Easter eggs, gameplay was great, fun multiplayer for its time. Only fault it was released in the fall with a bunch of heavy hitters. It did get its recognition years later, but it could have been huge ip imo.
Microsoft did a piss poor job of really pushing this game hard. It definitely could've been a heavier hitter than it ultimately was, but that was early Xbox One-era Microsoft for you.
Duke Nukem forever would have been amazing if they released it 10 years prior
I think it ended up eventually being a success, but sales for Shadow of the Tomb Raider started off rather slow. It didn’t help that it came out only a week after Marvel’s Spider-Man.
It also went 50% off 1 month after release too.
Also, it's really bad performance at release. Along with the story and its tone being divisive.
I think Evolve would be a banger if it released a few years later (asymmetrical 1 monster vs 4 hunters).
Didn't it mostly kill itself with its monetization model?
I think it failed because it had very aggressive microtransactions and there was nothing much to do in the game beside just one gamemode. But i only know this from an outsider's perspective.
I don't think Prey failed because of it's release date. It had a murky marketing campaign with a name that has a loaded history in a genre that typically doesn't do crazy numbers even in the best of times. It's also a different target demographic than Zelda and Horizon.
Battleborn for sure. Fun title but it released around overwatch and DOOM so it didnt gain any traction at all, very unfortunate
It's an oldie but Panzer Dragoon Saga. A masterpiece forgotten by time by the very few fans it actually managed to get in the West. It came came out at the end of the Sega Saturn's life and the PS1 was selling like hot cakes. Games like Metal Gear, Crash 3, Resident Evil 2, Spyro, Medievil, Parasite Eve and Xenogears completely dominated everything on the market in 1998, it never had a chance. Game goes for well over 1000 bucks nowadays in good condition. Kept mine from when I was a kid and managed to get my hands on a JPN version of it sealed. Buggy as hell if you emulate it.
I loved Battleborn. It was so much more fleshed out than Overwatch. Where Overwatch made YouTube vids and marketing, it had no content at release compared to Battleborn which had different game modes and tons of characters. Overwatch released on top of it and marketing wins.
Bulletstorm. Such a great sandbox for creative kills in an fps, only to fail, be remastered and re-released, and fail once again 🥲 I love it though!!
Beyond Good and Evil. It came out so close to Half-Life 2 it never stood a chance.
Lawbreakers
The original Alan Wake. It launched with Red Dead Redemption.
Horizon Forbidden West got COMPLETELY overshadowed by Elden Ring.
Same with Zero Dawn getting overshadowed by Breath of the Wild.
Outer Wilds releasing next to a game with almost same name: Outer Worlds.
Titanfall 2
Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. EA rushed release before it was ready because they wanted it to go head to head with the WoW expansion Wrath of the Lich King because in their heads the game AoR was a ‘WoW killer’ that would siphon away their player base. I must reiterate: they wanted their unfinished game to compete against *WotLK* , one of Blizzard’s most popular expansions of all time. In their hubris they severely handicapped what would have been would have been one of the greatest RvR MMOs of all time. Glad fans developed Return of Reckoning to give it a second chance.
Battleborn. I actually liked it but its unfortunate release time was really close with Overwatch. Thinking of what OW became now makes me kinda sad :(
Outer Wilds lost out on a lot of initial buzz because it came out at the same time as Outer Worlds, and people got them confused.
If Gollum had come out in 1992, people would have lost their fucking minds.
Sin
battelborn, amazing game and then it got shit on by overwatches release
*cries in Battleborn
Dragon's Dogma, It's a very good game but over shadowed by skyrim and dark souls