We remember those games that, after an unfortunate launch, could not be traced as other great examples have done in this generation.
Normally we tend to keep good memories in our memory for a longer time, something that can be applied to practically any facet, without excepting video games. When we talk about surprises and redemption stories in this generation we do it from titles like Rainbow Six Siege, which went from being doomed to oblivion at launch to currently being one of the reference games in the competitive environment. Or No Man’s Sky, which saw the light of day being an inexhaustible source of memes and broken promises for, years and updates later, to be one of the best space exploration games. Even Street Fighter V could enter this category, as well as Star Wars Battlefront II, The Division … In short, games whose journey did not start in the best possible way, but which with work, correct decisions and corrections, ended up triumphing and winning a community own.
But we also have the other side of the coin: those titles that were not able to overcome a bumpy launch, for whatever reason. Today we want to remind ourselves of all of them, of what could have been and was not, and we will observe, incidentally, that each one has their own history and reasons for failure, although, obviously, there are some points in common. Let's see them:
Battleborn, Gearbox (2016)
Battleborn was far from being a bad game, rather the opposite. Its successful combination of hero shooter -a genre not so hackneyed back in 2016- with MOBA, the amount and design of the characters, its launch content -including campaign- and the typical sense of humor of Gearbox made it seem that we were facing one of the most promising multiplayer games of the generation, but as we saw, the reality was different. The notes in his analyzes were not low – neither buoyant – and his reception among the public was good, but he found an enemy too strong: Overwatch. The Cold War between the two games was more than evident, counter-programming Blizzard on Battleborn launch weekend with the open beta of their game, which would be released only 3 weeks later. It was exactly the time that the joy of 2K Games and Gearbox lasted, since Battleborn quickly fell into oblivion, as fast as its price and with the final closure of its servers only 3 years later.
Lawbreakers, Boss Key Productions (2016)
We are facing the umpteenth example that a famous name after a game is far from being a guarantee of success. After leaving Epic Games and leaving behind one of the great franchises of the last 10 years, Gears of War, Cliff Bleszinski became a figure that made more headlines for his arrogant statements than for his work, something that luckily or unfortunately changed in 2017, with the release of Lawbreakers. Again, we come across an even remarkable game in its concept, with elements of the old school of competitive shooter, and some of the new mainstream, based on classes with different abilities, but it gives the impression that it came at one point in time. that multiplayer shooters were going for another course, specifically the battle royale. The blame, therefore, cannot be strictly thrown into the video game, and it is something that Cliff took literally, going from blaming PUBG to doing it to the press, but the reality is that there came a moment, not very far from its launch, in that nobody played Lawbreakers anymore. This, which was a humiliation for Cliff, supposed who knows if his final retirement.
DriveClub, Evolution Studios (2014)
After being one of the banners among Sony's first party studios thanks to the previous generation of Motorstorm, Evolution Studios was preparing to make a leap of quality in the present with DriveClub, a riding title between simulation and arcade with a technical section of those that make time. So far, everything perfect, and in fact, fulfilled, but from these two points, the problems occurred, with the delay in launching the game being almost the least of them, thus falling from the PlayStation 4 launch catalog as planned , as well as a smaller but free version for PlayStation Plus subscribers, something that would take many months to arrive. DriveClub promised to create a huge community around them thanks to a system of clubs and competition between them that never finished working 100% due to initial problems on their servers, something that would later be solved. Dynamic weather, multiple improvements, arrival of the Driveclub Bikes expansion … The reality is that DriveClub became a fantastic game, but the experience had taken its toll on the British studio, whose final closure in 2016 – and subsequent integration of many of its members. in Codemasters- he left the game in a dying state until his final death this week, when they have closed their servers forever.
Quake Champions, Bethesda Softworks (2017)
When Quake Champions was announced at E3 2016, there was great excitement among fans of classic shooters, and it is not for less, since it is the franchise that popularized online multiplayer in the late 90s and early 2000s with the remembered and longed for Quake 3 Arena. However, no one or almost no one could predict what the game's destiny would be: neither more nor less than the almost absolute irrelevance. The decision to go out alone on PC surely was not the most successful possible, and it is that reducing your target can never be a positive thing, especially when it is already very dedicated to other first person shooter like CS: GO or Rainbow Six Siege. The public may have been looking for something more modern, but the fact is that Quake Champions did not take long to adopt the free to play model – in the summer of 2018, specifically – something that was far from sufficient to revitalize it.
Evolve, Turtle Rock (2015)
One of the most notorious cases of failure in this generation is that of Evolve, since having behind some of the creators of Left 4 Dead made harbor many hopes around him. Unfortunately, it is also a game that was not bad at all, rather the opposite, but its launch was also full of bad decisions. As we remember, Evolve is an asymmetric shooter in which four players put themselves in the shoes of 4 characters to hunt down a fifth player, who was the monster, with 3 of these available … plus a fourth that could only be accessed by reserving the game or paying later. This, which may now be a more or less common practice, did not sit well, but it was worse to have a number of items available to be purchased through micropayments from the first day for a value of more than 300 euros. Later, when the game had already been converted to the free to play model and there was nothing to save it, from Turtle Rock they confessed that the original idea of Evolve was another: to make a cooperative game for 4 players, in a more open and with a greater narrative component, something that Destiny or The Division would exploit more successfully.
Anthem, Bioware (2018)
To the case of Anthem we are going to add, at least for the moment, an asterisk, because there are still reasons for hope. Bioware is working on a major update that will completely reshape the game, but that doesn't stop its original release from being a major disappointment. Graphically portentous, yes, he was not able to hook players due to an antediluvian mission system in which the activities were dull and repetitive to the end, in addition to a surprisingly narrative component, in the case of Bioware, irrelevant. Like many of the games on this list, rumors flew over that it would end up becoming free to play, something that, as we saw, has not been the case, but that is not why the game is going to stop receiving a second chance. Its shooter and flight formula is well worth it, and if the veteran studio is able to hit where it didn't at the time, Anthem will undoubtedly have to be removed from any list of disappointing games.
