We’ve seen quite a few amazing games in the last 10 years, some of which have redefined the gaming industry. But what about the bad apples, the ones that managed to let us down? Check our list with some of the most notorious titles of the decade.
Duke Nukem Forever (2011)
Duke Nukem Forever was supposed to to be released before the end of the 20th century but things got complicated. Getting delayed ever since 1996, the title changed multiple developers, publishers and game engines. After 15 years of waiting, fans could finally get their hands on the game in 2011. The reactions for it were mixed, to say the least.
The first major issue with DNF is that its graphics were outdated for 2011. That’s the same year we saw titles like L.A. Noire, The Witcher 2 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution among others, and every single one of those was a visual masterpiece compared to Duke. Perhaps the game relied too much on keeping its 90s feel, which brings us to our next point. The humor in it is also quite outdated, while in terms of gameplay, there’s nothing revolutionary. In fact, the game is filled with tedious mini-games that you have no way of avoiding.
Duke Nukem Forever is by no means a terrible game, but its long development cycle along with the reputation of its predecessor set fan expectations too high only to let them down.
No Man’s Sky (2016)
No Man’s Sky promised fans space battles and over 18 quintillion planets to explore which would take approximately 600 billion years. Each planet was supposedly different than the rest with tons of different species to discover.
The title came out in 2016 and it was hardly a finished product. While the number of planets was indeed as high as promised, players had little to no incentive to explore them as they all felt barren. No Man’s Sky was littered with negative reviews, but the team behind it stuck with their initial plan and kept working on what they envisioned.
A couple of years later, the Beyond update came out and fixed a major part of the problems. As a result, the game is a lot more playable today than 4 years ago.
Star Wars: Battlefront 1 & 2 (2015/2017)
EA’s reputation over the years had its ups and downs and the Star Wars franchise was involved in both. The first two Battlefront games from 2004 and 2005 were a great success and still have an active community even today. In 2013, EA got the license to make Star Wars games exclusively, and work on a reboot began with EA DICE as developers.
The new Battlefront 1 released in 2015 and it was basically an unfinished game that failed to deliver on many of its promises. That didn’t stop EA from pricing it accordingly, though, as the initial price at launch was $60 and an additional $50 for upcoming content. Well, it was a good thing that there was something “upcoming” since the game didn’t offer much to begin with. Lacking a single-player campaign, players were forced to exclusively play multiplayer which came with its own set of issues.
Battlefront 2 came in 2017 and fixed some of the problems its predecessor had. The gameplay was improved on all fronts, it was a lot more impressive visually and included a single-player campaign. So what went wrong? Lootboxes. EA was putting a bit too much of an emphasis on spending money on a game that already had a high price. Sure, fans could earn some of the in-game items by spending time playing the game but that would take astronomically large amounts of it.
EA also made what’s perhaps the most downvoted comment on the internet and got publicly scorned for it.
Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017)
The Mass Effect series was deeply praised by fans for its engaging storyline and enjoyable gameplay mechanics. It came as no surprise that after the success of their previous 3 games, BioWare decided to make another one.
Upon its release, Andromeda was riddled with bugs which varied from being stuck in terrain to straight-up falling through it. The game’s story also pulled it back as player choices from the previous titles were not taken into account like in the previous titles. Mass Effect: Andromeda’s biggest problem was the character facial animations which seemed really weird and clunky. Even the three games that came before were doing a much better job at it. There was no other explanation except maybe budget cuts or chasing a deadline, but the end result was nothing less than shocking.
After a generous amount of feedback from the community, the game received several patches that fixed a good portion of the visual glitches. BioWare also decided to ditch the Andromeda facial animation technology for any future projects. And good riddance.
Fallout 76 (2018)
The franchise remained popular even after the disappointment that was Fallout 4, so what was the next logical step? Make it into an MMO. Fallout 76’s premise was good on paper, but little did we know of the coming disaster.
Glitches and server crashes were an everyday experience for everyone and not just a select few. Bethesda’s games have always been problematic on launch and to a huge degree relied on community modders to fix their mistakes, but it was an entirely different story this time. It seemed like the title relied more on juicing as much money as possible with cosmetic items from its dedicated fanbase while providing little to nothing in other terms. Further proof of that was the release of a premium subscription (“Fallout 1st”) in October 2019 at the generous price of $ 12.99 per month or $ 99.99 for a year. The service included the ability to play on private servers, which turned to be just as broken as the game was on release. In 2020, the game is still a mess with plenty of game-breaking bugs that are still not addressed.
That puts an end to our list of disappointments for the decade. Hopefully 2020 and onward will be better year for the gaming industry and the fans.
