Tis the season where all the games we were hyped for are being released in quick succession, with many games that made their way right to the top of our hype train being released with somewhat lukewarm reception. After the release of Gotham Knights we got to thinking… Which games of yesteryear have we been most excited about, only for them to come out to crushing disappointment? Yes; that is a in fact a dig right at you Gotham Knights! We got the team together to discuss our most disappointing games. There are some real stinkers here!
Lance: Battlefield 2042
Reading this now, nearly a year after its release, my opinion of Battlefield 2042 will surprise no one. I’m a devout Battlefield fan. I’ve played every one with glee since 1942 (the game, I’m not that old) I wanted to like 2042, I defended it from the naysayers. But, alas, I now have to admit it; it’s a mess. The game has failed to capture the fun, the atmosphere and style that its predecessors had in abundance. The release was a mess, the game is a mess. It lacks luster, has no atmosphere and to be honest, Dice should be embarrassed to attach the Battlefield name to such a disappointment. I’m aware the previous titles have had their fair share of problems, but this feels beyond redemption.
Colin: Saints Row (2022)
Immediately I had one thought that raced through my mind while playing Saints Row; this is the Netflix reboot of video games. It’s as if they’ve had a group of designers sit down and play the previous games in the franchise, some of which skipped the assignment and watched a Let’s Play on Twitch – I’m just happy that one of the original themes is intact: family.
The biggest draw for me with the latest iteration of Saints Row is playing the game in co-op with my partner, and this is where the game’s flaws become more transparent. There were numerous desync issues throughout our playthrough and we kept losing track of each other due to markers missing after a short gameplay session. What’s funny about the co-op experience is having the ability to prank the other player; the irony is you’re unable to tell if you’re being pranked due to a host of other issues within the game.
While my disappointment with the game is immeasurable, this isn’t to say I haven’t enjoyed playing through the campaign. A good story is on offer, but it is best experienced as a single player playthrough only.
Alexx: Middle Earth: Shadow of War
Shadow of War is the worst type of sequel. A game whose first instalment did all the heavy lifting and legwork, only for the follow up to piledrive the potential and fun factor generated into the ground, all in favour of microtransactions. All Monolith had to do in order to turn out a successful sequel was make quality of life changes to the gameplay, continue to build on the story of Tallywhacker and CelebrimBORE and flesh out the Nemesis system and Mordor environments. They looked for a while like they would achieve all of these until the game released and the microtransactions came rushing in to tank opinions of the game as an experience.
An insulting, lazy and unbalanced follow up which not only killed its franchise, it killed its fan base.
Fuck Shadow of War and fuck Monolith.
Luke: We Happy Few
I was super excited by this game, the setting and idea behind it was everything I could have asked for. What I thought would be the new Bioshock turned out to instead be a huge disappointment with poor gameplay and a bland world, made worse by unnecessary procedural generation and overall was a boring mess. Amongst all the gameplay mishaps NOTHING was more inexcusable than the procedurally generated world that just resulted in bland levels lacking any kind of authorship or… well, point.
We Happy Few gets my vote by simply being the most pointless game to ever exist and it’s not that I even hate it… I nothing it. Which is way worse.
Stuart: Marvel’s Avengers
Goddamn this game should’ve been amazing. Even with bootleg character models the game should have been action packed with awesome free flow combat tailored to each of the incredible characters we have all come to love over the last decade. But no we got a money grabbing, generic, boring live service game that tries to tell us it loves the source material but instead cheapens out every chance it get. Then Spider-Man happened with ZERO story DLC and many delays because Square just had to cash in on hype beforehand. I wanted this game to be awesome but when it released I heard it wasn’t worth it.
I loved Iron Man VR and Spider-Man (PlayStation) had unrivalled praise, then this wet fart of a game (that admittedly has a half decent story that you won’t want to play again) came out. Avengers Assemble? More like Avengers go fuck your self.
Which games most disappointed you in recent years? Let the hate run through you and let us know in the comments below!