Hype is a double-edged sword when it comes to video game marketing. On the one hand, having a lot of hype for an upcoming title will usually make for a lot of pre-orders and first week sales. On the other hand, if a game then fails to meet expectations, its long-term sales can be irreparably damaged.
In recent years, many AAA releases seem to have followed the same pattern. First, the game is announced at PAX or E3, and touted as the ‘next big thing.’ Over a a couple of years of slowly eaked out information, excitement builds. The game is delayed once or twice, but that does little to lower expectations on the whole. Then, by the time it’s been released, there’s just no way it’s able to live up to the years of hype beforehand.
This list takes a look at ten video games that fell victim to levels of hype that could never be lived up to. While the majority of the games here are by no means bad, each one managed to disappoint the vast majority of gamers that bought into the pre-release buildup.
10. Haze
Free Radical
It’s all but faded from memory now, but there was a time when Haze was the most anticipated game for the PlayStation 3. Created by acclaimed devs Free Radical (famous for the TimeSplitters series), Haze was looking like it was going to usher in a whole new generation of first-person shooters.
Despite an interesting premise, Haze just wasn’t particularly good. Thanks to generic gameplay, dodgy enemy AI and rubbish writing, the game wouldn’t even have stood out on the PlayStation 2. Even the graphics, one of the game’s major selling points, weren’t up to scratch, swiftly outdone by just about every other game released early in the PlayStation 3’s life.
9. The Elder Scrolls Online
ZeniMax Online Studios
While many suspected that The Elder Scrolls Online wasn’t going to be a WoW-killer, it was hoped that the game would introduce a whole new crowd to the magic of MMORPGs. Following the pattern of just about every major MMO in the last decade, Elder Scrolls Online had strong early sales, followed by a rapid decline in subscribers after the first couple of months.
The general consensus of The Elder Scrolls Online wasn’t that it was a bad game, just that it was pretty average. It also didn’t really make much sense that The Elder Scrolls series, known for its sandbox-style gameplay, action-packed combat and exploration, would be shoehorned into a theme park MMO, where all those attributes were nullified by the necessities of that genre.
8. Duke Nukem Forever
Gearbox Software
With its development schedule that was dragged out over fifteen years and news that varied between the project being dead and alive, Duke Nukem Forever had an excruciatingly long build-up before its eventual release. Because of this, the inevitable hype that accompanied the game’s eventual release felt oddly unnatural, as if everyone was going through the motions because they had to.
Although a gameplay trailer almost tricked everyone into half-hoping that Duke Nukem Forever just might be the explosive comeback we all wanted, the final release was pretty dire. It wasn’t a catastrophic failure. Instead, Duke Nukem Forever was just a painfully average crawl, filled with outdated humour, bad level design and the odd feeling that you were trying to squeeze the fun out of something that had been dead for almost two decades.
7. Final Fantasy XIII
Square Enix
There was a time when a new Final Fantasy release didn’t feel like just another game release. A new Final Fantasy game was a momentous event, as everyone gathered to witness what incredible technical advances Square Enix had made this time, or what amazing new worlds their team of writers had weaved together.
Final Fantasy XIII was looking like a continuation of this trend. Its mind-blowing good looks and absorbing cinematic trailer wowed audiences everywhere, and fans couldn’t wait to jump into this fascinating new world. Unfortunately, the game was extremely linear, with the first half of the game almost entirely taking place along tight corridors. The battle system was also controversial, heavily limiting the player’s control over their party compared to previous instalments. Over the years, many have looked back more kindly on Final Fantasy XIII, but it was a tremendous disappointment at the time.
6. Titanfall
Electronic Arts
There weren’t a lot of people arguing that Titanfall wasn’t a good game. Respawn Entertainment’s online multiplayer FPS is almost irresistibly fun, and the free-flowing movement does feel great compared to most other contemporary offerings.
The main problem was in how Titanfall was sold to gamers. Rather than being an online experience that players could delve into for hundreds of hours, for many players it only had enough depth to be a fun distraction for a few weeks. This wouldn’t be an issue for a ‘normal’ release, were it not for the excessive marketing (and RRP). Titanfall just didn’t have enough meat to feel like a truly major, AAA release.
5. Watch Dogs
Ubisoft
Speaking of major, AAA releases, Watch Dogs looked set to be the biggest game of the year. Beautiful graphics, an unparalleled immersive world, and the ability to ‘hack’ just about everything were all selling points that Ubisoft were pushing hard.
Things were looking a bit shaky after the game was delayed for around six months, but the stunning E3 appearances had long cemented Watch Dogs’ place as one of the most anticipated games of 2014. By the time the game released, it looked nowhere near as good as the pre-release footage, missions were linear and the cars handled terribly. Sadly, Watch Dogs just wasn’t as exciting as Ubisoft wanted us to believe, and 2013’s Grand Theft Auto V had already outdone it in just about every way possible.
4. Daikatana
Ion Storm
When a game is more famous for its marketing campaign than the end product, you know that something went seriously wrong. Daikatana has become notorious for the bold posters that hyped it up, covered in phrases like “John Romero’s about to make you his bitch,” and “Suck it down.”
Despite the controversial marketing, Romero was still considered a genius at the time, seemingly incapable of pushing out a bad game. Daikatana was exactly that though – a bad game. In fact, it’s widely considered to be one of the worst games ever released, thanks to a ridiculous number of bugs, terrible graphics and totally irrelevant in an industry with games like Half-Life and Medal of Honor.
3. Destiny
Bungie
For a while, it really looked like Destiny was going to be the ‘next big thing.’ Like, Halo or Call of Duty big. Featuring one of the most impressively large-scale marketing campaigns in the history of video games, and with a well-respected developer at the helm, Destiny was one of the most hyped games of all time.
Therefore, it was devastating to many gamers when Destiny received subpar review scores from several major publications, and a general consensus that the game was just outright disappointing. The most common complaints were that Destiny just didn’t have enough for gamers to do, and what was there felt extremely repetitive. Like Titanfall, it was by no means a bad game. It just didn’t quite have enough depth to be elevated to the heights it was aiming for.
2. Spore
Maxis
Spore was going to be the absolute king of god games. Designed and developed by SimCity creator Will Wright, Spore was in the making for a huge amount of time with a massive budget to boot. A ridiculously ambitious premise, a colossal amount of talent involved, and no shortage of financial backing: Spore looked like sure-fire hit.
Unfortunately, things didn’t quite pan out as expected. Pre-release material suggested Spore would be a transcendent experience, letting you experience life from single-celled organisms, all the way up to complex space-faring civilisations. Instead, other than a pretty fun creature creator, Spore was a hugely underwhelming collection of average mini games, culminating in a lacklustre strategy title at the end of it.
1. Every Fable Game
Lionhead Studios
Oh Peter Molyneux. When will you learn to stop promising what you can’t deliver. There’s no doubt that Molyneux and Lionhead Studios genuinely want to push the limits of video games, and gift us with a genre-pushing, revolutionary experience. The problem is, they just don’t have the ability to do it.
This is most obvious in the Fable games, which are notorious for not living up to what was originally touted. Promises like a world that grows over time, affected by even your smallest actions, were proven to be false. The good and evil options weren’t any different from similar ‘karma’ systems used in other RPGs, and most of the ‘aging’ features were limited and purely aesthetic. In the end, there was only so many times you could play a farting minigame in front of an NPC crowd before realising that these weren’t the games that had been advertised.
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