Board 8 > Worst game launch ever?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Crucible. Game launched, unlaunched and then was cancelled within six months, after being in development for six years.

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IMHO: The worst game launches are the ones that permanently damage their product beyond recovery, spreading damage to the series and/or dev as well. So even if updates have made the game good now, few people care because of the reputation from the abysmal launch.

Of these...
Daikatana: I have no idea what this game is, so this is not a correct answer.
Sonic 2006: The game is bad and damaged the franchise's reputation, but the launch had nothing to do with it.
Final Fantasy XIV: I can see the logic behind those votes, but the game's doing pretty well now and doesn't have the stigma associated with that many of these other games do. The fact is that while the launch was bad, it was recoverable. Many of the other games on this list aren't so fortunate.
Diablo III: Huh? This was disastrous how? Because the game wasn't as good as II?
Batman: It was only a mess on one platform of the three it launched on. The other two made up for it.
No Man's Sky: A fine choice, but it's managed to recover somewhat. I think people have forgotten about it but if it's brought up, "No Guy Buy bad." is still the line of thinking.
Fallout 76: This is a serious contender given how it was nuclear in a multilateral sense. Bethesda ruined their reputation with their lies and mess of a game and most people still don't acknowledge its existence.
Warcraft 3: I don't know why this is on here, either.
Cyberpunk: It's recovered a little but the rushed launch after years of development hell destroyed CDPR. Sony recalling the game is a huge sign that this may be the correct answer of those listed.
ET: I mean... Atari buried all the cartridges they could collect in the desert and didn't unearth them for 30 years. The game has forever a reputation since it was before updates. And it all stems from how it failed to deliver.

In my mind, it's between No Guy Buy, Fallout 76, Cyberpunk, and ET. All of those caused serious damage to their developers and they all still have a bad enough reputation because of how messy the launch was.
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No Mans Sky had buzz in the mainstream media, something neither Fallout 76 nor Cyberpunk really had to the same extent. Bethesda can recover from Fallout and CDPR can theoretically get Cyberpunk to be at least ok. The thing is, even after massive revisions and everything, NMS left a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouths and its going to be hard for them to sell any new projects.

BlueCrystalTear posted...

Warcraft 3: I don't know why this is on here, either.

It's the "remake" (Reforged) specifically being noted. Blizzard promised features that they never implemented (yet showed in the dev/hype period!) and was just generally a dumpster fire. Bonus points for tinkering with the original Warcraft 3 infrastructure a bit by requiring Reforged's launcher so you couldn't even completely ignore it.

It's worthy of being in the conversation even if I don't think it's the winner here IMO.

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BlueCrystalTear posted...

Diablo III: Huh? This was disastrous how? Because the game wasn't as good as II?

iirc it had a bunch of server issues and glitches when it was released

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Diablo III was the whole auction house debacle

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Uglyface2 posted...

No Mans Sky had buzz in the mainstream media, something neither Fallout 76 nor Cyberpunk really had to the same extent.

if star citizen ever releases it can top this with having a forbes's investigative piece written about it with lines such as "This is not fraud - Roberts really is working on a game - but it is incompetence and mismanagement on a galactic scale."

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Yeah, I don't think it's FF14. I think the launch wasn't really the disaster, it was more that they made a bad game and it was an MMO, and an MMO without players lost them a ton of money. And by the end it was something much more playable, but it still didn't make money (which is the fault of the launch). It's not even as unique as people are saying - No Man's Sky did the same thing (make essentially a new game and give it out for free) on a much smaller scale!

There's some bias because FF14 1.0 is over and done with while F76 and 2077 are still getting updates. Cyberpunk 2077 and Fallout 76 were much more notable to me for being major AAA releases a little more mainstream than an MMO, and there being a ton of tangential drama besides just the game itself being bad. It's kind of a tossup to me but I'd have to go Cyberpunk.

2 things. The Launch was that bad, the reason no one remembers the TORtanic (which was so overshadowed its not even on this list) is because XIV was on another level, the unreachable star of bad launches.

Two: On what world is any mainline numbered FF game after 1997 not considered a AAA title?

The auction house was a somewhat reasonable idea with absolute atrocious implementation.

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Cyberpunk literally had it taken off the PSN store

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs0yQKI7Yw4

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colliding posted...

Cyberpunk literally had it taken off the PSN store

Cyberpunk got massive backlash but also sold a bazillion copies anyway so it depends how you define 'worst' I guess. And it's still barely any better now apparently so idk if that makes it count as a bad launch or just bad game, it's all very subjective depending on how you define things!


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Diablo III for me

stayed up all night after release trying to connect to their servers and couldnt play it. Man, the disappointment. Especially after picking it up at midnight

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One thing XIV has going for it IMO is that its now a great game. Not a good game, a great game. I feel pretty confident that before Remake released that both both critically and by the consumer it was the highest standing Final Fantasy game since 05 (XII) by critics and 01 (X) by the fanbase, both going all the way back to the PS2. Its proof there was a good game there, but the launch was so disastrous on every possible level that they had to take all the elements apart and put it together again from the ground up.

azuarc posted...

I played it a couple months ago -- not to completion, which might be needed to have a proper opinion, but a fair bit -- and it didn't strike me as trash. The main reason people crapped on it at launch was the bugs, and those have been patched out.

I 100% that game and only ever got one bug!

"but why would you 100% a game you think is garbage", you may ask.

It's Mass Effect.

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FFXIV had a $400M initial budget. It was 100% a AAA game.
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The argument that FFXIV doesn't take the top spot because it's fixed now is inherently flawed. FFXIV as it is not a fixed 1.0, 1.0 is no longer a game that exists. A Realm Reborn is a different video game.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

The argument that FFXIV doesn't take the top spot because it's fixed now is inherently flawed. FFXIV as it is not a fixed 1.0, 1.0 is no longer a game that exists. A Realm Reborn is a different video game.

in the defense of people saying that, I think thats fair.

IMO the answer is clearly XIV or you disqualify XIV because its a different game now, I have no issue with people saying it shouldnt count since XIV and Realm Reborn are technically completely different games. That to me is a fair thought process to carry

It's a very complicated situation, especially since they did actually put a ton of effort into turning 1.0 around, putting hundreds of thousands of dollars and hours into work on it even while the entire dev team knew that the game would cease to exist in less than a year.

Like, there were people writing entire storylines and crating cutscenes that would end up existing for less than a month before being completely eradicated forever, and they knew that while they were making them! Some of that stuff was never recorded so it's not even possible to access them anymore even if you searched it out.

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IDK, it feels like some people are arguing that it's a necessary pre-requisite that the game had to have a redemption story afterwords for it to count for this category and I have no idea where that's coming from - nothing implies that.

Trying to distinguish between "bad launch" and "bad game" is pretty nonsensical IMO. When we say a game bombs at launch we don't just retcon that after a few months because "Well, it never recovered so actually the launch didn't suck it was just a bad game, completely different."

Sounds more like trying to shoehorn a kind of "Best Comeback Story" category by dismissing games like Sonic '06 from the category because it "just was a bad game." Well, like... yeah, it was. And that kind of made the launch bad by necessity too.

Given KP's lineup of poll choices I think the intention was more a total bust at launch with the pre-launch hype/expectations and/or damage to the brand being a major factor in elevating the contenders above the rest of the heap because the fall from expectations was that much worse.

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Xeybozn posted...

The games themselves weren't that bad, but the Saturn launch in the US has to be up there if console launches can be considered.

I think 'the games weren't that bad' is an argument in favor of Saturn US library being the worst launch.

The games largely horrifically failed BECAUSE of the launch.

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I think its No Mans Sky.

The game got mainstage Sony promotion, and then when it came out, like 90% of the major features they promised straight-up didnt exist.

And since then, theyve added them, and more.

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I think PS3 is a contender on the console side although you really have to wrap that E3 into it for the full effect.

It recovered superbly later in the lifecycle but that start was not pretty lol.

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Sonic 2006 was a bad game by design not a bad launch. It shipped effectively as intended.

Also it always looked terrible and was following up a terrible game in Shadow the Hedgehog so it wasnt really a disappointment.

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I legit feel like someone decided to stuff this poll since last night, lol. Everything else stayed stagnant besides Cyberpunk.

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xp1337 posted...

Trying to distinguish between "bad launch" and "bad game" is pretty nonsensical IMO. When we say a game bombs at launch we don't just retcon that after a few months because "Well, it never recovered so actually the launch didn't suck it was just a bad game, completely different."

I mean there would be no point to this topic then and it might as well just be titled "Worst Game?"

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Umbrella Corps is up there. They wanted it to be the next E-SPORTS monster so bad and tried to build so much hype and then they had a double digit playerbase in two days.

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MZero posted...

I mean there would be no point to this topic then and it might as well just be titled "Worst Game?"

Not really, because the gulf between expectations/pre-launch hype/etc. would vary greatly between games.

Big Rigs is an unplayable wreck but no one had any expectations for it so it's not like the launch let anyone down. Cyberpunk was one of the most hyped games of the generation and was a colossal trainwreck (on console at least) even though objectively it was in a better state than Big Rigs.

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Lightning Strikes posted...

Sonic 2006 was a bad game by design not a bad launch. It shipped effectively as intended.

Also it always looked terrible and was following up a terrible game in Shadow the Hedgehog so it wasnt really a disappointment.

it didnt always look terrible, and there were multiple multi pages articles by every major gaming publication leading up to its release of it being the Sonic reset weve all been waiting for after the bad Sonic Heroes and impossibly bad Shadow the Hedgehog.

It speaks volumes that the Xbox One bundled with FO76 was $100 cheaper than the console not bundled with it.

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Starbound. It's fine now but it's the game I point to when I go "I fucking hate Early Access/Kickstarker" with the shit their initial dev team pulled.

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Isquen posted...

Starbound. It's fine now but it's the game I point to when I go "I fucking hate Early Access/Kickstarker" with the shit their initial dev team pulled.

Wait what happened with Starbound?

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redrocket posted...

This poll is stacked.

Right? I had to second-guess myself three times before clicking Cyberpunk.

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Wait the worst launches are like every amiibo circa 2014, no one could get their hands on any

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I mean, bad games are bad and hurt reputation, but Cyberpunk is the only one where the federal government of Poland stepped in to tell them how bad of a job they did and that they need to fix it or suffer severe fines.

Like that's just next-level embarrassment to me. And an ultimatum that WILL tank a company, as opposed to just damaging the brand or company's reputation.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Wait what happened with Starbound?

From an ethics standpoint, allegations of developers not being credited with manhours or pay - some of them teenagers at the time, and written off by lead dev as "they were volunteers."

The early access period of the game was very obviously trying to capitalize on being a Terraria-like when Terraria was succeeding, but was a huge buggy mess; the early access period took a VERY long time to address issues. The release itself removed what I now understand were placeholder functions, but the team-to-consumer ratio kind of soured the game on me.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Diablo 3 had to do this. Warcraft 3 Reforged is in the middle of doing it.

Diablo III doesnt use anything from thr original Diablo III? Same with the Warcraft 3 remake?

Who stuffed the poll for Cyberpunk

Also I don't think Square going to great lengths to relaunch FF14 isn't necessarily indicative of it being a worse launch then the other games on this list, just that they cared enough to fix it

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I feel like a lot of stuff being discussed here is just "big game that didn't live up to the hype" and became unpopular as a result.

KamikazePotato posted...

Also I don't think Square going to great lengths to relaunch FF14 isn't necessarily indicative of it being a worse launch then the other games on this list, just that they cared enough to fix it

Yeah, I feel like if they never made ARR, then old FF14 would likely be in the same situation as most of the other games on this list. Now it's just "biggest dichotomy between launch state and current state", which gives bias towards the games on the list that have gotten patched (2 of them were released before post-launch patches were common).

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Uglyface2 posted...

No Mans Sky had buzz in the mainstream media, something neither Fallout 76 nor Cyberpunk really had to the same extent. Bethesda can recover from Fallout and CDPR can theoretically get Cyberpunk to be at least ok. The thing is, even after massive revisions and everything, NMS left a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouths and its going to be hard for them to sell any new projects.

I'm not good at finding out sales figures, but I am curious to see how The Last Campfire has sold since it has been nearly a year. I actually own all of Hello Games' library except for Joe Danger Infinity, but the only one that I have played is Joe Danger 2.
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Uglyface2 posted...

No Mans Sky had buzz in the mainstream media, something neither Fallout 76 nor Cyberpunk really had to the same extent. Bethesda can recover from Fallout and CDPR can theoretically get Cyberpunk to be at least ok. The thing is, even after massive revisions and everything, NMS left a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouths and its going to be hard for them to sell any new projects.

Man, everyone loves No Man's Sky now after all the updates, and I'm sure that the company has learned from their millions of mistakes. It's absolutely had a major swingback that people really enjoy it now and champion it as a major success now.

Any company would gladly work with No Man's Sky developers, but probably just not give them the outrageous amount of attention Sony gave them, which is honestly on Sony for doing and not supporting them more when they obviously needed it. Giving a tiny indy game studio all of that attention was the issue here with crushing timelines and no proper marketing and PR. If a developer can come back and make everyone happy with their game after that, they're definitely worth working with again. They've made a ton of mistakes, but they're not ones they'll ever make twice.

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Spore

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Shout-out to Metroid Other M for being fairly hyped until the story details came out just before/just after release (can't remember the exact timing). I have to imagine like 90% of people who would have bought it noped out, because it dropped to $10 in an absurdly short amount of time, especially for a Nintendo game from a series which barely drops in price at all.

I think the real answer is 76 or NMS though.

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The Guy Game.

Combination of a terrible game, terrible sales, lots of places refused to stock it, and lawsuits out the ass for a game that was just a quiz game with tiddies from the former head of Retro Studios.

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Oh and it had to be pulled due to there being underaged girls in it.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Diablo 3 had to do this.

Leave it to ulti to make up reasons to hate on Blizzard. Diablo 3 is essentially the same game it was at launch. The RMT auction house is gone. Very little outside of the actual legitimate expansion is that much different, though.

I'm also confused why people are arguing for Diablo 3. Yes, the AH was an issue, but what else was wrong with the game exactly?

xp1337 posted...

it feels like some people are arguing that it's a necessary pre-requisite that the game had to have a redemption story afterwords for it to count for this category and I have no idea where that's coming from - nothing implies that.

Trying to distinguish between "bad launch" and "bad game" is pretty nonsensical IMO. When we say a game bombs at launch we don't just retcon that after a few months because "Well, it never recovered so actually the launch didn't suck it was just a bad game, completely different."

Sounds more like trying to shoehorn a kind of "Best Comeback Story" category by dismissing games like Sonic '06 from the category because it "just was a bad game." Well, like... yeah, it was. And that kind of made the launch bad by necessity too.

Given KP's lineup of poll choices I think the intention was more a total bust at launch with the pre-launch hype/expectations and/or damage to the brand being a major factor in elevating the contenders above the rest of the heap because the fall from expectations was that much worse.

Agreed completely. I think that a game that manages to rebound from its initial launch does help establish that the launch was the problem for the game, but sometimes a game craters so hard there's simply nothing that can be done. Like, I don't care what anyone tells me about what kind of shape Fallout 76 is in now -- I'm not going to play it. I don't care. It could be amazing or it could be dogshit; it was still a monumental catastrophe.

And this is part of why I'm arguing for ME:A at least being a poll option. The Mass Effect brand was basically radioactive to the extent that I suspect they intentionally held onto the trilogy re-release for longer than they might have otherwise, waiting for things to cool off a bit. Say what you will about the ending drama with ME3, but people still loved Mass Effect after the original trilogy. If you had said a new ME game was coming between 2017 and 2020, it would have spurned to hell.

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NominateMoogles posted...

2 things. The Launch was that bad, the reason no one remembers the TORtanic (which was so overshadowed its not even on this list) is because XIV was on another level, the unreachable star of bad launches.

Two: On what world is any mainline numbered FF game after 1997 not considered a AAA title?

The answer to both of these is the same and it's because MMOs are typically very niche and very few of them are smash hits. They're both AAA but niche, and this is important. No one remembers bad launches for TOR and Elder Scrolls Online because mediocre failed MMOs are a dime a dozen. They went free-to-play and freemium and still get updates today, and no one cares. The reason FF14 1.0 is so legendary isn't because it was a failed mediocre MMO, it's because they rebooted it and it was SO crazy successful and good. They also literally wrote the failed 1.0 base game into the lore of 2.0, so it developed both an in-game and out-of-game mythology. THAT's the interesting part, not that FF 1.0 had a crappy launch, lots of MMOs did.

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Diablo 3 tbh

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The Diablo 3 answers are killing me. Except for the auction house it was fucking awesome at launch.

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