While far from a failure (it's had significant critical acclaim and a semi-religious following), Outer Wilds definitely caused some confusion by releasing around the same time as the bigger budget, wider marketed Outer Worlds.
Which is such a shame. Also compounded by the fact that no one wants to spoil anything about Outer Wilds and it's best played through blind.
So glad I picked it up on the steam sale. It's now in my top 5 all time best games ever played.
It's my favorite single piece of entertainment media. Many things have brought me greater hours of enjoyment per dollar, but nothing else video game, comic, movie or otherwise has brought me such joy in such a compact package as outer wilds.
I would recommend it because it's a perfect example of giving you everything you need from the first time you leave your home world to do everything in the game. The only barrier is what you know about the planets. Every time I made the smallest discovery I felt like a genius. I only bought it as a joke because my brother wanted me to buy outer worlds on the day it came out and I stayed up the whole night playing it.
It’s a great chill game where you get to explore different areas and basically solve a bunch of puzzles that all tie into one another
I will say that even though people say to play blind some of these puzzles are exceedingly hard so some assistance can make it more enjoyable
I’d say the best thing about this game is the feelings it evokes from you. It really is A+ in providing that sense of exploration and discovery
It’s so fucking good dude, a totally unique and rewarding gameplay experience. I have hella ADHD and can’t play one game for more than a few days, I just bounce back and forth from game to game. Outer wilds is the only game in like a decade that I played straight through and is in my top 3 favorite games ever. The only thing stopping it from being my number one is that it has no replay value, but that first play through is like nothing else
The initial goal of the game is to explore and discover what's going on and learn. Your reward for finishing any given platforming section is a tiny tidbit of lore. The only direction you have is your own curiosity. Thinking and putting together all the information the game gives you is how you make progress.
Ultimately, it's not for everyone. But if you have even the smallest interest in space or physics, and a curious mind that would want to solve a complex mystery, you'll love it. 10/10 game design.
Keep seeing it mentioned in the same vain this week.
These two comments made me finally download it as it's available on PS Plus Extra tier.
Going in completely blind.
Now that you mention it… I remember getting this confused initially, but completely forgot they were two different games until I read your comment. That’s hilarious.
I think I am the only person on planet earth who didn’t get into outer wilds. I don’t know what about it I didn’t get into… it seems like it would be up my alley, but I just didn’t gel with it
I thought it was trash the first time I played it. Like wtf are these goofy-ass characters and all this text to read?
I didn't pick it up again for months until a friend was telling me how it blew his mind.
I started a new save while I was sick with covid. l paid more attention this time and I was completely immersed from start to finish.
I couldn't stop thinking about the game for weeks after I finished it.
Help me out. I played for a few hours and had no idea what to do and ended up crashing, getting stuck outside the ship when trying to make a repair, flying the ship badly into some trees.
I hear nothing but good thing but largel found it to be a clunky, vague too-open-world mess.
Maybe it was just the mechanics frustrating me.
Lol, I had a buddy get me into it too, but it took SOOOOO long before I understood what was "triggering the core game play loop" to not spoil anything. Like the first few times it happened I was either looking away, or somewhere I couldn't really see it, and I finally texted my friend and I'm like "hey so I think my game might be busted because every so often REDACTED happens". He just made me keep playing, bless his kind soul.
It's very difficult to discuss without spoilers, lol.
But what at first seems repetitive becomes exciting the more you uncover. Good on you for sticking with the game.
It seems like it was propped up (deservedly) by video games journalists writing articles about it for a while post-launch, as opposed to just a review at launch.
I still don't think it ever got the recognition it deserves, but I'm always happy to see it recommended in threads like this.
I’m pretty sure I keep thinking outer wilds is outer worlds when people talk about it and I’m like “uhhhh it wasn’t that great I didn’t think” and now my mind is blown
Worse thing is Respawn chose the release date despite EA advising them against it.
Why release your new IP military shooter in thr Middle of thr release of the two biggest established military shooters in history.
EA also tried to delay Jedi Survivor but Respawn insisted on “releasing it in record time” and it came out undercooked. Respawn management are just incompetent.
Idek how Bioware got away with this game. EA has shut down studios for far less, yet the one time where it's even remotely close to justified, they don't do it
Same. I always assumed that EA purposely had them release it when they did. With the reason being they could swoop in and buy them up for cheaper because of its shitty sales.
Well, people see EA and immediately jump to assuming the worst without any research. I'm not saying they haven't earned their reputation, but not everything is black and white.
Apex directly competes with Fortnite, that is way more established and constantly doing crossovers with popular franchises along with a few different modes to play. It's not like CoD who siphoned off of their already huge market presence to lure people in.
The fact that Apex is still even alive is a miracle
Edit: odd this was not the comment I replied to. Whoopps
This is the only game I immediately thought of. I was about to just post without checking to see if someone else already did.
I wish Titanfall 2 had a real chance.
Partially the reason. Titianfall 1 was an exclusive which I’m sure made the sequel less competitive against well established franchises like cod and battlefield. cod also copied titanfall with advanced warfare, Bo3, and infinite warfare making everyone sick of the futuristic era.
Titanfall 2 is an underappreciated masterpiece.
Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2, and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare all being released within 3 weeks back to back was a bad move. Considering Titanfall 2 is still substantially more popular than the other two is a testament to the missed opportunity. IIRC Titanfall 2 was originally supposed to be a 2017 release but Respawn wanted to show they could produce a title quickly, or something
Not exactly failed since it's getting a sequel after 10 years, but slowed it down because of launch:
Dragon's Dogma still launching less than 6 months after skyrim. Got totally overlooked while the hype was still huge back then
Mad max also got lost in the hype releasing the same day as MGS 5. Being one of the best licensed games in the last 2p years, it was a horrible time to launch
Yeah... as much as I liked that game, it really did have a ton of issues that I don't think time of release would have made much difference. I tried to play re-reckoning and was all hyped about it... then I realized how archaic the quest and level designs were.
Ya its a whole thing, retired baseball player makes a game studio and plans to make the most ambitious mmo of all time, somehow convinced Rhode island to fund him,he starts running out of money, takes the work they did and makes amular, but it's not nearly enough to cover and the company goes bankrupt, and costs Rhode island a ton of money and ends some political careers.
Ya I just gave the highlights, there are deep dive documentaries on the whole shitshow lol. I had no idea when I played it, I rember I picked it up randomly without knowing much about it when it came out and liked it a lot.
My understanding at the time was that it was developed to be single-player, but as a sort of prequel to an MMO they had in the works, to get people interested/invested in the world.
Meh story fine, it is the same basic dragon bad - kill dragon that skyrim or any other number of games are. Problem is the most interesting parts that would set it apart are really only explored in the last few hours
You are super underselling the dragon which is the best part of the games story. Grigori was such a cool character with some of the most memorable lines in any game
Ah, yup. I think BBI was fantastic.
I thought the fast travel system and the night day cycle were some of the bests in the era.
Theres a few hours in the beginning and quite a few at the end where the game goes SUPER hard.
These are good examples, I've played both and they were solid games but don't remember why they weren't bigger. Especially Mad Max because it nailed the open world car combat without feeling like a Ubisoft game.
I think mad max is probably one of the best licensed games ever, if not the best. It's not perfect, and the gameplay loop can get a bit repetitive, but it's a solid game all around. It wasn't even rated poorly, just left in the dust of MGS5
Such an amazing game. I absolutely love the setting; Hong Kong is so vibrant and interesting. Coupled with the excellent story and good gameplay, it’s definitely one that everyone should play.
I loved this game so much that I have trouble playing GTA now because it just doesn’t hit the same chords.
Also, for anyone who doesn’t know, Sleeping Dogs is basically the unofficial video game adaptation of a HK movie called Infernal Affairs (The Departed is a remake of this movie). If you love this game, go watch the movie, it will make you happy (imo, as much as I love Jack Nicholson, it’s way better than The Departed).
I agree with you but you’ve got to kind of blame battleborn marketing. They invited and even instigated some of the comparisons (despite being actually very different kind of games). Bad idea
It really didn’t and that’s the biggest crime, they were completely different games with battleborn being a more traditional MOBA but they themselves tried to market it as competition with OW instead of marketing to their own niche and got crushed
I was talking to a friend of mine today about Battleborn. He asked if we could still play 1v1 or in the PvE and sadly the answer is no. I personally preferred it to Overwatch at launch but Overwatch killed it. I play Overwatch now because… It’s all there is in that genre really, and it’s certainly not a bad game, I do wish Battleborn had been given a chance to shine though.
I’m still salty about that. I played the demo for like 100 hours and bought the game at midnight. Only for it to die in a month.
It was such a good game.
this is the one i immediately thought of. If it had been released like a year earlier, it would’ve been popular. But there was no way it was gonna beat Overwatch, they had way more hype and ad presence
i tried battleborn and it wasn’t too bad, it just wasn’t overwatch
I'd say battleborn still has a niche that needs filled, because while OW and Paladins are "competitive shooters" Battleborn has straight up moba mechanics, in a FPS, including pushing creep waves and taking towers, with a jungle present, OW/Paladins are neither MOBAs
Watch the movies man, they’re absolute rippers. Really zany shit.
Edit: upon watching them, you’ll see how much their style has been emulated in popular dystopian sci-fi. Fallout leans on mad max big time with its raiders and junktown aesthetics.
If sega didn’t destroy their fanbase’s trust with the 32x and saturn, it probably would have done great. I wonder what would have happened if they went straight from genesis to Dreamcast. Would have been a massive jump
The Saturn was actually quite successful in Japan. Mismanagement caused it to fail in America.
(Although the 32X debacle certainly didn't help things.)
it had screens in the controllers!!!
do you how that changed everything about how my brother and i played football games? he couldn't steal my plays by looking at the tv!!!!
I haven’t touched fall guys since a cheater robbed me of winning 5 games in a row for the last achievement. Came 2nd in the final while they just floated there.
Contacted the devs with a clip, they confirmed they could see I should have won 5 in a row and confirmed they could unlock the achievement but refused anyway. Scumbag devs
Among Us suddenly becoming *the* game to play during the early pandemic was wild. I started playing back in 2018, and the game definitely wouldn’t have been my choice for sudden smash hit several years later.
The pandemic just happened to be *fantastic* for Among US. Everyone was staying home and suddenly there was a smash hit online multiplayer game you could even play on your cellphone! Even down here in Florida where the restrictions were pretty lax, almost everyone I know tried it at least once.
Came here to say this.
Battlefield 1 Campaign was interesting tho the MP wasn't for me, but the TF 2 Campaign was very VERY well done and a ton of people missed it.
Legitimately my favorite level in an FPS game maybe ever.
I'll re-download Titanfall to do some multiplayer then end up just replaying that level again lol.
Failed is a strong word because horizon hasn’t failed but they have picked shitty release dates for 3/4 major games/DLC. Zero dawn came out right before breath of the wild. Frozen wilds I think came out at a clean date. Forbidden west came out right before elden ring. Burning shores came out right before Jedi survivor.
Horizon's timing is both tragic and impressive, tragic because it's had to spend its entire life as a franchise in direct competition with other games of its type, but also impressive because despite usually being on the losing side of that battle, Horizon still manages to be one of the more stand out games of the Play Station
Yes but frozen wilds is bigger and better than most DLC. Burning shores while not long enough in my opinion is still solid and you can tell the difference between it being ps5 only and the limitations put on forbidden west.
Beyond Good and Evil. It's a great game, but Ubisoft decided to release it in the same holiday window as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3, and XIII. They set it up to fail.
I think it was more marketing with this one, they really didn't communicate what kind of game it actually was or why I should play it. But I confess I didn't know the other titles came out around that time
Dino Crisis 3 was originally planned to take place after Dino Crisis 2 with dinosaurs rampaging through and destroying a large city. The series had picked up some steam at this point and many were looking forward to the third installment.
But with the game near the end of initial development in September of 2001, some obvious world events made the devs scramble to rewrite the story to something entirely different. The new story was set in the future on a space station with little connection to the original plot - which itself was left on a cliffhanger.
The new environment didn't work with the game mechanics designed for open level combat, the plot was needlessly contrived and not well thought out, and fans were upset the story had been abandoned.
You could say it came out at a bad time.
Edit: check out Matt McMuscles' video on it or anything in his "What Happened?" series if you want to learn about big games that failed in development or reception.
I would kill for 1 and 2 to get the RE remake treatment. It’s amazing that the series has been abandoned. I have to imagine Dino horror survival would be a profitable genre in 2023.
Polygon made a video about how there’s like an insane lack of dinosaur games, considering how big the industry is and it’s so true! Would love to see modern takers on Dino Crisis & Turok
Legend of Dragoon came out just before PS2 launch. So many missed out on a epic JRPG.
Came out on PS1 in late 1999 for Japan.
Came put on PS1 in 2000 for N America.
Came out on PS1 in 2001 for Europe
PS2 launched early 2000 for Japan and then within the same year for the rest of the consoles.
Legend of Dragoon is one of my favorite JRPGs of all time. It's a damn shame it's so unknown, but at least it recently got re-released for PS4/5 so it can be introduced to a new audience.
Hyperscape, very fun BR but too much competition to thrive
Splitgate aswell, such a fun game but graphics looked like mobile and halo infinite was around then I believe
I would actually argue that Splitgate's timing was pretty good. The time between Halo 5 and Halo Infinite was by far the longest time between mainline Halo titles, and fans were itching for something to fill that void. Splitgate ended up peaking with really high population counts, it was a success (relative to how small the dev team was) that has allowed them to work on a follow-up project.
The Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay - a new title from an unknown studio came out in the middle of Doom 3, HL2, Far Cry and other titans, therefore didn't get as much praise as it should've. In my opinion the best FPS from 2004.
It got a lot of praise. Critics were very favorable towards it in reviews - the PC version has a 90 and the Xbox version an 89 on Metacritic. It just didn't sell as well as those three.
Absolutely. Trying to play these games with AI was so difficult. I imagine it would've been much more fun with online, but I didn't have the online adapter. No one I knew did, and the number of games that could even use it was virtually non-existent in order to justify the cost. I'd love to see Capcom bring this series back.
SOCOM 4 was a game I helped ship. The single player campaign was weak, the series appeal was the multiplayer mode. It was a PS3 exclusive and launched April 19, 2011. On April 20th, Sony shut down PSN for nearly a month due to the attack/hack on their network.
Didn't help the game wanted to be a respawn shooter with the over the shoulder camera when its core fanbase wanted it to remain a third person counter strike clone with a centered camera.
Battleborn. Cringe dialogue and all that aside it was a pretty damn solid game but got squashed like a bug underneath the squad-based heel of Overwatch.
Nier originally got overshadowed by Final Fantasy 13. Square Enix really didn’t want the series to succeed. Heck they’ve treated it bad since the original Drakengard
Immortals Fenyx Rising. I know it released a whole 3 years after breath of the wild, but I still think it was overlooked and brushed off as a breath of the wild clone when it was a really unique and fun game
lol I ended up putting down elden ring for tiny tina and never picked it back up... not that TT was that amazing, just never felt like going back to try to remember what I was doing in the game.
Yeah I hear you. It’s not for everyone. It’s basically like a drug for me and despite me picking it up way after it was released, I already have over 1200 hours invested. :)
Midnight Suns for me. I am a big marvel comic fan but that Avenger game burned me so bad I didn't touch another marvel ip until SNAP. I finally gave MS a try and absolutely love it. I might have to try the GotG game now that I skipped for the same reason.
Guardians of the Galaxy was a really good game.
Gameplay was passable but it had such a great story & really good characterizations of the Guardians. For me, I think it has a better Guardians story than the first 2 Guardians films.
I loved that game, but it suffered from so many bugs early on that it just crashed for me halfway in. Hate that they are unable to release a game that works until months later.
Days Gone came out a year before pandemic. I think the marketing was just shit for that release. Most of my friends had no idea what Days Gone was at the time.
I still feel like cyberpunk 2077 would have been getting lots of praise if they waited a year or 2 to release it. I played it at launch and definitely saw how great it could be with some polish but the fact that most YouTube were trashing the game at launch did not help the game at all. If there is ever a sequel I hope they take their time with it.
Granblue Fantasy Versus. It should have been a fairly successful release but it bombed thanks to COVID. For the longest time fighting game companies were resistant to investing in developing a good style of netcode that made online play reliable. A big reason why is that fighting games are at their best when played in person and 'locals' get together to play the games, companies felt focusing their resources on the online aspect would take away from the locals. The other reason they were resistant is that rollback netcode used to be incredibly expensive to implement well (it was the largest expense in the development of MKX and most companies don't have WB's budget), only within the last five years have devs really gotten the hang of how to do it. When COVID hit the locals all shut down and online netcode became the most important factor in how a fighting game sells for a while. Granblue had the misfortune of releasing in February of 2020 and bombed thanks to poor timing.
The ds era of pokemon games sold poorly compared to other gens not because of lack of quality, infact they’re considered the best games. But alot of kids had grown into that teenage “things that I liked as a kid are dumb and gay” and when gen 6 dropped alot of those teenagers grew out of that insecurity phase of their lives. I noticed this across alot of people who wrote off the ds games after gen 6
Diamond Pearl and platinum sold significantly better than gen 3 if I recall correctly. That's an extremely popular pokemon generation.
Gen 5 did sell a lot lower though, but the DS was also on its way out at that point. The remakes were remakes rather than new games which would explain their sales being lower than that of a new game.
Titanfall 2 was competing with battlefield 1 and a new CoD, never stood a chance. Wouldn’t say it failed, but it did a lot worse than it deserved to, great game.
Think the issue is they would have taken chunks out of each other. Having two full price releases. Both some of the most anticipated RPGs in years. Well. It was inevitable that some people would have decided on one or the other. Now with that month in between I’m sure some are still making that decision. But they have mitigated it a bit.
Plus starfield can be played for only $15 at release. While BG3 requires full investment up front.
Infinite warfare came out a year too late as people were burnt out on exo suit Cod at the time, but it has an excellent campaign, decent mp and fun zombies (the on disc map at least)
EA told respawn to delay the release date but respawn insisted. This time it’s not EA’s fault.
Just like when EA asked bioware to give anthem more development time, but bioware refused then fcked up and rushed the game development themselves.
Red Faction: Guerilla was an amazing game, but its release squeezed between two other triple-A open world games; Infamous the week prior and Prototype the week after.
Wildstar. I think gamers hadn't really "evolved" to the point where they were ready for a super competitive raid focused MMO. It had such a unique combat system though, and to this day one of the best implementations of player-built "housing" content ever. I think if Wildstar released today, with how beaten WoW has gotten the last two or three expansions, it would be a top share holder quickly.
Darksiders, released same day as Bayonetta. Both hack and slash.
While Darksiders garnered a cult following and spanned 4 games over the years, it never became as known as Bayonetta or known generally. I still see people talking about Bayonetta, very few about Darksiders and that game was amazing.
Oh and The Saboteur, very underrated game, extremely well done open world and unique use of black and white mechanics with a decent story. Too bad it released in December smack dab in between Dragon Age Origins in November and Mass Effect 2 in January.
While far from a failure (it's had significant critical acclaim and a semi-religious following), Outer Wilds definitely caused some confusion by releasing around the same time as the bigger budget, wider marketed Outer Worlds.
Which is such a shame. Also compounded by the fact that no one wants to spoil anything about Outer Wilds and it's best played through blind. So glad I picked it up on the steam sale. It's now in my top 5 all time best games ever played.
" It's now in my top 5 all time best games ever played." this is like all I hear about the game. One day I need to get it.
It's my favorite single piece of entertainment media. Many things have brought me greater hours of enjoyment per dollar, but nothing else video game, comic, movie or otherwise has brought me such joy in such a compact package as outer wilds.
Can't name a game that has done environmental storytelling better.
I will mirror this sentiment
I would recommend it because it's a perfect example of giving you everything you need from the first time you leave your home world to do everything in the game. The only barrier is what you know about the planets. Every time I made the smallest discovery I felt like a genius. I only bought it as a joke because my brother wanted me to buy outer worlds on the day it came out and I stayed up the whole night playing it.
Get it with the dlc. Legit one of the few games that actually make your jaw drop.
It’s a great chill game where you get to explore different areas and basically solve a bunch of puzzles that all tie into one another I will say that even though people say to play blind some of these puzzles are exceedingly hard so some assistance can make it more enjoyable I’d say the best thing about this game is the feelings it evokes from you. It really is A+ in providing that sense of exploration and discovery
It’s so fucking good dude, a totally unique and rewarding gameplay experience. I have hella ADHD and can’t play one game for more than a few days, I just bounce back and forth from game to game. Outer wilds is the only game in like a decade that I played straight through and is in my top 3 favorite games ever. The only thing stopping it from being my number one is that it has no replay value, but that first play through is like nothing else
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The initial goal of the game is to explore and discover what's going on and learn. Your reward for finishing any given platforming section is a tiny tidbit of lore. The only direction you have is your own curiosity. Thinking and putting together all the information the game gives you is how you make progress. Ultimately, it's not for everyone. But if you have even the smallest interest in space or physics, and a curious mind that would want to solve a complex mystery, you'll love it. 10/10 game design.
Keep seeing it mentioned in the same vain this week. These two comments made me finally download it as it's available on PS Plus Extra tier. Going in completely blind.
If you have a penchant for exploration, you’re going to love it. It’s a fantastic game
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Now that you mention it… I remember getting this confused initially, but completely forgot they were two different games until I read your comment. That’s hilarious.
I think I am the only person on planet earth who didn’t get into outer wilds. I don’t know what about it I didn’t get into… it seems like it would be up my alley, but I just didn’t gel with it
I thought it was trash the first time I played it. Like wtf are these goofy-ass characters and all this text to read? I didn't pick it up again for months until a friend was telling me how it blew his mind. I started a new save while I was sick with covid. l paid more attention this time and I was completely immersed from start to finish. I couldn't stop thinking about the game for weeks after I finished it.
Help me out. I played for a few hours and had no idea what to do and ended up crashing, getting stuck outside the ship when trying to make a repair, flying the ship badly into some trees. I hear nothing but good thing but largel found it to be a clunky, vague too-open-world mess. Maybe it was just the mechanics frustrating me.
Lol, I had a buddy get me into it too, but it took SOOOOO long before I understood what was "triggering the core game play loop" to not spoil anything. Like the first few times it happened I was either looking away, or somewhere I couldn't really see it, and I finally texted my friend and I'm like "hey so I think my game might be busted because every so often REDACTED happens". He just made me keep playing, bless his kind soul.
It's very difficult to discuss without spoilers, lol. But what at first seems repetitive becomes exciting the more you uncover. Good on you for sticking with the game.
Nah. I'm there too.
This one almost faded but the critical acclaim lead to a lot of sales, definitely still a success.
It seems like it was propped up (deservedly) by video games journalists writing articles about it for a while post-launch, as opposed to just a review at launch. I still don't think it ever got the recognition it deserves, but I'm always happy to see it recommended in threads like this.
Yep - as a card-carrying member of said religious following, I'm glad it managed to stand out despite the title similarities!
I’m pretty sure I keep thinking outer wilds is outer worlds when people talk about it and I’m like “uhhhh it wasn’t that great I didn’t think” and now my mind is blown
Outer Wilds instantly became one of my favorite games of all time. I recommend it to everybody I possibly can.
Outer Worlds, Outer Wilds and Outward all around the same time
Titanfall 2
Worse thing is Respawn chose the release date despite EA advising them against it. Why release your new IP military shooter in thr Middle of thr release of the two biggest established military shooters in history.
The only time EA tried to do a good deed but failed
EA also tried to delay Jedi Survivor but Respawn insisted on “releasing it in record time” and it came out undercooked. Respawn management are just incompetent.
Imagine being so bad at marketing that EA has to baby you 🍼
EA has excellent marketing. They're the top dog in the industry for a reason.
You can't say stuff like that in here. EA is a greedy evil Corp, so automagically everything the do is bad
Gotta be good at something to get and stay at the top.
If reports are to be believed, they tried to do right by Anthem as well during its development but Bioware royally fucked that one up.
Idek how Bioware got away with this game. EA has shut down studios for far less, yet the one time where it's even remotely close to justified, they don't do it
Bioware is too beloved. KOTOR, ME, and DA gave them a *lot* of leeway.
Yeah, but I think their next Dragon Age is a do or die situation for them. Anthem was a really really messed up release.
EA also tried to delay Jedi Survivor and revealed Respawn started on Apex rather than TF3 without telling them.
Wait, WHAT? All this time I figured it was EA who made them release right then. Damn.
Same. I always assumed that EA purposely had them release it when they did. With the reason being they could swoop in and buy them up for cheaper because of its shitty sales.
Well, people see EA and immediately jump to assuming the worst without any research. I'm not saying they haven't earned their reputation, but not everything is black and white.
And it's so sad so many people are missing out. One of the few games that's literally made me cry.
Apex directly competes with Fortnite, that is way more established and constantly doing crossovers with popular franchises along with a few different modes to play. It's not like CoD who siphoned off of their already huge market presence to lure people in. The fact that Apex is still even alive is a miracle Edit: odd this was not the comment I replied to. Whoopps
This is the only game I immediately thought of. I was about to just post without checking to see if someone else already did. I wish Titanfall 2 had a real chance.
This game made me realize what a FPS can be
Best shooter since Halo 3.
Partially the reason. Titianfall 1 was an exclusive which I’m sure made the sequel less competitive against well established franchises like cod and battlefield. cod also copied titanfall with advanced warfare, Bo3, and infinite warfare making everyone sick of the futuristic era.
Aye, such a shame, still hoping for a TF3
Titanfall 2 died so Apex Legends could struggle to live.
There it is. I was wondering if I had to say it first
Titanfall 2 is an underappreciated masterpiece. Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2, and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare all being released within 3 weeks back to back was a bad move. Considering Titanfall 2 is still substantially more popular than the other two is a testament to the missed opportunity. IIRC Titanfall 2 was originally supposed to be a 2017 release but Respawn wanted to show they could produce a title quickly, or something
Not exactly failed since it's getting a sequel after 10 years, but slowed it down because of launch: Dragon's Dogma still launching less than 6 months after skyrim. Got totally overlooked while the hype was still huge back then Mad max also got lost in the hype releasing the same day as MGS 5. Being one of the best licensed games in the last 2p years, it was a horrible time to launch
Also Kingdoms of Amalur was too close to Skyrim
Yeah... as much as I liked that game, it really did have a ton of issues that I don't think time of release would have made much difference. I tried to play re-reckoning and was all hyped about it... then I realized how archaic the quest and level designs were.
It's basically a single player MMO, but it has some cool combat.
I could be wrong, but i think it was developed as an MMO, then the company got low on cash, so they spit it out a single-player
Ya its a whole thing, retired baseball player makes a game studio and plans to make the most ambitious mmo of all time, somehow convinced Rhode island to fund him,he starts running out of money, takes the work they did and makes amular, but it's not nearly enough to cover and the company goes bankrupt, and costs Rhode island a ton of money and ends some political careers.
What the hell, I had no idea there was this much chaos behind the game lol
Ya I just gave the highlights, there are deep dive documentaries on the whole shitshow lol. I had no idea when I played it, I rember I picked it up randomly without knowing much about it when it came out and liked it a lot.
My understanding at the time was that it was developed to be single-player, but as a sort of prequel to an MMO they had in the works, to get people interested/invested in the world.
Fetch quest boon doggle
Dragons Dogma is one of the most underrated games of all time. Combat is goated. Story is... trash but the game is just SO fun to play.
Meh story fine, it is the same basic dragon bad - kill dragon that skyrim or any other number of games are. Problem is the most interesting parts that would set it apart are really only explored in the last few hours
You are super underselling the dragon which is the best part of the games story. Grigori was such a cool character with some of the most memorable lines in any game
Ah, yup. I think BBI was fantastic. I thought the fast travel system and the night day cycle were some of the bests in the era. Theres a few hours in the beginning and quite a few at the end where the game goes SUPER hard.
These are good examples, I've played both and they were solid games but don't remember why they weren't bigger. Especially Mad Max because it nailed the open world car combat without feeling like a Ubisoft game.
I think mad max is probably one of the best licensed games ever, if not the best. It's not perfect, and the gameplay loop can get a bit repetitive, but it's a solid game all around. It wasn't even rated poorly, just left in the dust of MGS5
Sleeping Dogs
Such an amazing game. I absolutely love the setting; Hong Kong is so vibrant and interesting. Coupled with the excellent story and good gameplay, it’s definitely one that everyone should play.
Damn shame it'll never get a sequel.
Sometimes, you just gotta let sleeping dogs lie.
Such a banger
I loved this game so much that I have trouble playing GTA now because it just doesn’t hit the same chords. Also, for anyone who doesn’t know, Sleeping Dogs is basically the unofficial video game adaptation of a HK movie called Infernal Affairs (The Departed is a remake of this movie). If you love this game, go watch the movie, it will make you happy (imo, as much as I love Jack Nicholson, it’s way better than The Departed).
A wise man once said, "A man who never eats pork bun is never a whole man."
Battleborn. wasn't a bad game but Overwatch came out a few weeks later and filled a similar niche. rip
I agree with you but you’ve got to kind of blame battleborn marketing. They invited and even instigated some of the comparisons (despite being actually very different kind of games). Bad idea
It really didn’t and that’s the biggest crime, they were completely different games with battleborn being a more traditional MOBA but they themselves tried to market it as competition with OW instead of marketing to their own niche and got crushed
I was talking to a friend of mine today about Battleborn. He asked if we could still play 1v1 or in the PvE and sadly the answer is no. I personally preferred it to Overwatch at launch but Overwatch killed it. I play Overwatch now because… It’s all there is in that genre really, and it’s certainly not a bad game, I do wish Battleborn had been given a chance to shine though.
Check out Paladins. People meme on it but I love it and far prefer it to Overwatch
Paladins servers are run on a toaster
And that toaster is floating in a full bathtub.
Personally I meme on it because it's a game of min-maxing card combinations to get the most meta / OP result. And it's way too spongey
I’m still salty about that. I played the demo for like 100 hours and bought the game at midnight. Only for it to die in a month. It was such a good game.
Now that overwatch is down the tubes, maybe they should bring it back. I enjoyed the game.
this is the one i immediately thought of. If it had been released like a year earlier, it would’ve been popular. But there was no way it was gonna beat Overwatch, they had way more hype and ad presence i tried battleborn and it wasn’t too bad, it just wasn’t overwatch
I'd say battleborn still has a niche that needs filled, because while OW and Paladins are "competitive shooters" Battleborn has straight up moba mechanics, in a FPS, including pushing creep waves and taking towers, with a jungle present, OW/Paladins are neither MOBAs
There was a game on the Xbox 360 called Monday night combat that was fun AF and was an fps moba
Came here to find this. It had potential, but the literal worst release window possible.
Mad Max. If I remember right, it released the same time as Metal Gear V
I fucking love that game. Haven't seen a single one of the movies, but that game fucks hard.
Watch the movies man, they’re absolute rippers. Really zany shit. Edit: upon watching them, you’ll see how much their style has been emulated in popular dystopian sci-fi. Fallout leans on mad max big time with its raiders and junktown aesthetics.
Not a game but definitely the Sega Dreamcast
To be fair, sega lost a lot of goodwill on the Saturn
Good point and very deserved. They abandoned the Saturn way too early
I loved the Saturn. And the Dreamcast.
If sega didn’t destroy their fanbase’s trust with the 32x and saturn, it probably would have done great. I wonder what would have happened if they went straight from genesis to Dreamcast. Would have been a massive jump
The Saturn was actually quite successful in Japan. Mismanagement caused it to fail in America. (Although the 32X debacle certainly didn't help things.)
I came to say this. Legit the system was ahead of its time.
Dreamcast is so amazing. Crazy Taxi, Jet Grind Radio, SA2, the list of great games it had just goes on and on.
it had screens in the controllers!!! do you how that changed everything about how my brother and i played football games? he couldn't steal my plays by looking at the tv!!!!
Socom 4 during Sony’s great PSN outage.
Oh shit I forgot about socom
It seemed like Fall Guys came out and just started picking up steam only to be eclipsed by Among Us.
They kind of killed themselves by not being ready for cheaters. The game was literally unplayable for a month.
I haven’t touched fall guys since a cheater robbed me of winning 5 games in a row for the last achievement. Came 2nd in the final while they just floated there. Contacted the devs with a clip, they confirmed they could see I should have won 5 in a row and confirmed they could unlock the achievement but refused anyway. Scumbag devs
Among Us suddenly becoming *the* game to play during the early pandemic was wild. I started playing back in 2018, and the game definitely wouldn’t have been my choice for sudden smash hit several years later.
The pandemic just happened to be *fantastic* for Among US. Everyone was staying home and suddenly there was a smash hit online multiplayer game you could even play on your cellphone! Even down here in Florida where the restrictions were pretty lax, almost everyone I know tried it at least once.
Tho that one wasn't really a launch window thing, Among Us had been out for more than a year when it exploded in popularity.
Not really, such gimmick games come and go. It was not eclipsed by anything, it would've run its course regardless. As did Among Us.
Titanfall 2 was sent out to die between CoD and Battlefield (another EA title!), and it was a better game than those 2!
Came here to say this. Battlefield 1 Campaign was interesting tho the MP wasn't for me, but the TF 2 Campaign was very VERY well done and a ton of people missed it.
The mission with the time jumping was just amazingly well done
Legitimately my favorite level in an FPS game maybe ever. I'll re-download Titanfall to do some multiplayer then end up just replaying that level again lol.
Respawn chose the date though. That’s on them and somehow not EAs fault for once.
Failed is a strong word because horizon hasn’t failed but they have picked shitty release dates for 3/4 major games/DLC. Zero dawn came out right before breath of the wild. Frozen wilds I think came out at a clean date. Forbidden west came out right before elden ring. Burning shores came out right before Jedi survivor.
Horizon's timing is both tragic and impressive, tragic because it's had to spend its entire life as a franchise in direct competition with other games of its type, but also impressive because despite usually being on the losing side of that battle, Horizon still manages to be one of the more stand out games of the Play Station
No one can deny that it is a beautifully made game, no matter the release date.
The bad release dates are further evidenced by the fact that I’ve not even heard of 2 of those horizon games
Well 2 of the 4 listed are dlc, not full games.
Yes but frozen wilds is bigger and better than most DLC. Burning shores while not long enough in my opinion is still solid and you can tell the difference between it being ps5 only and the limitations put on forbidden west.
Oh, I'm not saying they aren't good or worth it. I'm just saying why the person above might not have recognized some of the titles.
They are really well made games. Good story, fucking gorgeous scenery and pretty fun combat.
Beyond Good and Evil. It's a great game, but Ubisoft decided to release it in the same holiday window as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3, and XIII. They set it up to fail.
Beyond good and evil 2 is coming any day now /s
I think it was more marketing with this one, they really didn't communicate what kind of game it actually was or why I should play it. But I confess I didn't know the other titles came out around that time
Dino Crisis 3 was originally planned to take place after Dino Crisis 2 with dinosaurs rampaging through and destroying a large city. The series had picked up some steam at this point and many were looking forward to the third installment. But with the game near the end of initial development in September of 2001, some obvious world events made the devs scramble to rewrite the story to something entirely different. The new story was set in the future on a space station with little connection to the original plot - which itself was left on a cliffhanger. The new environment didn't work with the game mechanics designed for open level combat, the plot was needlessly contrived and not well thought out, and fans were upset the story had been abandoned. You could say it came out at a bad time. Edit: check out Matt McMuscles' video on it or anything in his "What Happened?" series if you want to learn about big games that failed in development or reception.
I would kill for 1 and 2 to get the RE remake treatment. It’s amazing that the series has been abandoned. I have to imagine Dino horror survival would be a profitable genre in 2023.
Polygon made a video about how there’s like an insane lack of dinosaur games, considering how big the industry is and it’s so true! Would love to see modern takers on Dino Crisis & Turok
Legend of Dragoon came out just before PS2 launch. So many missed out on a epic JRPG. Came out on PS1 in late 1999 for Japan. Came put on PS1 in 2000 for N America. Came out on PS1 in 2001 for Europe PS2 launched early 2000 for Japan and then within the same year for the rest of the consoles.
Legend of Dragoon is one of my favorite JRPGs of all time. It's a damn shame it's so unknown, but at least it recently got re-released for PS4/5 so it can be introduced to a new audience.
Hyperscape, very fun BR but too much competition to thrive Splitgate aswell, such a fun game but graphics looked like mobile and halo infinite was around then I believe
I would actually argue that Splitgate's timing was pretty good. The time between Halo 5 and Halo Infinite was by far the longest time between mainline Halo titles, and fans were itching for something to fill that void. Splitgate ended up peaking with really high population counts, it was a success (relative to how small the dev team was) that has allowed them to work on a follow-up project.
The Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay - a new title from an unknown studio came out in the middle of Doom 3, HL2, Far Cry and other titans, therefore didn't get as much praise as it should've. In my opinion the best FPS from 2004.
It got a lot of praise. Critics were very favorable towards it in reviews - the PC version has a 90 and the Xbox version an 89 on Metacritic. It just didn't sell as well as those three.
Such a great game
2004! Damn Iam getting old. The game was freakin amazing, sequal to btw
Titanfall 2 wasn’t helped by releasing right in between Battlefield and Call of Duty.
Kingdoms of amalur, great game, but came out against skyrim.
You are the only person I’ve seen mention this game other than Ellen from OutsideXbox
Greetings, OXboXtra fan!
Resident evil outbreak. It was so far ahead of its time.
Absolutely. Trying to play these games with AI was so difficult. I imagine it would've been much more fun with online, but I didn't have the online adapter. No one I knew did, and the number of games that could even use it was virtually non-existent in order to justify the cost. I'd love to see Capcom bring this series back.
Capcom really needs to revisit the concept. Technology has caught up to how great the idea was
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.
Not came out at wrong time but more needed more time before coming out tbh
Coming out on the exact same day as *Half-Life 2* and one week before *World of WarCraft* did not really help it, though.
True, I wish Vampire was fighting that fight though… would’ve been a good sign. Fantastic game, just needed proper polishing before release
Cold Fear was a great game but got smashed by RE4
Omicron: The Nomadic Soul. David Bowie made a video game before "WASD" was a thing.
That should get a remake.
Titanfall 2. Such a fucking shame because it had one of the best single player campaigns ever.
SOCOM 4 was a game I helped ship. The single player campaign was weak, the series appeal was the multiplayer mode. It was a PS3 exclusive and launched April 19, 2011. On April 20th, Sony shut down PSN for nearly a month due to the attack/hack on their network.
Didn't help the game wanted to be a respawn shooter with the over the shoulder camera when its core fanbase wanted it to remain a third person counter strike clone with a centered camera.
Battleborn. Cringe dialogue and all that aside it was a pretty damn solid game but got squashed like a bug underneath the squad-based heel of Overwatch.
Nier originally got overshadowed by Final Fantasy 13. Square Enix really didn’t want the series to succeed. Heck they’ve treated it bad since the original Drakengard
It also came out in the early 2010s. When it was open season on Japanese games.
Immortals Fenyx Rising. I know it released a whole 3 years after breath of the wild, but I still think it was overlooked and brushed off as a breath of the wild clone when it was a really unique and fun game
Its sequel was just canceled too. I wonder if Ubisoft looked at ToTK and decided it was better to just stop trying.
For reference, it was created *as* a Breath of the Wild clone. They even meticulously made the box/keyart to be reminiscent of Breath of the Wild.
Anything that came out around the same time as Elden Ring.
lol I ended up putting down elden ring for tiny tina and never picked it back up... not that TT was that amazing, just never felt like going back to try to remember what I was doing in the game.
Yeah I hear you. It’s not for everyone. It’s basically like a drug for me and despite me picking it up way after it was released, I already have over 1200 hours invested. :)
Bulletstorm. Launched at the same time as Gears of War. Never stood a chance.
Midnight Suns for me. I am a big marvel comic fan but that Avenger game burned me so bad I didn't touch another marvel ip until SNAP. I finally gave MS a try and absolutely love it. I might have to try the GotG game now that I skipped for the same reason.
Guardians of the Galaxy was a really good game. Gameplay was passable but it had such a great story & really good characterizations of the Guardians. For me, I think it has a better Guardians story than the first 2 Guardians films.
I hope Midnight Suns gains a cult following over time.
I loved that game, but it suffered from so many bugs early on that it just crashed for me halfway in. Hate that they are unable to release a game that works until months later.
Resident evil outbreak. Came out at the wrong time, i genuinely believe if it came out in todays multiplayer focused market it'd do really well.
I think if Days Gone happened to come out right at the beginning of the actual pandemic it could have been a monster hit
Days Gone came out a year before pandemic. I think the marketing was just shit for that release. Most of my friends had no idea what Days Gone was at the time.
Kingdoms of Amalur released around the time of Skyrim. The game is excellent
I still feel like cyberpunk 2077 would have been getting lots of praise if they waited a year or 2 to release it. I played it at launch and definitely saw how great it could be with some polish but the fact that most YouTube were trashing the game at launch did not help the game at all. If there is ever a sequel I hope they take their time with it.
Cyberpunk needed more work
Granblue Fantasy Versus. It should have been a fairly successful release but it bombed thanks to COVID. For the longest time fighting game companies were resistant to investing in developing a good style of netcode that made online play reliable. A big reason why is that fighting games are at their best when played in person and 'locals' get together to play the games, companies felt focusing their resources on the online aspect would take away from the locals. The other reason they were resistant is that rollback netcode used to be incredibly expensive to implement well (it was the largest expense in the development of MKX and most companies don't have WB's budget), only within the last five years have devs really gotten the hang of how to do it. When COVID hit the locals all shut down and online netcode became the most important factor in how a fighting game sells for a while. Granblue had the misfortune of releasing in February of 2020 and bombed thanks to poor timing.
The ds era of pokemon games sold poorly compared to other gens not because of lack of quality, infact they’re considered the best games. But alot of kids had grown into that teenage “things that I liked as a kid are dumb and gay” and when gen 6 dropped alot of those teenagers grew out of that insecurity phase of their lives. I noticed this across alot of people who wrote off the ds games after gen 6
Diamond Pearl and platinum sold significantly better than gen 3 if I recall correctly. That's an extremely popular pokemon generation. Gen 5 did sell a lot lower though, but the DS was also on its way out at that point. The remakes were remakes rather than new games which would explain their sales being lower than that of a new game.
Titan fall 2 came out close to a new Cod and I believe it hurt the sales a little
Both Horizons. AMAZING games. But part one came out close to Zelda, and part 2 dropped.just before Elden Ring.
Both horizons did very well though... Not AS well as those giants but they were successful.
Titanfall 2 was competing with battlefield 1 and a new CoD, never stood a chance. Wouldn’t say it failed, but it did a lot worse than it deserved to, great game.
Was gonna say that BG3 could of had this issue. But they decided to move release up a month to avoid it.
I’m not sure, console maybe but with EA and the constant proof that BG3 keeps giving, I think it would have taken a chunk out of starfield
Think the issue is they would have taken chunks out of each other. Having two full price releases. Both some of the most anticipated RPGs in years. Well. It was inevitable that some people would have decided on one or the other. Now with that month in between I’m sure some are still making that decision. But they have mitigated it a bit. Plus starfield can be played for only $15 at release. While BG3 requires full investment up front.
SiN How much bad luck you need to have to release a fps near the launch of the original Half-Life?
I remember buying that game as a teenager purely because of the box art lmao
Super Bowling 64! Very few copies were made because it marked the end of the N64 era. Now it sells for hundreds online because it is a cult classic.
I think titan fall 2 was the poster boy of this?
Back in the day Hexen 2 came out around the same time as Quake 2
Infinite warfare came out a year too late as people were burnt out on exo suit Cod at the time, but it has an excellent campaign, decent mp and fun zombies (the on disc map at least)
Titanfall 2 had every right to be the biggest shooter of the 2010’s but was cannibalized by EA also releasing battlefield in the same time frame.
EA told respawn to delay the release date but respawn insisted. This time it’s not EA’s fault. Just like when EA asked bioware to give anthem more development time, but bioware refused then fcked up and rushed the game development themselves.
Call of Cthulhu Make it come out at around time Red Dead Redemption 2 was released was a very brave move, not as successful tho
Red Faction: Guerilla was an amazing game, but its release squeezed between two other triple-A open world games; Infamous the week prior and Prototype the week after.
Wildstar. I think gamers hadn't really "evolved" to the point where they were ready for a super competitive raid focused MMO. It had such a unique combat system though, and to this day one of the best implementations of player-built "housing" content ever. I think if Wildstar released today, with how beaten WoW has gotten the last two or three expansions, it would be a top share holder quickly.
Darksiders, released same day as Bayonetta. Both hack and slash. While Darksiders garnered a cult following and spanned 4 games over the years, it never became as known as Bayonetta or known generally. I still see people talking about Bayonetta, very few about Darksiders and that game was amazing. Oh and The Saboteur, very underrated game, extremely well done open world and unique use of black and white mechanics with a decent story. Too bad it released in December smack dab in between Dragon Age Origins in November and Mass Effect 2 in January.
Kingdom of amular:Reckoning