10 Hyped Games That FAILED to Deliver
“Evolve” (2015)
Warning number one when spotting an underwhelming product: pre-orders are put up before anything is ever shown. That is exactly what happened with “Evolve” when it was first announced. Publisher 2K put out ads for the game before it was ever fully revealed. Surely this push for grabbing cash now means a great product later down the road, right? Well, maybe for the critics that gave it positive reviews at launch. Although, what players found was a game that quickly got stale after a couple of hours. Those who stuck with it longer than that found flaws in the game’s balance. Either Hunters brought down the Monster within minutes or the Monster had to sweat and make miraculous plays to win the game. Regardless, winning a game never felt good and more like a sigh of relief. Even a push to free-to-play didn’t save “Evolve”, and since then, developer Turtle Rock Studios has struggled regaining trust and interest from players.
“Dead Island” (2011)
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In the history of video game trailers, “Dead Island” frequently comes up as one of the best. It paints a tragic story about a family going on vacation days before a zombie outbreak occurs. Yeah, the game was nothing about that. What we got from “Dead Island” was not a heartbreaking narrative-driven action game, but a mindless series of fetch quests with RPG and crafting mechanics. Oh, Todd left his six-pack at his hut. Can you go grab that? Stephanie left her hair curler at the lighthouse. Think you can swipe that before the zombies get you? Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t cause developer Techland or publisher Deep Silver to close down. Had it been released in today’s age, it most likely would have.
“Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League” (2024)
Marvel's Avengers vs Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
We’re not quite sure who was hyped for this game, but with the amount of marketing Warner Bros. Interactive was pushing with new trailers and behind the scenes videos, there was enough “hype” to get this on our list. “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League” does have bright spots here and there. But most of the time, prepare for absolute tediousness. The mission structure is abysmal in how it is copy-pasted for the entire campaign. The UI looks like an Excel spreadsheet vomited on our screens. And the way the Justice League goes out is severely underwhelming. At this point, we have to wonder if the effort in making “Suicide Squad” a thing in pop culture is worth it anymore.
“Mighty No. 9” (2016)
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Following a mass exodus of developers from Japanese studios like Konami and Capcom, many were eager to see what was next for these creators. Koji Igarashi left Konami to go make “Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night”. Shinji Mikami left Capcom to start up PlatinumGames with former Capcom cohort Hideki Kamiya before leaving to go start Tango Gameworks. And what did famed “Mega Man” designer Keiji Infaune leave Capcom to go do? “Mighty No. 9”, which looked stellar when we got early looks at concept art. We did get a “Mega Man” successor, but it was nothing like we wanted. Explosions that looked like pepperoni pizzas, voice acting almost worse than “Mega Man 8”, and a series of marketing incidents that insulted those who backed the game caused it to become one of the biggest blunders of 2016. It even caused some to discuss whether spiritual successors were ever going to be a good idea.
“Duke Nukem Forever” (2011)
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It’s hard to believe anyone would be excited about “Duke Nukem Forever” given it spent a decade and a half in development hell. We were glad to see the King return to his throne, but “Forever” was not what we had in mind for him. The gunplay felt archaic, the boss fights were boring, the jokes weren’t funny, and the controls made Duke feel clunky to move around. In other words, it learned nothing from “Duke Nukem 3D” and decided to follow trends. Yes, Gearbox, because everyone wanted Duke to man a turret or play with an RC truck.
“Aliens: Colonial Marines” (2013)
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Speaking of Gearbox Software, the company has never fully recovered from this trainwreck of a game. Many were hyped because this was the studio behind “Borderlands 2” making a game based on “Alien”. A reasonable excuse to get excited, to be fair. But when the game came out…OOF. We never thought it was possible to turn the Xenomorphs into the least scariest thing ever made. It wasn’t uncommon for one of them to glitch into the floor or other objects or even just run around in circles and run away from fights. And most of this was simply because the code had one typo. Fixing this typo would make the Xenomorphs behave as intended, but even then, the gunplay is garbage, the story is boring, and the visuals made it look like so many other games that were on the market at the time.
“The Day Before” (2023)
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We’re not quite sure how developer FNTASTIC tricked so many people into thinking it was delivering a promising experience. An online extraction shooter with zombies? How many of those games do we have? Like, seven hundred? Thousand? Regardless, many bought in, and boy, did they get what they paid for. After years of delays and possible plagiarism in marketing, FNTASTIC delivered a game that ran about as well as a paper shredder chewing through bottles of glue. Inconsistent frame rates, buggy character models, frequent pop-ins, a city with absolutely nothing to do in it - it all chalked up to a game worse than anything that came out in 2023. “The Day Before” generated virtually nothing in revenue. FNTASTIC closed four days after the game launched, and the game was delisted without notice until after the fact.
“Anthem” (2019)
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What was the big reason behind “Anthem’s” hype? We have to wonder. It was first announced with nothing more than concept art and talks about the story, whatever gameplay was shown was heavily fabricated with overt cinematic moments and unrealistic comms between players, and all the gaming press could talk about was “how great the flying is”. “Super Mario 64” had flying way back in 1996. What did “Anthem” bring to the table twenty-three years later? Mundane shooting, bland environments, a forgettable story, a painful grind to reach the endgame, and for many, a game that bricked consoles.
“Marvel’s Avengers” (2020)
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This should have been such a comically easy win for Square Enix. What you had was one of the biggest Japanese companies in gaming publishing a Marvel game. The money was there, and developer Crystal Dynamics was coming off the success of the “Tomb Raider” reboot. But Square Enix had to go and order their studio to make “Marvel’s Avengers” a live service game littered with power levels, grinding for loot and experience, and a combat system that is nothing but constant button-mashing as you wait for cooldowns on powers. And the more it was shown during marketing, the worse it looked. Sure enough, the skepticism became completely justified; no one wants to play a game where the Avengers are spending more time opening chests than they are fighting baddies. Square Enix would eat a meaty development cost of more than sixty billion dollars and would sell off Crystal Dynamics to Embracer Group in 2022 along with the “Tomb Raider” IP.
“The Order: 1886” (2015)
Ah, finally, the first big release to show why we all bought PS4’s in the first place! “Knack” certainly wasn’t cutting it, but “The Order: 1886” looked sooooo good! Right? …Right? Well, what happens when you get people hyped over trailers that are mostly composed of cutscenes? You get the reception to “The Order: 1886”. So many folks were upset that their cutscene-heavy shooter was only a few hours long and nothing more than shooting galleries and quicktime events. And to make matters worse, the whole game ends just when things were about to get good. Kind of shows what you should expect when gameplay isn’t shown off too much. Which hyped game do you feel soiled your experience the most? Did it make our list? Let us know down in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe to MojoPlays for more great videos everyday!
