The 20 Most UNFINISHED Games Ever Released

The 20 Most Unfinished Games Ever Released

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today I’m doing a halfbaked video, but taking the revenue anyways, these are The 20 Most Unfinished Games Ever Released. I’m kidding, I’ll try really hard with the video, but these games didn’t get the same treatment. Let’s go!

“Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” (2015)

“Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” launched to huge praise, but its missing content quickly became impossible for fans to ignore. The biggest example was Mission 51, a cancelled chapter that would have continued Eli’s story and resolved several dangling plot threads. Instead of being playable, footage from the unfinished mission appeared as bonus material in the Collector’s Edition, basically showing players the ending they never got. Konami later explained that the mission had been cut before completion, but that did little to calm people already questioning the game’s rushed final act and absent Chapter 3. With no major story DLC arriving later, “The Phantom Pain” remained fittingly named: Kojima got fired halfway through.

“Mass Effect: Andromeda” (2017)

“Mass Effect: Andromeda” was not necessarily unfinished in the traditional sense, but it definitely felt like the remains of a much bigger plan. Early development reportedly experimented with procedural generation and far more ambitious exploration before BioWare abandoned those ideas after roughly a year. From there, production became a mess of leadership changes, technical problems with Frostbite, and teams struggling to pull everything together. By the time the game launched, awkward animations, bugs, uneven writing, and repetitive content completely overshadowed its better ideas. I’ll never unsee the facial animations.

“Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach“ (2021)

Trying to turn a small-scale horror series into a sprawling 3D adventure was always going to be a massive jump, and “Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach” clearly struggled under the weight of it. Steel Wool Studios aimed for a huge explorable location, more dialogue, roaming enemies, and a much broader story than previous entries, but the final game launched in rough shape. Players ran into crashes, broken quests, poor performance, and glitches that could completely derail progress. Even the restrictive save system became a common complaint. Multiple delays had already pushed the release back, yet the game still felt like it could have used a few more delays.

“Final Fantasy XIV” (2010)

Few launches have forced a publisher into damage control quite like the original “Final Fantasy XIV.” Released in 2010, the MMO arrived with crippling bugs, awkward systems, and technical problems so severe that Square Enix president Yoichi Wada publicly apologised and extended the free trial indefinitely. Patches followed, but the foundation was simply too broken to rescue properly. Eventually, Square Enix made the drastic decision to overhaul the development team and rebuild the game almost from scratch. After roughly two years of work, “Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn” launched as Version 2.0 and completely changed the conversation. What began as a franchise embarrassment somehow became one of gaming’s greatest comeback stories, right after “No Man’s Sky” .. But, we’ll talk about that later.

“Xenogears” (1998)

For years, “Xenogears” looked like a textbook case of a game running out of time halfway through development. Disc one delivers the full RPG experience, while disc two suddenly starts summarising huge chunks of the story through narration and static scenes. Fans naturally assumed Square had forced director Tetsuya Takahashi to rush the ending. The reality was a little different. The team was young, inexperienced, and learning while building the game, making the original two-year schedule increasingly unrealistic. Square reportedly suggested ending the story after disc one, but Takahashi refused. Instead, he created the condensed second disc so the full narrative could still reach the ending he wanted, even if it took a hit overall.

“Sonic Boom: Rise Of Lyric” (2014)

Rushing a game out for Christmas is rarely a brilliant idea, that’s what caused the videogame industry crash of 83, “Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric” became another great example of what the rush can do to a game. The Wii U exclusive launch was packed with broken animations, awful performance, and glitches so ridiculous that players quickly started using them to skip entire sections. Even without the bugs, there was not much worth defending. Combat became repetitive, levels dragged on, and the story struggled to hold attention. The technical problems simply made everything look even worse. Reviews tore the game apart, and its reputation quickly sank alongside “Sonic the Hedgehog” from 2006.

“Destiny” (2014)

Confusion seemed baked into “Destiny” long before players ever reached the Tower. Bungie reportedly spent years struggling to decide exactly what the game should be, while major story ideas were repeatedly changed or discarded. Joseph Staten’s original narrative was heavily reworked after studio leadership rejected it, leading to missions being rearranged, characters repurposed, and huge chunks of lore pushed into the external Grimoire system. Some planned material was also saved for later DLC and sequels, leaving the launch story feeling strangely hollow. Despite all of that, “Destiny” became enormously successful. Even “Destiny 2” reportedly went through another major reboot before release, sort it out guys .. Jesus.

“Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing” (2003)

Sometimes a game arrives unfinished; “Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing” practically arrived before development had even started. Although Stellar Stone was credited, much of the work was reportedly outsourced to a Ukrainian team to keep costs down, while the engine itself came from Sergey Titov’s TS Group Entertainment. Titov later claimed Stellar Stone could not even afford the full licensing costs, which paints a fairly accurate picture of the project. The game released in what felt like a pre-alpha state, with broken physics, missing collision, unfinished menus, and barely functioning races. Critics absolutely destroyed it, resulting in a Metacritic score of just 8 out of 100. That’s as low as it gets.

“Bubsy 3D” (1996)

Making the jump from 2D to 3D was rough for plenty of developers in the mid-’90s, but “Bubsy 3D” handled it perfectly .. As a lesson to other developers on what NOT to do. Creator Michael Berlyn wanted to reinvent the series as a full 3D platformer, despite having little experience with the tools needed to build one. Movement felt sluggish, the controls were awkward, and simply navigating levels became more frustrating than fun. Matters were made worse when “Super Mario 64” arrived and demonstrated just how smooth 3D platforming could actually be. Critics tore “Bubsy 3D” apart, and Berlyn later called it his biggest failure. Poor Berlyn.

“Ultima IX: Ascension” (1999)

By the time “Ultima IX: Ascension” finally released, its development had already been through enough chaos to sink several games. Different versions were built and abandoned, key designers left, and portions of the team were pulled away to work on “Ultima Online.” At one stage, the entire story was rewritten, which probably explains why the finished game struggled so badly with continuity from earlier entries. The technical side was not much better, with bugs and performance problems piling on top of the narrative issues. Reviews were rough, like back-of-a-sponge rough.

“E.T. the Extraterrestrial” (1982)

There was almost no universe where “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” was going to turn out well. Howard Scott Warshaw was asked to start development on July 27, 1982, with the game needing to be finished by September 1. That gave him barely five weeks to design, program, and somehow polish an entire Atari release tied to one of the biggest movies on Earth. There was little time for testing, hardware limitations were severe, and even Steven Spielberg reportedly suggested something closer to “Pac-Man.” The finished game became infamous for confusing design and helped fuel one of gaming’s favourite disaster stories. I mean, I’ve already mentioned it in this video!

“The War Z” (2012)

Few Steam launches collapsed as spectacularly as “The War Z.” Within days, players discovered that several advertised features simply were not there, including larger player counts and promised map sizes. Complaints became so widespread that Valve eventually removed the game from Steam and offered refunds. Developer Sergey Titov hardly helped matters, defending claims like “up to 100 players” by arguing that 40 technically still fell somewhere between zero and 100. That went about as well as you’d expect. And yes, this was the same Sergey Titov from our previous entry on “Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing”. The unfinished zombie survival game was later renamed “Infestation: Survivor Stories,” but the damage was already done.

“Sonic the Hedgehog” (2006)

Everything about “Sonic the Hedgehog” looked promising before release, especially the flashy CGI and the idea of bringing Sonic properly onto the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation. Behind the scenes, though, development was falling apart. Yuji Naka left Sega during production, while the remaining team was split so part of it could work on “Sonic and the Secret Rings” for Wii. With fewer resources and a deadline that refused to move, the game was pushed out in a miserable state. Broken physics, endless loading screens, a dreadful camera, and bizarre side characters quickly buried any excitement. I was luckily not a Sonic fan back in 2006, so I dodged it, felt bad for my friends though.

“Ride to Hell: Retribution” (2013)

“Ride to Hell: Retribution” somehow survived cancellation only to return as something far worse than anyone expected. The project originally aimed to be an open-world biker game, but after disappearing for years it resurfaced as a much more limited action-adventure brawler. Plans were even announced for two companion titles, suggesting Deep Silver still had plenty of faith in the idea. That confidence did not survive release. Critics hammered the game for ugly visuals, broken combat, dreadful writing, embarrassing characters, and some genuinely bizarre design choices. Instead of feeling like a game rescued from development hell, it felt like it was developed there.

“Superman 64” (1999)

Two years of development should have been enough to make “Superman 64” at least functional, but the finished game became legendary for all the wrong reasons. Players were greeted with ugly visuals, repetitive missions, awful controls, and enough glitches to make flying through Metropolis feel like arm wrestling with your leg. Producer Eric Caen later claimed Warner Bros. and DC Comics heavily restricted what Titus Interactive could actually do, to the point that only around 10 percent of the team’s original design survived. He also admitted the initial concept was probably too ambitious for the Nintendo 64 anyway. Between hardware limits and constant interference, “Superman 64” ended up just looking more like “Man 64”.

“Halo: The Master Chief Collection” (2014)

Microsoft badly needed a win after the Xbox One’s disastrous launch messaging, and “Halo: The Master Chief Collection” looked like an easy one. Instead, its 2014 release became another headache. Matchmaking could take forever, online games disconnected constantly, and bugs affected everything from menus to campaign progress. Part of the problem was the sheer complexity of combining multiple “Halo” games, each running on different technology, into one package. 343 Industries spent years patching the collection, although attention briefly shifted toward “Halo 5: Guardians.” Eventually, the studio returned with major updates, fan testing, and proper improvements. Today it is far better, but at launch, yeeeeesh.

“Cyberpunk 2077” (2020)

Few launches have gone from unstoppable hype to total damage control as quickly as “Cyberpunk 2077.” After years of anticipation, CD Projekt Red finally released it in 2020 off the back of the globally successful “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt”, but the console versions were riddled with crashes, bugs, poor performance, and broken systems. PC players generally had a much better experience, but still not great for those expecting a more fulfilling game. Things became so messy that Sony temporarily removed the game from the PlayStation Store, while CD Projekt Red faced lawsuits and investigations over the launch. The studio spent years fixing the damage, eventually releasing major updates that did turn it into a game worth the pricetag, albeit years later.

“MindsEye” (2025)

The warning signs around “MindsEye” became impossible to ignore almost immediately after launch. Build A Rocket Boy’s ambitious action game arrived in June 2025 with severe performance problems, broken AI, bizarre physics, crashes, and enough visual glitches to turn serious cutscenes into accidental comedy. Players quickly flooded Steam with negative reviews, while the studio began issuing patches and promising major improvements. The bigger problem was that beneath the technical mess sat repetitive missions and fairly basic combat, making the whole thing feel like it had escaped development several months too early. “MindsEye” had plenty of ambition, it didn't, however, have enjoyement.

“Fallout 76” (2018)

At launch, “Fallout 76” felt less like a living wasteland and more like somebody had forgotten to populate it. Bethesda’s attempt at an online “Fallout” arrived with endless bugs, weak storytelling, little meaningful NPC interaction, and a world that often felt strangely empty compared with earlier games. Things only got worse when expensive subscriptions and controversial paid advantages entered the picture. Bethesda responded with enormous patches, some nearly matching the original game in size, but fixing one problem often seemed to reveal three more. The later “Wastelanders” update finally brought human NPCs and stronger quests, yet by then I’d already moved onto my 17th playthrough of “Fallout: New Vegas”.

“No Man's Sky” (2016)

Few games will ever reach the level of “No Man’s Sky”, and by level I mean steaming pile of mistakes, lies, and poop. Before launch, Hello Games promised a massive sci-fi universe filled with exploration, discovery, and multiplayer possibilities. What players actually received in 2016 was far smaller in scope, with repetitive planets, limited activities, and no proper multiplayer experience. The tiny development team had clearly aimed incredibly high, but the gap between marketing and reality caused a brutal backlash. Communication from the studio also went quiet, which only made things worse. Remarkably, Hello Games kept working. And the game is fantastic now. What a comeback.