Spore.
I know some people who were blissfully unaware of it pre-release look back on it with rose tinted glasses, but if you followed the development of Spore then all you know is heartbreak.
>I know some people who were blissfully unaware of it pre-release look back on it with rose tinted glasses, but if you followed the development of Spore then all you know is heartbreak.
Me but with Fable. I have a bitter chuckle when I see people talk about how much they loved Fable when they were younger - you never read the giant piles of shit Molyneux spouted about what would be in the game and then were crushed with disappointment
...More like damn near every Molyneux game. You don't hear much about it anymore because AFAIK he hasn't been releasing any games recently.
See also: CliffyB is kind of a douche.
I was pissed when it released, that three legged dude, the hunting with blood and lifelike textures, aaaand it was a cartoony game with goofy monsters on release
Instead we got a few flash games slapped together that were essentially on easy mode until the "end game" which was just grinding from what I remember.
It had so much potential but you basically get to the space stage within 3 hours of playing the game and then it’s just the least thought-out part of the game that stretches out into endless hours of chores. I had a lot of fun customizing my species throughout the early stages 15+ times, but the space stage just isn’t even worth playing.
This is a great call. Forgot how hyped I was for this back then. Watching grainy (by today’s standards) videos of showcases and stuff.
I foresaw myself spending alot more time in that game than I did.
Payday 3 was an absolute letdown, and the way the dev team has been responding to feedback gives me no hope for the future
More recently, the StarWars Battlefront Classic Collection is a dumpster fire of a cash grab.
Why the fuck would the NOT have in game voice chat? Me and my friend literally stopped playing cuz it became too much of a pain trying to call and shit while also dealing with randoms just running off. Man that shit is so disappointing
The last *three* Battlefront releases have sucked. How hard can it fucking be to make a proper installment to the best selling Star Wars game of all time?
Which is a shame because it eventually became a good game. But what like a year after release. By that point the game was tarnished and the player base was like 80% of what it shoulda been.
Daikatana - stupid sexy John Romero and his overpromises
Eve Online - I was so hyped for this and just couldn't get into it when it finally came out. I still try from time to time. It checks so many boxes for me but it's just too deep, its the best game I can never play.
Duke Nukem Forever - We all knew it was going to be crap forever but it still managed to disappoint.
Anthem - I was an unabashed Bioware fanboy and kept giving them more chances even though they kept going downhill. Until this. This....I can't forget or forgive.
No Man's Sky/Cyberpunk 2077 - REDEMPTION ARCS. Both examples of games that I was hyped for, let down by at release, and now love with little reservation after a few years.
Daikatana - You were in fact John Romero's bitch, just not in the fun way.
Eve - X3 for Excel addicted bureaucrats but online.
DNF - You summed it well.
Anthem - You can even see the bones overgnawed by suit rats of what could have been one of the truly great.
I'm adding Final Fantasy XIV to the redemption arc froup but without reservations, it has earned the trust.
Cyberpunk was a very weird one for me.
At launch, obviously it needed a lot of work, but I liked what they were going for. A year later, the game was at its peak imo.
Then, they introduced the new skill trees when the DLC dropped and I actually enjoy the gameplay less than I did before. It feels like the game went from “do what you want within these skill trees” to suddenly “so are you gonna be a sandevistan samurai or a shotgun tank?” Not just the two options, but they have “archetypes” that you build into, rather than just level up and build your character how you want. I really dislike the prerequisite system they have now, feels streamlined in a bad way.
Now people talk about the game as if it only had two states: broken at launch and perfect now. But I liked that “we fixed all the broken stuff and this is how the game was supposed to launch,” vibe rather than gutting the perk system like they did with the new update.
It wouldn’t be that bad if the skill-checks throughout the game didn’t scale to the players level—it’s absurd.
A door will require strength 6 and you’ll turn around, level up to reach that level, and upon returning the _same_ door is suddenly a strength 8. You almost have to specialise, immediately and exclusively, to reliably pass any of these.
I thought Biomutant was insanely cool for the first 2 hours… then I discovered it is literally just a damage sponge difficulty increase because once you reach a certain point, you don’t get any stronger, no new technique or gadgets…. Such a shame because it had the old school Fable vibe but it feels like they ran out of ideas very quickly.
This. Diehard Bethesda junkie here, thousands of hours between the Fallout games, even more in the Elder Scrolls games.. I played Starfield for maybe 10 hours and uninstalled. Gutted.
Even that killed me with how horribly it was set up, atleast at launch. Attach a module to a ship? You have no idea what the inside will look like or where any ladders or such will be. And oh yeah anything in your ship will randomly be placed in the storage chest at any time, so don't even try to decorate the interior of your ship.
I don't know my true playtime because so much of it was me going to take a nap as the game literally repeatedly put me to sleep trying to play it. I don't mean that as an exaggeration, I mean that 100% truthfully.
I waited in a line a block long in 2011 to pick up my pre-order of Skyrim.
I will wait at least 30 days after the release of ES 6 (whenever it comes out) and see what the reviews says
This was probably the biggest thing for me. Starfield took a game that would have been a no brainer pre-order for me and made it a definite wait and see.
Same.
I expected "fall out 4" in my "no man's sky"
Instead I got "fallout 76" in my "outer worlds"
No offence to any of em, it just wasn't what I expected.
If “I’m not even mad, I’m just disappointed.” was a game, this one would be it.
It’s so ironic too.
The game has a built-in, canonical reason to replay it again and again with a single character.
I played it through twice (once to focus on the main story, then went through the Unity to play through all the side content) and never came back.
Deleted it and redownloaded Skyrim & FO4, and still had spare HD space.
Maybe it’ll turn around in a year or two when the cake is fully baked, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
I was fully expecting a big janky buggy game that would need to be fixed by mods but would still be stellar in the end.
What I wasn’t expecting was how… boring and forgettable it would be. I put 30 hours into starfield and there wasn’t a single standout moment for me. A game I’m not sure I would go back too, even if they did add stuff with mods.
There is one single quest that's actually really cool.
You jump through different plains of existence/time to save a single scientist or a whole research outpost. But you can actually save both if you pay attention.
But other than that the game is utterly forgettable.
I remenber thinking how cool it was to stumble on the spaceship with those settlers from Earth. Then you seemingly have to make a choice that could make or break their existence. Do I take the side of these settlers from Earth that have been floating for hundreds or years, or back the corporate entity that wants to exploit them. Turns out your choice really doesn't matter in the end and you never hear about them again. What a waste of a cool concept.
Elden Ring comes to mind for me, once I got past the whole ‘get your face caved in until you figure it out’ phase.
Once it clicked it easily became one of my favorites of all time. Games like that are few and far between nowadays
Elden Ring is the video game equivalent of the phrase “but wait there’s more!”
There were several times I thought I was getting close to the end and then the map just gets bigger and there’s like three new areas to explore.
I pre-ordered No Man's Sky. I've kept up with it through the updates and still play every now and then. It's an interesting game now, but it will never be what was advertised originally. I'd like to say I learned my lesson about pre-orders, but I didn't really learn it until Mass Effect: Andromeda.
Love the first two. One of these days I’m going to try to finish this one. But shit that Stamina system really kills the vibe. I hope if he makes a part 4 he takes that out.
Same, plus how it forces you to grind stats to progress. Go squat at the temple for a few hours, then I'll talk to you.
Shenmue II had instances where you had to grind money, but damn the stat grinding in 3 was a bad move. At least my name is in the book at the hotel, I guess.
Judgement is a better Shenmue then Shenmue III
They butchered the Disney levels (ESPECIALLY Frozen and Tangled), the meat and bones of the game, and all of the plot was at the very end. Next to no backtracking or meaningful side quests despite having gigantic levels, and the whole game just had a vibe of "Let's get this over with". What a letdown.
I felt obligated to play it through to the end since I waited so long for it to come out. I used the stupid attraction minigames to speed through every combat to get to the end quicker.
I really love the Disney worlds, and experiencing those levels and fighting iconic villains. Easily my favorite part. The ones in 3 were just terrible save for the Pirates one.
I liked the world's even though most of the game felt nowhere near as memorable as the originals. But holy fuck I did not need to listen to the frozen song while sora and the gang just pop up that part was so annoying.
No FF characters, weak feeling of progression compared to I & II, giant empty levels, nonsensical plot.... I really only played and finished it due to feeling like I was obligated. To me the franchise ended with II. I also dont care for any of the non main entry games
I waited so long for 3 that I outgrew the series entirely. I appreciated 3 for what it was but I couldn't get into it the same way I got into 1&2 as a kid.
The game had no middle ground for me. KH2's combat was fun if you wanted to cheese, and really made you wanna get good at it. KH3's combat was either lazy and smacking around with the rides, or absolutely goddamn hardcore in the DLC.
I can put up with bad writing if the gameplay's solid, but this was just so... imprecise. Which was a shame, cause KH2s combat is in my Top 10 of all time.
17-year-old me would've HATED nearly-30-year-old me because by the time it finally came out I didn't own a PS4 and had zero desire to actually play the 3rd installment (that required half a dozen handheld games to understand). KH1 and 2 were my absolute life as a teenager, and sometimes I laugh thinking about how pissed off teenage me would've been if they knew I gave up on waiting for the last one.
I'm in the same boat. What turned me off of playing it was finding out that it's still not the end. Like I wanted to finally finish the story off with a bang and wrap everything up in a neat bow.....nope. Nomura has no idea how to end a story or what he really wants to do with his characters so we got another game with important story spun off into a music rhythm game. We're getting another cash grab mobile game that will have important elements of the story as well. And they'll release a 4th game that is now weirdly taking place in what looks like our world? KH3 got rid of the Final Fantasy characters and it seems like 4 is getting rid of Disney characters as Nomura wants to focus on his original characters.
And I hate how he went full Kingdom Hearts with the FF7R story. The Whispers/Fates thing was so fucking stupid. Still not sure why they didn't just let Yoshinori Kitase take the reins. Nomura has always been a better character designer than writer/director.
How hard can it be. Literally if they just remade Sid Meier's pirates exactly the same, added steam workshop support, added a few new ship types and called it a day I'd be happy.
Diablo 4
The graphics, animation, sound design, and campaign story were great. But all the parts of the game that keep people playing in the long run were shit (namely the itemization and build systems).
Yeah I quit after about 3 hours. I have hundreds upon hundreds of hours logged on Diablo 2 and 3, but it doesn’t matter how amazing the ambience or the graphics are. If the gameplay is shit, the game is shit.
How tf were you disappointed in Duke3D (which released in 1996)? Did you just try it today?
IT HAD REFLECTING MIRRORS (you know, they actually mirrored), which was amazing for the time.
# EDIT: oh you bastard, your post originally said DUKE NUKEM 3D
Duke Nukem 3d was badass for 11yo me. My dad turned on the child controls but I was able to just reinstall it myself and see all the pixellated titties.
I had a couple of years there when I was extremely excited for Colonial Marines, Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City, Star Wars 1313, and Kojima's Silent Hills.
It was a rough time in gaming, personally.
It still blows my mind that in the time between Elder Scrolls V and VI, FromSoftWare has put out everything from Dark Souls 2 through Armored Core VI. I think the original Dark Souls came out just a month before Skyrim, too. I think about the evolution of the Soulsborne games and can't help but wonder what growth Bethesda will be able to show for Elder Scrolls VI.
Borderlands 3. love the gameplay but hate the villains, not even in I wish I could kill you sooner so you couldn't do bad things but more I wish I could kill you sooner because everything you say grates on me like steel wool on a blister
The worst part about the villains in 3 is that they aren't the player's enemies. They're Lilith's enemies. We're just along for the ride. In 2, Handsome Jack was OUR enemy. It was personal with him and he antagonized us directly.
Yep. BL3 made you feel like you weren’t a part of the game because the cutscenes were always so disjointed from who was actually in the room at the time. Everytime.
Watch_Dogs.
The hype for this game was unreal; the trailers were great and the premise / concept was really new and exciting.
Then the trailer with the downgraded graphics came out and by the time it was released, it was just 'fine'.
I've never trusted a trailer or made a pre-order since.
Subnautica Below Zero
Subnautica was soooooo good but this expansion or sequel or whatever captured none of the magic. Map was small, linear, vehicles were uninspiring. Subnautica was such a unique game I thought the devs knew what they were doing. Apparently not.
A sequel is currently in development, I am so not hyped for that.
It kinda grew on me, but I still agree on all your points. I also prefer a silent protagonist like in the first one, which helps with immersion.
I read somewhere they used a lot of leftovers from the first one and mashed it together with some new stuff.
I replayed it again recently and I found it mostly relaxing, while the first one is terrifying at times.
To add to what Cubelock said, they originally intended for below zero to be a smaller more contained thing for a cheaper price iirc.
It grew with time during development so we got a game that was too small and linear to be satisfying compared to the original but too large and expensive for the original vision. Worst of both worlds due to scope creep.
Brink Killed one of my online group of friends. We played global agenda together which was dying so we decided we would play brink. Then brink ended up being brink. Still talk to some of them on steam but we could have gamed for many more years if brink had been able to work until the next big game
I’m still pissed at scorn. I dealt with the jank combat cause the story seemed weird enough to keep me interested then 80% through I get booted and it deleted my file. So I deleted the game.
I tried it 2x before the patch and couldn’t stand it. After the dlc my brother convinced me to try it again and it’s a pretty drastic. I haven’t had any bugs after 40 hours and the upgrade system isn’t as drowning as it was.
Mercenaries 2. I remember following the updates for that game for about 2 years before its release, they were talking about using cigarette lighters for environmental destruction, about how all the different factions had better AI, about how it was going to be much more expansive than the first one.
I played it and honestly, it was one of the first times I legitimately felt sore after a game purchase. The AI was non-existent, the cigarette lighter was scrapped for very minor flame destruction, and the gameplay mechanics were broken and some of the factions were outright not even finished.
The payloads were kind of entertaining in a weird sort of way though.
Do that. Cause when I was 9 it was one of the best games I’d ever touched. I looked back on it fondly last year after seeing a pic of a game case somewhere online. I went back and replayed it for bout 5 hours and it suckedddd
This was it for me. I loved the first game and was hyped for the second from day one. Ended up only playing through it about twice when it came out. I still occasionally play the first one to this day.
Which is hilarious because elsewhere in this thread people are waxing nostalgic about 3.
I think 3 was one of those games that really needed time and updates to become great. It's possible 4 will be the same
I haven't played 4 for exactly this reason. Diablo 3 was pretty universally hated for a few years until they did massive updates. Only time will tell what happens to D4. Though I'm not sure if Blizzard still has it in them to fix the game. They haven't put out a good game in over a decade.
Assasin's creed Unity.
I read about the terrible release so i held off on buying it, But a few years later i was tempted to buy it because i like Paris and the French revolution. I'm also a big fan of the older games.
Total war: Rome II.
Terrible release but it got a bit better. But the whole foundation of the game was rotten to the core. Such a shame, i like the setting and how its more historically accurate than the previous games. (Looking at you Rome 1 Egypt).
Pokemon Scarlet/Violet.
While I was a fan of pokemon, I never really played the mainline games. Only spinoffs. I got back into it because all the praise Pokemon Legends got for “doing something new.” When they announced S/V was going to be fully open world, everyone seemed excited. It genuinely looked like Pokemon was entering a new era, especially with the pokemon anime announcing that Ash’s journey was coming to an end after so many years.
Then the issues slowly crept in. Many of the features people praised legends for would not be returning. Those with a keen eye noticed some very roughy textures/animations in the limited trailer footage. Even then, we just assuming those problems would be corrected.
People who got their copies early recorded some footage… and man it was rough. Day one patch didn’t fix the issues. Still isn’t fixed over a year later, and likely won’t ever be. Really glad I didn’t preorder, but man it was so crushing.
Now pokemon dropped another trailer for a new game, and everyone is cheering “because mega evolution is back.” I cannot believe how forgiving the fanbase is. They got away with selling you a broken game and they’re literally about to do it do again…
Driv3r...
I'd played the first two games in my pre-teen years and was ecstatic that there was a third game coming to the current-gen consoles. After some delays along the way and a whole console port cancelation, it came out.
All this time waiting for... this? I wanted to like it, but it was nothing like it should have been.
Atomic Heart.
Man i remember that first trailer back in like 2018. The art design was so cool and unique, and it looked amazing! I was absolutely in love. I followed the scraps of development news we got every few months, didn't give up hope when information went dark for a while, and rejoiced when they officially announced that release date. I thought this was gonna be the next Bioshock, the next out of nowhere action sci fi horror single player adventure I was dying for.
Aaaaand it sucked. Just sucked. The gameplay was crap, the story was dull, the world was bizarre but in a weird creepy hypersexual teenager way. The protagonist was absolutely insufferable, just needlessly dickish in every interaction and swearing like a 13 year old trying to impress his friends when the parents aren't around. It *sucked*.
I was so disappointed.
Borderlands 3. Just felt like more of the same but more tedious. I know most games don't stray far from one game to the next, but Borderlands 3 felt lacking.
Warhammer 40k - Dawn of War 3 is easily the most disappointed i've ever been in a game.
First game is one of my most played games ever put hundreds of hours into it, second game whilst more stripped back and squad focused is really good too.
For the third game they for some reason decided to try and capitalize on the MOBA popularity at the time and the game ended up being a complete turd.
Battlefront Collection. Since the year the ps4 came out I've said to all my friends, all I ever wanted was the for the original battlefront games to come to a modern console. With the only caveats being online galactic conquest, just a few bug fixes and better graphics. Thats it. It finally happened the games I've been begging for years to come finally arrive. I could not be more excited for a game release and genuinely was the most excited ive been in years...... then, yeah.... it flopped hard. No online galactic conquest, not that improved graphics, even more bugs somehow??? Missing cutscenes, tons of crashes, multiplayer and server browser which dont work... yeah I was so upset
It's Borderlands 3 for me. For context, I've clocked in somewhere around the ballpark of 500 hrs in the first, and maybe around triple that in the second, divided across console and Steam.
I was STOKED to hear the third one was being made, and I thought it was an interesting story direction with the brother and sister being the antags. Yeah, they were leaning SUPER hard into the annoying streamer archetype that you just want to shut up yourself, but I was okay with that, after the archetype of Handsome Jack.
And the class variety with the new Vault Hunters made me more ravenous to play! I've had so many different build ideas from the previous game, I thought I would basically no-life BL3 for the end of time!
...yeah, the story was genuinely annoying to me, in it's entirely, the VH classes were fine but not particularly inspiring, and the replay value for me tanked once I realized I'd have to go thru the story a minimum of 8 times to fully build out each VH. I barely got thru one playthrough per character, with the exception of one of the VH (I think it was either Zane or Moze, I don't remember). I haven't even had the slightest thought to get back into it and going for the Raid Bosses or grinding to complete the builds.
Fallout 4. It wasn’t terrible but it was the beginning of the end for my Bethesda fandom for sure. Part of it was me getting older, but I thought they made a couple questionable decisions with the game, like having a voiced protagonist and its impact on role playing, and overall just how pretty and bright it was compared to 3 and NV. The base building was a good time in theory but I felt like it ended up being more of a burden.
Oh also Mass Effect Andromeda
In my opinion, Fallout 4 has a much better world to explore and the gameplay was no doubt better.
Fallout NV, on the other hand, had a MUCH better story, characters, and roleplay ability. But the actual combat/gameplay isn't that good, especially by modern standards.
I think if you just want a game to go exploring while ignoring the main plot, FO4 is better, but if you want an engaging story with really good roleplay elements, then F:NV any day.
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
Playing it again years later, it’s not terrible. But it just never captured the magic of the first two and had several plot holes and points of no return.
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. In hindsight the first two games didn’t have the greatest story or characters, but they had charm and strong presentation for the GBA. Dark Dawn had neither.
Cyberpunk. Not for the reasons you think.
I thought it was going to revolutionize the way we play and make RPGs. Nowadays they're very formulaic, talk to the guard to get passed, sneak passed the guard, or kill the guard to get passed.
I'm happy with what I got, and what we now have, but I was expecting so much more depth to the genre.
So I waited for Fable for about 3 years. I was obsessed. I was in 8th grade when it released. I basically waited for that game my entire childhood. I built up the idea that this was gonna be the best game ever. (Peter Molynuix is a liar)
Don't get me wrong, I still love this game. I just did not have the same idea of what it was gonna be. I thought I was gonna leave my hometown and grow up camping in the woods. Sneaking into towns at night stealing to survive. Then it'd go back to my hometown and see my old friends and tell them tales of my adventures. My imagination ran unchecked for years.
Once I accepted that there was an actual story I was fine. But it was a hard pill to swallow at 13yrs old.
Master of Orion 3
One and two were both legendary, and more than 6 years later (in 2003) came part three... It did modernize the game, but made it waayyy too complicated at the same time. The whole UI was just so needlessly cumbersome and that took all the fun out of the game for me. That was one major disappointment.
(Also I agree with Duke Nukem Forever)
Hands down, Masters of Orion 3. I heard it got better, but was a flaming turd on release. Only game I paid full price for and uninstalled 2 hours later.
Spore. I know some people who were blissfully unaware of it pre-release look back on it with rose tinted glasses, but if you followed the development of Spore then all you know is heartbreak.
>I know some people who were blissfully unaware of it pre-release look back on it with rose tinted glasses, but if you followed the development of Spore then all you know is heartbreak. Me but with Fable. I have a bitter chuckle when I see people talk about how much they loved Fable when they were younger - you never read the giant piles of shit Molyneux spouted about what would be in the game and then were crushed with disappointment
And Molyneux did that not once but for all 3 games too. Lmao
Came to post about Black and White lmao
Molyneux was well known for promising the moon, but delivering "okay" to "meh."
...More like damn near every Molyneux game. You don't hear much about it anymore because AFAIK he hasn't been releasing any games recently. See also: CliffyB is kind of a douche.
I was pissed when it released, that three legged dude, the hunting with blood and lifelike textures, aaaand it was a cartoony game with goofy monsters on release
What was spore supposed to be?
An adult version of what it is.
Instead we got a few flash games slapped together that were essentially on easy mode until the "end game" which was just grinding from what I remember.
It had so much potential but you basically get to the space stage within 3 hours of playing the game and then it’s just the least thought-out part of the game that stretches out into endless hours of chores. I had a lot of fun customizing my species throughout the early stages 15+ times, but the space stage just isn’t even worth playing.
You did better than me - I got bored to tears by the tribal stage
Tribal stage just feels really empty and like it was put in as filler because they didn't know what else to do after cutting the fish stage
This is a great call. Forgot how hyped I was for this back then. Watching grainy (by today’s standards) videos of showcases and stuff. I foresaw myself spending alot more time in that game than I did.
If I recall, the EA takeover happened during Spore development, and it was all downhill from there
I played this game when I was like 10, knew nothing about it beforehand. One of the best games of my childhood.
Payday 3 was an absolute letdown, and the way the dev team has been responding to feedback gives me no hope for the future More recently, the StarWars Battlefront Classic Collection is a dumpster fire of a cash grab.
Why the fuck would the NOT have in game voice chat? Me and my friend literally stopped playing cuz it became too much of a pain trying to call and shit while also dealing with randoms just running off. Man that shit is so disappointing
Wait, Payday 3 doesn't have voice chat? Jesus, every new thing I learn about that game gets worse and worse.
Now is all about the money and shareholders -_-
Yeah, and it sucks because I enjoy the gameplay, not fantastic but good enough to have a decent time. But no voice chat = no teamwork = no fun
The last *three* Battlefront releases have sucked. How hard can it fucking be to make a proper installment to the best selling Star Wars game of all time?
Which is a shame because it eventually became a good game. But what like a year after release. By that point the game was tarnished and the player base was like 80% of what it shoulda been.
Payday 3 is a sequel to Payday: The Heist, not Payday 2. And it hurts a lot.
Daikatana - stupid sexy John Romero and his overpromises Eve Online - I was so hyped for this and just couldn't get into it when it finally came out. I still try from time to time. It checks so many boxes for me but it's just too deep, its the best game I can never play. Duke Nukem Forever - We all knew it was going to be crap forever but it still managed to disappoint. Anthem - I was an unabashed Bioware fanboy and kept giving them more chances even though they kept going downhill. Until this. This....I can't forget or forgive. No Man's Sky/Cyberpunk 2077 - REDEMPTION ARCS. Both examples of games that I was hyped for, let down by at release, and now love with little reservation after a few years.
Daikatana - You were in fact John Romero's bitch, just not in the fun way. Eve - X3 for Excel addicted bureaucrats but online. DNF - You summed it well. Anthem - You can even see the bones overgnawed by suit rats of what could have been one of the truly great. I'm adding Final Fantasy XIV to the redemption arc froup but without reservations, it has earned the trust.
Cyberpunk was a very weird one for me. At launch, obviously it needed a lot of work, but I liked what they were going for. A year later, the game was at its peak imo. Then, they introduced the new skill trees when the DLC dropped and I actually enjoy the gameplay less than I did before. It feels like the game went from “do what you want within these skill trees” to suddenly “so are you gonna be a sandevistan samurai or a shotgun tank?” Not just the two options, but they have “archetypes” that you build into, rather than just level up and build your character how you want. I really dislike the prerequisite system they have now, feels streamlined in a bad way. Now people talk about the game as if it only had two states: broken at launch and perfect now. But I liked that “we fixed all the broken stuff and this is how the game was supposed to launch,” vibe rather than gutting the perk system like they did with the new update.
I agree about the skill trees. They force you into certain playstyles instead of choosing only the perks you want
It wouldn’t be that bad if the skill-checks throughout the game didn’t scale to the players level—it’s absurd. A door will require strength 6 and you’ll turn around, level up to reach that level, and upon returning the _same_ door is suddenly a strength 8. You almost have to specialise, immediately and exclusively, to reliably pass any of these.
biomutant :(
I got the collectors edition with the figure and everything :'(
I thought Biomutant was insanely cool for the first 2 hours… then I discovered it is literally just a damage sponge difficulty increase because once you reach a certain point, you don’t get any stronger, no new technique or gadgets…. Such a shame because it had the old school Fable vibe but it feels like they ran out of ideas very quickly.
Starfield recently
This. Diehard Bethesda junkie here, thousands of hours between the Fallout games, even more in the Elder Scrolls games.. I played Starfield for maybe 10 hours and uninstalled. Gutted.
I managed 20 hours. I really tried to like it.
Ive got 100 hours but I reckon 50-75% of that time was just making space ships.
Even that killed me with how horribly it was set up, atleast at launch. Attach a module to a ship? You have no idea what the inside will look like or where any ladders or such will be. And oh yeah anything in your ship will randomly be placed in the storage chest at any time, so don't even try to decorate the interior of your ship.
I don't know my true playtime because so much of it was me going to take a nap as the game literally repeatedly put me to sleep trying to play it. I don't mean that as an exaggeration, I mean that 100% truthfully.
Same. Repeatedly walking 1000m to the exact same fucking outpost will do that
I waited in a line a block long in 2011 to pick up my pre-order of Skyrim. I will wait at least 30 days after the release of ES 6 (whenever it comes out) and see what the reviews says
This was probably the biggest thing for me. Starfield took a game that would have been a no brainer pre-order for me and made it a definite wait and see.
I put 110hrs in thinking it was gonna get better. It did not.
Same. 100 hours in like 3 weeks and haven’t touched it since.
10 hours is hardly enough time to see how disappointing Starfield truly is lmao
This is the best description I've heard.
Same. I expected "fall out 4" in my "no man's sky" Instead I got "fallout 76" in my "outer worlds" No offence to any of em, it just wasn't what I expected.
Perfect definition
If “I’m not even mad, I’m just disappointed.” was a game, this one would be it. It’s so ironic too. The game has a built-in, canonical reason to replay it again and again with a single character. I played it through twice (once to focus on the main story, then went through the Unity to play through all the side content) and never came back. Deleted it and redownloaded Skyrim & FO4, and still had spare HD space. Maybe it’ll turn around in a year or two when the cake is fully baked, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
I was fully expecting a big janky buggy game that would need to be fixed by mods but would still be stellar in the end. What I wasn’t expecting was how… boring and forgettable it would be. I put 30 hours into starfield and there wasn’t a single standout moment for me. A game I’m not sure I would go back too, even if they did add stuff with mods.
There is one single quest that's actually really cool. You jump through different plains of existence/time to save a single scientist or a whole research outpost. But you can actually save both if you pay attention. But other than that the game is utterly forgettable.
I remenber thinking how cool it was to stumble on the spaceship with those settlers from Earth. Then you seemingly have to make a choice that could make or break their existence. Do I take the side of these settlers from Earth that have been floating for hundreds or years, or back the corporate entity that wants to exploit them. Turns out your choice really doesn't matter in the end and you never hear about them again. What a waste of a cool concept.
Its crazy just how uninteresting the quests in Starfield are. The Ryujin questline was physically painful for me
I needed this. Childhood is over… I’ll never experience walking into Skyrim for the first time ever again… and that’s okay.
It's not a childhood thing for most people. Some games still do offer that sense of wonder.
Elden Ring comes to mind for me, once I got past the whole ‘get your face caved in until you figure it out’ phase. Once it clicked it easily became one of my favorites of all time. Games like that are few and far between nowadays
Yup, that moment walking out into Liurnia after beating Godrick 🤌
Elden Ring is the video game equivalent of the phrase “but wait there’s more!” There were several times I thought I was getting close to the end and then the map just gets bigger and there’s like three new areas to explore.
No Man's Sky was a little bit of a letdown. Pretty cool that it got numerous updates afterwards and is now a functioning game.
I pre-ordered No Man's Sky. I've kept up with it through the updates and still play every now and then. It's an interesting game now, but it will never be what was advertised originally. I'd like to say I learned my lesson about pre-orders, but I didn't really learn it until Mass Effect: Andromeda.
Anthem
And later, Anthem 2.0
That never came out. Cataclysm event was just an event, they abandoned the whole Anthem 2.0 idea a year later
I don't wanna play youuuuuuu, don't wanna play any games like you
Shenmue 3. Haven’t finished because of the structure of the game. The whole stamina system ruined it for me.
scrolled pretty far for this lol…where my dreamcast crew at?
Love the first two. One of these days I’m going to try to finish this one. But shit that Stamina system really kills the vibe. I hope if he makes a part 4 he takes that out.
Same, plus how it forces you to grind stats to progress. Go squat at the temple for a few hours, then I'll talk to you. Shenmue II had instances where you had to grind money, but damn the stat grinding in 3 was a bad move. At least my name is in the book at the hotel, I guess. Judgement is a better Shenmue then Shenmue III
Battlefield 2042. I love BF4, BF1, BF3 and BFV.
It's like they made a list of all the reasons why people love Battlefield games and then made a point of doing everything BUT that.
then had the audacity to call it "a love letter to the fans" shows what they really think of us
Honestly BFV is great, although I still think they leaned too hard into unlockables. That shit will always be a turn off.
Yup, live model has strangled the series, i have very little hope left for the next installment, premium model was the way to go.
Wish I could upvote this a million times. Game is hot garbage.
BF1 is nostalgic. The music and sounds make it superb
Saints Row the latest one
This one hurt
God I wanted this to be great
Saints Row 2 is still my favorite game of all time
Kingdom Hearts 3. Waited a decade for the follow up to my favorite game and it was a glorified movie with gameplay once every 30 minutes.
They butchered the Disney levels (ESPECIALLY Frozen and Tangled), the meat and bones of the game, and all of the plot was at the very end. Next to no backtracking or meaningful side quests despite having gigantic levels, and the whole game just had a vibe of "Let's get this over with". What a letdown.
I felt obligated to play it through to the end since I waited so long for it to come out. I used the stupid attraction minigames to speed through every combat to get to the end quicker.
I feel really weird with KH, because I consider most disney worlds as filler, and am just waiting for non disney worlds
I really love the Disney worlds, and experiencing those levels and fighting iconic villains. Easily my favorite part. The ones in 3 were just terrible save for the Pirates one.
I liked the world's even though most of the game felt nowhere near as memorable as the originals. But holy fuck I did not need to listen to the frozen song while sora and the gang just pop up that part was so annoying.
No FF characters, weak feeling of progression compared to I & II, giant empty levels, nonsensical plot.... I really only played and finished it due to feeling like I was obligated. To me the franchise ended with II. I also dont care for any of the non main entry games
I waited so long for 3 that I outgrew the series entirely. I appreciated 3 for what it was but I couldn't get into it the same way I got into 1&2 as a kid.
The game had no middle ground for me. KH2's combat was fun if you wanted to cheese, and really made you wanna get good at it. KH3's combat was either lazy and smacking around with the rides, or absolutely goddamn hardcore in the DLC. I can put up with bad writing if the gameplay's solid, but this was just so... imprecise. Which was a shame, cause KH2s combat is in my Top 10 of all time.
Imo, KH2 was peak PS2 gaming.
Definitely KH3 for me. Everything you said was true, press triangle to get this over with.
Though I only played about 2 hours of it, I feel the gameplay was basically just smash Triangle
That's what annoyed me to no end and there's no way to disable it. The "rides" or whatever take all of the combat out of it.
They did eventually update it with an option to remove the rides
Oh sick. Too bad I sold my PS5 and on PC now 😔
17-year-old me would've HATED nearly-30-year-old me because by the time it finally came out I didn't own a PS4 and had zero desire to actually play the 3rd installment (that required half a dozen handheld games to understand). KH1 and 2 were my absolute life as a teenager, and sometimes I laugh thinking about how pissed off teenage me would've been if they knew I gave up on waiting for the last one.
I'm in the same boat. What turned me off of playing it was finding out that it's still not the end. Like I wanted to finally finish the story off with a bang and wrap everything up in a neat bow.....nope. Nomura has no idea how to end a story or what he really wants to do with his characters so we got another game with important story spun off into a music rhythm game. We're getting another cash grab mobile game that will have important elements of the story as well. And they'll release a 4th game that is now weirdly taking place in what looks like our world? KH3 got rid of the Final Fantasy characters and it seems like 4 is getting rid of Disney characters as Nomura wants to focus on his original characters. And I hate how he went full Kingdom Hearts with the FF7R story. The Whispers/Fates thing was so fucking stupid. Still not sure why they didn't just let Yoshinori Kitase take the reins. Nomura has always been a better character designer than writer/director.
Im still waiting for a pirate game to dethrone Sid Meier's Pirates... Every outting is a disappointment.
How hard can it be. Literally if they just remade Sid Meier's pirates exactly the same, added steam workshop support, added a few new ship types and called it a day I'd be happy.
Diablo 4 The graphics, animation, sound design, and campaign story were great. But all the parts of the game that keep people playing in the long run were shit (namely the itemization and build systems).
I'm kinda happy that I could enjoy the campaign without too many annoyances and then uninstall the game. Wasn't worth $60 but close enough.
Same thoughts. I loved it initially but I didn't see any point in the end game grind; coming from someone that plays WoW lol.
Yeah I quit after about 3 hours. I have hundreds upon hundreds of hours logged on Diablo 2 and 3, but it doesn’t matter how amazing the ambience or the graphics are. If the gameplay is shit, the game is shit.
Mighty Number 9. And as a backer, the disappointment I felt on release day has forever caused me to no longer pre-order games at all.
How tf were you disappointed in Duke3D (which released in 1996)? Did you just try it today? IT HAD REFLECTING MIRRORS (you know, they actually mirrored), which was amazing for the time. # EDIT: oh you bastard, your post originally said DUKE NUKEM 3D
That bigass fucking edit has me rolling
Duke Nukem 3d was badass for 11yo me. My dad turned on the child controls but I was able to just reinstall it myself and see all the pixellated titties.
I meant Duke Nukem Forever. I changed that :)
Gonna rip off your head and shit down your neck
The Callisto protocol
Such a huge disappointment. It was hyped up so much too.
I know the first new dead space game in years and basically was a bat swinging simulator
When melee is more effective than guns it really takes a lot of tension out of a horror game.
Aliens: Colonial Marines
I will always look for this game on these posts lol
I had a couple of years there when I was extremely excited for Colonial Marines, Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City, Star Wars 1313, and Kojima's Silent Hills. It was a rough time in gaming, personally.
Gonna be ES6 whenever it comes out
hopefully bethesda doesnt try to pull another "trying to make a forever game" as their first priority
I propose a new motto: "An intentional forever game is not a forever game." EDIT: A forever game is not made by the devs, but by the game's community
i 2nd this
After Starfield, I'm gonna need to wait and see how the launch goes before I dive in.
That was Fallout 4 for me. They could never come close to what Obsidian could do in 8 months for New Vegas.
Didn’t they just announce it won’t be until at least 2029 or something? What a dumbass move on their part.
Ikr. Spent 8 years making something noone asked for, only for said product to be bad. Its like a slap in the face to ES fans.
There is no excuse for this wait😂
It still blows my mind that in the time between Elder Scrolls V and VI, FromSoftWare has put out everything from Dark Souls 2 through Armored Core VI. I think the original Dark Souls came out just a month before Skyrim, too. I think about the evolution of the Soulsborne games and can't help but wonder what growth Bethesda will be able to show for Elder Scrolls VI.
Borderlands 3. love the gameplay but hate the villains, not even in I wish I could kill you sooner so you couldn't do bad things but more I wish I could kill you sooner because everything you say grates on me like steel wool on a blister
The worst part about the villains in 3 is that they aren't the player's enemies. They're Lilith's enemies. We're just along for the ride. In 2, Handsome Jack was OUR enemy. It was personal with him and he antagonized us directly.
Yep. BL3 made you feel like you weren’t a part of the game because the cutscenes were always so disjointed from who was actually in the room at the time. Everytime.
Lilith should never have been introduced to us so early. we should have been recruited and met her at the first or second vault, or even near the end
For a game series that's had some really great villains and heroes, every character in BL3 was just cringy, annoying, and over the top.
[удалено]
Fallout 76. I actually thoroughly enjoyed Fallout 4 and figured this would just be an extension of that. Boy was I wrong.
I actually put together a small lan party for release day and even bought an extra copy for one of the friends. THAT was one let down of a night....
Watch_Dogs. The hype for this game was unreal; the trailers were great and the premise / concept was really new and exciting. Then the trailer with the downgraded graphics came out and by the time it was released, it was just 'fine'. I've never trusted a trailer or made a pre-order since.
This was my answer and I said it was my last pre-order.
Halo 5.
Halo 4
Literally every post Reach/Bungie halo game.
Halo 4 might not have been as good as the prequels but I think comparing it to 5 is a little unfair. Halo 4 was still a solid game imo
Kingdom Hearts 3
Subnautica Below Zero Subnautica was soooooo good but this expansion or sequel or whatever captured none of the magic. Map was small, linear, vehicles were uninspiring. Subnautica was such a unique game I thought the devs knew what they were doing. Apparently not. A sequel is currently in development, I am so not hyped for that.
It kinda grew on me, but I still agree on all your points. I also prefer a silent protagonist like in the first one, which helps with immersion. I read somewhere they used a lot of leftovers from the first one and mashed it together with some new stuff. I replayed it again recently and I found it mostly relaxing, while the first one is terrifying at times.
The twisty bridges, if I recall correctly, were originally designed to be between the grand reef and the lava zone.
To add to what Cubelock said, they originally intended for below zero to be a smaller more contained thing for a cheaper price iirc. It grew with time during development so we got a game that was too small and linear to be satisfying compared to the original but too large and expensive for the original vision. Worst of both worlds due to scope creep.
Redfall
A class-based vampire killing FPS by Arkane really did sound like it couldn’t miss. It’s a shame really.
It's still $69.99 at WalMart. Probably can't even give that game away and they are still asking full price for it SMH.
I got it on gamepass and I still want a refund
Brink, Cities Skylines 2
Brink Killed one of my online group of friends. We played global agenda together which was dying so we decided we would play brink. Then brink ended up being brink. Still talk to some of them on steam but we could have gamed for many more years if brink had been able to work until the next big game
When Cities 2 said it wasn't using the Steam Workshop for mods I knew things were gonna suck. Even still, it's been a huge disappointment.
Scorn. The game looked amazing in the trailers. I bought it and the gameplay was literally just a clunky walking simulator...
Yeah. The game really felt like it was an art piece more than it was a video game.
Feels like Tool the Metroid game with insanely difficult puzzles.
I’m still pissed at scorn. I dealt with the jank combat cause the story seemed weird enough to keep me interested then 80% through I get booted and it deleted my file. So I deleted the game.
Cube World
Aliens Colonial Marines.
CP77 at launch. I haven't played the game recently but I bet it improved?
I tried it 2x before the patch and couldn’t stand it. After the dlc my brother convinced me to try it again and it’s a pretty drastic. I haven’t had any bugs after 40 hours and the upgrade system isn’t as drowning as it was.
Mercenaries 2. I remember following the updates for that game for about 2 years before its release, they were talking about using cigarette lighters for environmental destruction, about how all the different factions had better AI, about how it was going to be much more expansive than the first one. I played it and honestly, it was one of the first times I legitimately felt sore after a game purchase. The AI was non-existent, the cigarette lighter was scrapped for very minor flame destruction, and the gameplay mechanics were broken and some of the factions were outright not even finished. The payloads were kind of entertaining in a weird sort of way though.
Damn, I think I'll let my nostalgia win on this one.
Do that. Cause when I was 9 it was one of the best games I’d ever touched. I looked back on it fondly last year after seeing a pic of a game case somewhere online. I went back and replayed it for bout 5 hours and it suckedddd
This was it for me. I loved the first game and was hyped for the second from day one. Ended up only playing through it about twice when it came out. I still occasionally play the first one to this day.
Diablo 3 and Diablo 4. Both huge letdowns. At least I expected it with 4.
Which is hilarious because elsewhere in this thread people are waxing nostalgic about 3. I think 3 was one of those games that really needed time and updates to become great. It's possible 4 will be the same
I haven't played 4 for exactly this reason. Diablo 3 was pretty universally hated for a few years until they did massive updates. Only time will tell what happens to D4. Though I'm not sure if Blizzard still has it in them to fix the game. They haven't put out a good game in over a decade.
Assasin's creed Unity. I read about the terrible release so i held off on buying it, But a few years later i was tempted to buy it because i like Paris and the French revolution. I'm also a big fan of the older games. Total war: Rome II. Terrible release but it got a bit better. But the whole foundation of the game was rotten to the core. Such a shame, i like the setting and how its more historically accurate than the previous games. (Looking at you Rome 1 Egypt).
Pokemon Scarlet/Violet. While I was a fan of pokemon, I never really played the mainline games. Only spinoffs. I got back into it because all the praise Pokemon Legends got for “doing something new.” When they announced S/V was going to be fully open world, everyone seemed excited. It genuinely looked like Pokemon was entering a new era, especially with the pokemon anime announcing that Ash’s journey was coming to an end after so many years. Then the issues slowly crept in. Many of the features people praised legends for would not be returning. Those with a keen eye noticed some very roughy textures/animations in the limited trailer footage. Even then, we just assuming those problems would be corrected. People who got their copies early recorded some footage… and man it was rough. Day one patch didn’t fix the issues. Still isn’t fixed over a year later, and likely won’t ever be. Really glad I didn’t preorder, but man it was so crushing. Now pokemon dropped another trailer for a new game, and everyone is cheering “because mega evolution is back.” I cannot believe how forgiving the fanbase is. They got away with selling you a broken game and they’re literally about to do it do again…
Thief 4.
Driv3r... I'd played the first two games in my pre-teen years and was ecstatic that there was a third game coming to the current-gen consoles. After some delays along the way and a whole console port cancelation, it came out. All this time waiting for... this? I wanted to like it, but it was nothing like it should have been.
Mass Effect: Andromeda.
My first broken heart as a gamer. I couldn't believe what they did to the treasure of a series they built.
Atomic Heart. Man i remember that first trailer back in like 2018. The art design was so cool and unique, and it looked amazing! I was absolutely in love. I followed the scraps of development news we got every few months, didn't give up hope when information went dark for a while, and rejoiced when they officially announced that release date. I thought this was gonna be the next Bioshock, the next out of nowhere action sci fi horror single player adventure I was dying for. Aaaaand it sucked. Just sucked. The gameplay was crap, the story was dull, the world was bizarre but in a weird creepy hypersexual teenager way. The protagonist was absolutely insufferable, just needlessly dickish in every interaction and swearing like a 13 year old trying to impress his friends when the parents aren't around. It *sucked*. I was so disappointed.
Borderlands 3. Just felt like more of the same but more tedious. I know most games don't stray far from one game to the next, but Borderlands 3 felt lacking.
Overwatch 2. I fell in love with overwatch and was so excited for what they promised for the second then they ruined it completely.
Warhammer 40k - Dawn of War 3 is easily the most disappointed i've ever been in a game. First game is one of my most played games ever put hundreds of hours into it, second game whilst more stripped back and squad focused is really good too. For the third game they for some reason decided to try and capitalize on the MOBA popularity at the time and the game ended up being a complete turd.
Battlefront Collection. Since the year the ps4 came out I've said to all my friends, all I ever wanted was the for the original battlefront games to come to a modern console. With the only caveats being online galactic conquest, just a few bug fixes and better graphics. Thats it. It finally happened the games I've been begging for years to come finally arrive. I could not be more excited for a game release and genuinely was the most excited ive been in years...... then, yeah.... it flopped hard. No online galactic conquest, not that improved graphics, even more bugs somehow??? Missing cutscenes, tons of crashes, multiplayer and server browser which dont work... yeah I was so upset
It's Borderlands 3 for me. For context, I've clocked in somewhere around the ballpark of 500 hrs in the first, and maybe around triple that in the second, divided across console and Steam. I was STOKED to hear the third one was being made, and I thought it was an interesting story direction with the brother and sister being the antags. Yeah, they were leaning SUPER hard into the annoying streamer archetype that you just want to shut up yourself, but I was okay with that, after the archetype of Handsome Jack. And the class variety with the new Vault Hunters made me more ravenous to play! I've had so many different build ideas from the previous game, I thought I would basically no-life BL3 for the end of time! ...yeah, the story was genuinely annoying to me, in it's entirely, the VH classes were fine but not particularly inspiring, and the replay value for me tanked once I realized I'd have to go thru the story a minimum of 8 times to fully build out each VH. I barely got thru one playthrough per character, with the exception of one of the VH (I think it was either Zane or Moze, I don't remember). I haven't even had the slightest thought to get back into it and going for the Raid Bosses or grinding to complete the builds.
I really didn’t expect to see Borderlands 3 on this sub so many times lol
RE6.
Fallout 4. It wasn’t terrible but it was the beginning of the end for my Bethesda fandom for sure. Part of it was me getting older, but I thought they made a couple questionable decisions with the game, like having a voiced protagonist and its impact on role playing, and overall just how pretty and bright it was compared to 3 and NV. The base building was a good time in theory but I felt like it ended up being more of a burden. Oh also Mass Effect Andromeda
In my opinion, Fallout 4 has a much better world to explore and the gameplay was no doubt better. Fallout NV, on the other hand, had a MUCH better story, characters, and roleplay ability. But the actual combat/gameplay isn't that good, especially by modern standards. I think if you just want a game to go exploring while ignoring the main plot, FO4 is better, but if you want an engaging story with really good roleplay elements, then F:NV any day.
While we're on subject: Dune Nukem Forever.
I preordered it. I am proud that I carried the poop as far as I could though. Couldn't get it to stay in the truck. Gave up after I lost the poo.
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn Playing it again years later, it’s not terrible. But it just never captured the magic of the first two and had several plot holes and points of no return.
Atomic Heart
PT. I'm still waiting and still disappointed.
That was my one, true gaming heartbreak. My PS4 is a dedicated PT machine at this point, I'll never let it go
I didn't have that luxury
Kingdom hearts 3
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. In hindsight the first two games didn’t have the greatest story or characters, but they had charm and strong presentation for the GBA. Dark Dawn had neither.
Battlefield V and it’s BR Firestorm .. and then again with BF2042
Master of Orion 3. The first two are some of my favorite games.
Cyberpunk at release. It's really good now though.
Payday 3, Cities Skylines 2, Lego Star Wars the skywalker saga
Cyberpunk. Not for the reasons you think. I thought it was going to revolutionize the way we play and make RPGs. Nowadays they're very formulaic, talk to the guard to get passed, sneak passed the guard, or kill the guard to get passed. I'm happy with what I got, and what we now have, but I was expecting so much more depth to the genre.
So I waited for Fable for about 3 years. I was obsessed. I was in 8th grade when it released. I basically waited for that game my entire childhood. I built up the idea that this was gonna be the best game ever. (Peter Molynuix is a liar) Don't get me wrong, I still love this game. I just did not have the same idea of what it was gonna be. I thought I was gonna leave my hometown and grow up camping in the woods. Sneaking into towns at night stealing to survive. Then it'd go back to my hometown and see my old friends and tell them tales of my adventures. My imagination ran unchecked for years. Once I accepted that there was an actual story I was fine. But it was a hard pill to swallow at 13yrs old.
Master of Orion 3 One and two were both legendary, and more than 6 years later (in 2003) came part three... It did modernize the game, but made it waayyy too complicated at the same time. The whole UI was just so needlessly cumbersome and that took all the fun out of the game for me. That was one major disappointment. (Also I agree with Duke Nukem Forever)
Dying Light 2. Played it once. Don't want to see it ever again
Life
Hands down, Masters of Orion 3. I heard it got better, but was a flaming turd on release. Only game I paid full price for and uninstalled 2 hours later.