Video Games, more so than TV or film, is a medium that holds so much potential to immerse the audience into a story with an interactive environment that leaves space for the player to decide the outcome. As technology improves, the games themselves improve with new mechanics, story writing, and methodology that help to innovate what was done before them and further open the field to new creative ideas allowing new forms of self-expression that ultimately enhance the player's experience.
However, there are also times when a game misses the mark or fails to innovate and simply repeats the practices done before it, whether it be to maximize player base in an attempt to appeal to as many as possible or to prioritize profit over time with in-game purchases. This leads the games that fall behind in public interest despite the fact that there was massive hype leading up to their release and maybe even a big, positive splash from fans and/or critics when the game first came out.
10 Shenmue 3 Brought Nothing New To The Series
An attempted revival of the 2000s saga, Shenmue 3 promised the return of the story of Ryo Hazuki searching for the mysterious Lan Di, the man who killed his father. Yu Suzuki's brainchild captured the love of many upon the initial release of Shenmue's 1 & 2— however, the third installment was left in development purgatory for many years until Shenmue 3 was finally released in late 2019.
Fans were finally given the chance to continue and maybe finish the now 22-year-old story. Yet, fans were met with repetitive gameplay and archaic concepts that had been long fixed by more modern releases and no developments of the overall story either, ending prematurely and disappointingly.
9 Marvel's Avengers Lacks Basic Consumer-Friendly Functionality
Teased back in early 2017, the "Avengers Project" was created by Marvel and Square-Enix, and later the first gameplay trailer was released, showing fans a dynamic and fast-paced cooperative experience that allowed players to take the role of the iconic superheroes. What was released in 2020 was a barrage of stat-based gameplay with levels balanced for online-only games and repeating mission objectives that caused the game's levels to blend together, all together with a story that ends on an unclear note.
The game simply lacked a certain modern polish and failed to develop an engaging gameplay style, looking especially worse next to peers like Spider-Man: Miles Morales that really raised the bar for modern comic book video games.
8 Cyberpunk 2077 Felt Like A Generic FPS/RPG Rather Than A Landmark Release
Hyped up for seven straight years, Cyberpunk 2077 was foretold as some form of revolution for video games. Coming from the creators of the Witcher video game adaptation series (CD Project Red), fans felt that the dystopian world of Night City was in good hands. Whilst many are aware of the issues surrounding Cyberpunk's release, the aspect that dates it is the lack of cyberpunk themes.
There is an evil corporation controlling things, sure, but there are no story elements that make the player feel the oppressive looming presence of their lack of freedom besides some surface-level elements. Along with its basic gameplay and rather uneventful main story, Cyberpunk 2077 fails to measure up to other titles that explore the themes of extreme exploitation and capitalism.
7 Anthem: Dead & Forgotten On Arrival
Anthem was a title that promised a lot and delivered little. Initially showing the fun and exciting gameplay where the players can take control of unique and powerful mech suits and explore an alien world, over the course of the game's development the continuous talk of microtransactions and in-game purchases slowly revealed an uninspired title too reliant on a player base willing to spend money on a game they had already purchased at full price.
Alongside gameplay that lacked a refined sense to it, Anthem quickly collapsed as an anticipated title eventually leading to all further work on the online-based game being halted as of February 2021.
6 WWE2K20 Is Like A Time Capsule From The 2000s
Due to a sudden and drastic development team shift during the creation of the game, WWE2K20 was released in a rushed and largely unfinished capacity. Ranging from broken physics to missing textures, the game was a new low for 2K's WWE game series.
With many features like "create-a-belt" missing from the game and a less-intuitive control scheme, WWE2K20 is a significant step down in quality and innovation and feels more like a wrestling game from ten years ago, or from a previous console generation, rather than a AAA title released just two years ago.
5 Baldur's Gate 3 Failed To Measure Up To Its Legacy
As one of the pillars of the legacy of D&D-style RPG games, Baldur's Gate 3 had a lot to measure up to. The original two entries in the series are held to an extremely high standard within their community, so the announcement of Baldur's Gate 3 meant that fans would give either a joyous or lackluster response.
Unfortunately, it was the latter as the game was littered with a weak story, black-and-white choices, and poor animations, leading to a game that failed to live up to the Baldur's Gate name.
4 Deadly Premonition 2 Was A Disappointing Sequel To A Beloved Cult Classic
A cult classic that was appreciated for its Twin Peaks-inspired aesthetic, Swery's last-gen title brought fans joy when its sequel was announced for the Nintendo Switch. However, the very restricted narrative and poor graphical quality wasn't the sequel fans had hoped for.
The title seemed to do very little to innovate on the original game and failed to match the fun twists and turns of Francis York Morgan's investigations in the fictional small town of Greenevale, Washington, and lacked the quirky and enjoyable charm of the first Deadly Premonition.
3 Call Of Cthulhu Lacks Proper Decision-Making Mechanics
Very few AAA games have managed to truly capture the essence of cosmic horror. Today, many indie titles explore various aspects of terrifying unimaginable horror such as World of Horror. However, when a new Call of Cthulhu game was announced for 2018, fans of cosmic horror were excited to view new kinds of mysteries and monsters.
However, while the game may have started off promising, showing the possible choices throughout the story, it very quickly develops into a very black-and-white decision making, or railroading players into choices they didn't want to make, and an ending that boils down to follow Cthulhu, or not follow Cthulhu, the title quickly fell into obscurity.
2 Kingdom Hearts 3 Felt Rushed & Uninspired After A 14-Year Wait
Fourteen years passed between Kingdom Hearts 2 & 3. Fans waited over a decade for the conclusion to numerous storylines. Whilst dozens of spin-off titles were released in that time, Kingdom Hearts 3 was the only title guaranteed to finish the story.
Unfortunately, however, the game was riddled with a meandering story that seemed to dodge plot elements whenever it could and left many character's story arcs on the cutting room floor. That and its many unrefined systems of play make Kingdom Hearts 3 feel more like a tech demo for the final game than a finished product fourteen years in the making.
1 Balan Wonderworld Is Too Basic To Be A Modern Platformer
The quickest way to describe why Balan Wonderworld is dated only a few months after its demo's release is that it is a poorly put-together platformer.
Developed by a team at Square-Enix that included Yuji Naka, one of the main creators of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, Balan's attempts to appeal to every possible market created a product so minimal that it makes the most basic of mistakes for a modern platformer— such as restricting gameplay to one button and directional movement. Balan Wonderworld was so poorly received that Square-Enix removed its demo from the PlayStation store and even issued an apology.