summary
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Hype breeds disappointment; Pre-orders often end in regret and angry fans.
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Big-name launches ship with missing features, buggy systems, and empty content, feeling rushed and leaving their players frustrated.
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Some games fixed things later, but the initial launch often permanently eroded trust and player retention.
Gaming is at its best when a community comes together and generates electrifying hype in anticipation of a new release. And in some cases, like the Elden Ring, the seemingly endless, over-the-top excitement is somehow met and transcended, giving everyone what they ask for. But, more often than not, you can expect things to go a little south.
Unfortunately, when some games reach the fever pitch of online chatter, the end result doesn't share the same fate, taking a 180-degree turn and sparking a barrage of bitter fans who burn out by pre-ordering and believing the game lives up to expectations, sharing their displeasure online. Luckily, we don't need to pre-order these days, do we? Right?!
Dark Souls 2
Solid game, but a bad Dark Souls
Closing things out, we have Dark Souls 2, which isn't the worst pre-order of all time, but will stick with us until the end of time. While the game itself is pretty solid overall, it feels like a cheap Dark Souls clone rather than a direct follow-up from Demon's Souls and the original Dark Souls. And there's a good reason for that.
Hidetaka Miyazaki served only as a supervisor in this installment and focused most of his attention on the excellent PlayStation 4 exclusive Bloodborne. As such, Dark Souls 2's bosses, level design, and general world-building aren't at the level of quality you'd expect. And, in most cases, the bosses will be larger versions of standard enemies, which get old very quickly!
Man has no sky
Where is the rest of the game?
When you think of being deceived by pre-orders and hype, No Man's Sky is probably the first game that comes to mind, and it deserves to carry that weight forever. While it is undistinguished today and indeed a great title, its launch was anything but smooth. It doesn't offer many of the promised features that set it apart from all the others.
No Man's Sky failed to impress in almost every conceivable way and just felt soulless, repetitive and unfinished. We applaud Halo Games for keeping their heads down, fixing the issues, and adding tons of free content, but sitting with this release at launch was disastrous, to say the least!
Battlefield 2042
The same old song and dance
Ah, the battlefield. The series is famous for the rallying cry from its community not to pre-order the upcoming title. While Battlefield 4's launch was a disaster, Battlefield 1 and 5 (somewhat) weren't nearly as bad, and Battlefield 2042 looked promising from trailers and demonstrations, convincing everyone that the curse might be broken.
Spoiler alert, it wasn't. In fact, it was much, much worse than the previous two releases, as it lacked many of the promised features and had some of the worst gameplay systems and mechanics the series had ever seen. It wasn't a battlefield title; It felt like a cheap imitation, maybe no destruction, operators instead of classes, and some terrible map design. At least Battlefield 6 had a good launch, right?! oh
spoke
An incredible possibility of missing the mark
Next in line is Forspoken, developed by Square Enix's Luminous Productions, which you may remember from the divisive Final Fantasy 15. While we were on the edge of the game, having a terrible fight but loving Noctis and the rest of the cast, we were willing to give them another shot with a new IP, as it looked so early on.
Alas, Forspoken suffered a similar fate, with slightly better combat but much worse characters and world-building, which is extraordinarily sad to watch, because there's still something that could be so special. Unlike many of the titles on this list, it makes us sad that it didn't pan out the way we hoped, and we hope they don't mess up with their next project anyway!
Cyberpunk 2077
Console gaming problems
Depending on your platform of choice, this may or may not apply to you, as Cyberpunk 2077 was acceptable on PC, and a complete dumpster fire on practically everything else. After days of game-breaking bugs, weird visual issues, and real health risks, the launch of this title broke the hearts of everyone who trusted CD Projekt Red for their excellent work on The Witcher 3.
We can tolerate a buggy game to an extent, given the fact that the entire reveal trailer wasn't actual in-game footage but was claimed to be a big no-no, putting their future projects on the 'wait and see' list to avoid getting burned again. Yes, Cyberpunk 2077 is playable and better than it is now, but that's not the point!
Callisto protocol
Scary, but in all the wrong ways
Callisto protocol
2.5/5
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December 2, 2022
Everyone and their mother is champing at the bit for EA to make a new Dead Space title, and when it was announced that the game's original creator Glenn Schofield was forming a new studio to create its spiritual successor, we couldn't be more hyped for Callisto Protocol if we tried. Sadly, the end result was not what we expected.
Callisto Protocol does a few things right, but it gets a lot wrong, taking horror out of the game entirely, because you can see all the 'scary' coming from a mile away. The gameplay is also a bit too repetitive for our liking. And, to add insult to injury, the Dead Space remake came out around this time, which was a much better experience. What a shame!
song
what could have happened
song
2.5/5
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February 22, 2019
Have you ever thought you could have games? And, if you do, why is it always the anthem? On a serious note, Anthem had immense potential, as its gameplay was extremely fluid, responsive, and exciting. Unfortunately, the moment-to-moment gameplay and objectives were boring, and the forced service-type additions made the whole thing feel like a cheap cash grab.
If it had proper support from EA and launched in a more complete position, and no one can convince us otherwise Anthem could be going strong to this day. But, as everyone knows, that was far from the case, and the hype ended at the moment of its launch, leaving a sour taste in everyone's mouth!
Starfield
A whole lot of nothing
Oh boy, where do we start with this one? Starfield is such a fascinating title, because it was marketed as a game that had been in development for eight years, but launched with very little, giant planets that were either empty or had an enemy type on them, disappointingly shallow RPG elements, an uninspired and decent-at-best plot with some of the most unpredictable characters.
Starfield certainly has its fans, and that's fine, but we weren't one of them. The game felt lifeless and doesn't respect your playstyle at all. Pre-ordering it on Steam exclusively for mods was also a mistake as the modding community essentially abandoned the ship. Bethesda, please, don't drop The Elder Scrolls 6!
Powerful number 9
Mega Man fans can never catch a break
After that, we have the infamous Mighty No. 9, which is up there as the poster boy for the anti-pre-order campaign. Considered a spiritual successor to the beloved Mega Man series, with legendary and former Capcom producer Keiji Inafune as its lead writer, there was nothing but hype in the air for this title, with no chance of it ever failing. Or so we thought.
Mighty No. 9 was not only a flop, but it had no substance, style, charm, or meaningfully unique or exciting ideas. We understand that some expectations have not been met, but it's disappointing to be hit with practically everything when the 'worst of them' is made, especially after waiting years for it to come out!
Street Fighter 5
Capcom's dark ages were rough
Last, and certainly not least, we have Street Fighter 5, which some of you may not be aware of if you jumped in after Street Fighter 6 due to its release. While Champion Edition was pretty good, Street Fighter 5's initial launch added a step up from Top Fighter. the time
Street Fighter 5 felt incredibly rushed, had terrible netcode and matchmaking, suffered from lag, and lacked content for a long time before they were addressed, let alone resolved. It was a rough time to be a Street Fighter fan, and that hasn't really changed nearly six years after its release, which is pretty incredible that people have actually stuck around this long!
