Over the years, there have been quite a few disastrous game launches, with the most recent example being CD Projekt Red’s handling of Cyberpunk 2077. Like many other disastrous game launches of the past, Cyberpunk 2077 has all kinds of issues and broken promises, which has in turn led to the game’s publisher and retailers offering refunds to any dissatisfied customers.
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However, Cyberpunk 2077 is far from the first disastrous video game launch, and it likely won’t be the last. Here are 10 of the biggest video game launch disasters that the industry has seen so far.
10 Anthem
Expectations were high for BioWare’s Anthem when the game was nearing its 2019 release. BioWare had built a reputation for itself as being an exceptional studio, delivering classic, critically-acclaimed gaming experiences on a regular basis. Anthem’s troubled development is well-documented, however, and those issues led to a disastrous launch that the online multiplayer shooter still hasn’t recovered from.
Anthem earned mixed reviews at the time of its release, and while it wasn’t nearly as poorly-received as some of the other titles listed here, its poor reception led to it being a commercial failure for EA. BioWare is looking to revamp Anthem, but it’s unclear if gamers will be willing to give the game a second chance. Not only that, but BioWare seems to be focused on Dragon Age 4 and the new Mass Effect game, so it’s unclear how much attention Anthem will be getting in the months ahead.
9 Assassin’s Creed Unity
Generally speaking, most of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed games have earned strong reviews from critics, with Assassin’s Creed 2, Brotherhood, and Black Flag standing out as some of the most well-received entries in the series. And even the lower-scoring Assassin’s Creed games still earned decent marks, with praise often given to their graphics and accurate recreations of historical places and landmarks. Unfortunately, Assassin’s Creed Unity broke the franchise’s winning streak, launching in a poor technical state and hampered by bugs and other major issues. Assassin’s Creed Unity’s technical performance at launch was so bad that Ubisoft issued an apology and gave away free games to make it up to upset fans.
8 Cyberpunk 2077
The most recent example of a disastrous video game launch, Cyberpunk 2077 from CD Projekt Red finds itself in one controversy after another. Initially, Cyberpunk 2077 reviews were mostly positive, but it soon became apparent that reviewers had only been allowed to play the game on a high-end PC. Cyberpunk 2077 on base PS4 and Xbox One systems is a largely broken experience, with especially bad graphics and major technical issues. Some of these bugs and technical issues plague the game on the more-powerful platforms as well, with a Cyberpunk 2077 save corruption glitch serving as one of the latest problems discovered in the open world game.
Cyberpunk 2077 has performed so poorly on base PS4 and Xbox One consoles that CD Projekt Red has had to issue numerous apologies and offer refunds. Sony has pulled Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store for the time being, while Microsoft has added a disclaimer to the game’s page on the Xbox Live Marketplace. These are virtually unprecedented moves, harming not only the game’s reputation, but the reputation of CD Projekt Red as well.
CD Projekt Red previously presented itself as a consumer friendly company, but now that reputation has been seriously damaged. Its next goal will be to fix Cyberpunk 2077 and hope that the game’s debut on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X will be a second chance at a first impression. Whether or not CD Projekt Red is able to turn around public opinion surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 remains to be seen, but we’ll find out in the weeks and months ahead.
7 Fallout 76
Like CD Projekt Red, Bethesda had a strong reputation of delivering high quality gaming experiences, with almost all of its titles earning widespread critical acclaim. Bethesda then let fans down with Fallout 76, an online multiplayer take on its popular Fallout franchise, which had severe technical problems and a general lack of content at launch. Bethesda has since made great efforts to improve the Fallout 76 experience, adding new content like NPCs, while also working to improve the game’s technical issues. Fallout 76 may still not be quite on the same level as some of Bethesda’s classic games, but it’s definitely in a much better position than it was in when it first launched.
6 Final Fantasy 14
Nowadays, Final Fantasy 14 is considered one of the industry’s top MMORPGs, perhaps second only to Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. Square Enix has kept Final Fantasy fans engaged with Final Fantasy 14 with expansions, regular content updates, and a genuinely thrilling story. However, it wasn’t always like this. Final Fantasy 14’s initial launch was a disaster, plagued by bugs and other issues that made it a massive stain on the long-running franchise’s otherwise impressive legacy. Final Fantasy 14’s poor reception also hurt the game’s sales, with Square Enix deciding to wipe the slate clean and reboot the Final Fantasy 14 experience. With A Realm Reborn, Square Enix was able to turn Final Fantasy 14’s misfortunes around, and the game remains popular to this day.
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5 Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Halo: The Master Chief Collection had the ambitious goal of bringing Halo 1-4 to the Xbox One in a single package, along with a remastered version of Halo 2 for that game’s anniversary. Halo: The Master Chief Collection seemed as though it would be a surefire hit for Xbox, but it was actually more of a misfire at launch. While the campaign content was acclaimed by fans and critics alike, Halo: The Master Chief Collection’s online multiplayer component was completely broken at launch. Fans were unable to play Halo: The Master Chief Collection online in many cases, and this combined with a number of other technical issues seriously hurt the game’s reputation out of the gate. 343 Industries has worked hard to bring Halo: The Master Chief Collection to a working state, and now not only does the game work well, but it has added a ton of additional content for fans to dig through.
4 No Man’s Sky
No Man’s Sky wasn’t a technical disaster at launch like some of the other games mentioned here, but it did fail to live up to fan expectations, and in some big ways. Hello Games developer Sean Murray seemingly lied or exaggerated about many of the features No Man’s Sky would supposedly have at launch, making the game seem much more ambitious than it actually was when it hit store shelves. With consumers feeling misled about the game, many sought out refunds for No Man’s Sky, in a similar debacle to what’s going on with Cyberpunk 2077, though not on the same scale.
While Hello Games could’ve given up on No Man’s Sky, it instead decided to double down on the project, releasing new content to bring it closer to what fans expected from it in the first place. No Man’s Sky has received multiple expansions since its rocky launch that have gone a long way in improving the game’s social standing, helping it become one of the more popular ongoing multiplayer games currently available.
3 SimCity (2013)
The 2013 version of SimCity was one of the first games to require an online connection, even though it had single-player modes. Many fans were already upset by this requirement, but if that wasn’t bad enough, SimCity’s online connection was keeping many people from playing the game at all. SimCity players had widespread difficulties connecting to the game’s online service, essentially making it impossible to even play its single-player modes. EA eventually made it possible to play SimCity offline, but it came about a year after launch.
2 Star Wars Battlefront 2
Star Wars Battlefront 2’s launch was so rough that it literally got politicians involved. Star Wars Battlefront 2 was widely criticized on release for its use of loot boxes and for having a monetization scheme that many deemed to be predatory in nature. The company was also accused of making certain content take absurd hours of grinding to unlock in an effort to drive consumers to purchasing Star Wars Battlefront 2’s microtransactions. EA tried to defend itself on Reddit by stating that it wanted to give players “a sense of pride and accomplishment” for taking the time to unlock content in the game. This became the most-downvoted comment in Reddit history.
Significant changes were made to Star Wars Battlefront 2’s progression system, with developer DICE taking this negative feedback into account. DICE successfully turned the game around in some regards, supporting it for years with regular content updates and addressing lingering technical problems. So while Star Wars Battlefront 2 had a disastrous launch, the game did make a comeback, to the point where fans were making petitions to try convincing DICE to continue working on it after it was announced that support would cease.
1 WWE 2K20
WWE video games are often a mixed-bag, but few of them have ever been as bad as WWE 2K20. WWE 2K20 was a broken mess at launch (and still is, in many respects), full of severe technical issues and bugs, not to mention lacking any compelling or meaningful content. WWE 2K20 reviews were scathing as a result, to the point where it quickly became one of the worst-reviewed video games ever produced.
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