For consistency sake, let’s say that any game that’s >or=7/10 at what it’s trying to do while having a popular perception of being a <5/10 game in general would count. Want to specify that this is more about the perception of the game compared to, say, a game just being really niche.
My personal Go-to for this would probably be the Callisto Protocol, because while it certainly did have some troubles at launch they were massively overblown. IMO most of the hate for it comes down to people expecting it to be Dead Space 4 with a new name, ignoring the devs the multitude of times they said that it’s something else before release, and then getting mad when it released and wasn’t dead space 4 under a new name.
Maybe a bit unpopular but… Cyberpunk 2077. I followed this game intensely since it was first announced with nothing more than a short animatic sequence. It went through all kinds of changes, and many of those were publicly documented before the launch of the game and still had people complaining that they were not in the final game.
It did kind of start with pretty pie in the sky promises, but over thirteen years those promises were tempered. The hacking stuff most people point to is technically all there. Just not as presented in that extremely obvious pre-rendering. Many of the other disappointing things like cops not chasing you should have been expected. They were adamant about it not being like GTA and the cops wouldn’t give chase the same way.
Somehow, everyone got hyped to shit about a lot of stuff with this game only ever mentioned way early into production while they were still brainstorming ideas they wanted to do while I was watching every single thing CDPR put out about it and ended up getting exactly what I expected. My biggest disappointment with the game is the overhype and overreaction leading to them cancelling a lot of planned additions and likely even completely changing the scope of the DLC.
That isn’t to say I think it’s a flawless masterpiece; I expected The Witcher 3 but sci-fi, and I feel that’s what I got. Great story, well done dialogue, cool world, and fun combat. I see a lot of bad decisions and unfinished pieces, but as a long time gamer I can’t say I don’t expect that kind of shit from pretty much every game. Even the best games have those parts where you can clearly see the budget dropped off or management pulled some bullshit.
I’m on my 3rd play through. It’s still janky and buggy in some regards, but my god the theme, the characterisation, the stories, the plot. It’s how you put together an open world game, where immersion relies on the art of story telling.
Someone tell Todd Howard. Maybe the next Bethesda game won’t be so incredibly bland.
The v2.0 changes were actually pretty good, made me want to start another playthrough. I really like the new metro system even though it’s such a small thing considering everything else they changed, but it’s fun to be able to hop onto a metro to get somewhere. The game is already pretty immersive and that small detail just adds to it
I just did a replay recently and it was a lot of fun. They really nailed environments, sound, really the whole look and feel of the thing. Gameplay too; I did a monowire netrunner build this time and it was wild. Unlike anything I’ve played before, really. But I did have to cheat a bit to get there.
There used to be a monowire you could go grab out of a box right from the start, but they took it out and locked access to any monowire behind street smarts. I added a console to give myself one and added some cyberware while I’m at it, because why not chrome up?
This was, in fact, totally fine. The locking out doesn’t seem to have anything at all to do with balance.
I did have to spawn myself a bunch of these new shards to increase my cyberware limit, though, because they decided to cap them out and add an item to unlock them. Again, my going crazy with it really didn’t disrupt balance at all.
So why? Because someone in some department somewhere sees game mechanics as a commodity, and they’re treating them like dlc. I get an infinite sea of generic weapons, but try to do the cyberpunk things and the game wags its finger.
Aside from treating game mechanics as a commodity and meting out little scraps, it really doesn’t seem to have any concern for player autonomy when it comes to a lot of the quests. At one point they shoved me into a hideous green snake skin pantsuit and I stopped playing for a week. The game repeatedly forced me to use a pistol, turning what would have been fun quests into obnoxious slogs while I waited to be allowed to play the game again.
Hell, even a pivotal moment in the DLC literally forces a gun into my hands and glitches out if I try to do anything it doesn’t expect. I had a character literally glitch its hands through its head to shoot at me when I tried to run behind it. That’s not even mentioning the numerous points where going off the rails just immediately kills you and forces you to reload. Not because of anything actually dangerous or bad, but just because you’re not supposed to go that way. Rather than making some obstacle, they literally just pick you up and put you back on the path. Could have invented literally anything to explain it away, maybe a security shield or something that kills anyone with a head computer who tries to leave the area, but they just didn’t bother. Telling the player ‘no’ is enough for them. Cool. Fun.
It’s a fun game overall, but it could have been a way better game with a little more inter-departmental communication, a few less money people, and a little more respect for player agency.
How do you get 13 years? It’s been 11 years since the pre-rendered teaser trailer, and it was less than that between announcement and release. They also were open about not being full force on development for the game until Witcher 3 finished, and the announcement trailer served as a recruitment tool, something that most studios don’t do anymore.
Er… I think I was just thinking 2013 when that teaser came out. Them not being full-on in development was part of my point. A lot of things they mentioned that hyped the game up were before they were actually set in stone and actively being worked on.
Well, if you feel that that’s what set that game up for failure, let me tell you about another RPG going through the exact same cycle: the next Mass Effect. That game isn’t getting full attention until after Dragon Age. Its first teaser was 3 years ago, and it’s still got at least 3 more years to go, assuming Dragon Age comes out this year.
I expect Elder Scrolls VI to be similarly received. Although, it seems that after Starfield, people are definitely beginning to temper their expectations of the new TES game.
Also announced far too early and it’ll probably only start major development later this year once the Starfield DLC is out (at best), and that’ll last for about four years, but more likely somewhere around five, which means it’ll probably be released about five to six years from now, which is… At least 11 years after announcing it (2018) and a full 18+ years after Skyrim.
Someone could literally have been born after Skyrim and begun college by the time TES VI is released. It’s fucking wild.
Yup. But if Microsoft is smart, they’ll be examining exactly the reasons why Starfield is what it is and how to improve the next BGS game. That will start with throwing their engine away, because any way you slice it, there’s just no saving that thing.
Sometimes devs just need to keep their big mouths shut. Especially if they are still in the planning phase. They’re not immune to over-excitement for the very thing they are hoping to create, even if they aren’t straight up lying about stuff.
The launch was a disaster on consoles. But on PC, while still having bugs, wasn’t anywhere near as bad. The game is fantastic.