Developing video games isn’t easy. You spend years working on a game and only get to find out whether all that work has been successful or a total waste of time when the game finally gets released. For some games, all that effort is worth it, as the gamesells in big numbersand makes significant profits. For other games, such as the recently releasedConcord, the developers must wish they’d never even started on the game.
This week Sony announced that Concord, a first-person hero shooter developed by Firewalk Studios, is to be discontinued and pulled offlineless than two weeks after its release. Concord is far from the only game to have a disastrous launch, however, with some of the most-hypedvideo gamesin recent times coming crashing down to earth with a bang upon release.
Despite horrific launches, however, some titles go on to become highly respectable games after bugs are fixed, and new content is added, so all hope is not yet lost. Here are five of the worst video game launches in history that can offer a glimmer of hope for Concord.
1Cyberpunk 2077
Even Keanu couldn’t rescue the initial release
An open-world action RPG starring Keanu Reeves from CD Projekt Red, the game developer responsible for the excellentWitcher series? What’s not to love? Trailers got people excited, and the hype only grew when50 minutes of gameplayfrom the game was released.
After several delays,Cyberpunk 2077was finally released into the wild, and it did not go well. If you played on a high-end PC, things were mostly fine, although there were still some significant bugs and glitches. However, the performance on PS4 andXbox Onewas not good, with poor graphics and serious technical problems.
In scenes similar to another recently launched product with “cyber” in the name, many people tried to defend their expensive purchase by pointing out the good parts, while the majority of people just looked on laughing.
People flocked to forums to post gameplay footage of character graphics taking several seconds to load or characters and vehicles passing through supposedly solid surfaces. In scenes similar to another recently launched productwith “cyber” in the name, many people tried to defend their expensive purchase by pointing out the good parts, while the majority of people just looked on laughing.
CD Projekt Red was forced to issue apologies and even to provide refunds to people who had bought the game in good faith. Things eventually led to Sony removing the game from the PlayStation Store for a while. However, despite the horrific launch, CD Projekt Red continued to make improvements, and it’s now a genuinely good game, as long as you’re not playing it on an older console.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world action-adventure from the creators of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, CD Projekt Red.Set in Night City, a megalopolis obsessed with power, glamour and body modification, you play as V, a mercenary outlaw going after a one-of-a-kind implant that is the key to immortality.
2No Man’s Sky
Another game that couldn’t live up to the hype
Just like with Cyberpunk 2077, the hype forNo Man’s Skywas partly responsible for severely negative reaction when the game was released. The initial trailer promised a game where every planet was procedural, every planet was unique, and every planet was unexplored. The trailer even claimed that every atom was procedural, which has to be one of the boldest claims I’ve seen for a video game.
People were understandably excited about what promised to be a game that would be filled with unique worlds to explore, making every player’s experience personal to just them. Huge numbers were thrown around, with the game supposedly containing a possible18 quintillionprocedurally generated planets. Sean Murray from Hello Games regularly hyped the game with claims such as the fact that if a new planet in the game was discovered every second, it would take584 billion yearsto find them all.
Huge numbers were thrown around, with the game supposedly containing a possible18 quintillionprocedurally generated planets.
When the game finally launched, many players felt misled by the hype, with the game falling far below people’s expectations. It turns out if you generate 18 quintillion different planets, a lot of them are going to feel very, very similar, and aren’t going to contain 18 quintillion different things you’re able to do. Early reviews lamented the continual, fairly boring grind for resources and and the poor combat mechanics, as well as a lot of empty space between all these billions of worlds. After so much hype, the disappointment was palpable.
However, as with Cyberpunk 2077, Hello Games has kept plugging away, taking on board criticisms and making improvements. While the game still doesn’t live up to the initial hype, which to be honest was never going to be possible, it’s now a solid game if you go into it without outlandish expectations.
No Man’s Sky
No Man’s Sky is a hugely-ambitious, heavily-stylised, sci-fi adventure that spans entire galaxies all brought to life with procedural generation. Travel through an endless array of increasingly diverse and dangerous star systems, prospecting for rare materials, trading with alien life, populate planets and searching for clues to the meaning of the universe’s mysterious existence.
3Fallout 76
There really was a lot of fallout
Fallout is a truly loved franchise. Just look at the reaction, both positive and negative, to theAmazon Prime Video live-action seriesbased on the games. The original Fallout was released all the way back in 1997 to a positive reception. After Fallout 2 was released by Black Isle Studios the following year, there was a wait of ten more years before Fallout 3 was released in 2008 by Bethesda. Considered the best game in the franchise by many, it was followed in 2015 byFallout 4, which was also positively received.
The news that Bethesda was working on the first online multiplayer Fallout game was understandably met with excitement. However, when the game launched, it was immediately apparent that a studio that had produced excellent single-player RPGs didn’t have the same level of expertise when it came to making an open-world multiplayer action RPG.
The initial game didn’t even contain any non-player characters (NPCs) at all, with the only inhabitants being other players and robots.
The problems were numerous. The number of bugs and glitches was staggering; you may still find some entertaining videos on YouTube that show just how bad things were at launch. The game would often crash, and many users found that their accounts were hacked and the characters that they’d worked for hours to level up were deleted, with no way to restore them. The initial game didn’t even contain any non-player characters (NPCs) at all, with the only inhabitants being other players and robots.
But by far the worst thing aboutFallout 76? It was just boring. Bethesda took all the criticism on board and continued to release patches and updates to the game. It saw a big surge in popularity when the Amazon Fallout show was released, and while it will never be considered one of the better games in the franchise, it is at least a decent game at last, and yes, there really are NPCs now.
Fallout 76
Fallout 76 is a new horizon for the long-standing series, giving players an MMO world to explore, where they can meet other players and embark on quests with them.
4Star Wars Battlefront II
The launch was a disaster before the game came out.
Star Wars Battlefront IIis an interesting example of a game that was a disaster even before its official launch. It is perhaps most infamous for generating what was at the time the single most downvoted comment in the history of Reddit.
All the outrage centered around EA’s decision to include microtransactions in the game. The beta version of the game was launched to garner feedback from players, who immediately focused on the fact that the progression system was heavily dependent on loot boxes. While it was possible to earn these loot boxes through grinding, you could also simply purchase them with real money, which allowed players willing to pay to advance more quickly.
It is perhaps most infamous for generating what was at the time the single most downvoted comment in the history of Reddit.
One Reddit user then made an in-game purchase for $80 which he believed would allow him to unlock Darth Vader, only to discover that this required credits and not the crystals that he had bought. After complaining about this on Reddit, a reply from EAreceived almost 700,000 downvotes, the most on any post in Reddit history at the time.
What often gets forgotten is that EA did actually listen to these complaints and when the game officially launched, microtransactions had been completely pulled from the game while the company worked to improve the system. The company continued to make changes that significantly improved the game beyond the initial version. The game still has a dedicated community and has survived despite its rocky start.
Star Wars Battlefront 2
The game lasted less than two weeks, but there is still hope
A lot has beenwritten about Concordsince it launched at the end of August. It’s no surprise, with Sony having made the decision to take the game offline and cease sales after less than two weeks, with gamers who purchased Concord offered full refunds. The game was plagued with low engagement and poor sales, despite years of development.
However, this may not be the end for Concord. As the games above show, a disastrous launch does not necessarily mean that a game is consigned to the graveyard. Games that have met with anger or ridicule at launch have gone on to become successful games that provide hundreds of hours of enjoyment for their players.
However, this may not be the end for Concord. As the games above show, a disastrous launch does not necessarily mean that a game is consigned to the graveyard.
Whether Concord becomes one of those games remains to be seen. The core issues seem more to do with people simply not wanting to buy or play the game, when there are similar games that are completely free to play. It’s less a case of a game being overhyped, or being rushed out when it was nowhere near finished. This does seem to be a case of the wrong game, at the wrong time, with the wrong method of monetization.
Still, it may be the case that rather than simply ditching the game after spending so much time and money developing it, there may be a chance to rework it into something that has more appeal and may be more of a success. Time will tell.
Assemble your crew of Freegunner space outlaws and team up online with friends for thrilling 5v5 PVP modes across the galaxy in Concord.Concord is a new team-based first-person shooter for PS5® and PC*. Handpick your personal roster of Freegunners from the crew of the Northstar – a group of outlaws and adventurers working as guns-for-hire.
