Gaming
Games
5 Overhyped Games That Died After Launch
Video game FOMO is a real thing, and it hurts real bad. So when all of a sudden that hype goes dead-quiet, you might let out a sigh of relief that you managed to avoid boarding the hype train.
There’s probably nothing worse than seeing a game being hyped all over social media, news sites, YouTube, you name it, only to know that you aren’t going to be getting your hands on it. Except when it all goes quiet...
Here are the 5 most overhyped games that fell off the face of the Earth post-launch.
Tom Clancy’s The Division
The Division
© The Division Zone
This one was a real disappointment considering the kind of potential it had. The Division was touted as a premier open-world multiplayer experience that was not to be missed- and the hype was believed, with developer Ubisoft announcing it as their best-selling game ever at the time as well as breaking industry records for launch sales of any new franchise. Players hopped on the bandwagon happily… and then quickly hopped off. Reviews started pouring in criticising the game for its repetitive nature, lacking any sort of variety in missions and activites on offer- which, for an MMO-type title, is a little lacklustre. The numbers don’t lie either, and in just 3 months the Steam peak player count dropped by 94% to only 7,250 players. Ouch- let’s hope the upcoming sequel can give this franchise some sort of redemption.
Sea of Thieves
Naval battle
© Polygon
Sailing the seas as a pirate with all your friends by your side, combating other players, exploring and looting and everything in between? Count us in! This was the general reaction when news of Sea of Thieves first hit, and the game truly sounded very promising- until release day, that is. Once people started realising the sheer lack of content for what was priced as a full AAA title, players jumped ship. More than half of Xbox users did not renew the game once the free trial was over, and interest on Twitch and YouTube dwindled drastically. Sure, the developers insisted that they were going to roll out additional content and build on the base game, but this may just be one of those cases of too little, too late.
Evolve
Hunters and Monster
© Forbes
A moment of silence for the game known as Evolve. Probably one of the most extreme cases of player count drops in recent years, Evolve was actually a success upon release- the game saw four players assume the role of hunters, whilst the fifth player would be chosen as a monster, and ultimately the two sides would battle it out until one stood victorious. The concept was cool, and the reviews were even pretty good, but that just couldn’t save this game from its quick demise. With the dramatic fall in active players, the game went free-to-play just over a year after release, followed by the servers being fully shut down just two years later. Rest in peace, Evolve- we’re sure someone will remember you.
Destiny 2
Destiny 2
© Engadget
Perhaps just a case of a money-grab gone wrong, it’s always a shame when a sequel fails to deliver on what made the original so great. Bungie’s 2014 title Destiny was a huge hit at the time, with the game earning over half a billion dollars on day one of release- that’s no small feat. So when Destiny 2 was announced, there was a relative amount of hype, albeit a little confusion- the first game was once advertised as having a so-called “10-year plan” which made the second game’s announcement only 2.5 years later a tad puzzling. Well, the release certainly showed it, with players knocking the game for changing very little from the original Destiny formula, plus the fact that only 25% of the player base were around 4 months later. Destiny 2 just couldn’t justify its existence- and we can’t either.
For Honor
Viking victorious
© GameSpot
This last one probably just goes to show that while new can be exciting, sometimes old ideas are the best ones. For Honor sought out to shake up the fighting game genre, putting the player in the shoes of classes such as Vikings and Samurais that got to battle it out in a medieval world. Releasing with both single-player and multiplayer modes, reception was positive- but that didn’t entice anyone to actually stick around. The game was riddled with technical issues in matchmaking, and the games niche design unfortunately didn’t serve to keep it going- couple that with some nasty microtransactions and you have yourself a recipe for disaster. Sorry For Honor- better luck next time.
That’s all for our list! While there are a few other duds to be mentioned here and there, one thing we can all agree on is that we’ll collectively be hoping for just a little less of these kind of games in the future.
