Console exclusives are one of the biggest reasons why fans flock towards one platform over the other. These games need to hit a level of quality that would entice anyone to buy a console and experience them immediately, and we have seen plenty of such compelling system sellers over the years. But every so often, it happens that a highly anticipated exclusive fails to fulfill its lofty promises, and what we get are games that are complete disasters. In this feature, we will be looking at a few examples and what they did wrong to end up in this rundown of 15 of the biggest exclusives that failed miserably.
Redfall
Arkane has cemented itself as one of the top names when it comes to creating highly dynamic sandboxes with the likes of Dishonored and Prey, and the studio is definitely one of the crown jewels of the Xbox Game Studios roster post the Zenimax acquisition. Fans were understandably excited about Arkane’s Xbox exclusive project Redfall, a co-op game that blends the developer’s signature ability-based gameplay into the core gameplay loop of looting and shooting that had the potential to be a smash hit.
But in actuality, Redfall is anything but. It’s a painfully generic looter shooter that’s subject to a bevy of gameplay and technical problems. Repetitive content, dull gameplay, and an uninteresting story are just some of Redfall’s issues that get compounded with a wide variety of technical issues to make for a consistently frustrating experience. It’s obviously a big shock for fans of Arkane’s works, and there’s no doubt the developer has heavily fumbled with this project.
