30. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst

The fact that the world of Mirror’s Edge had such untapped potential, to the point that many desired a sequel years after its launch, is a testament to its impact. The first-person parkour model would be in other titles, most notably Dying Light, but the focus on platforming and skill-based jumping, not to mention the gorgeous dystopian world, helped it stand out.

So when DICE finally announced Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, which offered a more open world, the excitement was palpable, even if it was revealed to be a reboot. While it retained the fluid movement and responsive controls, the world felt barren, the story rudimentary and the ending inane. DICE has no plans to return to the franchise, and for all its appealing aspects, Mirror’s Edge is pretty much dead.

29. Rise of the Ronin

As a fan of Team Ninja’s Nioh series and even finding some enjoyment in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, it’s sad to see how Rise of the Ronin turned out. On the one hand, it’s earned some praise for its combat and even the directions you can take the story. On the other hand, critics have expressed disappointment with its open world, English voice acting, story and visuals.

While there were plenty of comparisons to Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima, I feel that they’re both distinct enough and trying to do their own thing. So why is Rise of the Ronin so underwhelming? Well, for starters, it’s a PS5 exclusive in development for seven years, with Sony’s support, which lends certain expectations. This isn’t to say that all reviews were equally hard on the game, as indicated by the 76 Metascore, but ranking fifth in physical sales for the UK at launch and dropping to 14th place the next week is nothing short of disappointing.

28. Need for Speed (2015)

Years of requests for a new Need for Speed Underground title and Electronic Arts delivered…sort of. Employing real-world legends like Ken Block, it was ultimately about a cast of street racers struggling to get noticed. While the customization and visuals received praise, the uninteresting story, AI prone to rubberbanding, multiplayer and lack of certain features (including drag racing) soured fans. There was also the always-online requirement with no option to pause. It would have qualified as one of the weaker games in the franchise, but then Payback happened and drastically lowered the bar.

27. Biomutant

When a game like Biomutant promises a massive world with choices and consequences, extensive character customization, vehicles, deep combat mechanics and much more, it’s hard to not get hyped. The fact that it was five years in the making, with Experiment 101 consisting of former Just Cause developers, further contributed to this. However, all those intriguing bits turned out to be incredibly shallow, from the story and combat to the mission design and annoying narrator. An update helped improve things, and with a million units sold in a few months, it was far from a flop, but it still has a ways to go.

26. The Order: 1886

Ready at Dawn’s The Order: 1886 received extensive attention for its graphics, with gorgeous facial animation and lighting. The presentation also received significant praise, but everything else left much to be desired. The campaign was ephemeral, with the disappointing story (despite such an intriguing setting and premise) and over-reliance on quick-time events bogging down the overall gameplay. Ending on a cliffhanger with no prospects for a sequel didn’t help either.

25. Exoprimal

Piloting exosuits to battle hordes of dinosaurs sounds like a good idea in theory, but what is live service? The developer’s to join the trend resulted in Exoprimal, which featured a story focused on time traveling, simulations run by a rogue AI called Leviathan, and so much dino slaying. The story felt disjointed, with the characters getting little development, and the lackluster map variety and repetitive objectives brought the experience down. The developer has expanded on the different modes at least while also adding new Alpha variants of Exosuits (Beta variants are coming soon), but its launch state was just so underwhelming.

24. Star Fox Zero

Not that Star Fox had the best run since peaking with Star Fox 64, but Zero had PlatinumGames involved. Surely, the Wii U controls would allow for a compelling shoot-’em-up experience. As you’ve probably guessed, that isn’t the case, as the controls were criticized for their unwieldiness. It also didn’t help that the experience heavily mirrored Star Fox 64, though some critics enjoyed the approach. With less than 500,000 copies sold, it flopped hard, and there hasn’t been a follow-up ever since.

23. Thief (2014)

One of the most beloved cult classic stealth series of all time, Thief was considered as revolutionary for PC players as Metal Gear Solid for consoles. So when Eidos Montreal announced a reboot, there was excitement and perhaps a little trepidation, especially after Garrett’s old voice actor was replaced. A dull performance was the least of the game’s problems, with the level design, AI and story all feeling out of sorts. While opinions settled more on the slightly above side, Thief (2014) couldn’t match up to the original games in player freedom and choice.

22. Days Gone

The praise for Days Gone, Bend Studio’s open-world zombie survival title, cropped up most when it was free on PlayStation Plus. Full credit to the team for sticking with it and adding sizable new content and features, but that’s not the launch version. The latter was roundly criticized for its excessive bugs, performance issues and loading screens (that too after delays for more polish), to say nothing of the bland story and awful dialogue. The open world, the motorcycle maintenance mechanics, the shooting – nearly everything had its downsides.

Make no mistake – there were some positives, from the immense undead hordes to the progression, and it notched up some impressive sales numbers, topping the UK physical charts for three weeks in a row and outselling the combined total of Bend’s previous games. However, it was nowhere near the high bar set by first-party Sony titles. Perhaps for this reason, the publisher didn’t greenlight a sequel and directors John Garvin and Jeff Ross subsequently left the studio. As beloved as it is now, there’s no denying that Days Gone underwhelmed at launch.

21. RAGE 2

For its time, RAGE was trying to do something technologically ahead of its time courtesy of id Tech 5. However, it faced criticism for its overall story and forgettable characters, not to mention the aggravating cliffhanger at the end. The fact that it launched after the more successful Borderlands, which captured the Mad Max feel of a post-apocalyptic wasteland far better, also didn’t help. Nevertheless, it did receive some praise for its visuals, combat, side missions and AI.

With RAGE 2, Avalanche Studios decided to go for a more traditional open-world first-person shooter with vehicles. You had the usual enemy camps to clear, some points of interest and enemy convoys to assault, while the story was a paint-by-numbers “gather the MacGuffins” before a showdown with the big bad. The combat and visuals were still worthy of praise, but everything else felt further downgraded over the original, and it had microtransactions.

20. Immortals of Aveum

Coming from a new team with a five-year development cycle and emphasis on a single-player campaign with no microtransactions, Immortals of Aveum was a noble endeavor. Problems arose with the overall story, graphical issues on consoles, iffy dialogue (with the cast trying its very best to elevate it), and controls. With the emphasis on fast-paced mage combat, encounters could feel repetitive, ultimately underwhelming despite some impressive set pieces. Again, it received updates and new content while attracting a following, but Immortals of Aveum failed to leave a mark.

19. Shenmue 3

A sequel that fans (and creator Yu Suzuki) craved since the second game’s release in 2001. An announcement years in the making with $6 million in crowd-funding. A launch finally happening four years later, mired in controversy due to Epic Games Store exclusivity and a publishing deal with Deep Silver. Shenmue 3 finally arrived in 2015 and was panned for its outdated mechanics and storyline that ended on yet another cliffhanger. While some found the antiquated mechanics to be the appeal, it ended up feeling inconsequential and just another chapter in the ongoing story which would likely end.

18. The Callisto Protocol

Spiritual successors to classics from the original creators never fail to generate attention, as seen with Striking Distance’s The Callisto Protocol. This Dead Space tribute sported gorgeous visuals punctuated by over-the-top and grotesque death sequences. Delays and declarations of crunch didn’t help, nor did the performance issues at launch. Of course, despite all that, the experience was dragged for being overtly linear with shoddy melee combat, no option to skip the death scenes, a short playtime, heaps of unrealized potential and ultimately, not measuring up to the legacy of Dead Space.

17. Rainbow Six Extraction

After the success of the limited-time mode Outbreak in Rainbow Six Siege, Ubisoft did what any self-serving publisher would do – spin it off into a new game and monetize it. Extraction would take a while to launch, initially announced as Rainbow Six Quarantine in 2019 (and eventually abandoning the name for obvious reasons).

It would finally arrive in January 2022 after multiple delays and revealed itself as a session of interconnected areas with procedurally generated objectives and enemies. The sparse content, terrible objectives, bad AI, laughable story and repetition sadly made for a dull experience. While the developer would tout three million players in the first week (likely in no small part thanks to Game Pass), you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who remembered it past the first month.

16. Crackdown 3

Before Microsoft pushed cloud gaming via Game Pass, it hyped the computational powers of the same and how they would revolutionize gaming. Crackdown 3 was an example, touted as having a fully destructible open world. It eventually relegated into a separate mode, which quickly died out, while the base campaign launched after years of delay and generated ire for its archaic, repetitive design. Could you have some mindless fun? Sure, but it was a far cry from what Microsoft hyped the project to be and far from the next big leap for the franchise.

15. Resident Evil 3 (2020)

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis has always occupied a weird place due to its shorter length and unorthodox features (like the titular villain). Releasing in the shadow of the brilliant Resident Evil 2 didn’t help – unfortunately, that same fate awaited Resident Evil 3 remake. Despite some fantastic visuals and combat, it was more notable for omitting areas (city hall, the clock tower and more were nowhere to be seen) or changing some of the original’s most iconic moments.

Barring the final sequence, none of them felt like an improvement. The fact that Mercenaries wasn’t included, but we got Resistance, a terrible asymmetrical multiplayer mode, didn’t help. Even with sales at 8.4 million, Resident Evil 3 is considered the weakest of the modern remakes.

14. Wolfenstein Youngblood

MachineGames delivered not one but two excellent Wolfenstein titles, reviving the franchise for a new generation with some incredibly cinematic storytelling that remains impressive to this day. How did it follow these up? Why, with a co-op title focusing on B.J. Blazkowicz’s daughters, Jessie and Zofia. The initial gameplay showings weren’t terrible, and the prospect of venturing to Paris to take out Nazis was appealing.

Unfortunately, Wolfenstein Youngblood fundamentally failed to capture what made the previous games so successful. Enemies were bullet sponges, causing players to constantly run out of ammo, and the missions were forgettable, with bizarre hub-like stages that felt utterly unnecessary to the campaign’s flow. Throw in terrible AI when playing solo and microtransactions, and it felt like a poorly conceived side story rather than a proper follow-up to MachineGames’ hits.

13. Forspoken

You want to believe that Luminous Productions had good intentions when designing Forspoken, first announced as Project Athia. Boasting a premier writing staff and billed as a two-year PS5 exclusive, it could have been the developer’s next big thing. While the combat wasn’t terrible, it did little to uplift the barren open world and dull activities.

The initially awful dialogue and plot also weighed it down, but even as things improved over time, the story was over quickly. It wasn’t long before the developer declared that Forspoken’s sales were “lackluster” and by May, Luminous was reorganized and merged into the publisher.

12. Mighty No. 9

Also considered one of the worst games ever made, Mighty No. 9’s development history would have suggested otherwise. It was helmed by a new team at Comcept who promised a spiritual successor to the Mega Man franchise when the developer had effectively kept the series on the back burner.

Then the delays happened, and that whole second Kickstarter campaign to fund a completely different project. By the time Mighty No. 9 launched, it was beset by performance issues, terrible voice acting, lack of content and an overall feel that screamed “cheap imitation” rather than spiritual successor.

11. Skull and Bones

Before its multitude of delays that whittled any faith that anyone had in the developer to deliver a competent pirate game, Skull and Bones had some potential. Its first announcement trailer gave the vibe of an Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag but a stronger focus on naval combat that fans had demanded for years. Of course, then the delays happened, followed by reports of reboots, behind-the-scenes issues, incompetent upper management, leadership departures, etc. When Skull and Bones was close to launching – for real this time – Yves Guillemot made the baffling decision to call it a quadruple-A game instead of the tried and true “triple-A.”

Upon launch, and to no one’s surprise, Skull and Bones was a live service grind for “loot”, punctuated by increasingly dull missions and tedious back and forth. Good thing it sold for $70 and included microtransactions. The results were telling – less than one-fourth of Sea of Thieves’ launch sales in the UK and allegedly 850,000 players, including those who played the free trial.

10. Marvel’s Avengers

Marvel’s Avengers didn’t have the best of reveals, competing against the first-ever gameplay of Final Fantasy 7 Remake on the same E3 showcase. Nevertheless, despite how many felt about the lack of resemblance to the Marvel Cinematic Universe actors, it didn’t look terrible either. Live service was seeing a downturn, but with Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal at the helm, how could it go wrong?

Cut to the underwhelming beta and full release, and the distinction between Marvel’s Avengers and a title like Marvel’s Spider-Man became clearer. Despite unique kits for its heroes and some decent visuals, the mission design, objectives and loot were subpar. Post-launch support added some new heroes and content, which did little to raise the player count, and it was subsequently delisted from storefronts in September 2023.

9. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3

While one may joke that Call of Duty is a disappointment year in and year out, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 felt especially egregious. Reports indicated that it was to be an expansion to Modern Warfare 2 focusing on the Mexican cartel that underwent a reboot into a full-fledged game. Calling it that feels dirty due to the painfully short campaign with its lackluster and ultimately inconsequential story that sets up yet another sequel.

Perhaps even worse is the Open Combat Missions, promising sandbox-style action but coming off as lazy with simplistic objectives. Multiplayer was knee-capped out of the gate with the focus on remastered maps for its core 6v6 modes, and despite some solid gameplay, the age-old issues of skill-based matchmaking (or at least how COD approaches it) and connection issues still cropped up. Zombies was the only good thing about this release, but that’s been abandoned after some lackluster updates. At least the microtransactions continue to roll in.

8. Anthem

After the mess of Mass Effect Andromeda, it was the turn of the main BioWare team to produce something special. It was…a live service looter shooter, which emphasized co-op over the developer’s tried and true single-player story-driven approach. As impressive as the initial gameplay reveal seemed, it was reportedly fake – Anthem’s development period was plagued with issues, from crunch to terrible management.

The result is a mess, with poor characterization and dialogue, bad mission design and objectives, a baffling lack of quality of life, performance issues, bugs, glitches, unimaginative loot and a barren endgame. Despite changes and updates, Anthem’s attempt at a do-over was ultimately rejected by EA, and support is effectively dead (though servers remain available).

7. Ghost Recon Breakpoint

Speaking of an underwhelming launch, we have the developer going from Ghost Recon Wildlands, which grew into something great to Ghost Recon Breakpoint and its removal of AI teammates, looter shooter elements, bland open world, bullet sponge drones, bugs, glitches, the list goes on. Why did the developer suddenly want to adopt a shared world shooter approach with the franchise (besides live service revenue)? No one knows, but it was disastrous. The developer would eventually claw a good game out of it, one that still fell short of Wildlands, but at least offered a more tactical experience without worrying about gear scores.

6. Resident Evil 6

After Resident Evil 5, impressions of the franchise weren’t exactly the most positive, with many feeling it veered too much into a more action-heavy approach. Even if Resident Evil 6’s trailers were full of action, there was still the hype behind seeing so many fan favorite characters (and Jake) tearing it up together. The result offered some pretty good combat but flopped in multiple ways. The characters felt off, and the overall pacing of walk a few feet, cutscene, rinse, repeat was a killer. While Resident Evil 6 saw decent sales, its critical reception was in the gutter, but thankfully, it led to the rebooting in Resident Evil 7: biohazard.

5. Payday 3

Considering the ups and downs that Payday 2 saw, it was in a pretty good spot by the time Starbreeze stopped producing new content. Payday 3 would have been the perfect opportunity to start over with a fresh new slate, avoiding its predecessor’s mistakes while ushering in a new age of heist-focused co-op gameplay. Of course, it wasn’t to be with the always-online requirement and lack of an offline mode souring fans early.

This would come back to bite the development team when server and matchmaking issues ensured fans couldn’t play for days. Even after their resolution, the sequel faced heavy criticism for removing features present in Payday 2, whether it was the pre-heist planning map, text chat, or just the option to unready. Sales were below expectations, and given the poor reception, Starbreeze has replaced its CEO to try and turn the ship around. Thus far, it doesn’t look like it’s happening anytime soon.

4. Redfall

Arkane Austin, which specialized in immersive sims like Dishonored and Prey – didn’t inspire too much confidence when it was revealed to be working on a co-op looter shooter. The lack of an offline mode or progress for other players except the host in co-op also didn’t help. On the bright side, the state of Redfall made both issues feel like water under the bridge.

Horrendous AI, performance issues, bugs galore (including catchy music playing during serious scenes), horrible bosses, a dull story, lackluster characterization, bad mission design – everything went wrong. You may argue that expectations were low, but Redfall sunk lower, and still flounders despite some major updates.

3. Battlefield 2042

This one hurt for longtime fans of the franchise, especially coming off of a relatively disappointing Battlefield 5. With no campaign, Battlefield 2042 promised a return to everything that made the series great, wrapped in the veneer of modern combat and massive 128-player battles. Reports emerged of troubled development, and the beta earned some ire, but fans were still hopeful.

Cue the disappointment and savage response on Steam, with the sequel becoming one of the lowest-rated games in the platform’s history overnight. From the removal of the class system to the visuals, destructibility, map design and the scoreboard – that damned scoreboard – Battlefield 2042 was a letdown in every way. It’s improved over the years but is still a far cry from the series’ peak.

2. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Before it was revealed as a live service looter shooter with a boring mission design, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League had a suitable amount of hype. How could fans not be excited when it was Rocksteady’s first new game since 2015’s Batman: Arkham Knight? After its disastrous showing last year, it was delayed almost a year from its original release. Maybe it would add an offline mode and tone down its live service elements, including but not limited to microtransactions and a battle pass.

As it turns out, none of these things happened, and when Suicide Squad launched, it was begrudged for its terrible mission design, repetitive gameplay and boring endgame. After Warner Bros. admitted that it fell short of expectations, Rocksteady would focus on fixing the plethora of network issues and bugs while prepping the first post-launch season. Unsurprisingly, Season of the Joker was another miserable disappointment with its utter lack of story content, boring “new” missions, annoying grind to unlock the Joker as a playable character and audacity to charge for immediate access.

1. Mass Effect Andromeda

Of all the games to disappoint over the years, this one probably hurt the most. It’s not like Mass Effect Andromeda was the next mainline title in the franchise or one that had the budget and resources of Mass Effect 2 and 3. However, as the first new entry in five years, fans looked forward to it all the same. The potential for a new story and setting with an open-world twist also sparked interest. When Andromeda launched, it was quickly clowned for its bugs, facial animation and dialogue.

Those who dived deeper discovered barren planets, uninteresting characters who couldn’t hold a candle to the original heroes and a low-stakes plot. The underwhelming critical reception and sales wouldn’t outright kill the franchise entirely (as evidenced by the recent Legendary Edition and upcoming sequel), but it was the first time that fans began to question BioWare. Of course, Anthem happened, and the rest is history, but Mass Effect Andromeda hurt more.

Wildlands went much further with stuffing its world with bloat and repetitive objectives, and while the story wasn’t anything special, it provided a decent enough set-up for players to hunt down cartel members.

Despite all of the issues, the presence of an AI squad, four-player co-op support, realistic weaponry and an assortment of content helped make it successful at launch. Ubisoft saw this and supported the game for years, adding new features like Ghost Mode and Tier 1, the option to play solo without teammates (remember this one), and paid DLC.

When it announced Ghost Recon Breakpoint, the publisher seemed to be set for success. It simply had to deliver the same compelling gameplay but with new objectives, tactical options, and a new map. Ubisoft Paris revealed a heavier emphasis on survival mechanics, like injuries and stamina management, but the biggest change was it being a solo experience. No AI teammates. The idea was to reinforce a feeling of isolation against overwhelming odds in the new setting of Auroa.

Fan backlash meant the developer had to promise AI teammates post-launch. Even then, the addition of loot elements also caused concern, especially with Ubisoft tossing this into more and more of its franchises over the years without any regard for whether they fit.

Cut to October 2019, and Ghost Recon Breakpoint was released to a disastrous response. Rife with bugs and performance issues, it was a terrible experience from top to bottom for fans and newcomers alike. Instead of an open-world tactical stealth shooter that fans had come to enjoy (even though Wildlands is a distinct step down from previous Ghost Recons), they were given some faux-looter shooter with a social hub.

The gameplay was dumbed down; the survival elements meant almost nothing; the story was horrendous; the enemy AI was a joke when it wasn’t downright atrocious; Auroa as a location felt barren and boring – the list went on. That’s before getting to the microtransactions or, once again, how utterly insignificant the addition of loot and Gear Level was to the overall experience.

But don’t take our word for it. Ubisoft stocks plummeted following its release, and CEO Yves Guillemot confirmed that sales for the title were disappointing. Shortly after its release, Ubisoft Paris acknowledged feedback and fan disappointment before announcing plans to revamp the game into something more akin to its predecessor.

Live support for Ghost Recon Breakpoint ended in April 2022. While Ubisoft added NFTs to the title with its ineptly handled Ubisoft Quartz, the development team is working on an unannounced project. Rumors circulated about a new single-player-focused Ghost Recon being in development. However, after Ubisoft Bucharest’s Ghost Recon Frontline was cancelled, there’s been no word on this.

So whether you pointed and laughed at the game’s release in 2019 or spotted the game recently on Steam, the question is: Is Ghost Recon Breakpoint fixed? More importantly, is it even worth playing? The answer to both these questions is actually yes. While it won’t capture the feel of Wildlands’ setting, Ubisoft Paris released several free updates over the years, improving and revamping the experience in several ways.

It first introduced some changes to the Gunsmith, which allowed players to choose different firing modes for their weapons, like single fire, full auto, additional burst, and automatic fire, depending on the weapon type. It also added new scopes, muzzle flashes and attachments like GL M203 Grenade Launcher and Extended Magazines, increasing the amount of customization.

In 2020, the developer followed up on its promise and brought back AI teammates. They could be enabled or disabled (for those who still preferred a solo experience) and issued commands. Due to their patchwork nature, they’re never referred to in the story and don’t provide much by way of banter. But hey, they’re there, and the game is a far better experience than without them.

By now, the game had also seen two Live Events, and while the first is notable for, well, adding Terminators (don’t ask), the second, Resistance, is more significant. It added new mission types like hostage rescue, convoy ambush and so on, as players strengthened the presence of rebels on Auroa through new faction missions.

Over time, the Gunsmith would see further modifications like new Custom Stocks, Shared Stocks, Under-Barrel Grenade Launchers, Barrels, etc. The first and only raid, Project Titan, received some interesting new features. Players could explore its location, Golem Island, to discover settlements and complete missions. Best of all, players could discover raid gear during all this. Those who enjoyed co-op had a new Threat: Critical difficulty with a tougher boss, higher enemy health and weekly modifiers, but with four unique weapons available to earn.

All this would pale next to the biggest and most significant update – the Ghost Experience. It added new gameplay features like cooking grenades, cleaning weapons, picking up mines and C4 placed by Ghosts, deciding whether syringes could heal injuries (or not, thus increasing how punishing they were), and much more. Darkest Night created some of the darkest settings in the series and made NVG so much more important. Players also dealt more damage from stealth, making it much more important, while enemy AI was shored up and improved to feel more realistic.

The sheer range of options and quality-of-life features is also worth noting. You could finally turn off Gear Level, turning this into a much closer experience to Wildlands, and adjust whether previous event elements, like rebels and Terminators, appeared in the world.

Don’t want to deal with drones outside of story missions or when destroying Behemoths? Turn them off, which is also possible with helicopter patrols and Azraels. Suffice it to say that the Ghost Experience is really where the tide started to turn for Breakpoint, though constant updates to address crashes and other bugs shouldn’t be glossed over.

Ubisoft Paris would continue releasing new rewards and a new collaboration event in 2021, this time with Rainbow Six Siege, which introduced three Operators that could act as AI teammates. You had new mission types, like investigating zones with toxic gas and breaching buildings to assail enemies.

However, the next major update arrived a few months later with Teammate Progression, allowing you to unlock new upgrades for each AI teammate, from unique abilities to passives. Completing challenges garnered additional cosmetics while also garnering XP for teammates, and character textures were overhauled to look more appealing.

Of course, many will notice that Auroa, and the story, as a whole, was still the same boring mess that players didn’t enjoy at launch. Operation Motherland addressed this and provided a massive new mode called Conquest that was more in line with Wildlands’ campaign. Instead of following the original game’s story, you now traverse each region and freed them from the Bodarks (who first debuted in the Red Patriot DLC). Even Karen Bowman returned to lend her aid.

Over 60 new missions were added, which players could complete in any order they wished to free each region. It also added Optical Camo for turning invisible for brief periods, with unlockable chests to improve efficiency; a new level cap of 99; weapon mastery; unique weather scenarios daily; and new cosmetic rewards. It’s not quite A Realm Reborn, but it provided an alternative campaign for players to enjoy without being railroaded into any one path.

While Ghost Recon Wildlands is still recommended due to the sheer strength of the overall package, Ghost Recon Breakpoint is no longer the cursed follow-up it was at launch. It still suffers from plenty of bugs and glitches, Auroa still isn’t all that interesting of a location, and it’s always online (Wildlands has an offline option), so you’re at the mercy of servers. Nevertheless, if you ever see it on sale and enjoy Wildlands, it may be worth checking out, even if it did take several years to get to this point. Here’s hoping the next Ghost Recon is a more solid experience out of the gate.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

To that end, we run down 10 not-so-great games that deserve a second chance should you happen to come across them during a sale.

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 was arguably one of the most highly anticipated games of the last decade, but all that anticipation and excitement didn’t amount to much when the game finally launched in 2020 after a ton of delays and pushbacks. Cyberpunk 2077 was rife with game-breaking bugs and glitches, and the performance on eighth-generation consoles was absolutely horrendous – making it all an unplayable mess. Many of the previously promised features like a live service multiplayer component, wall running, vehicle customization, and more were also absent from the final release. But underneath that thick veneer of technical inefficiencies and broken promises, there lies a great depiction of a dystopian future complete with a complex net of gameplay mechanics that’s definitely worth more than a look. And now that post-launch updates have cleared out these rough edges, Cyberpunk 2077 is definitely worth checking out.

ASSASSIN’S CREED ODYSSEY

We’re going to be speaking about plenty of Ubisoft games in this feature, so it makes sense to start off with one- and it’s probably one that most people think of when they think of open world bloat. There’s no denying that Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is an excellent game, and the vast majority of the content it delivers is an absolute blast to play through- but there’s way too much of it. And that excessive size results in plenty of issues, from repetitive quests and quest design to excessively reused assets throughout the open world, and more. This is a game that can easily eat up between 80-90 hours of your time, and while most of it is a good time, by the time it’s coming to an end, it does feel like it’s overstayed its welcome a little bit.

We’ve had quite a few notable examples of games that have disappointed with their runtime in both ways, and here, that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about- five games that we felt ended too soon, and five that just didn’t know when to end. Let’s start with the former.

GAMES THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN LONGER

RESIDENT EVIL 3

You don’t ever want your survival horror games to be too long. More often than not, a dozen or so hours is the sweet spot, which means that owing to their very nature, horror games often end up being relatively shorter than other games in other genres, especially in today’s day and age. But even in a genre where audiences are more accepting of shorter runtimes, some games can end way too quickly. 2020’s Resident Evil 3 remake is surely one of them. Perhaps its because it cuts out some fan-favourite sections from the original, or perhaps its because what the game does pack into its 5-6 hour runtime doesn’t exactly hit the highs that they probably should have. Either way, by the time you roll credits on the game, you don’t exactly feel fulfilled by the experience- certainly not in the way most did with the RE2 remake.

THE CALLISTO PROTOCOL

The Callisto Protocol turned out to be a disappointment in more ways than one, from its lack of real scares to its baffling focus on melee combat to its frequently clunky controls. Another area where it failed to meet expectations was its length. Striking Distance Studios’ horror game is one that you can blow your way through in roughly 8-10 hours. Viewed in isolation, that isn’t necessarily a bad number, especially given the fact that this is a horror game. What exacerbates The Callisto Protocol’s issues in this area is the fact that it’s an excessively linear game, with little to no room for exploration or engaging in optional content. By the time you’re done with the game, it feels like the game has barely scratched the surface in terms of making good on its potential.

METAL GEAR SOLID 5: THE PHANTOM PAIN

Even if you’re focusing almost exclusively on is main story, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is a game that you can easily clock about 45-50 hours into- twice as much if you decide to properly engage with all of the optional stuff. So no, in terms of pure numbers, Metal Gear Solid 5 doesn’t really need to be longer. The problem isn’t with the amount of content the game offers though, but with the nature of the content it offers. The vast, vast majority of the game’s second half is little more than remixed and recycled content from the first half, and of course, it’s no secret at this point that Kojima Productions had to cut out a great deal of ideas, content, and features from the game during development. The end result is a spectacular game with incredible stealth mechanics that, sadly, loses steam halfway through, and ends on a bit of a downer. Perhaps with more time to properly tell the story it wanted to tell would have helped the game stick the landing.

GEARS OF WAR 4

On paper, it doesn’t look like Gears of War 4’s length should be much of an issue. At about 10-12 hours long, it’s roughly as long as all the games that preceded it. Like a few other games on this list though, it doesn’t use that time well. Gears of War 4’s campaign isn’t a bad one by any means, but not only does it take too long to get going, it also ends too abruptly. The first act of the game is a bit too slow and uneventful, but the game does begin picking up pace a few hours in. When the credits roll though, it doesn’t feel like the story has reached its endpoint- not even close, in fact. Even calling it a cliffhanger wouldn’t exactly be accurate- it just feels like someone decided to stop telling the story before the climax could really gather any momentum.

DEUS EX: MANKING DIVIDED

Speaking of games that end just as things are beginning to get interesting, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is probably one of the finest examples of that in a modern video game. 15-20 hours is a little short side for an RPG as it is, and it doesn’t help that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided doesn’t end on a very high note- in that the note it ends on feels more like the end of act 2 than the conclusion of the final act. Of course, it’s well known at this point that a lot of that was down to development issues behind the scenes, but the fact of the matter remains that the game left a host of people extremely dissatisfied with its conclusion. Hopefully, one day we’ll get to see a resolution for this story- even though the chances of that look rather slim right now.

GAMES THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN SHORTER

MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR

The open world bloat epidemic has infected a vast number of games over the years, and Shadow of War was one of the earlier examples of that. The root of the problem lay, unfortunately, with the game’s aggressive monetization, and how it always wanted to push people into spending more money- because if you didn’t, you had to spend hours upon hours grinding your way through its rote open world offerings in order to make any real progress. Of course, a lot of the monetization-related issues were eventually patched out, and what was, in many ways, even worse- a game that was too large and too bloated for no reason whatsoever. If it had been about 20 hours shorter, Shadow of War could have been a worthy follow-up to its predecessor. As it stands, it’s still a fun game- but it just does not know when to end.

RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 is easily the most ambitious game Rockstar has ever made to date, which is saying something, because making ambitious games is the only thing Rockstar ever does. You can spend upwards of a hundred hours in this game’s gorgeous and incredibly detailed open world, and the wealth, variety, and quality of content on offer in every nook and cranny ensures that you’ll always find something to grab your attention. If you’re in it purely for the story though, Red Dead Redemption 2 is a game that does drag on from time to time. From its prologue to the infamous Guarma section to the surprisingly long epilogues, there are plenty of sections in this open world epic that can feel like they’re unnecessarily padding out the total runtime. Don’t get us wrong, this is still an absolute masterpiece- but every game has flaws, and being a bit too long is one of Red Dead 2’s.

GHOST RECON BREAKPOINT

Ubisoft games are the poster boys of open world bloat at this point, and though we can point to several examples to prove that point, the one we’re going to go with here is Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Why? Well, there are the obvious reasons of course- the open world is too large with not enough variety, the side activities on offer are too repetitive and formulaic, the mission design even if you’re sticking to the main story is nothing to write home about. What compounds those issues even further is the fact that… well, that this is just a bad game, if we’re being blunt. Ghost Recon Breakpoint tries to be Ghost Recon and The Division all at once, and it doesn’t do any of it particularly well (or even passingly well). The fact that we have to tolerate its mediocrity for several dozen hours makes its already long runtime feel even longer.

DEATH STRANDING

Death Stranding is the sort of game that you either “get” or you don’t- there’s no middle ground. It’s weird, it’s eccentric, and it’s proud of it. If you like what it’s doing and if you buy into its ideas, there’s little doubt that you’re going to love every tiny little bit of it- but if it just doesn’t grasp you, then its open world adventure is likely to feel like a bit of a slog. There’s a zen quality to Death Stranding’s traversal-focused gameplay loop and its asynchronous multiplayer mechanics, but for many, that isn’t enough to carry the whole game. Seeing as the whole game is easily thirty hours long at the very least (and much longer if you decide to really dig in), that can be a pretty big problem for people in that group.

DAYS GONE

You’ll often hear people tell you that Days Gone doesn’t really pick up steam until you’re about ten hours into the game. To be fair, that’s not wrong- it’s at that point that the game truly begins coming into its own and its mechanics and world start singing. At the same time, however, not everyone has the patience to play a game for ten hours before getting to a point where they actually start enjoying it. This is a big, wide game with a ton of content on offer, and a lot of it is really good- but a lot of it is janky as hell and bogged down by generic design. Perhaps if Sony Bend had decided to trim out the fat and go for a much more focused and better-paced experience, Days Gone would have been a much better game- maybe even one that could have gotten a sequel greenlit.

The story takes place in Auroa, with Skell Technology taken over by a rogue unit called The Wolves. The Ghosts embark on a mission to liberate the island, but after their transport is shot down, it becomes a fight for survival against armies of drones.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint is infamous for launching with numerous bugs and issues, while fans criticized its many design choices. It’s seen several revamps over the years, particularly the return of AI squadmates. Along with the Standard Edition, the Gold Edition, and Deluxe Edition will also be available.

The Gold Edition features the base game, Year 1 Pass, Infiltration Pack, and Ultimate Pack. The Deluxe Edition includes the base game and Infiltration Pack. All editions should be discounted for a brief period after launching on Steam.

After cancelling Ghost Recon Frontline, Ubisoft Paris is rumored to be working on a new mainline title. It was reportedly planned to release before April 2023 but seems further out than initially planned. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months, especially with Ubisoft stating that a “large” unannounced premium game would launch in 2023-24.

Have more allegations of toxic work culture, sexual harassment, and bullying emerged, like the former chief creative officer who reduced the roles of women in several Assassin’s Creed games because “female protagonists wouldn’t sell”? Or the Ubisoft Singapore director that was removed for racism and toxicity but is still reportedly working at the publisher, according to a spokesperson’s statement to Kotaku at the time?

Or the current creative director of Assassin’s Creed Codename Red, accused of verbal abuse, unwanted sexual advances and cultivating a “climate of fear”? Has the company still done nothing about the pending allegations, as the workers union Solidaires Informatique Jeu Vidéo reported one year after the incidents?

Did it cancel more games like the Splinter Cell VR title, Ghost Recon Frontline and two other unannounced titles? Did its recent games underperform or outright fail? Was Sea of Thieves – sorry, Skull and Bones, delayed again, this time to an unknown date?

Sadly, all of these questions could apply. In its latest report discussing 2022-2023 results and adjusting its 2023-24 projections, Ubisoft revealed that sales were “surprisingly” slower than expected. Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, whose predecessor was successful, and Just Dance 2023, which has always had mainstream appeal, underperformed. Before its launch in March, Skull and Bones was delayed to 2023-24, which could mean anything from April 1st to March 31st, 2024. Three more unannounced games have been cancelled. Its stock price in the US hit a seven-year record low.

If all that wasn’t enough, the company is implementing $200 million in cost reduction. But hey, on the bright side – if one could look at it that way – Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora are also releasing in the 2023-24 window. A large unannounced premium game (likely the next single-player focused Ghost Recon) is coming in the same time frame. Some free-to-play games are also launching. Woo.

And just a quick update on the current projects. Beyond Good and Evil 2 is nowhere to be seen (and potentially been rebooted), having beaten Duke Nukem Forever in having the longest development cycle for a video game after its 2008 announcement. Great news, though – Ubisoft assures that it’s still in development. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was reportedly having development troubles, and Ubisoft Massive’s Star Wars game is still a ways off. The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake has had numerous delays and is also a long way off.

Skull and Bones is a train wreck, reportedly costing over $120 million in June 2021, so you can expect its budget to be even higher now (which puts the $200 million cost reduction into perspective). It’s also reportedly too big to fail, which is another way of saying that its failure would be utterly disastrous. Good thing there’s a $70 price tag and very little story to go with its multiplayer, with playtesters reporting that there isn’t a whole lot to the latter either.

XDefiant, a competitive shooter that apparently recycled assets from The Division, was viewed negatively on its reveal and doesn’t have a release window. Project Q and Pathfinder are reportedly still in play-testing, and there’s no indication of them releasing this year. Ubisoft’s free-to-play tussles in general, outside of Rainbow Six Siege, have been pretty underwhelming. The next Far Cry, reportedly a live-service title, is also further off than originally planned.

There is some hope, with projects like the Splinter Cell remake in development. Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe has reportedly received praise internally. The Division Heartland could arrive sometime this year, and impressions have been generally good. The jury’s out on The Division: Resurgence, a mobile looter shooter based on Massive’s franchise, but Rainbow Six Siege Mobile seems like a good idea, given how successful the base game is. Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade, which recently leaked for mobile, looks pretty good as well.

Unfortunately, that’s all in the future. In the present, the here and now, Ubisoft’s state is dismal. It could look to be acquired or merged with another publisher in the future, right?

The cherry on top of this debacle is a report by Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb, who revealed, “Ubisoft definitely already did the rounds proposing acquisitions and mergers with other similar companies, and it mostly got laughed at.” Imagine that: A company with the Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six and Rayman IPs laughed at when discussing acquisitions and mergers. That too in an age where acquisitions are highly sought.

The company’s strength – a distributed development structure with studios worldwide – was looked at as too unwieldy and an “albatross” (in Grubb’s words). That’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner language for “a psychological burden that feels like a curse.” Alternatively, “a burden that is difficult to escape.” Neither positive metaphors.

Did I mention the massive exodus of employees over 18 months, as reported by Axios in December 2021, either due to competitive start-ups that paid more or the terrible working conditions at Ubisoft? The extent of this was bad enough to have reportedly “stalled or slowed projects,” which puts all of the delayed and cancelled games into greater perspective.

Amid all of this, it’s easy to look at Ubisoft’s current state and ask, “What the hell?” if you weren’t stunned silent by the utter mismanagement on display.

Granted, you could look back at its debacles with Watch Dogs and Assassin’s Creed Unity in 2014, the Assassin’s Creed 2 PC DRM controversy, its shameful handling of the allegations, or its tryst with NFTs, and say that it survived through those. You could look back at its full-year 2021-22 earnings, which saw Assassin’s Creed Valhalla having great success, Far Cry seeing its best year after the launch of Far Cry 6 (though sales numbers are still pending), and Rainbow Six Siege still having millions of players, and say that it still has big highs.

However, when it rains, it pours. And with the publisher projecting a loss of $537 million for the fiscal year ending March 2023, it is a terrible day for rain.

It’s all the sadder for the thousands of people still there. If the worst comes to worst and Ubisoft does shut down or has to make extensive cuts, their livelihoods are affected. All because management and leadership can’t properly budget and run projects while treating their employees with respect, let alone common decency.

It’s hard to say where Ubisoft goes from here, or what it can do to salvage it. A change in leadership would be the most obvious thing to do, though it will likely never happen. Paring down its so-called ambition and pushing more projects like Assassin’s Creed Mirage that don’t have hundreds of hours of gameplay and require dozens of avenues of monetization, or hundreds of employees to support them around the clock would be a good start. Ensuring its quality would also be nice. After all, fans have been clamoring for an old-school Assassin’s Creed, but a good one would be even better.

Supporting its current endeavors like Rainbow Six Siege with new content and features while attracting new players would also be nice. Why not have some co-op PvE content, since that was so well-received with Operation Chimera (before it was ripped out and turned into a terrible game like Extraction)? Why not provide some classic tactical gameplay that older titles were renowned for?

Of course, these are just a few solutions. The overarching issues go right to the top. If anything is to be fixed or improved, they must be addressed. No chasing the latest trend, or telling people you’re taking things seriously without actually doing anything. No mistreatment of employee. No dumping money into projects that have been in development for years and still have no signs of releasing. It shouldn’t have to be this hard.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

ANTHEM

It’s hard to think of many games in recent years where the gulf is as wide between the product that was promised and the one that was delivered as it was for Anthem. BioWare set out to deliver something unique and fresh, but failed on nearly every level imaginable. Anthem didn’t deliver in any of the ways you’d expect a BioWare game to, from its story to its world to choice and consequence mechanics, but it didn’t even deliver as a looter shooter- in fact, on that front, it was downright broken. Add to that a bevy of technical issues that made it downright unplayable, and it’s not hard to see why BioWare and EA ended up quickly dumping the IP and moving on from it.

CYBERPUNK 2077

We’ll start with what’s become the poster child of rushed releases that could have benefitted massively from a delay- or another delay, in this case, because Cyberpunk 2077 was, of course, delayed more than a few times in the lead-up to its launch. The state the game released in was, frankly, unacceptable, not only in terms of the baffling lack of polish, but also the core gameplay itself feeling decidedly half-baked. With a couple more years in the oven, who knows? Maybe things could have turned out differently.

Star Wars Battlefront 2

DICE’s first Star Wars Battlefront wasn’t awful but it was a far cry from what made the original games so endearing. Even on its own, the amount of content and features just felt lackluster. So when Star Wars Battlefront 2 was announced, it seemed like Electronic Arts was ticking all of the boxes. More extensive maps and modes. A single-player campaign. Free post-launch updates. It all seemed like a dream come true for Star Wars fans.

Then Star Cards happened.

Star Cards were equipable items that provided significant boosts to one’s combat abilities. And of course, the best way to get them was through RNG loot boxes. It was like the pay-to-win pot had finally boiled over, that too in a franchise that was popular among kids. The fact that it cost so much to unlock Star Wars heroes and villains for use in multiplayer – leading to the infamous “pride and accomplishment” comment from EA on Reddit – didn’t help things either.

To say the backlash was immense would be an understatement. Star Cards were pulled from purchase and moved to Class Level unlocks; microtransactions were now limited to cosmetics; more multiplayer content, both online and offline was introduced; and numerous fixes were deployed. It was quite the turnaround for the maligned title. By the time support began winding down in 2020, fans began a petition for more DLC, even willing to pay for the same. That didn’t happen but at least Battlefront 2’s life cycle ended on a happy note.