LAIR

An obvious pick for a list such as this one, Lair is forever going to hold the dubious crown of being one of the most bitter disappointments in gaming. Factor 5’s excellent track record and promising pre-launch showings suggested that Lair was going to be a huge early PS3 hit, but upon its release, the game turned out to be sort of a broken mess, thanks in large part to its frustrating motion-heavy controls. Even now, close to two decades later, it’s hard to get over the disappointment that was Lair.

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.

Interestingly, the Japanese gaming giant has recently filed a new trademark for Knack, which has given way to a ton of speculation about a possible third entry in the franchise. Of course, a trademark renewal is by no means a confirmation of a new installment in the franchise – it’s essentially just one of the many formal procedures to retain a company’s rights for an intellectual property. But the question of whether Knack deserves a third chance or not is one that’s definitely worth asking and investigating in detail.

To better understand whether Knack deserves yet another shot at life, we need to look back at its origins – the missteps and the criticisms which lead us to where the series is now. Developed by Sony Japan of Shadow of the Colossus fame, Knack was released to a lukewarm critical and commercial in 2013. Knack is an action-platformer that’s heavily marred down by uninteresting level design and a very basic concept. Leading up to its release, Knack was marketed as a showcase for the graphical prowess of the PS4 – given its exclusivity on Sony’s at-the-time current gen platform. It certainly looks great with high-quality assets and fluid animations, but it was too rooted in the traditions of something like a tech demo to be a worthwhile purchase for an asking price of $60.

Knack would return once again with a sequel aptly named Knack 2 that was released in 2017 to yet again, mostly middling reviews. That’s not to suggest there weren’t any improvements at all, but most of them like a co-op mode and fleshed out platforming felt like a half-step forward for the series. Suffice to say, both entries underperformed on a commercial front – with at-the-time SIE president Shuhei Yoshida expressing disappointment for the game’s financial front.

Cut to the present time, the critical and commercial failure of Knack has made the games a subject for a slew of internet jokes. However, it’s also important to know that Knack wasn’t as it was just because Sony wanted to try its hand at an action-platformer – it was a move at inviting younger players into the ecosystem once again, right at the PS4’s launch.

You see, when Sony burst onto the seams with its ambitious PlayStation 1 – games such as the likes of Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon were meant to welcome players of a younger age group into the ecosystem. The turn of the century marked a shift for the games industry, as developers pushed for mature, darker, and arguably violent experiences over the family-friendly platformers that dominated the past generations. Sony’s PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s debut console the Xbox heralded this change with games like Metal Gear Solid 2 and Grand Theft Auto 3 among others. That’s not to suggest that platformers were done with entirely – as games like Jak and Daxter, and Sly Cooper made sure to cover Sony’s paces for a young generation of gamers.

However, as we moved into the PS3 and Xbox 360 era – we see both of these now-established gaming giants built their platforms upon these mature experiences as Nintendo diverted itself into pursuing a separate target demographic entirely with the Wii – one that would value ease-of-use and family-friendly experiences over the violence and blockbuster spectacles that dominated rival platforms.

With the PS4 however, Sony tried to pivot itself once again with two entries in the Knack franchise -although it’s clear that the company’s plans didn’t pan out as well as they might have wanted it to. If I were to make a guess as to why both entries in the franchise failed, it’s because Knack itself isn’t just as interesting or recognizable mascot as say, Spyro or even Crash Bandicoot. The plot surrounding the battle between the Goblins and humanity and what have you is simply put, an uninteresting narrative with no charm whatsoever. A third entry might add a few new gameplay features, but in my opinion, it still wouldn’t be able to turn the tides for this platformer that just can’t seem to decide what it wants to be. I am not saying that it’s an impossible task and many average video games franchises have managed to do turn the tide around but Alleviating the recurring criticisms of the two games would require a major rethinking of core ideas – and I don’t think that’s a risk worth taking especially with a franchise that already has been given a couple of chances to shine.

Additionally, there’s also the topic of development. The two games were developed by Sony Japan, a prestigious studio that sadly isn’t anymore. Team Asobi is all that’s left of this once-promising studio, and the team is already hard at work on what’s being described as its most ambitious project yet. Splitting the already limited resources of this studio to pursue yet another entry in this mediocre franchise would be a meaningless endeavor. Of course, Sony could always outsource the project to an external development team or have another first-party studio make the next entry – but given how Sony only seems to take risks with known entities, that prospect looks unlikely.

With the PS4, Sony has established its reputation as the king when it comes to narrative-driven single-player blockbusters with the likes of Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon, and more. The PS5 seems to be building on these strengths with its big-budget releases like Horizon Forbidden West. Additionally, the Japanese gaming giant is also placing huge bets on live-service games, with the recent acquisition of Bungie and its plans to ship 10 live service games by 2026.

Developing an action platformer for portfolio diversification could most certainly be a great move on behalf of Sony, but a third Knack game doesn’t seem like a risk that the PlayStation of today will likely take, Especially when so many promising franchises like Jak and Daxter and Sly Cooper lie dormant for so long – who already have a much larger target demographic comprising of gamers who are both old and young and enjoy a ton of market credibility thanks to their long-standing legacies.

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. 

As spotted recently by Gematsu on Twitter, Sony filed a new trademark for Knack in Japan on March 17. As is the case with trademark filings more often than not, this doesn’t necessarily suggest that a new instalment in the series is in the works, but it does indicate that Sony could still have plans for the property. Then again, companies filing and renewing trademarks to protect their intellectual properties isn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence.

If a new Knack game were indeed in development, it would be interesting to see how its production would be handled, seeing as SIE Japan Studio, the studio that made the first two games, has been shuttered. Its replacement, Team Asobi, seems to have an ambitious new project of its own in the works- which doesn’t exactly sound like Knack.

KILLZONE

Billed as the Halo-killer prior to launch, Killzone 1 on the PS2 couldn’t even kill a fly. It was a beautiful looking game, but was dragged down by stupid AI, timid shooting, and a bland campaign. A whole lot of people gave in to the enormous hype surrounding it, and a whole lot of people were immensely disappointed with the investment they made in its purchase.

In this feature, we’ll be listing what we feel are fifteen of the most disappointing games on the PS4- but disappointing, we should remind you, does not mean bad. Many of these games are a lot of fun, some have improved vastly since launch and managed to turn things around from initial disappointment. Being mentioned in this list simply means that these games, when we played them first, failed to live up to the standard of quality we expected them to hit.

Also note that for the purposes of these list, we’ll only be looking at PS4 exclusives- barring a couple entries that were either only console exclusives at launch, or remain console exclusives to this day.

With all that out of the way, let’s get into it.

DRIVECLUB

When Driveclub first launched, it’s fair to say that it ended up disappointing a whole lot of people. Though it was stunning to look at and hit technical heights that console games rarely do even to this day, there were many who felt that the game was, all said and done, a bit too dull, a bit too uninspired. Developers Evolution Studios would go on to provide excellent support for the game following its release, and arguably pretty much managed to turn things around, turning a disappointing launch into what was a legitimately great driving sim. Their subsequent closure, even in light of said recovery, proved to be a shockingly premature and abrupt one.

Whether jokingly or not, many PS4 owners have long asked for Knack, the middling platformer brawler that released alongside the PS4 back in 2013, to be put on Sony’s PS Plus service. In February, they finally get their wish fulfilled- Sony has confirmed that Knack will be available to all PS Plus subscribers next month.

Knack will be accompanied by RIME, the excellent puzzle platformer released by Tequila last year. RIME stands out instantly for its quiet ambience and its excellent art, and is likely to appeal to many. PS4 owners will also get Grand Kingdom, a game that will be shared with PS Vita- which will also be getting Exiles End in addition.

Meanwhile, PS3 owners can expect Mugen Souls Z, while PSVR owners can look forward to StarBlood Arena. You can check out the video confirming and announcing this lineup for yourself below. Is this a better showing than Xbox’s Games with Gold next month? Let us know in the comments.

Mark Cerny is a man of many talents. He engineered the PlayStation Vita, Sony’s current handheld that the company would rather not acknowledge exists. He engineered the PS4. he engineered the PS4 Pro. Between all this hardware engineering, he also found the time to work on a game, albeit one that decidedly does not have the same qualities that his hardware does.

That game was Knack, the mediocre platformer/brawler that Sony released for the PS4 at launch. It sounds like Cerny will be updating that game for his new pet project, because he confirmed to Engadget that Knack will be getting a patch to be updated to support the PS4 Pro.

Of course, I am not sure why Sony are spending time updating this, when they could be doing that with actual good games they published, like Bloodorne. At the same time, they need to lead by example if they want other developers to take their new hardware seriously, so kudos to Cerny for doing just that, I suppose.

Knack 2 could be a thing according to a LinkedIn profile discovered for XPEC Entertainment 3D animator Mindy Liang. According to the CV (as per NeoGAF) Liang ‘s main job was “animated 3D character motions and cutscenes” for Knack 2 on the PlayStation 4.

This particular section of the CV has since been removed and no details of Knack 2 can be spotted. Is the game in development? It’s not far-fetched, even though the original game was heavily panned by critics. However, it could be that the game was only in the prototyping stage and never received the approval for release.

Either way, there’s been no official announcement of the same since the first Knack launched with the PS4 in late 2013. The title saw some decent sales, especially since it was bundled with the PS4 in many instances, but critics dismissed it for its overall gameplay.

Would you be interested in a second Knack? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

The 8GB of GDDR5 RAM in the PlayStation 4 is a large part of what sets that console apart and makes it the hardware beast that it is. So it’s probably a bit of a shock for you to know that Sony was originally planning to include only 4GB of RAM in the console- and the Knack developers are probably at least part of the reason why they decided to bump that RAM up to the current 8GB.

Accorsding to Knack lead programmer Tsuyoshi Murakami, Sony had originally put in only 4GB of RAM; however, the Knack development team was on the hardware advisory board, and they felt they needed 8GB instead of 4GB. So they told Sony that, who promptly bumped up the specs.

It’s fascinating to think of what might have been had the PS4 only had 4GB, though- half the RAM of the Xbox One? The current generation landscape would have looked extremely different from how it looks today, particularly with regards to multiplatform games.

[Inside Games, with translation provided by DualShockers]