10 Games That Failed and Became GREAT

today we want to talk about 10 games that failed but made a huge comeback now keep in mind i'm keeping the word failed in quotation marks here because we don't necessarily mean games that just outright bombed that would be kind of limiting we're taking a look at games that maybe failed on their ideas or their execution or maybe fan expectations or just games that didn't make a splash like the developers were hoping thankfully all these games we think made great moves to become awesome better experiences with big fan bases today now we got a lot to talk about so let's get started off with number 10 and talk about rainbow six siege rainbow six siege is actually kind of like the trend setter for a lot of other games on this list when it originally released after years and years of development and a cancelled completely different version when reviewers and players got their hands on it in the early days everybody's reaction including ours was kind of like uh okay like what it was competitive the maps were cool the emphasis on like destructible walls and stuff and situations seemed pretty creative but it really just didn't feel like too big of a deal but what a lot of us didn't realize is that it was essentially the foundation or the platform for something that would become absolutely huge because roughly a year later with content additions and all kinds of tweaks rainbow six siege kind of rocketed to the stratosphere and it's still pretty high up there today as one of the main competitive esports now as much as we don't talk about esports too much on this channel we do respect that level of popularity because a lot of times a game has to be designed really well to even get to that place in the first place where rainbow six siege could have initially just launched as a character class type based shooter relying on precision accuracy and teamwork and you know that's about it it really held on and ended up becoming much more than that and it really stands out from the pack of other highly competitive games right now next over at number nine this one isn't like the biggest failure but diablo 3 and the whole auction house thing it kind of took over the gaming landscape conversation when diablo 3 initially launched so if you don't remember the auction house it was essentially a place where players could put items up for auction bid for other stuff and there were two versions there was one that used like the in-game gold and then one that used real-world currency which of course you know can get potentially sketchy the way it worked the way it was balanced ultimately early reviews and early fan reception really the majority of the player base was not into it but then after diablo 3 launched a new game director was brought in things were overhauled and then the auction house was cancelled and shut down in march of 2014 then we got reaper of souls we got the revamped loot and the game was allowed to finally really truly shine without the conversation of the auction house around it because frankly diablo 3 diablo 3 reaper of souls really is a fantastic diablo game it just had some early kinks that needed to be worked out and thankfully we're glad that it all did because we're still playing diablo today next over at number eight oh some people are gonna disagree with this one but it's fallout 76 this game for many players has really bounced back now i think the damage is done in terms of some people's perceptions of bethesda if you look at comment sections if you read a lot of things you can tell that bethesda made some wrong moves here and some people are just totally done with what bethesda puts out or what it says or its types of games but the people that stuck with fallout 76 ultimately ended up getting a much stronger game it's a shame that it had to happen this way and it sucks that the concept of fallout was maybe temporarily tarnished we'd still rather just a mainline single player fallout game because when fallon 76 initially released it was just dull man the map was empty the thing felt lifeless just because there were no npcs uh the graphics were surprisingly muddy in spots tons of technical glitches abound and a lot of people were just like what's the point thankfully fallout 76 wastelanders and a bunch of other updates have really overhauled the game giving you more to do added quest lines added npcs added more building more opportunities in the world more enemy types and really they just blew this thing out of the water now bethesda still made some questionable moves throughout in terms of like that paid server access weird type of thing so like a lot of people can still laugh it off and i understand that but i do want to point out that there are people out there that love this game and satisfied with it in its current state we made it before you buy video obviously kind of dunking on fallon 76 but then we revisited it with another before you buy when wastelanders released and we commented on the fact that it was pretty nicely overhauled now next over at number seven we have final fantasy 14. final fantasy 14 if you don't remember launched two extremely negative reviews was basically considered a critical and commercial failure reviews were bad fans weren't into it and square enix and final fantasy higher-ups had big concerns about the whole thing just kind of trashing the final fantasy brand the legend that it was before this thankfully though that does seem so far away it's almost like a distant memory because after some leadership overhauls engine overhauls and just direction changes final fantasy 14 relaunched as 2.0 and really blew things out of the water and completely turned things around everything was changed and reviewers and players were very happy with it to the point where i mean you look at final fantasy 14 today and it's up there with world of warcraft there are some people out there that love final fantasy 14 and practically live in this game apparently it has about 20 million registered players as of 2020 and it's had tons of great content updates have massive stuff like storm blood and shadow bringers and people are still loving the content and taking whatever they can get with this game and i think it's worth pointing out that some games are worth saving considering the situation seems so dire when final fantasy 14 originally released if they just gave up on it players wouldn't have the awesome game that they loved today and that's really the point we're trying to make with this video you know next over at number six believe it or not we got something pretty relevant it's among us now not necessarily a failure in the typical sense if you think about it this thing definitely rose from the ashes so it released in june of 2018 on ios and android and pc november of 2018. 2018 man and the game did not make a peep much like it did now it by like 2020 early 2020 streamers started to play it and from there it just took off among us seemed to really rise with the tide of just more twitch popularity and the rise of tick tock and now everybody knows about among us just because it has gone so viral even in the casual market there are a lot of young kids our relatives actually here that just play among us constantly it's insane it was so successful that among us two was announced but it was then canceled a month later to just instead focus on improving among us it won best mobile game and best multiplayer at the game awards of 2020 it's gotten so popular that celebrities and politicians have streamed it and it got a switch version in december of 2020 and an xbox series x and s release coming in 2021 that is something you would not expect from some random little mobile game that released in 2018 right next up at number five fortnight before fortnite was this big phenomenon it was actually just launched as the save the world aspect of the game you know that game mode that people don't really play as much that was what fortnite initially was after years and years in the making it released and i remember playing it and just being like okay this seems kind of cool i guess and i guess a lot of other people felt that way but after seeing how pubg was doing so well epic decided to take the foundation of their game and just flesh it out to be a battle royale game and as you know it it blew up pretty quickly with over 10 million players within the first two weeks of its launch it probably helped that it was free i mean those are crazy numbers and since then it seems like the hype has just never died down love it or hate it you know fortnite is a weird story because their og vision of the game didn't fail but it was just okay you know it's it's hard to not think about how long we were seeing fortnite at trade shows on the cover of magazines epic showed this thing off for so long it honestly became a bit of a joke and then all of a sudden everyone and their grandpa is playing fortnite travis scott is in the game marvel's in the game trailers are world premiering in the game it's wild now we never thought it would get this far and let alone become like one of the biggest games in the world and even though we personally don't play it that much we still appreciate how it kind of went from zero to hero now next over at number four sea of thieves this game maybe technically didn't fail at launch players were really into it but after a few hours you got to see everything the game had to offer and there really wasn't much of a reason to continue playing besides earning the rank of pirate legend there really wasn't too much to grind for nothing significant to work towards or just really hook you but eventually rare did get around to updating sea of thieves pretty regularly starting with smaller updates like the hungering deep and cursed sails which added the megalodon and the ghost ships but then they started to release bigger updates like forsaken shores that added a new area as well as a bunch of new cosmetics and other small additions they even added a pvp mode called the arena and tall tales which is by far the coolest update they've pushed out it's like this unique take on adding a bit of narrative to the game with long drawn out satisfying quests that have you sailing around the map solving puzzles and riddles and sometimes feeling like a mix of a pirate adventure with a dash of indiana jones rare has done a pretty damn good job with keeping sea of thieves relevant and always making sure there is something to do and we think that is reflected in the community look at the amount of people playing this game look at the amount of people that still stream it constantly there is an audience there is a player base and they probably wouldn't be here if rare didn't stick with the game now down to number three let's talk about destiny and taken king destiny came a long way since the release of destiny 1 base game there was definitely a bit of a rough patch for it destiny never technically failed but in its own way it kind of did there were a lot of expectations on this one and you know after beating the very short story yeah there were some small expansions that were released that gave you some more stuff to do but a lot of it went by super quick and it left a lot of players hungry for more but then the taken king update is where bungie really set destiny down a completely different path taken king changed a lot from small things like how questing worked and how the loot played a role to bigger stuff like the entire narrative the story in taken king was the first time you actually kind of cared about the characters in the game yeah cade six was always cool because it was like a snarky nathan villian but now you cared a lot more about zavala and aikora this is also where they replaced peter dinklage for nolan north and the role of ghost which is makes your ghost so much cooler taking king really laid the foundation for what destiny would become in the sequel in the future and just really helped bungie figure out what players wanted and expected out of future expansions now down to number two it's time to talk about battlefront 2. yeah you know which battlefront 2. uh what damn monstrosity this thing was at launch not the gameplay you know that was always cool but the micro transactions they were egregious battlefront has its own perk system called star cards which could be dropped in loot boxes which could be bought with real money and these perks could really give you an edge over other players if you were to you know let's say dump a ton of money into the game by buying a ton of loot boxes yes this game was pretty much technically to a lot of people perceived as pay to win the hero characters were also locked which could be bought with a ton of in-game currency whereas in the original battlefront games they were always just available you know but the micro transactions were so bad that even news outlets were talking about it it was probably some of the worst most notorious microtransaction stuff we've seen in a big aaa game in a minute and it was super weird that it was a star wars game of all things eventually ea did back off and completely removed all the microtransactions from the game like that and made all of the hero and villain characters available to play without needing to buy them thank god they also continue to put out content for the game like new maps new heroes and villains and new costumes even going as far as to take costumes from like clone wars and rebels which is really cool now we don't know if the reputation of battlefront 2 will ever fully recover from the micro transaction mishap with hardcore gamers but it is technically a lot of fun to play now and is definitely worth diving back into if you haven't played in a while or if you've never played it at all because there's so much cool content in there and now there's none of the bs battlefront 2 at launch was a total failure for the reasons we listed above but it totally rose from the ashes like some sort of weird space phoenix now down to number one i think we all know the story of no man's sky by now this is a perfect example of how much hype can really affect an opinion of a game you know we're not denying that the game didn't launch without issues because it definitely did but for a game that was touting this big giant endless universe that you could explore there really wasn't much to do fast forward to the next update and the game was given a second chance at life hello games added multiplayer which made the game feel a little less empty a little less lonely they also added some community stuff like missions that all players were taking part in crafting and building were totally overhauled giving you a ton of different options to build out your space base and have more fun they added an option to play in third person and also customize your character they also made some quality of life improvements and changes and overhauled the graphics too i'd say the biggest addition was the narrative and the fact that there actually there actually was one now yeah it wasn't this insane story but it did help to guide players along a path and also show you a lot of the new gameplay mechanics naturally to this day hello games still releases substantial significant updates with the origins update recently launching alongside next gen consoles we bring this up a lot in all of our different shows and videos games like no man's sky that ultimately initially maybe failed and just disappointed people got their [ __ ] together and fixed themselves and justified our 60 purchase and end up being a net positive in the universe you know one more good game out there exists because people stuck with it and again like we said that's the point we're trying to make here with this video these are games that failed in one way or another be it financially mechanically expectations hype whatever but then ultimately bounced back and became something really really cool we had a lot of fun making this list but there are tons of other examples so if you guys have any in the comments be sure to let us know if you enjoyed this video though clicking the like button helps us out a ton we really appreciate that and if you're new consider subscribing maybe hitting that notification bell because we put on videos every single day but hey as always thanks for watching we'll see you guys next time you

Channel: gameranx

Views: 673,198

Rating: 4.9032912 out of 5

Keywords: failed game launches, overhyped games, game launch, game launch fan reaction, controversial games, battlefront 2, among us, no man's sky 2021, fallout 76 2021, final fantasy online 2021, sea of thieves 2021, rainbow six siege 2021, gameranx, jake baldino

Id: 1JURP9KeHrk

Length: 14min 38sec (878 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 24 2021