When a new video game launches to poor reviews and public frustration, it’s incredibly hard to bring it back from the brink. After all, it’s tough to shirk a bad first impression, and with how many games launch these days, many players are quick to drop bad games and move forward immediately. However, a few games have been able to come out of that tailspin and become fan favorites. It requires dedicated developers willing to put in a ton of work to get it there, but it is possible. Four games stand out from the crowd as the best examples of games that have come back from the ledge to become some of the more popular games out there.
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Here are the four best games that overcame a terrible launch to become a fan favorite. The list below is presented in alphabetical order, so don’t read too much into the numbering.
1) Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077‘s launch was such a catastrophe that it was pulled down from the PlayStation store. That’s nearly unheard of in modern AAA gaming. Making it even worse is that this was the first non-The Witcher game from legendary developer CD Projekt Red. Seeing that team totally bork this launch with a bug-filled mess was downright shocking, and it could’ve killed the credibility the developer built with the success of The Witcher.
Fortunately, CD Projekt Red committed to getting Cyberpunk 2077 into a better place with several patches and a massive expansion DLC that fixed most of the issues players had at launch. Granted, it’s still not a perfect game, but it’s impossible to deny that Cyberpunk 2077 has become another gem in CD Projekt Red’s catalog. It took a while to get there, but Cyberpunk is now a must-play.
2) Final Fantasy 14
MMOs are always tough business. Coming into a crowded genre with a clear king of the mountain in World of Warcraft is a tough ask for any developer. It’s even worse when it gets wrong at launch, which is exactly what Final Fantasy 14 did when it launched in 2010. FF14 launched to nearly universal disdain, requiring then Square Enix president Yoichi Wada to issue a formal apology.
Then, FF14 was essentially remade from the ground up. Naoki Yoshida took over as the project lead, and the team introduced a brand-new engine. When Final Fantasy 14: Realm Reborn launched a few years later, it instantly became a hit. Since then, the fanbase has continued to expand thanks to great expansion content, even overtaking WoW in player count at various times. It’s fallen off a bit in the last few years, but it’s hard to overstate how big a comeback FF14 made.
3) No Man’s Sky
No Man’s Sky really had no chance to live up to the hype. That’s not totally the fault of the development team, though they could’ve promised less in NMS‘ marketing. The kind of things they were talking about pulling off were just not going to happen with their timetable. Because of that overpromising, No Man’s Sky felt like a half-baked game at launch. In many ways, NMS was an early access game in everything besides price.
Fortunately, the team at Hello Games was committed to the project and has given players more updates than most ever expected. No Man’s Sky isn’t so much a case of a poor launch; instead, it’s a game that needed early access. Unfortunately, that practice wasn’t as widespread in 2016, and Hello Games’ reputation temporarily paid the price. Here’s hoping they avoid that problem with the upcoming Light No Fire.
4) Star Wars Battlefront 2
Star Wars Battlefront II‘s initial launch was met with relatively solid reviews, but there was instant backlash to its monetization. After all, if you wanted to unlock a hero without spending extra money, you’d need to grind for nearly 40 hours. Then, EA’s Community Team defended the microtransactions on Reddit by saying that players would have “a sense of pride and accomplishment” for unlocking a new hero.
That response was memed to death, becoming one of the most downvoted comments in Reddit history. Battlefront II launched in November 2017. By the end of the month, EA had lost nearly $3 billion in stock value. The next year, the team at Dice announced it was overhauling progression. With that and several new updates, Battlefront turned its fortunes around, becoming a solid multiplayer game.
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