It is likely not news to you that just a few weeks ago, PlayStation launched their new hero shooter Concord, the debut game from first party Firewalk Studios, in perhaps the most disastrous launch of the past decade. I won’t detail all the events leading up to it, you can read about that here, but suffice it to say that Sony poured hundreds of millions of dollars and 8 years of time from 150 developers into something that had no chance of breaking into a very crowded market. This launch was so bad, with the player count lower than the number of developers who worked on the game after just a few days, that just two weeks after releasing for $40 Concord was taken offline and all owners of the game refunded. And so, in just days, the work of 150 people across nearly a decade evaporates.
It’s always a bad feeling having a game launch to general panning from both critics and fans, especially if gamers were getting hyped up for it for months or even years beforehand. And then there’s the odd next question – are the developers going to fix this game? More importantly, should they? Or is the product so far gone that it is unsalvageable and would be a waste of the studio’s time? There’s also the weird feeling of hesitation in celebrating a game that is fixed years after release, because the developers (or more likely the publishers/parent company) pushed out a game that was nonfunctional in exchange for your hard earned money, and it’s reasonable to feel scammed after something like that. Should we support studios that put out unfinished games, take your money, and then spend years getting the game to a place where it’s actually good?
Personally, if AAA games are going to keep launching in an almost-finished state, I’d rather have them finished eventually than abandoned. I don’t feel good that Concord was not given time to find an audience and perhaps be rehabilitated. In light of that, I’d like to highlight a few games that launched in pretty dire states and were eventually improved to become legitimately great games.
Street Fighter V (2016)
Then: While not a disaster by any means, Street Fighter V started off on very shaky ground. The PlayStation 4 console exclusivity had already left a bad taste in player’s mouths pre-release, and when the game finally came out the response from the community was not stellar. The online was so busted that it might as well have not been in the game at all, and there was a severe lack of content with no story mode and few characters to play. Furthermore, the Steam version of Street Fighter V didn’t have controller support, leading to overwhelmingly negative reviews on the storefront. In fact, Capcom Studio Producer Yoshinori Ono admitted later that year that “we all know that we didn’t put out a complete product, in a way that is a learning experience.” Capcom had been around for 30 years at this point, so I have a hard time believing that they were just now learning a lesson that they should finish games before releasing them. The Shadows Fall update that dropped later that year was even more poorly received than the base game, with a story mode so bad Capcom probably shouldn’t have bothered.
Now: While the massively successful release of Street Fighter VI has rendered Street Fighter V largely a thing of the past, by 2022 V had gone through so many changes it was widely recognized as one of the best fighting games of the past decade. New additions such as a beloved arcade mode, new stages and characters, several balance overhauls, an offline survival mode, new online modes like Tournament and Team battle, allowing the community to build their own communal dojos, and of course fixing the netcode to a near flawless degree. The staggering amount of new content in Street Fighter V is cool and all, but the real victory is in just how damn good Street Fighter VI turned out right at launch. Capcom is under new management from the PS4 days and it’s clear they learned from the mistakes of their predecessors.
No Man’s Sky (2016)
Then: I probably don’t need to detail Sean Murray’s unbelievably stupid marketing run for No Man’s Sky back in 2015. For their first game ever, Hello Games promised an unlimited universe of organically formed planets procedurally generated as you found them, complex survival systems, robust building and customization, and of course, the crown jewel, multiplayer. In fact, just days before launch, an interviewer asked Murray if the game had multiplayer or not, and he simply lied and said that it did. Yeah. It did not take long after launch for people to discover that the most hyped game of the decade was, let’s face it, trash. Laughably bad environments, broken generation algorithms, busted survival mechanics, shallow base building, and there was no multiplayer. Yeah, he just lied. Didn’t know you could do that, but here we are.
Now: No Man’s Sky is essentially the poster child for a salvaged video game. Not only is it beloved now – 8 years and 9 gargantuan free updates later, it is one of the most popular survival games ever. There are NPC aliens, vendors, ship building, robust cross-platform multiplayer, space dogfights, factions, guilds, amazing procedurally generated flora and fauna, smart base building mechanics, and dozens of story expansions to drive exploration of the infinite universe. I’ve played a few dozen hours myself with friends and had a great time simply just exploring and working on my base while my friend runs by screaming, pursued by a pig monster with 8 horns or an upside down jellyfish. Not that I’d recommend doing so, but No Man’s Sky really is a game you could play forever now, with infinite possibility waiting to be discovered.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection (2014)
Then: It may be a bit far back to remember just how bad this actually was, but players were extremely unhappy with the Xbox One launch of Halo MCC in 2014, a collection that included every Halo main series game to date. The intent of the MCC was not to simply port the older games as they were to the newer console, but to seamlessly connect then in terms of gameplay, design, controls, and user experience. 343 Industries sought to celebrate Halo by creating the best version of each of these games possible while reinventing them – and bit off way more than they could chew in the process. When MCC finally hit store shelves, players were hit with perhaps one of the worst online experiences ever. Aside from the horribly broken matchmaking and connection issues, players would find incorrect stats, random disconnects, uneven teams, a completely useless ranking system, broken in-game chat, absurdly long wait times, and no ability to play with friends.
Now: Years and years of work rewriting code, rebuilding backend systems, and redesigning the entire multiplayer systems across seven games in this collection finally paid off in 2018. In fact, the MCC had become so pristine and adored by fans at this point that 343 began the long and arduous process of porting the titles to PC, one at a time, in a two year rollout period that showed they’d learned their lesson about scope; this version was perfect right at launch. The Master Chief Collection has been upgraded for Series X and S as well, and today has managed to turn its reputation from an embarrassment to the franchise to the gold standard for game collections – one seamless game that pays homage to the older titles while organically tying everything together into a brand new experience. At least we have some positive love here for the Halo series after the cancellation of the widely-maligned TV series and the post-launch bungling of Halo Infinite.
Elder Scrolls Online (2014)
Then: It’s been 400 years since the original release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and fans of the franchise are looking forward to what’s in store for the next chapter of the series. Behold, an MMO! Surely this will sate them? The original release in 2014 required players to pay a subscription fee to play in addition to the $60 price tag, and, in classic Bethesda fashion, there were tons of bugs and code errors that did anything from wiping your real world purchases to giving players inexplicable hoards of gold that Bethesda then took away. Calling it a technical mess would be an understatement, and with that pricing model it was dead on arrival.
Now: The Elder Scrolls Online relaunched with the new subtitle Tamriel Unlimited in 2015, with most of the bugs fixed, significant performance fixes, and most importantly the price was slashed to $30 and it no longer required a subscription to play. The optional subscription at $10 a month offered access to every expansion the game ever had or would have, a monthly allotment of in game currency, and unlimited storage space. It took a while for the game to win over Elder Scrolls fans, but by 2018 it was the third most popular MMO in the world, and continues its hold in the top 5 to this day. As a great lover of all things Todd, I’ve really enjoyed the 30 hours I put into ESO, and I recommend it for all fans of Bethesda games. It is certainly not Skyrim, but it’s still a neat way to explore the world of Tamriel.
Sea of Thieves (2018)
Then: The unexpected pirate MMO-lite from Microsoft and Rare Studios didn’t quite take the world by storm when it launched on Xbox One. The developers that were renowned for the Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong Country, Perfect Dark, and Goldeneye 64 games could seemingly do no wrong – until they released a game with essentially no content. Sea of Thieves is hard to describe, but at launch it was essentially a multiplayer open ocean where you could sail a ship around and sometimes fight other people. That was about it. Sea of Thieves is absolutely not the last game on this list that launched with no content under the premise that the players would “make their own content”.
Now: Content! Rare and Xbox were thankfully not satisfied with the original concept for Sea of Thieves as it launched, and set to work quickly trying to correct it. A list of free content they added over the next 5 years that is far too long to write out here includes but is not limited to: fishing, a PVP Arena, raised level caps, story missions with both puzzles and PVE combat, epic bosses, new forts, new hazards, and remaking how multiplayer lobbies work. Plus, there have been three free story expansions, including one that is a seamless integration of the Pirates of the Caribbean universe into Sea of Thieves. It’s on Game Pass as well, so give it a run if you’re interested! There are millions of daily players to sail with, pillage, and swashbuckle.
Final Fantasy XIV Online (2010)
Then: Final Fantasy XIV, sometimes called Final Fantasy Online, is one of the more surprising disasters on this list. After 13 (at least somewhat) successful mainline entries and at least two dozen spinoffs in one of gaming’s biggest franchises, you’d think Square Enix might have figured out what sets a good game apart from a bad one. Hey, we all slip up once or twice after a good run. FF XIV launched to immediate and powerful backlash from both players and critics, citing everything from an unusable user interface to glaring performance issues to the very foundations of the MMO gameplay. Essentially, everything that could have gone wrong with the project did, and there was very little praise for the game either as an MMORPG or an entry in the beloved Final Fantasy series. They initially launched with a 30 day free trial before they had intended to ask players to pay, but after just a few months the director and producer were removed from the project. Square Enix reduced its projected income for 2010 for the entire company by 90% after launch, just to give you an idea of how badly they fumbled the bag here.
Now: The now-legendary Dragon Quest developer Naoki Yoshida (better known by his nickname Yoshi-P) was handed the reigns and Square Enix charged him with fixing the game. This was no small task – Yoshi-P’s team felt strongly that there was nothing that could be done to save the existing game. They found it to be critically flawed in how the server structure and code had been assembled, and so the team spent the next three years building an entirely new game from the ground up. In 2013, the game returned with the new subtitle (where have I seen this trick before?) Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Although the transition from the old game was rough and sparked more outrage from players, eventually the fans accepted and grew to love this new MMO entry in their favorite series. By 2023, Final Fantasy XIV had become the second biggest MMO in the world, trailing only World of Warcraft, and each of its many story expansions has been met with critical and fan acclaim. Final Fantasy XIV has now registered 30m players, with an active player count of over 5 million each day.
Have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV? With an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 for free with no restrictions on playtime?
Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)
Then: Wake the f*ck up, samurai. We’ve got a city to burn. *dubstep drop*
If you are even a tad interested in the world of video games you were aware of the hype building up to Cyberpunk 2077. It seemed perfect on paper – CD Projekt Red, beloved makers of the Witcher 3, translating the Cyberpunk RED tabletop RPG into a massive open world first-person shooter with an immersive environment and gripping narrative. Beyond the huge trailers, closed door demos with journalists, and Keanu Reeves’ surprise appearance on stage at E3 where he revealed he’d play one of the game’s main characters, it seemed impossible for this game to fail. Cyberpunk 2077 became the most pre-ordered game of all time, with over 11m units sold before the game even hit shelves. And then… yeah. I don’t really have room here to describe all the launch problems with Cyberpunk 2077. Let’s just say the most anticipated game of all time was broken, bugged out, and literally so unplayable on consoles that PlayStation removed it from the store and issued refunds. It also was missing most of the content that was specifically promised before launch, and it even came to light that the demo version journalists got to play wasn’t even the real game – it was a fake game made specifically to trick journalists into telling everyone the hype was real. And this was after 4 delays. While the PC version ran well enough, it was firmly joever. The most hyped game of all time was in reality the worst AAA game in recent memory.
Now: We are so back.
Even as someone who enjoyed the launch version of Cyberpunk on PC, where it actually booted up, I was disappointed in the lack of immersive gameplay and completely broken RPG and game systems. After buckling down on it for 2 and a half years, CD Projekt Red debuted Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 in early 2022 to gasps of disbelief. Here it was – the game that had been promised years ago, full of content, completely new systems, totally new gameplay, and near perfect performance on the PS5 and Xbox Series X. I had always loved the main narrative of Cyberpunk, it was just everything else that dragged it down. No more! I’ve gotten about 7 hours into the 2.0 version and am slack-jawed in disbelief. If you were hyped for Cyberpunk before its initial release and failure, I promise, the current version of the game has absolutely exceeded your expectations. It wasn’t a matter of simply patching it – in those 2 and a half years, CD Projekt Red essentially built an entire new game inside the shell of their launch failure. The singular story DLC, Phantom Liberty, released last year to massive critical acclaim and another enormous update, and so there ends the tale of Cyberpunk. Get to it. It’s a pretty damn good game.
Fallout 76 (2018)
Then: There aren’t a lot of games out there that come with more baggage attached than Fallout 76, and as the world’s biggest Fallout fan, even I have to admit that the launch was an embarrassing disaster. The game was not finished, lacked content, and had so many bugs I genuinely couldn’t tell what was a feature or not. There were no NPCs, no factions, no narrative, no quest givers, and essentially no trace of Fallout to be found. Just another victim in the “the players will make their own content” trend, which I sincerely hope dies in a fire. And don’t even get me started on the canvas bag fiasco, or the fact that the Bethesda launcher which was required to play the game was so busted it kept downloading Skyrim to players’ computers instead or simply crashing their machines over and over. I remember spending hours trying to get the game to launch on my PC without crashing, scrambling through the hundreds of Reddit posts that were appearing of folks simply trying to play the game they paid $60 for. Eventually I got it, and after 20 hours I put it down, devastated that my favorite franchise had fallen so far. But, against my predictions, Todd Howard and Bethesda Game Studios put development of Starfield on the backburner for 2 years and decided to salvage the game rather than throwing it out to die. I am so, so grateful they did.
Now: Fallout 76 was well worth salvaging and is absolutely worth playing for fans of Fallout and fans of survival games! Following the release of the amazing TV series, nearly 30 million fans have rediscovered Appalachia and loved what they found. Since the 2.0 Launch in April 2020, I’ve put an additional 130 hours into the open-world survival RPG and loved every one of them. There are four story expansions for Fallout 76 – Wastelanders, Steel Dawn, Steel Reign, and Skyline Valley. Each of these expansions came with a campaign about 8-10 hours long along with a chunk of side quests, radiant quests, new NPCs, new weapons, new monsters, new maps, and even new cities. All updates to Fallout 76 have been and will continue to be free through the end of its support in 2028, so when you log in everything is just as it is. Everyone is playing the exact same game with the same content, and nothing is ever locked off or vaulted. There are two free expeditions to new maps as well, The Pitt and Atlantic City, if you’re looking for a change of scenery. Not only is it a great game now; it’s finally worthy of being a core entry of the Fallout series. And the game works now! It actually runs much better than Fallout 4 ever has, and I never have encountered more than a minor bug since the relaunch. If you want to know all the reasons you should be playing Fallout 76 right now, check out my handy guide to get started!
I don’t necessarily know that Concord would have been worth saving, as I didn’t get a chance to play it. That might be because it costs $40 and only existed for two weeks, but who’s counting. Regardless, these games prove that a failed launch doesn’t have to be the end. Do you think Firewalk Studios should have been given a change to try and fix Concord? Comment below!
