The 10 Most BROKEN Video Game Releases EVER
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VOICE OVER: Mathew Arter
WRITTEN BY: Mathew Arter
From glitches and bugs to completely missing features, these video games launched in a broken state. For this list, we'll be looking at broken games that should have had a couple more months of development. Our list of the most broken video game releases includes “Redfall” (2023), “WWE 2k20” (2019), “Mass Effect: Andromeda” (2017), "Diablo 3" (2012), and more!
Script written by Mathew Arter
Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we have thrown out the duct tape and glue, because there’s no fixing this! We are looking at the 10 Most Broken Video Game Releases. For this list, we’ll be talking about those games that hit the shelves totally unplayable. From glitches and bugs, to games that were shipped with missing features, these games should have had either a couple more months of development, or just been put straight in the bin. Did we miss any classic terrible releases? Shout out in the comments below.
-Hey! Here’s an idea, why don’t we make a game that focuses around a Lord of The Rings character that would be at the bottom of our ‘characters we want to play as’ list.
-Okay, who are you thinking? Pippin? Grima The Wormtongue? Tom Bombadill?
-What about Gollum?
-You are a sick f***
The Lord of The Ring: Gollum was a game nobody asked for, and nobody enjoyed. An uninteresting story that filled a gap nobody was asking for, and combined weak stealth with weak platforming. The game also (obviously) released more broken than Viggo Mortensen's foot. With progression blocking glitches, and bugs, the dev team went as far as to remove features that were causing problems instead of fixing them, as if the game wasn’t hollow enough already. They released the classic Twitter apology image that has become industry standard, and the game was laid to rest. R.I.P Gollum, you gross little thing.
Some games will release broken and full of bugs, but if the core of the game is solid and the gameplay is fun (like in Fallout: New Vegas and Skyrim), they won’t be remembered for it. Mass Effect: Andromeda, much like The Lord of The Rings: Gollum, was generally not well received, regardless of the elements that would define it as ‘broken’. With a sloppy story and weak gameplay that didn’t live up to the hype of the original trilogy, the game was destined to fail. Throw in broken progression events, character movement being blocked, frequent crashing, and audio just muting completely, and you’ve got yourself a very broken experience.
After the unbelievably well received Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, players were excited to jump back into Cal Kestis’ story. Unfortunately, the release was plagued with some substantial issues that forced EA to issue a (wait for it) apology on Twitter. The game's bones were solid, but the Steam reviews dropped to mostly negative, with high end PC’s not being able to run the terribly optimized mess. Console players weren’t safe from problems either, with heavy performance issues when running the game in performance mode, how ironic. Keeping the game at 60fps, even on current gen consoles, was impossible, and shockingly the game also suffered from screen tearing... ON CONSOLES! There’s no VSync option on consoles, my friends.
It’s funny how quickly popularity drops off after a failed launch, because Anthem (the spiritual spin-off of Destiny) was incredibly highly anticipated, and players were keen to see what this co-op, Halo-esque RPG would offer. Anthem suffered from historically terrible launch servers, which was lucky for them, because once players started playing the game they realized that it was filled with bugs. Not only were the bugs bad, but the bug fixes only seemed to add more and more bugs. Oh, and the game sucked! Moving on.
Fallout 76 is one of those games that is destined to be remembered for its terrible launch (much like No Man’s Sky). The game launched with as many bugs as you’d expect from Bethesda, but also unbelievable server issues. The game was entirely online, which meant that patching out issues was a lengthy and rough process that lowered the games player count by a pretty substantial number. Many players found ways to cheese the game by taking advantage of glitches, these progression hacks allowed them to not just advance their own characters faster than normal, but ruin the game experience for other players. Boo.
A great way to ruin a WWE game is to make it so players’ moves are marred by bugs and glitches. Imagine rolling once, and then rolling for the rest of time with an infinite roll glitch. Well I don’t need to imagine it, I lived it! Visually the game was damaged as well, with texture issues making the already lackluster graphics seem even more lackluster. The game’s terrible launch created the trending Twitter hashtag #fixwwe2k20. It seems like terrible game launches, and Twitter, go hand in hand... Are companies gonna start apologizing on Thread?
Diablo 3 came 12 years after its predecessor, and it was so highly anticipated that it became the fastest selling PC game in the world. Selling 3.5 million copies in 24 hours, the launch was bound to be plagued with server issues. Well, even if it was plagued by server issues, you wouldn’t know, because only a few copies of Diablo 3 could even start the game. Many players reported being stuck on the loading screen, while others reported being stuck at various other points in the beginning process. The game was taken down multiple times in order to continually fix the bugs, and eventually it became a great game with decent reviews. That was a close one!
Sometimes game releases are so poor that companies will throw money at the players as an apology... wait, no, that’s literally only happened once. In order to make up for the incredibly average launch of Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Ubisoft changed their original plan and instead compensated players with a free expansion. They sweetened the situation even further by allowing players who’d purchased the season pass a free Ubisoft game instead. With graphical glitches and gameplay bugs, this was not the best Assassin’s Creed game we’ve ever seen, but it certainly wasn’t the worst! *cough* Chronicles *Cough*.
There’s nothing worse than a terrible launch in the modern era, because video games are more expensive now than ever, especially if you are using a digital only console... WHICH MAKES NO SENSE BY THE WAY SONY... calm down, Mathew. Ignoring the limited graphics options and terrible TERRIBLE AI, the PC version of Redfall was littered with performance issues that made it borderline unplayable for some gamers. Redfall lost thousands of players in just 3 days and GUESS WHAT! They made an apology on Twitter. Like, an image with words and their logo... are you guys seeing a pattern here?
Do you guys remember this game? What was this one about again? Was this that little indie thing? Oh no that’s right! This was one of the most anticipated releases of the 21st century. Cyberpunk was CD Project Red’s next big title after The Witcher 3. With Keanu Reeves, an incredible marketing plan, and a game and world that seemed original and dense, this game was expected to be one of the coolest releases of 2020. The game promised features that never saw the light of day, it had more bugs and glitches than any YouTube compilation can count. Let’s also remember that some last gen hardware couldn’t properly run the game, forcing Sony to issue full refunds, and even remove the game from sale on the PlayStation Store. It’s a miracle that the game has rebounded the way it has.
Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we have thrown out the duct tape and glue, because there’s no fixing this! We are looking at the 10 Most Broken Video Game Releases. For this list, we’ll be talking about those games that hit the shelves totally unplayable. From glitches and bugs, to games that were shipped with missing features, these games should have had either a couple more months of development, or just been put straight in the bin. Did we miss any classic terrible releases? Shout out in the comments below.
“The Lord of The Rings: Gollum” (2023)
-Hey! Here’s an idea, why don’t we make a game that focuses around a Lord of The Rings character that would be at the bottom of our ‘characters we want to play as’ list.
-Okay, who are you thinking? Pippin? Grima The Wormtongue? Tom Bombadill?
-What about Gollum?
-You are a sick f***
The Lord of The Ring: Gollum was a game nobody asked for, and nobody enjoyed. An uninteresting story that filled a gap nobody was asking for, and combined weak stealth with weak platforming. The game also (obviously) released more broken than Viggo Mortensen's foot. With progression blocking glitches, and bugs, the dev team went as far as to remove features that were causing problems instead of fixing them, as if the game wasn’t hollow enough already. They released the classic Twitter apology image that has become industry standard, and the game was laid to rest. R.I.P Gollum, you gross little thing.
“Mass Effect: Andromeda” (2017)
Some games will release broken and full of bugs, but if the core of the game is solid and the gameplay is fun (like in Fallout: New Vegas and Skyrim), they won’t be remembered for it. Mass Effect: Andromeda, much like The Lord of The Rings: Gollum, was generally not well received, regardless of the elements that would define it as ‘broken’. With a sloppy story and weak gameplay that didn’t live up to the hype of the original trilogy, the game was destined to fail. Throw in broken progression events, character movement being blocked, frequent crashing, and audio just muting completely, and you’ve got yourself a very broken experience.
“Star Wars Jedi: Survivor” (2023)
After the unbelievably well received Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, players were excited to jump back into Cal Kestis’ story. Unfortunately, the release was plagued with some substantial issues that forced EA to issue a (wait for it) apology on Twitter. The game's bones were solid, but the Steam reviews dropped to mostly negative, with high end PC’s not being able to run the terribly optimized mess. Console players weren’t safe from problems either, with heavy performance issues when running the game in performance mode, how ironic. Keeping the game at 60fps, even on current gen consoles, was impossible, and shockingly the game also suffered from screen tearing... ON CONSOLES! There’s no VSync option on consoles, my friends.
“Anthem” (2019)
It’s funny how quickly popularity drops off after a failed launch, because Anthem (the spiritual spin-off of Destiny) was incredibly highly anticipated, and players were keen to see what this co-op, Halo-esque RPG would offer. Anthem suffered from historically terrible launch servers, which was lucky for them, because once players started playing the game they realized that it was filled with bugs. Not only were the bugs bad, but the bug fixes only seemed to add more and more bugs. Oh, and the game sucked! Moving on.
“Fallout 76” (2018)
Fallout 76 is one of those games that is destined to be remembered for its terrible launch (much like No Man’s Sky). The game launched with as many bugs as you’d expect from Bethesda, but also unbelievable server issues. The game was entirely online, which meant that patching out issues was a lengthy and rough process that lowered the games player count by a pretty substantial number. Many players found ways to cheese the game by taking advantage of glitches, these progression hacks allowed them to not just advance their own characters faster than normal, but ruin the game experience for other players. Boo.
“WWE 2k20” (2019)
A great way to ruin a WWE game is to make it so players’ moves are marred by bugs and glitches. Imagine rolling once, and then rolling for the rest of time with an infinite roll glitch. Well I don’t need to imagine it, I lived it! Visually the game was damaged as well, with texture issues making the already lackluster graphics seem even more lackluster. The game’s terrible launch created the trending Twitter hashtag #fixwwe2k20. It seems like terrible game launches, and Twitter, go hand in hand... Are companies gonna start apologizing on Thread?
“Diablo 3” (2012)
Diablo 3 came 12 years after its predecessor, and it was so highly anticipated that it became the fastest selling PC game in the world. Selling 3.5 million copies in 24 hours, the launch was bound to be plagued with server issues. Well, even if it was plagued by server issues, you wouldn’t know, because only a few copies of Diablo 3 could even start the game. Many players reported being stuck on the loading screen, while others reported being stuck at various other points in the beginning process. The game was taken down multiple times in order to continually fix the bugs, and eventually it became a great game with decent reviews. That was a close one!
“Assassin’s Creed: Unity” (2014)
Sometimes game releases are so poor that companies will throw money at the players as an apology... wait, no, that’s literally only happened once. In order to make up for the incredibly average launch of Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Ubisoft changed their original plan and instead compensated players with a free expansion. They sweetened the situation even further by allowing players who’d purchased the season pass a free Ubisoft game instead. With graphical glitches and gameplay bugs, this was not the best Assassin’s Creed game we’ve ever seen, but it certainly wasn’t the worst! *cough* Chronicles *Cough*.
“Redfall” (2023)
There’s nothing worse than a terrible launch in the modern era, because video games are more expensive now than ever, especially if you are using a digital only console... WHICH MAKES NO SENSE BY THE WAY SONY... calm down, Mathew. Ignoring the limited graphics options and terrible TERRIBLE AI, the PC version of Redfall was littered with performance issues that made it borderline unplayable for some gamers. Redfall lost thousands of players in just 3 days and GUESS WHAT! They made an apology on Twitter. Like, an image with words and their logo... are you guys seeing a pattern here?
“Cyberpunk 2077” (2020)
Do you guys remember this game? What was this one about again? Was this that little indie thing? Oh no that’s right! This was one of the most anticipated releases of the 21st century. Cyberpunk was CD Project Red’s next big title after The Witcher 3. With Keanu Reeves, an incredible marketing plan, and a game and world that seemed original and dense, this game was expected to be one of the coolest releases of 2020. The game promised features that never saw the light of day, it had more bugs and glitches than any YouTube compilation can count. Let’s also remember that some last gen hardware couldn’t properly run the game, forcing Sony to issue full refunds, and even remove the game from sale on the PlayStation Store. It’s a miracle that the game has rebounded the way it has.
