20 GREAT Games Overshadowed By Controversy

20 Great Games Overshadowed By Controversy

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today, we’re taking a look at 20 awesome games that unfortunately had their spotlights stolen by controversy.

“Batman: Arkham Knight” (2015)

For as much as some of us will complain about the Batmobile segments, “Batman: Arkham Knight” does boast some unique ideas as it closes out Bruce Wayne’s legacy in the story. However, one event around the game’s launch has partially stained its reputation. The PC version of “Arkham Knight” launched with a myriad of bugs ranging from graphical glitches to AI suddenly becoming insanely stupid. Things were so bad that “Arkham Knight” was pulled from sale and Warner Bros issued refunds as the issues were ironed out. Some players still have chosen not to purchase the game due to the integration of Denuvo, a DRM program that has caused some PCs to experience performance issues.

“Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth” (2024)

“Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth” was one of the first games of 2024 to release with universal praise. At the time of this video, “Infinite Wealth” boasts an OpenCritic rating of a Mighty ninety! The high did not last long as players took umbrage with the DLC. Right as the game launched, some folks noticed a twenty-dollar DLC pack known as the Master Vacation Bundle. This bundle gave players access to a new endgame dungeon known as the Big Swill, but buying this bundle was also the only means to access New Game Plus. For some, the hundred-plus-hour game was not enough by itself, and they would take to social media demanding New Game Plus be free. “Infinite Wealth” would sell over a million copies within its first week after launch.

“Gran Turismo 7” (2022)

For racing fans, “Gran Turismo 7” truly is one of the most remarkable games you can buy. Once again, Polyphony shows their incredible attention to detail in recreating real-life cars and racetracks in both visuals and sound. GT7 saw resounding praise upon release, though it crashed and burned with some players. Much of the conversation around the game quickly became more about its monetization and unfair payouts of in-game currency. It got so bad that some players resorted to using AI programs to grind currency for them while they weren’t playing the game. According to series producer Kazunori Yamauchi, the payouts and pricing of cars were to reflect each car’s “real-world prices”. Yamauchi and Polyphony still apologized to players and gave all players in-game currency to make amends.

“Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled” (2019)

The remake of the 1999 classic “Crash Team Racing” suffered a similar fate as “Gran Turismo 7”. Tons of reviews, including our own, gave “Nitro-Fueled” glowing praise for its visual detail, animation, and ability to perfectly recreate and expand upon the original game. The praise quickly turned into scrutiny when Activision Blizzard hamfisted microtransactions into the game over a month after launch. What’s worse is that developer Beenox was forced to decrease payouts and even go so far as to place a limit on how much currency players could earn within a day. To this day, “Nitro-Fueled” remains a grind for players as karts, characters, and costumes cost between fifteen hundred and twenty-five hundred Wumpa coins. Rarely do races payout more than one hundred Wumpa Coins. You basically have to spend a whole evening grinding to unlock maybe one or two characters, karts, or costumes. It’s that bad.

“Stellar Blade” (2024)

The hullabaloo around “Stellar Blade” quickly became a cesspool the second it was revealed back in 2021. On one hand, you had pundits and YouTubers spearheading this idea that the developers “had never seen a real woman before” and that the game “wasn’t for modern audiences” because of its sexy protagonist. And yet, these folks failed to acknowledge the fact that the protagonist’s body was based off the body of a real Korean model. On the other hand, you had some weird individuals on social media claiming that these same pundits and YouTubers were trying to get the game “censored”. But once the game dropped…so did the noise. It’s almost like there was more to this game than just boobs and booty, as if “Stellar Blade” had a really fun story and some thrilling combat mechanics. Interesting.

“Battlefield V” (2018)

While we’re on the subject of unfair scrutiny against female protagonists in video games, “Battlefield V” got a lot of unnecessary controversy for some arguably stupid reasons. It’s one thing for fans to point out the strange shift from the real history of World War One behind “Battlefield 1” to an alternate timeline of World War Two here. But some took the conversation to an absurd degree, spreading the idea that “women never served in World War Two” when that could not be further from the truth. A simple Google search quickly proves otherwise. While “Battlefield V” would get proper criticism for being lean on single-player content, most found the multiplayer to be just as engaging to play as its predecessor.

“Tekken 8” (2024)

Launching at the same exact time as “Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth”, “Tekken 8” saw universal praise from players and critics alike. Of course, YouTubers tried to predictably act like the game was super unbalanced, but outrage cropped up as Bandai Namco Entertainment would introduce microtransactions and an in-game shop roughly a month after launch. The anger grew when Eddy Gordo was added to the game song with “Tekken 8’s” very first battle pass, which really was underwhelming to say the least. Despite all this outrage and talk about Tekken Coins and battle pass woes, “Tekken 8” still sees an average of roughly eight thousand players on PC alone.

“Indivisible” (2019)

“Indivisible” was one of those surprise indie titles of 2019, but no one knew how to feel about an RPG based around tag-fighting mechanics. What came out was a truly fantastic game with top-notch animation and artistry. Problem is that no one will ever see the game as just that due to one particular developer behind it. Lab Zero Games was a team widely known for their work on “Skullgirls” until its staff outed their CEO, Mike Zaimont, for several instances of harassment in the workplace. In a flash, the entire community Lab Zero had built turned against Zaimont while almost all of the staff members collectively left. Autumn Games, the publisher of “Skullgirls” and “Indivisible”, would sever ties with Zaimont and help the team form a new studio to continue “Skullgirls”. “Indivisible” would be the final game to be developed by Lab Zero with Zaimont at the helm, and with the sudden collapse of the studio, almost all of “Indivisible’s” DLC was quietly canceled. In other words, “Indivisible” is now a game of broken promises and built off a past most would rather repress and hopefully forget.

“Street Fighter X Tekken” (2012)

Wouldn’t you know it, another fighting game marred by controversy. In case you never got to try this out before it was rendered unplayable on modern hardware, “Street Fighter X Tekken” was one of many crossovers fighting game fans had been begging for. Here, you could pair your favorite characters from both franchises together to learn new ways to fight and string combos together. But one facet of the game peeved off almost the whole audience: the twelve DLC characters were already on game discs and collectively locked behind a paywall. Yes, this was enough for many folks to return their copies to the store. And now, it’s hard to really look back on this game fondly without acknowledging that whole mess.

“Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time” (2013)

So many casual and hardcore fans will quickly dunk on “Thieves in Time”. You would think this game was so horrendous that it killed the franchise when the only gripe folks have is just that cliffhanger ending. Don’t get it twisted - that cliffhanger was egregious and unnecessary. But that shouldn’t decimate the entire experience. In reality, “Thieves in Time” had the same drive and ambition as “Sly 2” did back in 2004. Whereas “Sly 3” reeled back on the collectible bottles and treasures in the worlds, “Thieves in Time” brought them back and scattered them across uniquely crafted areas based on different time periods. Yes, the ending sucks, but to let it define the entire game? Sounds a bit rash, doesn’t it?

“Dead Or Alive 6” (2019)

Don’t worry - this is the final fighting game you’ll see on this list, but “Dead Or Alive 6” saw a much slower collapse than most of our other entries here. At first, DOA 6 was one of the best games to kick off 2019 with its in-depth tutorials, clever DOA Quest mode for cosmetic unlocks, vibrant visuals, and evolution in meter mechanics. It wasn’t until the months passed when players started to sour on the game. DLC was drip fed with a major focus on bundles sporting ridiculously expensive price tags. We’re talking several fifty to one hundred dollar bundles of costumes and maybe one or two new fighters. Eventually, the DOA community left to go back and play “Dead Or Alive 5: Last Round”.

“Boyfriend Dungeon” (2021)

Content warnings have become a bit of a point of contention within the gaming industry and community. However, a case for a necessary warning could be made for a game like “Boyfriend Dungeon”. While the game is an excellent blend of RPG roguelike and dating sim mechanics, one character raised alarms for some players as they would stalk and harass the player in ways that would often feel way too real. Developer Kitfox Games would implement a content warning soon after the issue was brought forward. To this day, “Boyfriend Dungeon” serves as an example of when to consider a player’s potential real-life experiences, and it’s almost impossible to play this game without remembering the ethical quandary presented at launch.

“Mass Effect 3” (2012)

“Mass Effect 3” used to be the most famous example of a great game overshadowed by controversy. As the final game of the original trilogy, it was almost everything we could have wanted until we got to the endings. So many people were outraged at how the endings painted their favorite characters in uncharacteristic lights. The anger was so intense that BioWare quickly worked on a new ending and patched that in shortly after launch. Even now, that whole kerfuffle is the one thing about “Mass Effect 3” that stands out instead of the game itself.

“Killzone 2” (2009)

When looking at the “Killzone” franchise, many point to “Killzone 2” as the best in the franchise, if not “Killzone 3”. To some, this notion might seem odd on account of how pissed off folks were at launch when they found out the game didn’t look anything like it did at E3 2005. This launch has forever been the moment when people learned what pre-rendered cutscenes and vertical slices were. It wasn’t until years and years later when Guerrilla explained what had even happened with that. Turns out the trailer was actually a conceptual demo of what they aimed to do with the PlayStation 3’s hardware; Sony’s marketing team took that demo and passed it off as “real gameplay” to the public. Despite “Killzone 2’s” exceptional quality in graphics, controls, and physics, this moment has become synonymous with “Killzone” as a brand.

“Dragon’s Dogma II” (2024)

We’ve covered games with microtransactions pretty extensively in this video, but “Dragon’s Dogma II” will be the last for this list. Folks can get really sensitive to this practice invading games that are primarily single-player, and it pretty much swallowed up the conversation around the game for weeks. At launch, Capcom implemented microtransactions for items that allowed players to fast travel or even prevent death. Many pundits and YouTubers who played the game quickly came to Cacpcom’s defense, stating you could easily wind up with more of these resources than you’ll know what to do with. Even then, some folks weren’t buying the game simply for the lack of support for sixty frames per second.

“Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts” (2008)

A couple of years after being bought by Microsoft, Rare put out a teaser stating that they were working on a brand new “Banjo-Kazooie” game. In 2008, “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts” was released, and even after some great praise from reviewers for its incredible vehicle-building system and imaginative worlds, a portion of the fanbase wasn’t having it. Like an infant throwing their food off the high chair, some fans began frothing at the mouth because of the game’s focus on building vehicles for missions. “Nuts & Bolts” would become a commercial failure, selling only a few hundred thousand copies. Rare suffered from layoffs as Microsoft restructured the company to become a developer for Kinect.

“Dead Cells” (2018)

Initially, “Dead Cells” was just a brief blip on the radar, another roguelike indie game in a sea of roguelike indie games. Review scores were glowing, but there wasn’t much noise around it until IGN published its review of the game. Turns out one of their own staff members, Filip Miucin, had plagiarized his review from the YouTuber known as “Boomstick Gaming”. All of a sudden “Dead Cells’s” name was getting tossed around way more as the story exploded. When folks weren’t seeing how many of Miucin’s other reviews were plagiarized, they were relishing in the game’s fantastic visuals, thrilling combat system, and intense boss fights. “Dead Cells” would see several updates and managed to sell over five million copies within its first three years after launch.

“Days Gone” (2019)

On the surface, “Days Gone” seemed like one of those rare failures from Sony, especially when you look back on the game’s review process. Many critics who gave “Days Gone” middling or negative reviews were getting attacked by players who found no issues with the game like critics had stated in their reviews. It was soon discovered that Sony had sent out review copies more than an entire month before the game’s launch. While very, very few games media outlets would go through the effort to replay the game a second time under the now-fixed version, “Days Gone” still managed to sell more than seven million copies by February 2022, almost three years since it was released.

“The Last of Us: Part II” (2020)

While we got Sony on the mind, none of their games have been more contentious among critics and fans than “The Last of Us: Part II”. It feels like anything nice you say about the game is immediately shoved aside for a dozen other things people have a problem with. Some call it a game built entirely around shock value. Some call it “woke propaganda”. Some simply hate the game for its treatment of Joel. Everyone has a reason or excuse, and many refuse to acknowledge even one fraction of the game that was solid.

“Cyberpunk 2077” (2020)

Oh yeah, it’s safe to say that when talking about excellent games plagued by controversy, “Cyberpunk 2077” is the poster child. Prior to launch, there were some nontroversies that floated around and were quickly dismissed as ridiculously unreasonable. But then, launch came. We along with many, many other outlets gave the game praise. We in particular said that despite the severe technical performances, we were glued to the game and wanted to keep jumping back in to play more. “Cyberpunk” really was that good! And we were mocked for liking it. Fast forward to today after some updates and a Version 2.0 that makes some fundamental changes to how the game is played, and now everyone is on the same page and says it’s CD Projekt’s best game ever made. And even then, the initial launch always–ALWAYS comes up immediately after saying that.

Is there another great game you feel got its attention stolen by some controversy? Let us know down in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to MojoPlays for more great videos everyday!