Times Games Were Brutally Sabotaged By Their Developer
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VOICE OVER: Mathew Arter
WRITTEN BY: Mathew Arter
It pains us when a promising game turns out bad, but even more so if it was sabotaged. For this list, we're looking at those times developers or publishers had something great in the palms of their hands, and then through overhype, lack of resources or just pure stupidity, sabotaged their games beyond repair. Our list includes "Anthem" (2019), “Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly” (2002), “Metal Gear Survive” (2018), and more!
Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we are taking a look at 10 Times Games Were Brutally Sabotaged. For this list, we’re looking at those times developers or publishers had something great in the palms of their hands, and then through overhype, lack of resources or just pure stupidity, sabotaged their games beyond repair. Did we miss any games? Let us know in the comments below.
In 1990, a Metal Gear game that was not developed by Hideo Kojima himself released, Snake's Revenge on the NES flopped and has been aggressively pushed out of the Metal Gear Chronology. Although there has been one (maybe two) exceptions to the rule; generally speaking, when Kojima isn’t involved in a Metal Gear game, it’s pretty much poo. After Kojima and over 70 staff left Konami (many of whom worked on the previous Metal Gear entries), Konami decided to push on with the franchise and release one of the worst entries in the series. Attempting to follow the successful framework of MGSV, they not only missed the mark there, but shoehorned in zombies for some reason. Konami didn’t only sabotage their game, but they may very well have sabotaged the entire series.
Although today, FF XIV is considered one of the best MMORPGs available, upon release, the game was so terribly developed that it had to be completely rebuilt from the ground up with a different director, and re-released 3 years later. Taking the world of Final Fantasy and adapting it to a massive online world was a recipe that was so easy to follow a child could do it. You already have amazing themes and worlds to draw inspiration from, fan favorite classes and creatures, all you have to do is tie it all together, wrap a pretty bow around it and make sure it runs GODDAMN IT - IT DOESN’T RUN AT ALL! FF XIV was released as a mess that was so poorly optimized, most PC’s couldn’t run it. It featured a heavy lack of class options, with staples like White Mages not being present. It had barely any content to dive into and dungeons were non-existent. The grind was the worst we’ve seen of the entire series and the worlds and maps were monotone and bland. At least it had one hell of a redemption arc!
The cutscenes of the CD-I Zelda games are the things of nightmares. If you didn’t have a sleep paralysis demon, you definitely do now. Link: The Face of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, are two games developed for one of the worst gaming consoles of all time, the Phillips CD-i. After Nintendo was strong-armed to give Phillips access to five Nintendo characters following their abandoned contract to add disc support to N64, Phillips made these two Zelda games to release on the same day. To force a team to create two games as fast as humanly possible for an already successful franchise, was sabotage of the highest order. Releasing with those terrifying cutscenes, awful and broken gameplay, and voice acting that makes our skin crawl, these two games are now considered two of the worst games EVER made.
A common thread you’ll see in game sabotage, is publisher sabotage. In the case of Spyro, developer Insomniac decided they no longer wanted to continue working with Universal, and moved on. Universal, who retained ownership of the IP decided to carry on with the franchise with the very underperforming Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly. Voted as one of the worst Gamecube games of all time, it featured plenty of game breaking bugs, and was seen as a dull replica of the first 3 games, all of which were released on worse hardware. How could they do our little purple boy like this?
Although we are feeling the dull buzz of a series rebirth, it’s hard for Silent Hill fans to not keep their expectations low after watching their favorite series be brutally lampooned so badly that it went into a 10 year coma. After 3 perfect horror experiences, and one divisive but well regarded entry, Team Silent stopped developing Silent Hill games after Silent Hill 4 and the game has since been handed off to a revolving door of dev teams. Although not all of the entries since have been terrible, none have received any kind of significant acclaim or even come close to comparing with the original entries. After Silent Hill Downpour, the sabotage was finally stopped when the series went (excuse the pun) Silent, until only just recently.
Rockstar has over the years, set a standard for game quality upon release. Not only do they release their games when they are ready to release, but they release them so they are worth their cost. The GTA Trilogy was not one of these releases. The list of things that the GTA trilogy did to sabotage their own release is as long as time itself, but here are a few worth mentioning. The art style has received a good amount of criticism, the games themselves have grown to be appreciated for their graphic style and art, so the smooth Chibi style design that was seen in the trilogy felt unnecessary and almost worse than the original. The game was released with a plethora of bugs and glitches, which was uncommon for Rockstar, so it really drove home the “cash grab” theory that was circulating pre-release. Finally, Rockstar not only removed the original games from online stores, but took away Steam player access unless they used the Rockstar app, even if they already owned the games through Steam. This was a move that would go on to seriously sabotage the later release of the Gta Trilogy.
The release of Cyberpunk was one of the biggest catastrophes of modern gaming, CD Project Red sabotaged themselves through a messy road of promises, saturating marketing, and overhype. After 3 full delays creating an expectation of perfection, gamers were left disappointed when they entered the world of Cyberpunk to find a game that didn’t match the advertised material, and a game that was riddled with bugs and glitches. The biggest issues were with the games “last gen” players, whose version of the game was so poor that Sony removed it from sale shortly after release. The only thing to come out of that mess unscathed was Keanu Reeves, who could kick a kindergartener in the face and still seem amazing.
The story of No Man’s Sky’s development, release and subsequent rise from the ashes is an incredible tale, but for this topic, let’s focus on the development and initial release including game director Sean Murray’s sabotage world tour, where he seemingly got in front of every camera possible to lie about details of the game. Whether Murray was lying intentionally, or believed those lies would become truths before release, is irrelevant. What matters, is that No Man’s Sky spent an extended amount of time over promising and embellishing to build hype for a game that would release NOTHING like the described product, and to think gamers would take that quietly was a foolish mistake on their part.
The sabotage around Anthem is not one sided. BioWare (developers of games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age) and the ever declining EA decided to allow microtransactions in their game, right at the peak of the microtransaction push back from gamers. EA showed little care for gamers and community feedback with their continued implementation of microtransactions, and a lack of respect for their devs by forcing them to use the Frostbite Engine - an engine that plagued the development of Mass Effect Andromeda, and may very well have caused its demise. EA in their consistently money grubbing way, took a great developer and forced them to produce crap.
Not only did Atari completely sabotage the development and publishing of this highly acclaimed movie turned video game, but they single handedly tanked the video game market for so many years that we were dangerously close to seeing the death of the home console. Acquiring the rights to ET was no cheap get, and due to the cost of this, the money left over for development was basically non-existent. After getting the rights, there was only 5 weeks left till Christmas, so the world’s quickest video game development was suddenly underway, AND BOY did they deliver .. a pile of feces. The underdeveloped and overproduced monstrosity and so many returns and so few sales following it’s very negative reviews, that over 715,000 cartridges were buried in a landfill in New Mexico .. admittedly, not all of them were ET, but the few that weren’t were definitely looking at the ET cartridges and saying “this is all your fault”
“Metal Gear Survive” (2018)
In 1990, a Metal Gear game that was not developed by Hideo Kojima himself released, Snake's Revenge on the NES flopped and has been aggressively pushed out of the Metal Gear Chronology. Although there has been one (maybe two) exceptions to the rule; generally speaking, when Kojima isn’t involved in a Metal Gear game, it’s pretty much poo. After Kojima and over 70 staff left Konami (many of whom worked on the previous Metal Gear entries), Konami decided to push on with the franchise and release one of the worst entries in the series. Attempting to follow the successful framework of MGSV, they not only missed the mark there, but shoehorned in zombies for some reason. Konami didn’t only sabotage their game, but they may very well have sabotaged the entire series.
“Final Fantasy XIV” (2010)
Although today, FF XIV is considered one of the best MMORPGs available, upon release, the game was so terribly developed that it had to be completely rebuilt from the ground up with a different director, and re-released 3 years later. Taking the world of Final Fantasy and adapting it to a massive online world was a recipe that was so easy to follow a child could do it. You already have amazing themes and worlds to draw inspiration from, fan favorite classes and creatures, all you have to do is tie it all together, wrap a pretty bow around it and make sure it runs GODDAMN IT - IT DOESN’T RUN AT ALL! FF XIV was released as a mess that was so poorly optimized, most PC’s couldn’t run it. It featured a heavy lack of class options, with staples like White Mages not being present. It had barely any content to dive into and dungeons were non-existent. The grind was the worst we’ve seen of the entire series and the worlds and maps were monotone and bland. At least it had one hell of a redemption arc!
CD-I Zelda Games (1993)
The cutscenes of the CD-I Zelda games are the things of nightmares. If you didn’t have a sleep paralysis demon, you definitely do now. Link: The Face of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, are two games developed for one of the worst gaming consoles of all time, the Phillips CD-i. After Nintendo was strong-armed to give Phillips access to five Nintendo characters following their abandoned contract to add disc support to N64, Phillips made these two Zelda games to release on the same day. To force a team to create two games as fast as humanly possible for an already successful franchise, was sabotage of the highest order. Releasing with those terrifying cutscenes, awful and broken gameplay, and voice acting that makes our skin crawl, these two games are now considered two of the worst games EVER made.
“Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly” (2002)
A common thread you’ll see in game sabotage, is publisher sabotage. In the case of Spyro, developer Insomniac decided they no longer wanted to continue working with Universal, and moved on. Universal, who retained ownership of the IP decided to carry on with the franchise with the very underperforming Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly. Voted as one of the worst Gamecube games of all time, it featured plenty of game breaking bugs, and was seen as a dull replica of the first 3 games, all of which were released on worse hardware. How could they do our little purple boy like this?
“The Silent Hill” Series (1999-)
Although we are feeling the dull buzz of a series rebirth, it’s hard for Silent Hill fans to not keep their expectations low after watching their favorite series be brutally lampooned so badly that it went into a 10 year coma. After 3 perfect horror experiences, and one divisive but well regarded entry, Team Silent stopped developing Silent Hill games after Silent Hill 4 and the game has since been handed off to a revolving door of dev teams. Although not all of the entries since have been terrible, none have received any kind of significant acclaim or even come close to comparing with the original entries. After Silent Hill Downpour, the sabotage was finally stopped when the series went (excuse the pun) Silent, until only just recently.
“Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition” (2021)
Rockstar has over the years, set a standard for game quality upon release. Not only do they release their games when they are ready to release, but they release them so they are worth their cost. The GTA Trilogy was not one of these releases. The list of things that the GTA trilogy did to sabotage their own release is as long as time itself, but here are a few worth mentioning. The art style has received a good amount of criticism, the games themselves have grown to be appreciated for their graphic style and art, so the smooth Chibi style design that was seen in the trilogy felt unnecessary and almost worse than the original. The game was released with a plethora of bugs and glitches, which was uncommon for Rockstar, so it really drove home the “cash grab” theory that was circulating pre-release. Finally, Rockstar not only removed the original games from online stores, but took away Steam player access unless they used the Rockstar app, even if they already owned the games through Steam. This was a move that would go on to seriously sabotage the later release of the Gta Trilogy.
“Cyberpunk 2077” (2020)
The release of Cyberpunk was one of the biggest catastrophes of modern gaming, CD Project Red sabotaged themselves through a messy road of promises, saturating marketing, and overhype. After 3 full delays creating an expectation of perfection, gamers were left disappointed when they entered the world of Cyberpunk to find a game that didn’t match the advertised material, and a game that was riddled with bugs and glitches. The biggest issues were with the games “last gen” players, whose version of the game was so poor that Sony removed it from sale shortly after release. The only thing to come out of that mess unscathed was Keanu Reeves, who could kick a kindergartener in the face and still seem amazing.
“No Man’s Sky” (2016)
The story of No Man’s Sky’s development, release and subsequent rise from the ashes is an incredible tale, but for this topic, let’s focus on the development and initial release including game director Sean Murray’s sabotage world tour, where he seemingly got in front of every camera possible to lie about details of the game. Whether Murray was lying intentionally, or believed those lies would become truths before release, is irrelevant. What matters, is that No Man’s Sky spent an extended amount of time over promising and embellishing to build hype for a game that would release NOTHING like the described product, and to think gamers would take that quietly was a foolish mistake on their part.
“Anthem” (2019)
The sabotage around Anthem is not one sided. BioWare (developers of games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age) and the ever declining EA decided to allow microtransactions in their game, right at the peak of the microtransaction push back from gamers. EA showed little care for gamers and community feedback with their continued implementation of microtransactions, and a lack of respect for their devs by forcing them to use the Frostbite Engine - an engine that plagued the development of Mass Effect Andromeda, and may very well have caused its demise. EA in their consistently money grubbing way, took a great developer and forced them to produce crap.
“ET: The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982)
Not only did Atari completely sabotage the development and publishing of this highly acclaimed movie turned video game, but they single handedly tanked the video game market for so many years that we were dangerously close to seeing the death of the home console. Acquiring the rights to ET was no cheap get, and due to the cost of this, the money left over for development was basically non-existent. After getting the rights, there was only 5 weeks left till Christmas, so the world’s quickest video game development was suddenly underway, AND BOY did they deliver .. a pile of feces. The underdeveloped and overproduced monstrosity and so many returns and so few sales following it’s very negative reviews, that over 715,000 cartridges were buried in a landfill in New Mexico .. admittedly, not all of them were ET, but the few that weren’t were definitely looking at the ET cartridges and saying “this is all your fault”
