Top 10 Games That Destroyed A Company's Reputation

Ambition’s a powerful motivator, but if not tempered with self-control, it can quickly overwhelm one’s work. Free Radical Design, creators of the much-loved “TimeSplitters” games, may have learned this too late with their last project “Haze” released in 2008. The game’s intent as a deconstruction of shooter tropes was seemingly meant to blend with Free Radical’s desire to compete with “Halo”… but instead resulted in a muddled affair. “Haze” had severe narrative shortcomings and was plagued by bugs, leaving many gamers dissatisfied both with the game and with Free Radical. That this was the project that drove Free Radical Design into bankruptcy is sadly unsurprising.

More than anything, Electronic Arts wanted the 2013 installment of “SimCity” to serve as a soft reboot, a way to shine a light on familiar and beloved gameplay in a new way. Unfortunately, the game they had Maxis develop fell victim to network outages and save file errors from the outset, due in part to the always-online feature. Once gamers managed to actually play “SimCity”, they found the experience to be limited both in scope and features when compared to its predecessors. As a result, Maxis’ standing was tarnished, which may well have been a factor in the studio’s shutdown.

Swan songs should be a grand farewell, not a flailing and ultimately fruitless bid for relevance. This was the unfortunate fate of “The Angel of Darkness”, the last of the “Tomb Raider” games developed by Core Design. Its implementation of by then outdated controls and combat mechanics was made worse by essential plot details and game features being cut for time. The backlash and poor critical reception of “The Angel of Darkness” forced publisher Eidos’s hand in taking Core Design off the series. The “Tomb Raider” series returned to form in the hands of Crystal Dynamics with “Legend” in 2006.

As heartbreaking as “Duke Nukem Forever” may have been, it doesn’t quite compare to Gearbox Software’s so-called passion project “Aliens: Colonial Marines.” Billed as a continuation of the story of 1986’s “Aliens”, the game managed to disgrace everyone involved in its creation through its unimpressive visuals, dull shooter gameplay and baffling plot holes. Worse for Gearbox, it came to light that the company had moved people and resources off of “Colonial Marines” to work on “Borderlands”… while still accepting milestone checks from Sega! Factor in their decision to outsource work on “Colonial Marines” to three other studios, and it’s hard to feel bad for Gearbox.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Once considered among the best in the business at constructing deep, story-driven RPGs, BioWare came face-to-face with their own limitations in “Mass Effect: Andromeda”. Developed primarily by BioWare’s Montreal studio, the game released in March of 2017 to criticism and controversy. Many of the negative reviews were centered on issues such as animation glitches, reused plot threads from the original trilogy, inconsistent writing, and uninteresting characters. Additionally, sales of “Andromeda” supposedly fell short of the series’ standards, leaving BioWare Montreal to be relegated to a support role by Electronic Arts.

There were plenty of signs that Ion Storm’s “Daikatana” was falling apart, namely the fact that they switched engines mid-way through development. So it seemed tragically understandable that the final game was an ugly and misguided mess, brought down further by frustrating difficulty spikes and bizarrely outdated design decisions. “Daikatana” failed to recoup the considerable costs of its development and eroded whatever remained of the goodwill Ion Storm – and co-founder John Romero – had with the public. Even to this day, the story of how “Daikatana” eventually lead to Ion Storm’s closure stands as a cautionary tale to all would-be developers.

Having started as a PlayStation game before moving over to the Xbox 360, “Too Human” had the makings of a well-intentioned flop from the start. At launch, critics found it to be highly ambitious as an action-RPG but hampered by infuriating controls and repetitive environments. However, among the general public it served as the clearest indication of Silicon Knights’ downfall, a sentiment hammered home by the universally panned “X-Men: Destiny” a few years later. Whatever successes Silicon Knights may have had, they couldn’t overcome the public relations and financial costs of “Too Human.”

Third time is most definitely not the charm for Rare. “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts” opted to shift away from classic 3D platforming of the previous games in the series, to a blend of racing and vehicle customization – a decision that drew a ton of flak from fans. The game’s snarky comments aimed at past “Banjo-Kazooie” titles gave the impression that Rare – by then owned by Microsoft – no longer cared for their earlier work. In light of the game not selling exceptionally well, Rare was moved to Kinect game development.

What should have been a triumphant celebration of the 15th anniversary of Sega’s hedgehog mascot instead result in the disaster that was 2006’s “Sonic the Hedgehog”. The departure of Yuji Naka and mismanagement of the game’s development lead to a glitch-filled experience with three increasingly unpleasant-to-play campaigns, subpar audio-visual design, and laughably poor writing. “Sonic 06” left many with the sense that Sonic Team had lost their way and that Sega had given up caring about quality in their games. Even years later, Sega’s efforts to rework and reinvigorate the “Sonic” series still appear driven by a desire to undo this game’s damage. The Blue Blur deserved better, folks.

For a generation of game enthusiasts, this symbolizes all that was wrong with Atari at the time. “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” was meant to serve as a months-later tie-in to the Steven Spielberg movie of the same name, with Atari in charge of the adaptation. In order to make it to shelves in time for Christmas, Atari instructed lead designer Howard Scott Warshaw to make the game in five and a half weeks. The result: a shallow, practically unplayable mess of a game. Its legacy is tied to the industry crash of 1983, as well as the urban legend that turned out to be true – that unsold games were buried in a landfill in New Mexico.