Usually it's seen as childish to whine about the downfall of a game or franchise, but there are exceptions to the rule.
1. Duke Nukem Forever
In hindsight, Duke Nukem Forever was a game that was doomed from the start. Originally, Duke Nukem was along the lines of Doom in terms of its gameplay and edginess. The protagonist is a beer loving, die hard american who will do anything to protect his homeland from... aliens? Anyways, the Duke stayed in absolute purgatory for years with the new Duke Nukem game coming out. Why? Because nobody wanted anything to do with making that game, so for almost a decade the game was partially made, tossed to a different developer, rinse repeat. This happened until Gearbox Software took the hit and made an unpolished, buggy, unplayable mess that will forever taint their record.
2. Super Monkey Ball
When I say super monkey ball what I really mean is every single game after the first 2 releases, and that might be sounding arrogant but hear me out. The first 2 super monkey ball games were originally quarter munching, tough as nails arcade cabinet games. They were meant to be hard, they were meant to seem impossible without a time sink, and that's what made super monkey ball amazing. However the leading developer behind the games left in pursuit of other desires, leaving the Super Monkey Ball franchise in peril. The longer the series existed, the lazier the games became. Guardrails, boss battles, and a jump button(?) were all added to compensate for the lack of challenge which only pulled the franchise into a deeper hole. As of this point there is little hope for a good Super Monkey Ball game, but I'm holding out hope because I really do have a soft spot for the first two games.
3. No Man's Sky
If you were the tiniest bit into video games in 2016, you'll know exactly what I mean when I say that No Man's Sky had the worst launch of any game ever. A game promised to us as an open galaxy waiting to be explored with the universe functioning around you turned into an empty sandbox that gave you almost no reason to play. The plethora of empty promises under the belts of Hello Games didn't help either, as this only made the actual game seem much less promising. There is hope however, since the game's launch in 2016, Hello Games has been working extremely hard to transform No Man's Sky into an actual playable game. What was lonely journey through the cosmos is now a vigorated exploration of what's beyond Earth.
4. The Last of Us: Part II
This is the most recent culprit on our list, so let me tell you how it got here. See, in 2013 Naughty Dog created The Last Of Us, the story of a gritty zombie apocalypse that held nothing back. The game received critical appraise, being tatted as one of the greatest video games to ever release. What made The Last of Us so powerful was its storytelling, and also makes what I'm about to say even more heartbreaking. See, a majority of the staff who made the first game either left or got fired, and this left no other than an outsider to pick up the pieces. And this outsider, Neil Druckmann, did far worse than the pick of the pieces, more like burned then and pretended as he solved it. The Last of Us: Part II is a spit in the face to anyone who played the first game, and everyone who bought a copy can vouch. To make matters worse, they had a plethora of false advertising before the game's launch including altered gameplay to deceive people into buying the game. I'm pretty sure that's illegal? Anyhow it's more criminal that a game with this much attention became such a disappointment
5. Fallout 76
My oh my let me tell the beginning of the end for Bethesda, and it all starts with Fallout 76. The Fallout franchise was been through a lot, and a lot of that has been nothing short of amazing. The tale of civilization trying to pick up the pieces after a nuclear fallout is something impossible to mess up. But guess what? Bethesda had to mess around and mess it up. What used to be a franchise known for its deep storytelling, character creation, and carving your own self into the world of the distraught is now something completely different. Fallout 76 is a multiplayer-only game, no story to be seen, microtransactions littered everywhere, with no reason to play it. Oh and by the way, there were multiple scandals with their lie of a collectors edition, which promised a canvas bag but only delivered a cheap nylon one, and their Brotherhood helmet collecting mold days after unboxing. Not to mention their failure of Nuka Dark Rum, a terrible drink that is supposed to pay homage to the series it came from. Bethesda has been on an incredible decline for years and has been trying to stay afloat from Skyrim for years now, I can only hope they learn to make a decent functioning game again soon because this incredibly disappointing.
If you're a true gamer, you could know these five biggest disappointments of gaming.
