These were the biggest game fails of 2021

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Michael
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Some games turned out to be flops in 2021. From horror graphics to server problems, there was just about everything.

Gamers:inside have also been gifted with some top games this year. However, many wished they hadn’t bought or even tried out some of the titles. The past few months have produced a few games that have completely flopped with fans or simply provoked negative headlines in the press.

Battlefield 2042 pretty much blew everything

How could it be otherwise: Battlefield 2042 is at the forefront. Gamers:inside have been eagerly awaiting the franchise’s latest shooter. However, Electronic Arts’ latest title is garnering mostly negative reviews. It was crowned one of the worst-rated games of all time on Steam and Metacritic after only a short time. Meanwhile, Battlefield 2042 has been rated negatively (on Steam) over 58,000 times.

Critics agree. They say the game is just so littered with bugs and dodgy hitboxes. Battlefield 2042’s overall performance also leaves much to be desired – it’s an incomplete game that can only have the potential to deliver like a good title after numerous updates. But until then it will probably take months. For most players, the game runs jerkily at best.

Allegedly, an inexperienced development team is to blame for the debacle. Previously, a total of 19 executives left the team because they lacked creative freedom. Thus, the developer DICE created the worst possible conditions for a AAA title with corresponding expectations.

Since then, the development team has been trying to save Battlefield 2042 with patches and updates. In addition, former Call of Duty boss Vince Zampella is to take over at the beginning of next year and help the development team out of its misery.

eFootball 2022 is not for the faint hearted

The successor to the PES series doesn’t come off as a winner this year, more like a big loser. The hope was actually high that Konami would really heat up the competitor FIFA with eFootball 2022. However, the attack turned into more of an own goal. Even before Battlefield 2042, eFootball 2022 placed as the (worst rated game on Steam) of all time. The football simulation, if it can still be called such at all, even made it to number 1 in the “Hall of Shame” at (Steam 250).

The players were promised photorealism and then got distorted and disfigured faces both among the football players and the spectators. The football game is sometimes like a horror show. The players complained about unsuccessful gameplay animations and some video sequences simply did not appear because they were not loaded correctly by the system.

Konami has responded to the negative reviews from players:inside and apologised for this disaster. The developer studio wanted to try to save eFootball 2022 with updates already this year. However, the rescue attempt was also postponed to 2022. Players will now have to wait until spring 2022 for the update.

Diablo 2: Resurrected only upgraded graphics

This year saw the release of the remastered version of Blizzard Entertainment’s ever-popular Diablo 2. Many players had hoped to immerse themselves in the old familiar world with a touch of nostalgia. However, Diablo 2: Resurrected quickly failed with the players. On Metacritic, the title received just one (User Score of 2.9). However, this is more due to the poor online conditions.

With a company like Blizzard, you’d think they’d know how to properly tackle a title like Diablo 2: Ressurrected. Yet the game seems to be struggling with massive server problems. There are disconnections after a short time and for many players it is not even possible to start the game. There are also multiple queues to even get onto the servers. In addition, new content is completely missing, which is why the remaster is only a refresh of the graphics of Diablo 2 from the year 2000.

However, Diablo 2: Resurrected not only had to deal with technical problems, but the developer studio Activision Blizzard also made massive headlines. The company has to contend with sexual harassment allegations. This in turn has a strong impact on sales figures, as both gamers and streamers tend to distance themselves from the company and its products. Because of this, Blizzard’s reputation is permanently damaged.

New World still has room for improvement

This is the game many have been waiting for – New World. Amazon Game Studios had already planned the release a year ago. However, the eagerly awaited MMORPG was postponed several times in order to fix bugs and problems. At the end of August, the time had finally come. After the closed beta, there was bad news for all fans – the release was postponed by another month.

The release was overshadowed by hours of waiting times, during which players were also kicked out of the game and then had to get back in line. At least this problem was solved in the following days with numerous new servers.

Although New World attracted the masses at the time of its release, the hype around the game died down very quickly. The negative reports were not to end. New exploits and bugs in New World became known on a regular basis, which then led to functions in the game being deactivated by Amazon. In addition, the game struggles with the balancing of the weapons.

Furthermore, the players seem to get bored quickly in New World due to the lack of content and the monotonous work. Overall, Amazon’s game has had a very bumpy start and is still in its infancy due to the huge world. However, with properly implemented patches, New World could develop into a real treasure in the long run.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy failed completely

GTA fans are eagerly awaiting new titles from the pen of Rockstar Games. GTA 6 in particular is eagerly awaited. However, this year saw the release of a new edition of the classics Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto – Vice City and Grand Theft Auto – San Andreas, which simply went down a treat with players.

The game GTA: The Trilogy received a disastrous review from fans on Metacritic. There, the title achieved a user score of only 0.5. The players are simply disappointed by GTA: The Trilogy and feel cheated by Rockstar Games. The price alone would be exorbitant for the remastered version. Especially since the game is littered with bugs and has a poor character model, as well as being horribly optimised.

One reason for the problems of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy could be that the remastered version was based on the mobile version for smartphones. However, such a port often has to struggle with massive errors. The gunfights don’t feel fluid and the hit feedback is also much too slow. The players fall into invisible holes and bugs simply make mission markers or items disappear completely.

Pain and Head Shaking – Gaming and Esports Curiosities 2021

2021 was a strange year for gamers of all kinds. We take a sometimes more, sometimes less far-reaching look back at what will still give us food for thought after the New Year.

If video game giants like Blizzard and Ubisoft didn’t have a huge mass of fans, the curious events this year would rather fall into the comedy category. But fun turns to pure seriousness with a dose of outrage, as seen in the curiosities of the year 2021.

Where is our beloved Blizzard?

The once celebrated developer that set the bar for entire genres in single player and esports with the Diablos and Warcrafts of days gone by is now a mere shadow of its former self. The scandals surrounding the conditions in the company have also dominated the past months and one thing now seems clear: Activision Blizzard does not learn from its mistakes!

Game releases or solid announcements have either been repeatedly postponed (Overwatch 2, Diablo 4) or put on the backburner (Diablo 2 Resurrected). There also seems to be no progress in corporate policy. After the court case about the sexism scandal, Jen Oneal was appointed CO-chief in the summer, but she left the company again after just three months. According to her own statement, this was to “bring more diversity into the video game industry”.

This decision will not come entirely by chance. Shortly afterwards, many employees went on strike and made serious accusations against CEO Bobby Kotick public. To this day, Kotick refuses to resign. The fish seems to stink from the head and if something doesn’t change there in 2022, Blizzard will probably remain a problem child for a long time to come.

The year of postponements and crazy releases

A suspicion that may have occurred to some towards the end of 2020 continues to harden. Corona seems to be all too readily advanced by many a developer as a legitimate excuse to justify delaying a game launch. Even in 2021, long-awaited titles were once again postponed, including Rainbow Six Extraction, Elden Ring, Dying Light 2 and Hogwarts Legacy. Yet the problems often seem to lie much deeper in project management. Because many titles that were actually released in 2021 massively botched the launch.

So Battlefield 2042 is currently still an absolute bugfest. This seems to be due to the fact that experienced employees at developer DICE left the project early on because of internal differences. Konami, on the other hand, has produced the laughing stock of the year with the launch of eFootball 2022. Absurd graphics and animation errors are just the cherry on top of the much too small content cake, which not only leaves the throne to FIFA for good, but is also likely to drive away old fans.

Sometimes you wonder how such a faux pas is even possible. After all, someone somewhere has to put a tick under such a disaster. Demands on developers and publishers have increased (especially in the pandemic) with the expanded possibilities in development. This fact seems to be underestimated these days. In any case, launches and project internals are likely to become a not-too-small issue in 2022 as well.

Skyrim is always “new “

The developers at Bethesda are playing it safe in this respect, relaunching their strongest horse, Skyrim, for the third time with the Anniversary Edition. The special version once again comes with additional content, but technical modernisation is not to be found even on the 10th anniversary. Apparently, it seems to be enough that the role-playing game can simply be played on absolutely any platform and soon maybe even on your alarm clock. Not a botched launch per se. But reading “next gen upgrade” kind of makes you want your money back when it’s presented.

Further, towards the end of 2021, a small trend has seemingly taken hold: shadowdrops. When on 16 November both the Halo Infinite multiplayer and the Riot games “Ruined King” and “Hextech Mayhem” made their way onto the market virtually out of nowhere, who didn’t rub their eyes three times? And they proved it: With the right timing, Shadowdrops are a real marketing bomb! Nintendo recently continued the trend with various indie titles. Perhaps we can look forward to unexpected surprises more often in the future.

Ubisoft and the NFTs
Let’s face it, has the world really needed NFTs (Non-fungible-tokens) yet? Making digital content unique and non-reproducible may seem like a good idea on paper, especially for artists. If there weren’t a few catches. Firstly, the prevention of copying is still working rather badly than well. Secondly, the underlying blockchain technology is criticised for its massive energy consumption.

It is precisely this feature that Ubisoft wants to integrate into its games in the future. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint will be the first. Here, for example, there will be unique skins. However, these can be resold via the “Ubisoft Quartz” marketplace and should thus increase in value. Ubisoft will charge transaction fees. Unfortunately, EA has already proven with Ultimate Team that the use or even the trade of scarce digital goods is not free of scams.

The rejection in the community is considerable. Currently, most gamers see the whole thing as a scam to get rich kids to pay up that no one asked for. Other publishers like Square Enix have also expressed interest in the feature. So it could make waves. Still, it’s an achievement with a funny taste.

From Overwatch to VALORANT and back to OW

Esport pro Patiphan from Thailand has had a wild year. Frequent team changes are nothing unusual in esports. But Patiphan even engaged in downright discipline hopping. In August 2020, the former Overwatch pro switched to VALORANT like some of his colleagues. There he settled first at Full Sense and finally at X10 Crit.

With X10 Crit, he even made it to the quarter-finals of the first VALORANT Champions tournament, i.e. the World Cup, recently. Then on 15 December, suddenly the surprise: Patiphan switched back to the Overwatch team L.A. Gladiators. A truly curious decision, the motivation for which can only be rumoured.