Okay, this hasn’t been the best year. In fact I’d say 2016 will go down as the worst year ever for most of people who lived through it. So it’s important to counter that misery with messages of hope, optimism, and how awesome the world can still be.
In our Game of the Year article, maybe. Not this one, as we plan on twisting that knife by cataloguing the miserable little year 2016 and give you a list of The Biggest Disappointments in PC Gaming This Year!
Starting with the obvious…
NO MAN’S SKY
What Was It?: Since its first teaser appeared at the Game Awards in 2013, Hello Games’ space exploration title stood in a maelstrom of hype. A near-infinite universe which players could explore at will, with randomly generated planets to provide a lifetime worth of exploration. It looked bold, brave, ambitious and incredible. Sony making it console-exclusive to PS4 and a full price game only deepened people’s want for it. Then, at last, in 2016 it appeared.
Why It Disappointed: We hate to kick No Man’s Sky any more than it already has been, especially with Hello Games trying their damnedest to fix the thing with massive free content add-ons, but you can’t have a list like this without it. Hello Games promised a lot, and in the end delivered a boring collect-a-thon with oversimplistic design, poor flying and space combat, and ultimately no point. It was far too difficult to get off planets, resources took up too much of your meager inventory space, and those infinite randomly generated planets ended up all looking the same apart from one or two minor variations.
There was no way as ambitious a game as No Man’s Sky could live up to the colossal hype and the mountain of promises, so it shouldn’t have surprised anyone when it didn’t but it was hideously disappointing nonetheless.
SEQUEL AFTER FAILING SEQUEL
What Was It?: This year, in the last few months particularly, there were a glut of high profile, widely anticipated sequels. Titanfall 2, now multiplatform and with a cool campaign. Dishonored 2, Arkane’s perfection of their Thief-spinning formula. Watch_Dogs 2, the follow-up to one of most hyped next-gen titles ever. Even Call of Duty looked impressive, with their new space setting and remaster of the first Modern Warfare. What could go wrong?
Why It Disappointed: For a variety of reasons that regular folk can only guess at, the majority of sequels that came out this holiday season all sold significantly worse than their previous games in the series. 30-40% less in most cases. Individual cases could be called out - Titanfall 2 was sandwiched between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty, Watch Dogs was greatly overhyped so folk might’ve been more wary the second time – and with ever-growing digital sales not being factored in that will definitely affect the numbers (especially on PC), but the near-universal downward trend sent shops, publishers and analysts into meltdown.
It certainly wasn’t a case of quality, as most of the games out this holiday season have been surprisingly great. So why the disappointing numbers? Could it be that maybe people are sick of sequels and want something new? Is everyone playing more intensive games like GTA Online, Minecraft, Destiny or even Battlefield 1 so they don’t have time for all the games they once tried? Or was everyone just waiting on Final Fantasy XV? Who knows.
MICROTRANSACTIONS DIVIDE MANKIND
What Was It?: Microtransactions are the bane of the industry and every parent, those tiny little pointless DLC packs that cost real money and throttle the life out of 90% of mobile games with their constant advertising and pop-ups. In a free-to-play game they’re just about bearable, but in a full-price AAA single-player game? Disgusting.
Why It Disappointed: While by no means the only offender in this category (Street Fighter V upset a fair few people too), Deus Ex: Mankind Divided seemed to be the nexus of player disappointment in this practice. While in our opinion an excellent game, Square Enix added a ‘Shop’ to the menu where gamers could buy pointless one-time-use collectables, credits and Praxis Points with real money. While fairly hidden away and certainly not intrusive, gamer outrage at this practice pushed the latest Deus Ex into the dreaded realm of ‘Mixed’ on Steam, something the game is still struggling to recover from. Plenty of players said they wouldn’t buy the game in protest, which unfortunately would only result in no more Deus Ex games rather than less microtransactions in AAA games.
While undoubtedly a mountain out of a molehill seeing how optional, unnecessary and unobtrusive these particular microtransactions were in Mankind Divided, the massive disappointment gamers felt in Square Enix and how negatively it affected a great game’s press cannot be denied.
PC PORTING PERFORMANCE
What Was It?: If we did this list every year, this entry would be carried over every time. Starting around the invention of PCs and still ticking over nicely in 2016, the act of a publisher porting a game from PC to console and roundly c**king it up is something every PC gamer is familiar with. 2016 contained at least four major titles that riled up PC fans with their poor performance, including at least two we’ve discussed already: No Man’s Sky, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Quantum Break, and Dishonored 2.
Why It Disappointed: While it happens all the time, it’s always disappointing when publishers who really should know better crap out products that run poorly on the majority of PCs. We’re pretty sure everyone had trouble with No Man’s Sky and Quantum Break, and while we personally didn’t have as much trouble as some with either Dishonored 2 or Deus Ex a great many people even on kickass systems had noticeable slowdown. That this keeps happening, especially after the Batman: Arkham Knight debacle, is disheartening. Still, at least Ubisoft got Watch_Dogs 2 right after the atrocious original.
8-BIT ARMIES
What Was It?: Like Telltale making Monkey Island or Obsidian doing Fallout, the idea of the ex-Westwood team at Petroglyph making a classic Red Alert-style isometric RTS seemed a match made in heaven. 8-Bit Armies was that game, a deliberate throwback to a simpler C&C style of RTS made by the ones who pioneered the genre. As a pitch it’s one we would’ve Kickstarted the hell out of.
Why It Disappointed: Here’s our review, go nuts. 8-Bit Armies was boring, totally lacking in personality, had only one side with immensely simplistic units, the AI was awful even by 1995 standards, the multiplayer was frustrating and the single-player campaign consisted of Skirmish maps with pathetic “missions” tacked on. To say we were disappointed in Petroglyph and 8-Bit Armies would be a massive understatement.
VR THE FUTURE?
What Was It?: 2016 was supposed to be the year that Virtual Reality exploded on to the gaming scene, with the long-prophesied appearance of the Oculus Rift, Valve’s HTC Vive, and Sony’s PS VR. All three are now out on store shelves, offering new entries into franchises such as Star Wars, Batman: Arkham, Psychonauts and even Portal. The future is here, people.
Why It Disappointed: Seriously, THE FUTURE IS HERE PEOPLE! COME AND GET IT! Guys? Are you listening? What do you mean it’s all too expensive? Sony’s PS VR is only £349.99! Or with all necessary peripherals is closer to £449.99, and of course as PC gamers you might not even have a PS4 so you have to get that too. And yes I know it features vastly inferior tech to the massively more expensive Vive and Oculus which both push their prices closer to £1000. And yes the games are also all too expensive for what amounts to glorified tech demos with a short play time. And you need a lot of room to make it all work properly. And you’ll be lucky if you don’t get motion sick or neck ache. Sigh.
E3 2016
What Was It?: E3, the biggest games show of the year, held in June and featuring all the wonders of modern gaming. Announcements up the wazoo, gameplay from hitherto unplayed games, and lots of celebrity appearances to make fun of. What could go wrong?
Why It Disappointed: Quick, name all the exciting announcements in E3 2016 this year. Uh-huh. Right, now name something that isn’t a slightly upgraded console or a slightly iffy-looking console exclusive. Right. Difficult isn’t it? Prey, Resident Evil VII, Steep maybe, and that’s about it really. All we can remember about it is an excellent South Park trailer that parodies Ubisoft’s own trailers, us not getting that fecking Spider-Man game, and EA’s conference being the worst thing ever plus Battlefield and about three seconds of potential Star Wars. The excitement of E3 2015 was sorely lacking a year later, announcements were mostly predictable, boring, or just flashy non-gameplay trailers, and the whole thing smacked of disappointment. But of course there was one excellent announcement…
WE HAPPY FEW
What Was It?: We Happy Few was properly shown off for the first time in the Xbox conference, and wow did it look amazing. Set in a ‘60s Britain-inspired dystopia where people are forced to take Joy Pills to keep happy and content, the demo showed the prologue of the game where the protagonist gives up Joy and is forced out of his terrible government job and on to a life on the run. It looked very cool, full of narrative and environment exploration, and seemed like a successor to Bioshock or even a Valve game. And it was available to try just a month later!
Why It Disappointed: Launching in Early Access in July 2016, We Happy Few disappointed literally everyone who had seen that Xbox demo. Instead of a Bioshock-style game within a meticulously designed world, upon leaving the prologue players discovered that We Happy Few was actually a Survival game with randomly generated environments and missions. It’s by no means a bad game, even if it was nowhere near finished in July, but the bait-and-switch was both frustrating and disappointing.
THE GAME AWARDS
What Was It?: A nice recent one here. The end of year Game Awards of previous years unveiled such delights as Skyrim, Bioshock Infinite, Mass Effect 3, Batman: Arkham City and, er, No Man’s Sky while making room for a neat awards show celebrating the best in gaming. 2016 was much anticipated.
Why It Disappointed: Firstly, the announcements. A Castlevania-esque expansion to Shovel Knight was the highlight. Telltale’s Guardians of the Galaxy is exciting but the announcement was spoilt days before and the trailer was mostly a logo. Dauntless showed less than nothing. Bulletstorm getting a remaster with optional Duke Nukem is equally cool but hardly a massive announcement. And… that was it?
Beyond that? Mass Effect: Andromeda and Prey both look fun but we sort of wish they were new franchises. Death Stranding is interesting but the trailers have been highly pretentious non-game bollocks. Lawbreakers is taking on Overwatch and so doesn’t have a prayer. Halo Wars 2 could be good with Creative Assembly on the line but it’s still Microsoft giving us a lesser Halo game. And The Walking Dead is, well, The Walking Dead, and it’ll launch just as everyone loses interest in the increasingly depressing show.
And the awards? That Dragon, Cancer getting “Best Impact” was well deserved, but the rest of the nominations were utterly lacking in excitement. Plus as much as I love the game, Doom winning “Best Music/Sound Design” made me wonder if all the judges were thinking of the original game since New Doom’s sound is rubbish by comparison. Oh, and “Best Fan Creation” was a joke since half the entries received takedown notices.
All in all, there was little reason to tune in. Unless you really, really liked adverts.
SERIOUSLY KONAMI
What Was It?: Konami being Konami. There was a game announcement this year! A new Metal Gear! And it’s… a weird alternate history zombie fighting co-op game? Right. And new pachinko machines based on Silent Hill and Castlevania instead of proper releases in those franchises. Oh, and the Castlevania one promises “erotic violence” which is of course something the series is known for. Not.
Why It Disappointed: I think “disappointment” might not be accurate here, instead we’d describe it as “depressing submission to the inevitable”. While there is no indication Metal Gear: Survive is bad, it’s still an odd thing to make as the first non-Kojima Metal Gear. And I don’t think anyone will ever forgive Konami for cancelling Silent Hills and deleting P.T. from existence. Whatever, I’m sure Konami will be on this list next year, too. Either them or Capcom.
RUNNERS-UP:
In no particular order…
-
Shadow Warrior 2 - first game was great, second was a pointless collectathon.
-
Umbrella Corps – okay, no one expected it to be great, but we hoped Capcom would learn the lessons of Operation Raccoon City. They didn’t.
-
The Technomancer – trailers made it look like Mass Effect, when really it was just another low-budget RPG like Mars: War Logs… sold for full price.
-
Mighty No. 9 – very nearly made the list, except we kinda liked it despite the flaws.
-
Battleborn - I’m talking Gearbox and 2K investors here. No one else gave a s**t.
-
Homefront: The Revolution - a few people were hoping it’d be good, myself included. It wasn’t.
-
Season Passes – they’re still terrible and not worth it. Seriously, does anyone actually remember anything good that came out of the Fallout 4 one?
So that’s the biggest disappointments we had in 2016! Well we certainly feel better, getting all that bitterness off our chests. You guys got any massive disappointments from 2016 you want to share?
