The Biggest Video Game Flops of All Time

Constantly pushing boundaries and exploring new realms, the video game industry is extremely ambitious. Wii Sports captivated the hearts of families around the world with its motion control scheme, Call of Duty became synonymous with the first-person shooter genre, and Minecraft has turned into a global phenomenon with its sandbox gameplay and cultural impact. There are also classic games like Pac-Man and slot games like those featured on casinos.com that will never get old or fade in popularity.

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Despite the success stories, the industry has also seen a fair share of flops, where the reception isn’t at all what developers expect. Perhaps it’s promises they failed to deliver on, abundant technical issues, or disappointing gameplay – brand-new games and franchise installments aren’t immune to any of these potentialities. Let’s explore some of the biggest video game flops of all time and the factors that led to their downfall.

Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)

One more recent prolific video game failure is Cyberpunk 2077, notably released for the PS5 and Xbox Series X and S – but also the PS4 – in 2020. Developed by CD PROJEKT RED (the company behind The Witcher), the action role-playing game garnered plenty of hype over almost an entire decade. The title was already announced back in 2012 and talked up as a futuristic and exciting dystopian sci-fi game that would take realism to the next level. Unfortunately, upon its release, these seemed like empty promises.

Players criticized the overwhelming amount of glitches, bugs, and gameplay issues that made the game essentially unplayable, eventually prompting CD PROJEKT RED to issue mass-scale apologies and offer refunds to anyone who requested one. After so many years of anticipation, buyers felt let down, and there were investigations and class-action lawsuits aplenty. It was also one of the most expensive video games to develop and market, costing the company over $436 million.

Eventually, developers continued to improve and patch the game and even released an anime series on Netflix called Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. These improvements and the TV show’s positive reception led to a revival in purchases.

No Man’s Sky (2016)

No Man’s Sky has a similar story that mirrors Cyberpunk 2077. The game boasted plenty of media attention and similar lofty promises as Cyberpunk did, leaving many players and critics discouraged upon its release. Announced three years before its launch in 2013, No Man’s Sky’s excitement centered around the concept of building planetary bases in an open-world universe. There were elements relating to combat, survival, and exploration, and each planet would have its own unique flora and fauna. It also uses what is called ‘procedural generation,’ which means that instead of creating each creature and planet on its own, the game uses algorithms to generate them as players explore, making every individual experience vastly different.

This one-of-a-kind concept undoubtedly attracted many, but because some of the expected features didn’t end up being available and components mentioned in promo videos and interviews were non-existent, No Man’s Sky was initially a big failure. The entire procedural generation aspect was another big part of that disaster, as the variation was lacking and the gameplay was tedious.

Fortunately, after five years of being available on Steam and many major updates and additions, developer Hello Games managed to transform the game’s ‘overwhelmingly negative’ status to ‘mostly positive.’

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, an adventure game that came out on the Atari 2600, is frequently cited as one of the biggest video game flops of all time. The goal for the game was to capitalize on the success of the movie of the same name. But rather than mimic that success, the game was such a catastrophe that many unsold cartridges were buried in a New Mexico landfill.

In the game, players guide E.T. in collecting three components of an interplanetary telephone so he can phone home. There were other features like antagonists, an energy system, and varying difficulty levels. Initially, the game sold over 2.6 million copies in December 1982, but just the year after, over 669,000 copies were swiftly returned. It became the source of a huge financial breakdown for Atari. Although it was a game from the ‘80s, it couldn’t compete with other, actually good games of the time, such as Donkey Kong and Dig Dug.

Duke Nukem Forever (2011)

Duke Nukem Forever holds a Guinness World Record for the video game with the longest development ever: over 14 years. Although so much time and many resources were invested in the game, it certainly didn’t pay off. It wasn’t a standalone game either, being the fourth installment in the first-person shooter Duke Nukem series. The game included components of exploration, combat, and minigames, but players noticed its regression from other games in the series.

Director George Broussard became so complacent with the success of Duke Nukem 3D that the team neglected deadlines, structure, and drive to complete Duke Nukem Forever, which ultimately led to its downfall.

Superman 64 (1999)

Released in 1999 for the Nintendo 64, Superman 64 is still considered one of the worst video games of all time because of its – you guessed it – rushed development process. The game was so flawed and the gameplay so frustrating that critics had every reason to fault everything from the technical issues and control to the aesthetics and audio. Everything about Superman 64 was a disaster, and it took away from the reputation of the franchise.

For a 3D action-adventure game, the controls were much too complex and confusing, with poor response times for actions like flying and picking up objects. There were abundant technical problems like lousy camera angles and broken frame rates. Even worse were the graphics, with excessive distance fog, non-existent textures, and an overall flat and lackluster environment. The game was released in 1999, a time when games were breaking free of repetition, innovating with 3D gameplay, and bringing in more engaging gameplay elements – and Superman 64 didn’t live up to those new standards.