10 Games That Were EXPECTED TO FAIL But Didn't

for decades now in video games you've seen this happen a game is revealed and the gaming public is skeptical a lot of people look at a video game and think it might fail think it might be a stinker uh the gaming public the gaming press media whatever gaming enthusiasts often tend to look at games and think ah that one might suck but today we're talking about 10 games that were expected to fail but ended up turning things around and becoming cult or even Mega hits so let's get started off with number 10 The Witcher yes

before CD project red decided to make a game based off of the you know well regarded at the time but mostly unknown to people outside of Poland Witcher novels and short stories there had actually already been one failed attempt to adapt the dark fantasy world into a video game that project fell through because the publisher assumed that because the West didn't know about The Witcher that the games would fail so it was canceled by a publisher topwear later on in the mid 2000s project approached the author for the rights to the series to make a

game and even he assumed this whole thing would be a failure initially the developers offered sekowski the author uh a percentage of the profits of the game for the rights but he refused assuming that the game would just never make any money so he just asked for a lump sum instead he ended up selling the rights to the entire Witcher franchise for just under $110,000 which probably looked like a pretty good deal back then thinking it would be set up to fail but man Looking Back Now with like the cultural Juggernaut the franchise has become

in the gaming and also you know the fantasy world it's a crazy small number 10,000 bucks if he had taken the percentage of the profits he'd be a probably wealthier man than he is now I mean he still has hit novels and short stories but still he just didn't believe that the game would be a success now looking at that first game in the series it's hard to imagine how big this series would end up being but it it's not like the first game was a big failure or anything it actually ended up being quite

profitable for the studio the original version of this game was rough like really rough it was buggy and the translation was pretty poor but the bones of a really good game were there that's where the enhanced Edition comes in it was one of the first of its kind this total overhaul of a flawed but interesting game which did a lot to cement CD project Red's commitment to Quality I mean at least eventual quality uh their games are often messy when they come out but they get fixed it's not just always a cyberpunk thing this was

going on way back in 2007 in a way the important takeaway though is that the original Witcher while you know far from The Runaway success of The Witcher 3 ended up being a cult hit on its own probably just down to the relative scarcity of these types of RPG experiences at the time people were hungry for more still before release their expectations of success were not high to quote the writer of the books there will not be profit at all give me all my money right now the whole amount it was stupid I was stupid

enough to leave everything in their hands because I didn't believe in their success but who could foresee their success I couldn't well I guess you live and you learn next over at number nine Demon Souls yes the game is considered legendary now but leading up to release and around the time it came out opinions kind of oscillated between mixed and negative nobody in the game development sphere seemed to really understand what they were dealing with here the game flew in the face of many of the accepted design principles at the time where games were getting

more streamlined and easier to understand this game was obtuse it was strange and it had a lot of confusing and outright player hostile systems it was also extremely challenging with a very punishing death mechanic where if you died you'd lose half your health bar in the next run so you can see how certain people just wouldn't get it uh apparently shui Yoshida the president of Sony's worldwide Studios at the time keep in mind Sony was fr's publishing partner at the time the game was meant to be Sony's answer to Sky but the project was floundering

and that's when Miyazaki came in and did his thing in terms of leadership and then the rest is history so he's on the record shui Yoshida like had the chance to play the game and his Impressions at first were not good he said and I quote this is crap this is an unbelievably bad game not the sort of thing you want to hear from someone high up like that that along with the perception that the game wouldn't sell was why Sony decided not to bring the game over to the West there was already a lot

of fan interest in the game the hardcore crowd was interested it was already available in English so it was an import favorite and then it became a bit of a cult hit based on the Imports alone it took a little while but eventually Bandai officially released the game in North America where it managed to make a decent amount of money of course there's a learning curve it had an uphill battle some people even when they played it still just didn't get it but it did well enough that they green lit a spiritual sequel called Dark

Souls and then of course man you know the rest is history now over at number eight uh it's rare to see a game get canceled so close to the Finish Line it's like if they've already dedicated years and years and millions of dollars in people's time and work into a game's development they might as well release something to recoup your losses but apparently Activision thought that this true crime Hong Kong game was was such a failure that they had no choice but to cut their losses even though the game was nearly finished yes that's right

true crime Hong Kong eventually became sleeping dogs but rewinding a little bit before that it's not often that you get a comment on a game cancellation just as blunt and to the point as the one from Activision's publishing CEO at the time Eric herberg who said that and I quote even our most optimistic projections show that continued investment was not going to lead to a little or near the top of the competitive open world genre in an industry where only the best games in each category are flourishing to be blunt it just wasn't going to

be good enough so that's Activision straight up saying that they think the game was going to suck or at least you know be a whiff a flounder a flop whatever so when the game was miraculously saved by Square Enix I don't think it would be unfair to assume that this was going to be a Duke Nukem Forever situation where a game that everyone thought was dead finally gets released only for everyone to then collectively realize that it probably should have stayed cancelled but that is not the case for Sleeping Dogs of course like I said

Square Enix pivoted it from True Crime Hong Kong to this and this game Sleeping Dogs was really good not just good it was great it was one of the best open world action games of the era it's had its own unique identity combat systems feel and it managed to sell decently well and has been like re-released a bunch of times you know maybe not at the insane level activ expected they were probably looking for a Grand Theft Auto or a Call of Duty but it was far from a commercial or critical [Music] faer kill him

next over at number seven Xenoblade Chronicles yes the jrpg classic Almost Never made its way to the west or or or showed up in North America yeah it seems like Nintendo just didn't think it would land of course now in hindsight that looks absolutely silly because Xenoblade Chronicles is probably one of Nintendo's star RPG franchises it's gone on to make tons of games spin-offs show up in Super Smash Brothers you name it but earlier on with Zeno Blade Chronicles it seems like Nintendo was really skeptical and really had to be pushed to release it outside

of Japan then Europe and then eventually finally North America uh there's a great quote from the kit and Christa podcast uh they of course had previously worked at Nintendo the quote is there was a team at Nintendo that made these sorts of decisions that we were not a part of that was a very executive heavy group and they would analyze the market and the potential audience size it was like flipping a coin sometimes these were the right decisions sometimes they weren't and in the case of Xenoblade Chronicles not planning a North American release is pretty

crazy considering like even the original Xenoblade Chronicles was probably a pretty big production and they really wanted to recoup things still thankfully fans campaigned seemingly I guess some people at Nintendo campaigned and eventually we got Xenoblade Chronicles in the west and the rest was history it wasn't the cleanest launch or the cleanest path to get there but now we're here everyone oh yeah [Music] baby next over at number six Sonic Frontiers Sonic Frontiers is an interesting one because when it was first revealed it did not look so hot and then once influencers and gaming press

and people got their hands on a preview version of the game at summer gamefest it was iffy opinions were really mixed a lot of the internet was pretty harsh on just the overall look and visuals of the game the worlds looked Barren the textures the lighting everything looked flat objects were just floating in the sky it looked silly and when playing the game I remember playing a preview version of it I was pretty mixed there was definitely some fun in there but only playing the game for a little bit like 30 minutes or so you

can only judge so much still I thought there was enough there that Sonic fans would absolutely love it and I was right Sonic Frontiers released and it was a success yes a flawed game not a perfect Sonic game and honestly that's the case with all Sonic games but still Sonic Frontiers was well received and seemingly sold very well despite the harsh previews you know some websites really ripping apart the game at First Look it's seems like the team the development team really turned things around and released a pretty cool title Sonic Frontiers may not be

the number one Sonic game but it was enjoyed by fans and it seems like we're getting more of it in the future so I count that as a win next over at number five we have Mad Max from 2015 Mad Max this game just really had an uphill battle first they had been trying to get a madmax game off the ground for years God of War guy you know the the brainchild behind God of War 2018 Cory barlog uh he actually was working with madmax director George Miller on a Mad Max game but eventually that

fell through they just couldn't really get it together then finally when this new version uh this Avalanche developed Mad Max game finally hit the scene you know pre-orders stuff like that people weren't really sure what to think for a couple of reasons I mean first and foremost it's kind of a game based on a movie and those don't always have the best track record also it was hard to compare to the absolutely incredible Mad Max Fury Road this looked nowhere near as cool as Fury Road still that aside it also had the uphill battle of

releasing the same week as Metal Gear Solid 5 the phantom Pain the game that a lot of people were going to play So Mad Max kind of fell to the Wayside that being said it released and it was actually really good and over time it kind of bubbled up as a fan cult favorite uh lots of people praised the game user reviews were good content creators are making videos I will say I want my flowers at this point I have been banging the war drum for this game for years now I've made quite a few

videos about it I think it's absolutely underrated and it seems like it's taken off and it seems like we were not alone people really enjoy the Mad Max game it's not perfect you know it's not like a 10 out of 10 incredible forever memor thing but for some people and for some Mad Max fans it is absolutely the definitive Mad Max experience and it scratches the right itches driving around in a car in the Wasteland is so much fun here War boy damn he's hard to K next down at number four Metroid Prime yes it's

sounds crazy but the leadup to Metroid Prime uh wasn't looking so hot man this was definitely expected to fail because think about it it was an unproven American Studio working on Metroid apparently development behind the scenes was a nightmare it took the game a long time to release and a lot of people out there like to suggest that Nintendo mostly just gave the project to them because it didn't matter if they screwed it up they weren't really interested in Metroid at that point of course Nintendo has had such a back and forth with Metroid and

General they support it for years then they forget it exists and uh yeah at this point they were like here you go guys work on your weird little Metroid game we'll see what happens expectations were low across the board especially once fans got a Whi that they were taking a Metroid game and making it a first person shooter that honestly still sounds like blasphemy absolute crazy talk you're talking about a game that like invented a genre a sub genre whatever you want to call it the iconic series suddenly see seemly being cynically converted to just

another Diamond dozen firstperson shooter something that was very popular at the time and somehow the team managed to pull it off and made an incredible game a beloved Metroid game that feels distinctly Metroid plays distincly Metroid while also happens to be one of the best and most unique firstperson shooter games ever look sometimes these things these genre switch UPS or like a you know a franchise moving to the 21st century seem like impossible feats but Metroid Prime is the perfect example of a talented passionate group of people really pulling it off and winning everybody over

this is a perfect example of why I personally try not to judge video games like a book by its cover [Music] everything is worth a shot everything is worth evaluating that's why we talk about games here like this but uh yeah anyway Metroid Prime rules and we hope four eventually releases let's just move on to number three Doom from 2016 was a weird one at the time if you were very plugged into gaming news people were kind of iffy on this one it was really just like the news Cycles were not very kind to it

first of all there were low expectations just because Doom had been dormant for years you know Doom three while at the time kind of divisive people really eventually came around to it but you know there had been leaks of a new Doom project where they were trying to turn Doom into a Call of Duty clone thankfully that project never got off the ground but the fact that people saw the leaks and saw that Bethesda was even thinking of converting Doom to something like that was pretty insulting then when this new Doom 2016 project came around

it was a time where people were getting pretty contentious with Bethesda as a publisher with microtransactions and stuff like that how they would state things plus uh they really were only showing off the multiplayer for this which sucked it it wasn't really that great after release it was fine but like it wasn't what people really interested in they didn't want to see you multiplayer and all the little things you could do the things you could potentially buy so everyone assumed it would be crap because it seems like they were afraid to show Too Much single

player they were kind of quiet on a lot of the single player it was like a less is more type of thing uh they also didn't give out review copies at the time Bethesda was refusing to give any reviewer content creator whoever early access to the game so a reviewer or you know a streamer or a YouTuber couldn't even give a player base a heads up that the game would be bad ahead of time but after all was said and done it turned out to release and be absolutely awesome Doom 2016 is a classic a

lot of people were skeptical you know especially just looking at headlines at the time before release but thankfully maybe we were all just a little cranky Doom 2016 is so [Music] awesome now down at number two just another example of not really judging a book by its cover it's Mario plus Rabbids Kingdom battle first of all like people were writing this off as junk just because it was Ubisoft a lot of people were fed up with Ubisoft games plus it was a Mario collaboration with the rabids a kind of spin-off from Rayman a franchise that's

pretty dormant and Rabbids were kind of like bootleg minions nobody really cared about them they were trying to make them a thing but I don't think a lot of people gave a damn they were literally nobody's favorite mascot teamed up with people's favorite mascots Mario Luigi and Friends plus put in into a weird like strategy XCOM Style game where Mario and Luigi and Peach get guns it's just a really really weird Choice there was not a ton of hype for this one just like weird morbid curiosity but it released and it's another one where the

rest is history I mean look at reviews look at sales numbers Mario rabbit's Kingdom battle is absolutely awesome incredible music compelling gameplay great use of the Mario Universe the Rabbids they're they're still just the Rabbids they still kind of suck but whatever the game was so good it didn't matter it was a damn good time and good enough that they green lit a sequel so I think that speaks for [Music] itself got you [Music] [Music] a now finally down at number one the Silent Hill 2 remake the developer bler team it felt like everything was

working against them first of all they had never made an action game before and uh the last game they made before that the medium it dealt with difficult themes but it was kind of a dud it was kind of middling and they also kind of had a reputation among Silent Hill fans at that point as copycats looking at the medium some people felt that the medium kind of ripped off silent hill I felt like it was kind of like they were advertising that they would want to make a Silent Hill remake and blubber team as

a studio like some of their games were good some of their games were not and you know for a studio like that to take on a legendary Silent Hill 2 remake people were rightfully skeptical I absolutely was I just wasn't sure if they could handle the subtle themes of Silent Hill 2 Silent Hill 2 is a very delicate game made by a Japanese Studio that felt like it was lightning in a bottle How Could You recreate that plus I was nervous and a lot of Gamers people who had played the original Silent Hill 2 felt

like a couldn't quite be remade let alone by blubber and especially once they started showing off the game and we we got glimpses of gameplay people weren't really sure but thankfully the game released and it was pretty damn great even as early reviews were coming out some people just didn't want to believe it when I put out my review my videos people were like no you're wrong it's still going to be bad but then people played it and sure enough it's pretty damn good is it a perfect Recreation of the original game no but does

it respect the original perfectly in my opinion yes does it nail those themes and that you know very very subtle interesting fascinating story yes I think blubber absolutely proved themselves with this one a lot of people were skeptical some people just wanted this to downright fail but Silent Hill 2 remake ended up nailing it do we know if it's a cult hit or do we know if it's like a a super success no not yet we don't have like tons of sales numbers but at the very least we were worried about a game turning out

bad and it turned out to be pretty good and that's the point of this list stay back is this what I saw in the so those are 10 games that were expected to fail either by fans or analysts or you know the Press whoever uh but ended up turning out to be pretty damn good if you got more examples there are plenty more out there this is kind of subjective of course let us know your thoughts let's talk anything about these games and any other examples you got down in the comments now if you like

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