10 of the biggest video game failures of the last decade

There have been some colossal failures and missteps in the video game industry over the years, so many in fact that if we looked at gaming history as a whole then this article could be pages and pages long. Whether it's Atari dropping Nintendo, Sega jumping the gun with its console launches, the Wii U, Xbox's misunderstanding of what gamers wanted with the Xbox One, Sony launching the PS3 with the same price tag as that of a new car, the Wii U, Konami splitting with Hideo Kojima, the Wii U, the Wii U, the Wii U... You get the point. It's because of this that we're instead focussing on the last decade and the failures and screw ups that have defined this industry since 2015.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League almost assassinates Rocksteady

One of the top and most respected video game developers of all-time who are known for making excellent single-player action experiences with an emphasis on melee combat being tasked with making a multiplayer, live-service, ranged combat-geared project. It never made sense on paper and in practice it wasn't much better. In fact, this is such a tough thought to return to as anyone who has played Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will know that there are some good elements to this game, showing that beneath the surface of everything else that doesn't work is still the Rocksteady that we know and love. Bring back the Arkham days and for goodness sake, let Rocksteady cook!

Overwatch's evolution to Overwatch 2 decimates the potential of a former Game of the Year winner

Some will say that Overwatch robbed Doom and even Uncharted 4: A Thief's End of a Game of the Year title in 2016, but regardless of your stance on that, there's no denying that Blizzard's hero shooter pretty much redefined what we came to expect from these kinds of games. It presented a charismatic cast and a hopeful world with so much opportunity and depth, and there was a good direction being taken with extra support seemingly setting this game up for a long future of success. But then Blizzard decided to make a sequel, a project that took far too long to make and stalled any progress of the original game, before launching with a lack of meaningful new content and too much of a focus on the parts of the experience that players couldn't care for. Cut to today, and Overwatch 2 is a fraction of the hit sensation that Overwatch was even a couple of years after its launch.

BioWare... Everything BioWare related...

The 2010s actually started off rather well for BioWare. The famed developer presented Star Wars: The Old Republic, Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and a few other projects too. But then things went sour and very, very quickly. Mass Effect: Andromeda arrived and proved to be wide of the mark, with Anthem expected to be a return to form for the studio. But this game was even more of a colossal failure, proving to be a complete lack of what fans expected from this developer. Then, as recently as last year, Dragon Age: The Veilguard arrived and also didn't land with fans in the way that BioWare games so often used to. It's reached the point, especially after EA's big Saudi Arabian-backed buyout, that many see the upcoming Mass Effect as a do or die game, and frankly any studio that survives four back-to-back flops should count itself incredibly lucky, so it's hard to disagree that the planned game is nothing but the most important launch in BioWare's history.

MindsEye looks to be the flop of 2025

It's not as though fans were expecting MindsEye to knock Grand Theft Auto off its throne, but there was reasonable hope that a developer, helmed by the same man who helped make GTA what it is today, with good financial and publisher backing could produce something worthy of celebration. This wasn't that game at all. MindsEye proved to be a disaster beyond all measure. The game was a technical trainwreck, it lacked content, the story was unimpressive, and ultimately it proved to be such a failure that soon the developer was hit with layoffs with many ex-employees came out and actively criticised the leadership and the toxic culture they fostered.

Concord looks to be the flop of 2024

When you think of video game failures as of recent, no title quite stands out in the same way as that of Concord. The Sony Interactive Entertainment-published hero shooter from Firewalk Studios arrived to incredibly mediocre impressions and a complete lack of interest from fans that it struggled to crack even 700 concurrent players on Steam at debut in late August... The data for PS5 players was never shared but clearly it didn't fare much better on the platform because just a few days after arrival, Sony pulled the plug on the game, took it off storefronts, and refunded buyers, and since September 2024, not a word has been said about Concord again.

Redfall single-handedly destroys Arkane Austin

Arkane Austin was once a developer that you associated with the best. It led the development of the beloved Prey and helped bring Dishonored and Deathloop to life as well. But it also created the disappointing Redfall, a game that while not nearly as much of a screw up as Concord and MindsEye, deserves its spot on the list because it pretty much killed this studio. Yep, almost a year after the arrival of Redfall and months of trying to get the game back on track and up to standards of what it promised fans, a decision was made that enough is enough and soon after the studio was shuttered and Redfall now remains a completely middling action-adventure title and a sad gravestone over this once talented developer's grave.

Saints Row's reboot fails to be anything that fans of the series wanted

Rebooting Saints Row was something that fans were excited about for a long while. A more chaotic and less down-to-earth alternative to Grand Theft Auto? Sign us up! However what Volition and publisher Deep Silver ultimately presented was far from expected, instead offering up an odd and misunderstood experience about hipsters becoming gangsters. It never felt like Saints Row from the first moment and to add to this the launch was hampered with performance issues, ultimately making this an expensive failure that soon led to the closure of Volition after they became part of the wider Gearbox Entertainment family under the rule of the ever-lovely Embracer Group.

MultiVersus doesn't capture lightning in a bottle a second time

This is a strange one because MultiVersus was actually quite the hit when it arrived and it looked to be a surefire consistent part of the wider fighting game landscape. But here was the catch; this was during a beta period that was never meant to last. So, when Player First Games ultimately took the title down to finish it - a process that took far longer than expected due to upgrading the game engine and such - fans simply were no longer interested in the game. The once lightning in a bottle title fully launched to near-zero fanfare, which ultimately meant almost a full year to the day of launch, the project was shut down permanently.

Electronic Arts serves up a consumer-friendly hit with Star Wars: Battlefront 2's "surprise mechanics"

Electronic Arts has done some truly diabolical things over the years, design choices that just seem evil from the perspective of consumers, and it's things like this that consistently see the company treated as an antagonist by savvy gamers. Before the disaster-fest that was Battlefield 2042, DICE had yet another trainwreck on its hands when it served up Star Wars: Battlefront II in 2017, as this anticipated shooter featured what the EA execs were lovingly calling "surprise mechanics". These were loot boxes and fans hated everything about it. In fact, they almost single-handedly destroyed an otherwise rather strong game, proving once again that EA is very hard to trust when it comes to making good decisions for its fans.

LawBreakers had all the hype and none of the sales

Lastly, we have to mention Boss Key Productions' LawBreakers. This was a fascinating game because ahead of launch it seemed to be a truly big innovation and exciting turning point for the shooter genre. It had a massive marketing campaign, promising gameplay, and positive reviews but then failed to sell and land with consumers, being such a disaster in fact that around a year after debut it shut its servers and disappeared from the face of the planet. It was a firm example of just how cutthroat the video game business can be.

Honourable mention: Diablo Immortal's "do you guys not have phones" reveal

As a final, final note, we can't forget about one of the most infamous moments in recent video game history. The day where Blizzard took to the stage of BlizzCon 2018 to reveal a new Diablo, only for it to be a mobile counterpart that the rabid audience really couldn't divulge any enthusiasm about. When Diablo Immortal first was presented to the world to crickets and an eerie silence, it soon led developer Wyatt Cheng to deliver a phrase that would echo throughout eternity - as Maximus Decimus Meridius would say - the famed "do you guys not have phones?" Naturally, this became a meme and another firm example of how disconnected gaming executives and fans can be on the spectrum of what they hope from their favourite developers.

Have we missed any other major failures from the past decade? Let us know about them in the comments below.