1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,120 As much as we love video games, it's easy to end up feeling disappointed when developers 2 00:00:05,120 --> 00:00:10,880 let us down in some ways, and with the Cyberpunk 2077 fiasco fresh in everyone's mind, let's 3 00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:16,080 have a look back at some other times when game devs infamously got egg on their faces. 4 00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:22,000 Starting out, Duke Nukem Forever. If you think Cyberpunk had an absurdly long development 5 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:28,560 cycle, Duke Nukem Forever took 15 years, or practically forever, to get to the market. 6 00:00:29,120 --> 00:00:34,000 So what the heck happened there? Although the original plan was to get the game out in mid-1998, 7 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:38,000 about a year after development started, it quickly started running into delays. 8 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:42,400 The developer, 3D Realms, licensed the Quake 2 engine, because the 9 00:00:42,400 --> 00:00:48,080 build engine used for the 1996 success Duke Nukem 3D was dated by this point. 10 00:00:48,080 --> 00:00:51,920 But after about a year of development, they switched to the Unreal engine, 11 00:00:51,920 --> 00:00:56,080 since the studio was unsatisfied with the Quake engine's rendering performance, 12 00:00:56,080 --> 00:01:01,200 meaning a huge amount of work they did, based around the Quake engine, was nuked. 13 00:01:01,200 --> 00:01:05,360 But this was only the start of the drama. The lead developer, George Broussard, 14 00:01:05,360 --> 00:01:09,920 kept wanting to make changes to the game to make it more similar to other hot titles of the day. 15 00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:14,560 And to be fair, it looked like this strategy might have paid off, as people were impressed with 16 00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:19,600 the trailer that was shown at E3 in 2001. However, with such a small development team, 17 00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:25,360 progress was still slow, and Broussard continued to ask for more changes to keep up with the rest 18 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:30,400 of the gaming industry, which of course just set things back further. It took so long to finish 19 00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:36,400 that the studio ran out of money in 2009 and laid off its staff, leading to a different developer 20 00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:41,280 picking up the game and finally releasing it in 2011, after some of the original dev team 21 00:01:41,280 --> 00:01:46,800 had worked to complete the game on their own time at home. Unfortunately, the final game was 22 00:01:46,800 --> 00:01:51,760 disappointing in large part because ironically, despite Broussard's efforts to keep placing 23 00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:56,480 modern features into the title, the game felt dated by the time it was released. 24 00:01:56,480 --> 00:02:00,800 Let's move on to a different sort of game that was arguably just as infamous. 25 00:02:00,800 --> 00:02:07,040 Sonic the Hedgehog for the PS3 and Xbox 360, or as fans typically call it, Sonic 06. 26 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:12,160 By the time 2006 rolled around, Sonic's foray into the world of 3D gaming had been marked 27 00:02:12,160 --> 00:02:16,880 by disappointment. But Sega was hoping the technological advances built into the much 28 00:02:16,880 --> 00:02:23,200 ballyhooed PS3 and Xbox 360 could help turn their fortunes around. The idea was relatively simple. 29 00:02:23,200 --> 00:02:27,280 Put Sonic in a more realistic setting, complete with actual human beings, 30 00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:31,840 and use cutting-edge graphics to produce a hit. Although Sonic Team used a new game 31 00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:36,480 engine that did look much better than older titles thanks to the console's more powerful hardware, 32 00:02:36,480 --> 00:02:42,800 the studio ultimately put out a game that had a now familiar problem. It was visually pleasing, 33 00:02:43,440 --> 00:02:48,960 but not very fun to play. During development, Yuji Naka, head of Sonic Team and one of the key 34 00:02:48,960 --> 00:02:54,720 forces behind the original 2D Sonic games, left Sega altogether, reportedly unhappy with his 35 00:02:54,720 --> 00:03:01,040 managerial responsibilities, which suddenly left the dev team a rudderless ship. After Naka left, 36 00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:06,080 Sega split the dev team in two so that they could push out a separate title for the Nintendo Wii. 37 00:03:06,080 --> 00:03:11,040 So now, a much smaller team, without the programmer responsible for much of Sonic's 38 00:03:11,040 --> 00:03:15,200 greatness in the first place, had to rush out a game in time to hit store shelves by, 39 00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:20,320 you guessed it, the Christmas season, and the result was an unminigated disaster. 40 00:03:20,320 --> 00:03:24,640 There seemed to be a consensus that Sonic was just dropped into a role-playing game 41 00:03:24,640 --> 00:03:29,760 that didn't suit the play style gamers were used to, and the sequences that did feel more 42 00:03:29,760 --> 00:03:35,520 like classic Sonic games were hopelessly broken and unfairly difficult. Combined with a convoluted 43 00:03:35,600 --> 00:03:42,240 storyline and an incredibly uncomfortable human on hedgehog kiss, the game went down as probably 44 00:03:42,240 --> 00:03:47,920 the worst in Sonic's history. Oops. Let's wrap this episode up by talking about admittedly a 45 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:53,920 piece of low-hanging fruit. 2017's Star Wars Battlefront 2. Like the aforementioned Sonic 06, 46 00:03:53,920 --> 00:03:59,200 the developers set out to make a good looking game, and that's exactly what they did. And the 47 00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:03,760 multiplayer was received as being actually pretty fun too. Gamers might have been able to forgive 48 00:04:03,760 --> 00:04:08,880 a short and disjointed single-player campaign as the focus was mostly on multiplayer, but what 49 00:04:08,880 --> 00:04:14,080 they couldn't forgive was the horrendous progression system that required an absolutely 50 00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:18,480 insane amount of gameplay in order to unlock playable characters like Luke Skywalker and 51 00:04:18,480 --> 00:04:24,960 Darth Vader that EA had heavily marketed. In fact, it would take 40 whole hours of grinding 52 00:04:24,960 --> 00:04:31,040 just to unlock one underpowered hero if you saved your credits, or over 100 times that amount to 53 00:04:31,040 --> 00:04:36,080 unlock everything in the game. Unsurprisingly, players were also given the option of buying 54 00:04:37,520 --> 00:04:43,600 loot boxes with real money in order to unlock characters and items more quickly. But EA asking 55 00:04:43,600 --> 00:04:48,800 players to sink large amounts of money into an already expensive game did not sit well with the 56 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:53,840 community, leading to the now notorious post from an EA employee about how the system was designed 57 00:04:53,840 --> 00:04:59,920 to give players a sense of pride and accomplishment that became the most downvoted comment in the 58 00:04:59,920 --> 00:05:05,120 history of Reddit. At the time we shot this video, that record still stands without a close 59 00:05:05,120 --> 00:05:10,800 second at all. The situation became so egregious that it attracted mainstream attention outside 60 00:05:10,800 --> 00:05:15,920 of the gaming world and led to government efforts to restrict loot boxes as a form of gambling. 61 00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:20,000 Ultimately, EA admitted that they botched the situation, but Battlefront 2 was left for the 62 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:26,400 ignominious title of possibly having the worst launch of any game of all time. But do you think 63 00:05:26,480 --> 00:05:30,800 there's an even worse example of developers making us mad? Let us know down in the comments if you'd 64 00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:34,880 like to see another episode in this series and which games we should feature. So thanks for 65 00:05:34,880 --> 00:05:38,080 watching guys, if you liked this video give it a like, hit subscribe, and hit us up in the comments 66 00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:41,440 sections with your suggestions for topics that we should cover in the future.