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00:00Um, at least it's quiet.
00:02Yeah.
00:04It was.
00:06I...
00:06Hey, back off!
00:08Hi, I'm sorry, who are you?
00:10Welcome to Mojo Plays, and as much as we love video games, not all of them are created equal,
00:15and naturally, there are going to be some duds.
00:18But some of them were completely unexpected by everyone who wasn't paying attention.
00:23Oh, hello, yes, perhaps you're smarter than you look.
00:26No.
00:27Yes?
00:28No.
00:29Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified
00:34about our latest videos.
00:37Halo Campaign Evolved
00:39Are you ready to get to it?
00:47A combat-evolved, campaign-only remake at a premium price was already going to be a hard sell when
00:53the Master Chief collection already existed, missing half of what made the original a living
00:58room religion.
00:59Now complete with a new pile of bugs and improvements nobody requested in the comments.
01:05Softer sales than expected is a polite way to say fans noticed the missing sandbox, and
01:10the shiny new Unreal Engine 5 graphics did little to hide the glaring flaws absent from the original.
01:16Layoffs followed shortly after, which is the corporate way of agreeing with the reviews without saying the quiet part out
01:22loud.
01:23Master Chief didn't need a luxury re-release that charged more to do less.
01:28The novelty of Halo on PlayStation didn't last long, and without the series' traditional multiplayer, there wasn't much to draw
01:34in new players with a broken campaign that somehow tarnished the legacy of the original.
01:55The campaign has been called the worst in the series with a straight face, and user scores cratered hard enough
02:03that a 1.7 on Metacritic started circulating like evidence.
02:07Activision can survive a messy year, but it looks worse when the yearly machine produces a story mode people treat
02:14as a meme factory rather than a reason to buy the box.
02:17The failure here isn't that yet another Call of Duty game exists, it's that a franchise this huge still walked
02:23into another cycle acting surprised when the campaign was the punchline and the goodwill was already on its way out
02:30the door.
02:30The term self-inflicted is putting it kindly.
02:34When your most reliable product starts losing the room in the mode that used to justify the whole weekend, the
02:39only shock left is that anyone in the building thought this was worthy of the Black Ops subtitle, let alone
02:45the Call of Duty name.
02:47Maybe we can pop this out!
02:58The Callisto Protocol
03:00The Callisto Protocol
03:08Attention! All security personnel report to the main cell block! This is not a drill!
03:14This was supposed to be the new Dead Space from the guy who helped invent the series, a grim space
03:20prison horror that would remind everyone how doors and limbs used to work on a good night.
03:25However, it arrived with technical issues and design choices that felt like they were arguing with the audience.
03:31Stiff combat, checkpoint cruelty, and a sequel-ready swagger the first game had not earned.
03:37People wanted the suit and the plasma cutter energy, but instead, they got a demonstration of how there's only so
03:43much brand nostalgia can hide until the frame rate and the camera starts talking over the scare.
03:48The failure here was obvious in the playtests, and yet still somehow shipped as a flagship.
03:54The prison was appropriately atmospheric, and the enemy designs were truly disgusting, but the true terror in this version of
04:01Deep Space was simply finding the will to continue playing.
04:04No. No, no. It was just to blame everyone else. But then I realized this was on me. You can't
04:13keep running from what you've done.
04:14Dead Space
04:26Motive did the unthinkable and made a remake that faithfully updated and, in some ways, improved on the original.
04:33It looked right, it sounded right, and it remembered why the original scare worked when the lights went out in
04:39the hallway.
04:39Yet, EA still called the sales disappointing and used that as a reason to freeze the rest of the remake
04:46plan.
04:46That's the stupidest kind of failure, where the game isn't the problem, and instead boardroom executives proved scarier than any
04:54necromorph.
04:55Players showed up for the faithful nightmare, but the publisher had unrealistic expectations and packed up the marker and took
05:01the potential sequels with it.
05:03The remake was gorgeous and well-received by long-time fans, but was treated like a misfire because it didn't
05:09print a new franchise by itself.
05:11But CEC had to know about the marker.
05:14The company, maybe. But shit like that's above my pay grade.
05:17Battlefield 2042
05:19We have a man down!
05:27Battlefield's reputation was already rocky at best, but then DICE tried to reset the sandbox with a near-future toy
05:34box and launched a technical and design mess that spent months apologizing with patches that should have been in the
05:40launch build.
05:42Specialists and maps that felt empty turned a reliable shooter brand into a recovery project with a scoreboard of missing
05:48features.
05:49The failure was easy enough to see coming.
05:52Huge multiplayer games don't get to ship looking unfinished and then act wounded when the player base leaves for something
05:58that actually boots up.
06:002042 eventually got better, which only made the first season look more self-inflicted.
06:05Battlefield used to mean you jumped in and the chaos made sense, but this one asked you to wait for
06:11the real game to arrive after you had already paid based on the trailer and the specialist skins.
06:18Oh, this doesn't look good!
06:24Want to see some games that had a much higher success rate?
06:27Then head to Mojo Play's 24-7 livestream for all the best content that gaming has to offer.
06:32Scan the QR code on screen to join us live for non-stop fun.
06:36Back for blood.
06:43God, I love Mondays.
06:45Turtle Rock coming home with the zombie spiritual cousin fans had long been hoping for should have been a reunion
06:52tour with extra ammo.
06:54And that Left 4 Dead muscle memory is still sitting in a million living rooms waiting for a reason to
06:59yell at a teammate.
07:00Back for blood answered that hunger with systems that felt like they were fixing a problem that never existed with
07:06card builds,
07:06stingy pacing, and sequel energy that sanded off the casual terror of the original.
07:11It underwhelmed hard against everything fans wanted because the expectation was the band is back.
07:18Fans wanted Left 4 Dead 3 and instead got a Concord level disaster.
07:23The Left 4 Dead games are often mentioned in the same breath as Half-Life and Portal,
07:27but the only thing Back for Blood did was send fans back to the store with a refund receipt.
07:42Anthem.
07:43Whatever it is, it could be dangerous if the Scars get hold of it.
07:46Agreed.
07:47I'll check it out for you.
07:48Good.
07:48I mean, good luck, Freelancer.
07:51After Andromeda, Bioware needed a win that felt like they still had that Bioware magic instead of another apology tour.
07:59They shipped a loop that soared for an afternoon and then revealed the rest of the plane was still in
08:04a PowerPoint presentation with a jetpack attached.
08:07What players got instead of another sprawling sci-fi adventure was an always-online list of busywork
08:13and a live-service plan that treated the flying like a hook for a store that turned the fantasy into
08:18chores.
08:18The downward spiral didn't start here, but this is where it became a punchline everyone could see from orbit.
08:25And the inevitable failure and eventual complete shutdown was obvious the moment the endgame asked you to redo the same
08:31canyon until you liked the cosmetics.
08:34A studio once famous for worlds players could get lost in instead built a lobby with a gift shop and
08:40called it a universe.
08:41With earlier losses, we're shorthanded and...
08:44Oh, thank you.
08:46The Sentinels appreciate...
08:48I mean, I appreciate it.
08:51Marvel's Avengers
08:53Sounds pretty big for an accident.
08:55There are no accidents.
08:57Thor, Tony, check it out.
08:59At once.
09:00Try to keep up.
09:01Crystal Dynamics had the Avengers license as well as the hype of the MCU behind them,
09:06and Square Enix somehow decided the most urgent need for the game was a live-service treadmill packed with microtransactions
09:12and seasonal chores.
09:14The sad thing is, the campaign was actually decent,
09:17but the multiple versions of currency and constant pushes to buy upgrades you couldn't even see
09:22immediately killed any momentum the game was building towards.
09:25Nobody outside of a boardroom wanted Earth's Mightiest Heroes to log in for daily rewards,
09:31and that's why this failure still stings.
09:34The characters were the easy part,
09:36but the forced life service design treated them like second billing to the microtransactions storefront.
09:41When the servers and online shops finally wound down,
09:45to the surprise of no one, mind you,
09:46the disappointment of what could have been for Earth's Mightiest Heroes remains the title's only legacy.
09:52What you did back there took a lot of guts.
09:56Stupid.
09:59But it still took guts.
10:00Dragon Age, The Veil Guard.
10:05Oh, crap.
10:07We're too late.
10:07The ritual started.
10:09That Bioware magic sure fizzled out quick, didn't it?
10:12Bioware's next Dragon Age needed to remind people the studio still knew how to make worlds and characters that mattered
10:19after a decade of arguments.
10:20Instead, it became a devastating commercial flop that put the company back on the chopping block conversation
10:26before the DLC pitch could even clear its throat.
10:29Soft sales plus a very public fight about tone and audience turned a flagship RPG into a referendum.
10:36Whether you like the companion's choice and direction or not is almost beside the point
10:41as EA couldn't even give the title away as a freebie.
10:44A series that used to sell on messy choices walked into a market that wanted a strong, meaningful continuation of
10:50the series,
10:51but instead got unending lectures and a meandering, choiceless plot
10:55with characters no one will be cosplaying to keep their memory alive long after this game is forgotten.
11:01I'm amazed this thing still works, seeing how many times I messed up the magic and broke something.
11:06And then I got there eventually.
11:09Mind's Eye.
11:10Oh, it's, um, that's just leftover hardware.
11:13It's been decommissioned.
11:15Leslie Benzies and a pile of ex-Rockstar North Pedigree was supposed to mean the next big crime sandbox,
11:21or at least something that didn't melt faces in the first hour of a $70 promise.
11:27What shipped scored around a $37, triggered near-immediate refunds,
11:31and peaked at a Steam concurrent count you could lose in a target parking lot.
11:35The vision was GTA-style, but seemingly relied so heavily on user-created content,
11:40they forgot to include any of their own.
11:43So the shipped game players ended up with became a cautionary trailer with a credits list that made the bugs
11:48look personal.
11:49Naturally, layoffs followed.
11:51Because of course they did.
11:52And failure here was the rare kind that was both obvious and still somehow shocking.
11:57Because the resumes in the splash screen should have caught this in a playtest,
12:01but instead turned it into a conspiracy and a blame game for their own shortcomings.
12:06You have no idea how this tech has affected my brain.
12:09This thing has ruined my life.
12:11And that makes it okay for you to ruin mine?
12:15Civilization 7.
12:16The record number of pre-orders told the story fans still wanted another map to ruin on a weekend.
12:22But shortly after the game launched, Steam reviews went mixed,
12:26and the Aegis system became a fight in every comment section,
12:29leaving Civ 5 and 6 to keep beating the new one in daily players like the sequel never happened.
12:35Take-Two later said they got it wrong,
12:38which is the corporate executive's way of saying they tried to change the systems that long-time fans love to
12:43entice new players,
12:44and instead broke everything.
12:46A Civ launch is supposed to be a long game,
12:49but this one spent its honeymoon arguing with its own rules.
12:52The reception to Civ 7 is only surprising if you ignored how many people already had a perfectly good Empire
12:592 versions ago,
13:00and did not ask for a reset button on the whole calendar.
13:04Borderlands 4.
13:05All part of my master plan.
13:07Ow!
13:09This is where I betray you.
13:13Seriously, can you imagine?
13:15Gearbox almost put an $80 sticker on a looter shooter,
13:19told you to get a second job to afford it,
13:21and then let high-end PCs treat the launch like a stress test they didn't study for.
13:26Unobtainable performance is a bold choice when your brand is already asking people
13:31to tolerate the jokes and constant claptrap commentary.
13:34The Borderlands brand had already been on life support after Borderlands 2's phenomenal breakout success,
13:39and the subsequent sequels toning down the humor that made the series a household name,
13:44in a series that once called the player Butt Stallion,
13:47along with a repetitive gameplay loop full of avatars no one wanted to play,
13:51and a chronically online CEO that did little to reignite fans' interest.
13:56There's still a lot of potential in the Borderlands name,
13:59but it's going to take more than a new planet to make this vault a hunt worth shooting at.
14:03My end will be loud and red.
14:08Then you should have gone out guns blazing when you had the chance.
14:13Skate
14:19The long-awaited and fan-demanded return of the Skate series showed up always online,
14:25with a drab world and monetization that made the old EA Sports big games look shy about selling a hat.
14:31Launch window concurrent users looked like a reunion tour,
14:35but then about 90% of that crowd evaporated once the session fee and the pay-to-play loop set
14:41in.
14:41Players just wanted to bail off a railing and replay their favorite Skate series without the Birdman's name on the
14:47cover,
14:48and instead they got a live city that asked them to keep the app open and the catalog handy.
14:53The fate of Skate was printed on the store page under the label Free to Play,
14:57and was an immediate bail for anyone who remembered why the old games were easy to love,
15:02and proved you can't charge rent on a kickflip,
15:05and then act surprised when the park empties before sunset.
15:16Gotham Knights
15:17If you're watching this, I'm dead.
15:22This is a coat black.
15:23Warner already had the Bat family with the Arkham series,
15:27but still decided to build a game that felt like a live-adjacent homework packet,
15:31before Suicide Squad arrived to finish the job with a bigger test of the players' patience.
15:36Co-op nights in Gotham should have been an easy win for anyone who ever wanted to patrol with a
15:41friend,
15:41instead of as Batman.
15:42But what shipped instead was a dull loop with a prestige license taped to it,
15:47and the audience treated it like a side mission they could easily skip.
15:50The pitch was adapting the beloved Court of Owls minus Batman,
15:54but the city of Gotham never got any more interesting after the first Vigilante Patrol.
15:59While not the most expensive disaster on this list,
16:02it's easily one of the more predictable.
16:04You don't need to be the world's greatest detective to solve this mystery.
16:08You know more than anyone that being a leader has a cost.
16:13You needn't shoulder it all alone.
16:18Saints Row
16:19You excelled, and in doing so, proved that you were martial material.
16:24But don't take my word for it.
16:26Hear it from the man himself.
16:28Volition wanted to reset a series that already knew how to be stupid on purpose,
16:33but somehow landed on a version fans didn't want to be seen with in public.
16:37Aside from the myriad of bugs and technical problems,
16:40the reboot sanded off every edge of the specific lunacy that people showed up for in the first place,
16:46and replaced it with a new boss energy that played it like a safe space,
16:50desperate not to offend anyone,
16:51and naturally, the rejection was swift.
16:54The studio closure later was entirely predictable and preventable,
16:58had they just continued with the satirical riff on the GTA formula fans both wanted and expected.
17:03Self-inflicted doesn't quite cover it for a franchise that survived and thrived
17:08by being more ridiculous than the competition,
17:11only to die by becoming generic.
17:13Yeah, okay.
17:15Dead bodies notwithstanding, this place is pretty great.
17:17Right?
17:18There's a lot of potential here.
17:20A lot of work to do, but still...
17:22Forspoken.
17:22But what do you do when the world fights back?
17:26Guess I know now.
17:30Wish I could go back in time and tell myself.
17:36But I was not ready to hear it.
17:38Square Enix's big new IP had parkour magic
17:41and a budget that wanted to be the start of a new franchise.
17:45However, reviews were weak and sales were weaker,
17:48with Luminous later getting absorbed like the experiment that needed to be swept under the rug and forgotten.
17:54Much of the criticism came down to the script and MCU-style dialogue
17:58that had already worn out its welcome in 2012.
18:02Frey could run across the canyon,
18:03but the script couldn't run across the room
18:05without people quoting it like the entire thing was written as fanfiction.
18:09The failure was obvious in the first interviews, but still expensive,
18:13which is the modern Square specialty.
18:15Swing big, ship strange,
18:17then act like the audience was supposed to meet the game halfway across the magic tutorial.
18:21The new world needed charm,
18:24but instead it got a demonstration in how not to talk to your own power.
18:28Did I just do that?
18:29Well, definitely with my assistance.
18:31I did not just do that.
18:32We did.
18:33I just moved shit with my mind.
18:35Perhaps our connection has somehow awoken some abilities.
18:38I just moved shit with my mind.
18:41I just keep hearing I, I, I.
18:43Avowed.
18:44That's what I'm afraid of too.
18:45In the meantime, you survived.
18:48That means we're not scoppered yet.
18:50Obsidian making a first-person fantasy RPG for Xbox
18:53should have been a comfort pick after years of people begging for that exact sentence.
18:58But then, players finally got their hands on the game
19:01and instead got one of the most unremarkably unimpressive RPG game worlds
19:06that somehow set the genre back by about two decades.
19:09Microsoft said Avowed missed targets,
19:12which in this era is how a perfectly decent game becomes a fail
19:15without ever being a joke people clip for sports.
19:18That's honestly the most surprising part.
19:21Obsidian was a developer that desperately needed a win,
19:24but decided the sales numbers didn't matter as much as attacking anyone who criticized the game.
19:29The back-to-back failures of Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2
19:32is a stark contrast of what the studio used to be
19:35that had once given players some of the best role-playing experiences in the genre.
19:40I was a wicked person in my last life.
19:43Evil to the core.
19:45So many dead.
19:47By my hands.
19:49Redfall.
19:49You can't walk away from me.
19:53No one can.
19:55The idea of Arcane Austin plus Vampires
19:59should have been a sentence that ended in applause
20:01and a new fan-favorite video game and potential franchise.
20:04Instead, Redfall shipped as an always-online single-player
20:08with broken multiplayer and somehow even more broken AI,
20:12and the sinking feeling that the immersive sim studio
20:14had been asked to make a service-shaped product on a deadline
20:17instead of a passion project.
20:19The studio later closed, because of course it did,
20:22which turned a bad launch into an obituary with a login screen.
20:26Players immediately predicted the always-online part
20:29would be the tell that the game was going to struggle,
20:31but Microsoft shipped it anyway.
20:33The town was called Redfall,
20:35and the studio got the same treatment when the numbers came in.
20:44Star Wars Outlaws.
20:46You're leaving a lot of money on the table.
20:48Don't know the crew? Don't like it.
20:50If you change your mind, let me know.
20:53Star Wars, as a brand, used to mean something.
20:56Fans had long hoped for a proper open-world Star Wars game,
20:59and after decades of waiting,
21:00they finally had their chance to explore the Star Wars universe
21:03with the freedom they always imagined.
21:06Unfortunately, that open world was made by Ubisoft.
21:09Not only did the game disappoint in nearly every aspect,
21:13but sales also missed targets,
21:15Ubisoft's stocks took a major hit,
21:17and much like anything Disney has done with the Star Wars name in the last decade,
21:21most fans pretended it never existed.
21:24That is a special kind of fail.
21:26Not unplayable,
21:28just not the event the Star Wars name used to mean
21:30when a new game was released.
21:32The only surprising thing about this flop
21:34is if you somehow thought the Ubisoft formula
21:36would translate to a galaxy far, far away.
21:39Disney already shot the license first.
21:42Ubisoft just left the remains on Mustafar.
21:45Saving you was hard.
21:47I'd rather not kill you.
21:51Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League
21:54Isn't Deadshot supposed to be white?
21:57Aren't you supposed to be setting your damn mouth?
21:59Rocksteady's first game after Arkham
22:01was the one nobody could believe
22:03they were actually making, or even wanted.
22:06But, they made it anyway.
22:08A live-service looter with a 200 million-plus shadow,
22:11and a player base that evaporated like the laughing gas
22:14at the end of one of the Joker's bad jokes,
22:16so, of course, support ended early.
22:19You didn't need a signal in the sky
22:21to see what was coming.
22:22Fans said they wanted another Arkham,
22:24not a seasonal grind that killed Superman
22:26just so a battle pass would have a boss.
22:29Rocksteady and WB bet that the logo
22:31and developer reputation would outrun the genre fatigue,
22:34but it didn't even make it out
22:37of the first season in one piece.
22:39Instead of a new live-service,
22:40Kill the Justice League became a cautionary tale
22:43in respecting not only the IPs
22:45and legacy of its characters,
22:46but also your target audience.
22:48I won't be around to save you again.
22:51Where else are you gonna go, princess?
22:53All the fun is right here.
23:00What upcoming game or games
23:02do you think will be the next major failure?
23:05Share your picks in the comments.
23:07Did you enjoy this video?
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