20 Reasons 2016’s Biggest Games Might Disappoint

5. Mighty No. 9 – Delays Are Due to a Terrible Product

The Hype: A spiritual follow-up to an iconic Mega Man of Keiji Inafune, Mighty No. 9 is an action platformer game which was basically funded through Kickstarter and has had serious fan input throughout its development.

Why It Might Disappoint: Despite a passionate fan-base, Mighty No. 9 has had a quite rickey production, having originally been scheduled for release in April 2015 and being delayed many times since, and still not having a actual drop date. Many pledgers have grown disappointed with the developers for their lack of communication and transparency regarding game’s production, and this could very well mean that the game simply is n’t ready and in good shape.

Of course, it could be a case of happiness through unfortunate incident, but given how unprofessional the developing team has been in communicating the production to the people who financed it in the first place, it is hard to be optimistic for anything more than a average product.

4. Titanfall 2 – Does not Learn From The Original’s Mistakes

The Hype: Not much is known about Titanfall 2 a Respawn Entertainment’s follow up to their acclaimed 2014 action First Person Shooter, except that it will also release on PlayStation 4 as well as Xbox One and PC, and will feature a single player campaign as opposed to the original’s rather flabby offering.

Why It Might Disappoint: Titanfall was a really fun game, but its main defect was that it did not have much staying power as a multiplayer game: it was a fairly fast road to hitting “Regeneration” which by the way is Titanfall’s version of Prestige Mode, and there was not much of an incentive to keep playing, owing to the uniformity of the maps and general repetitiveness of the gameplay.

Titanfall 2 needs to considerably up its game with more different mechanics, maps and modes if it does not want the player base to quickly drop off as it did with the original game, even if the first game still sold very well. If they just repeat what came before, though, we will be a lot less lenient this time.

3. Final Fantasy XV – Style-Over-Substance RPG Nonsense

The Hype: First core single player Final Fantasy game since 2010 has been in development stage for approximately a decade under various forms and, and probably the visually stunning RPG will certainly arrive on current-gen consoles this year.

Why It Might Disappoint: The recent Final Fantasy video games have sadly bragged more style than substance, admired for their gorgeous graphics but falling far short when it comes to plot and character. There is far too much anime enticement in the newer titles, and even for the norms of this franchise, the more recent video games have bordered on incoherence for much of the game’s play time.

Though Square Enix surely would not dare to repeat the extensively-maligned twenty hour corridor of Final Fantasy XIII, there is still the prevailing sense that the series’ best days are long behind it, and so while we will be there day one to find out for ourselves, we will not be expecting much more than a stunning yet hollow 6/10 experience.

2. The Last Guardian – Cannot Possibly Live Up To The Hype

The Hype: Team Ico originally began development on this game in 2007, before the game was revealed to the public in 2009 for a release in 2011. It’s 2016 and The Last Guardian still is not out, development has shifted as various prominent team members have left the Team Ico, and this game has moved from PlayStation 3 to PlayStation 4 for release this year. Apparently

The actual gameplay witnesses the player controlling a young boy who befriends a gigantic strange creature, and together they must navigate a series of puzzles to escape their gloomy assailants.

Why It Might Disappoint: Again, this is a case of way too much hype and the potential to under-deliver on it. Plus, with the developmental problems the game has had which forced this game to shift to PlayStation 4, perhaps this might feel a little dated or end up suffering from the same frame-rate issues and clunky controls as the original version of Shadow of the Colossus (an admittedly extraordinary game though it still was).

And finally, maybe there just will not be enough gameplay to make it live up to Team Ico’s previous successes.

1.Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – Creative Problems Cripple The End Product

The Hype: Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is the final entry into the acclaimed Uncharted series, and teases a murky end for steely Nathan Drake. What’s been boasted so far looks nothing short of exquisitely cinematic and totally mental, and if that’s not sufficient, the multiplayer suite will accompany the campaign mode.

Why It Might Disappoint: Alright, so it is definitely hard to imagine this game being atrocious, but it is important to note its troubled production history: in April 2014, Uncharted 4’s director and series’ writer both left the Naughty Dog, with Bruce Straley and  Neil Druckmann from The Last of Us taking over the Uncharted 4 project. The pair actually discarded 8 months of story work and motion capture shooting, so it is safe to express that the Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End has experienced a significant creative rebuild over the last 2 years.

Considering how amazing The Last of Us turned out, this could very much be for good, or it could result in a mediocre end product that has no clue what it really wants to be, comprised of the innovative remains of two regimes. But that’s probably not gonna happen, right? After all it’s Uncharted!