“Started off fantastic, but obviously had a lot of work to do”: 18 video games that fell off after the hype ended

Hardcore gamers have strong opinions about what makes a game good and if they have staying power.

1. Rollercoaster Tycoon

“Rollercoaster Tycoon. They had an excellent first and second game, then Atari alienated the creator with contract disputes. They tried to recover the fumble, but then got outdone by Planet Coaster.” —u/Velorian-Steel

2. RuneScape

“RuneScape, it fell off so much that they brought back the old school version lol.” —u/TacticalFailure1

3. Pokémon GO

“One big example is Pokémon GO.” —u/sweet_cassie29

“They seem to consistently find new ways to mess with players as well. Reducing the length of community days, making new Pokémon get stuck behind a pay wall, ‘team tasks’ about five years after that would have worked, and even today removing a well-loved glitch that made it easier to raid, instead of just expanding the radius you can enter one.” —u/DanHero91

4. StarCraft

“People nowadays don’t have the patience to practice build orders for hours on end, only to be cannon rushed anyway. all the casual players moved to mobas where they can blame their teammates for being bad rather than blame the developer for bad balance or the opponent for cheesing.” —u/RelativeAway183

5. Call of Duty

“I’m surprised to not find ONE Call of Duty comment 😅 I’m not following a herd either, but anything after Ghosts just doesn’t feel like home anymore, but I mean granted they’re keeping up with changing generations, it just feels like they’re trying too much to satisfy kids” —u/iammonos

6. The Sims

“The Sims. Huge staple when it comes to my favorite classic PC games, but The Sims 3 was trash. The Sims 2 was not bad but mediocre compared to 1. The Sims 3 sucked so I ended up returning that one after about a day of playing it. I heard The Sims 4 was a real stinker. It even looked terrible just seeing the trailer, so I didn’t even bother getting that one.” —u/Sea_Perspective6891

7. PlanetSide 2

“PlanetSide 2 was amazing for the first 8 months. And then it became sh*t because you could spawn more or less anywhere on a 64 km² map, so people didn’t care if they died anymore and would just run into bullets. It killed the large-scale zerg teamwork that existed before you could spawn in any galaxy transport.” —u/StoltATGM

8. Overwatch

“Overwatch into Overwatch 2.”—u/shutupchip

“It’s sad that OW1 was already perfected (for the most part) and could have just been updated graphically and mechanically” —u/Aphala

“Yup. That and the failed promises of a proper single player campaign and ridiculous prices for skins, some of which were recolors.” —u/shutupchip

9. Siege

“Siege. Played it almost every day for about 4 years. Now it’s just complete w**k.” —u/gukakke

10. Battlefield

“Battlefield. 1942, 2, and 2142 (and yes Vietnam to an extent) had 64v64 maps, innovative features that have been seen since. And we’re just truly exceptional and mostly balanced games that required teamwork to win. Now its just Call of Duty 4. Forever.” —u/Quigleythegreat

11. Robocraft

“Robocraft, actively made worse over time, devs ignored the entire community until the bitter end.” —u/SilverBird_

12. DayZ

“DayZ. Started off fantastic, but obviously had a lot of work to do. A few months into development, the lead developer decided to abandon it to go climb a mountain. It was almost a decade until actual development work started again.” —u/1995LexusLS400

13. Among Us

“Remember how big Among Us was in 2020?” —u/alex13ko

14. World of Warcraft

“World of Warcraft. I was so addicted about 15+ years ago. Now I hear next to nothing about it.” —u/NoThanksJustLooking1

15. Grand Theft Auto: Online

“I know they’ve had a lot of great patches and content releases, but the Oppressors and Oppressor MK2s (flying motorbikes with homing missiles) ruined the experience for a lot of people. I know they’ve taken steps to fix it (a bit), but it was far, far too late.” —u/WanderingMoonkin

16. Elite Dangerous

“Elite Dangerous burned 2/3rds of its player base. […] They were ramping up being able to walk around and **** (think Star Citizen), and when they released that part on PC, it was severely broken, like wouldn’t function at all. When they couldn’t fix it after about a year, they said they were killing console support and only leaving us and PlayStation in maintenance. They eventually got it working on PC (supposedly), but the console is just dead except for maybe 10 people who actually think they will come back. It’s why you see people saying both ‘best thing ever’ (PC) and are really infuriated (Console).” —u/RoseWould

17 & 18. Shogun and Rome: Total War

“Wow, did I enjoy those games, their successors seemed to focus more on graphics and reduced elements like trade, diplomacy, espionage, and economics, etc.” —u/Caobei