To be remembered forever is a great achievement.2024 was an unforgettable year for video gaming. From breakout success stories like Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 breaking online servers through its sheer popularity to the sweeping layoffs across studios and companies that resulted in many losing their jobs and entire studios to be shut down, last year captured both the highest of highs and lowest of lows for gamers and industry professionals alike. The year may have gone by in an instant, but its memory will not leave us so soon.Amidst those stories, there are several that stand head and shoulder above the rest, reaching unprecedented heights. However, these are not the much vaunted heights like the ones Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay conquered in their conquest of Mount Everest. Hillary and Norgay prepared their journey heeding the lessons of those who came before, whose teachings were forged at great cost. The balance between great success and monumental failure is a delicate trapeze act, and it takes humility and self-reflection to make that journey across, to reach those great heights.These are heights of folly, the kind that choke the air from the foolhardy and ill-prepared, those whose eyes only gaze at the ever distant summit but not at the path and work it took to get there—and those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.These projects from 2024 tried their damnedest to reach the peaks of success, to have their names nestled amongst the greats and be remembered for all time. And remembered for all time they shall be.Failure is one way to be remembered, and gamers are not the easily forgetting type.
3. Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones had a lot going for it upon its announcement back in 2013. Originally envisioned as a spinoff to Ubisoft’s fantastic Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, Skull and Bones would be hanging up the assassin’s cowl for the cutlass and pegleg in a thrilling swashbuckling adventure. It was also going to be Ubisoft Singapore’s debut lead game, with the studio having been a part of the Assassin’s Creed franchise since the second game as a support team.Despite all those advantages, Skull and Bones found itself in rough waters, battered by the winds of development creep and carried towards different shores of project focus, none bearing the safe harbor this game sought for years.Like a ship lost at sea, unable to anchor itself to a proper vision, Skull and Bones floundered in the ocean of game development hell, shifting hands between development leads and changing the scope of the game continuously. What started off as a live service multiplayer expansion to Black Flag morphed into a pirate ship MMO, then into a seafaring island-based survival game. At one point, an extraction-shooter type idea involving pirate ships and booty floated around the studio. Seven years into development and still a solid foundation to Skull and Bones had yet to take shape. Even the game’s setting was not safe from being thrown around all about. From the Caribbean to Hyperborea, to East Africa then Southeast Asia, the digital waters Skull and Bones sailed through changed just as much as the surrounding waters.Release dates were promised and inevitably pushed back. Budgets continued to escalate and Skull and Bones’ ability to break even grew slimmer and slimmer with each passing year.Finally, after 10 long years in development purgatory and accruing somewhere between $650-$800 million in development costs, Skull and Bones took to the high seas with a highway robbery price tag and an equally devious tagline of being the “first AAAA game ever made.”Ubisoft probably forgot to tell everyone that the AAAA came from everyone screaming how profoundly bad this game was.Despite its 10 years of development, Skull and Bones looks and plays worse than its spiritual predecessor Black Flag. Despite its envisioned scope of a massive pirate multiplayer game across the seven seas, its actual in-game scope was as deep as a puddle.And to top it all off, Skull and Bones is a live service game, complete with a litany of microtransactions, battle passes, and other garbage that counts as “meaningful” gameplay elements these days. All of these are ADDITIONAL things to pay for on top of Skull and Bones’ $70 price tag. It was clear Ubisoft was intent on trying to make back every dollar it lost by whatever means—and no one was buying Ubisoft’s attempt at packaging this mess of a game as something truly next-gen.No amount of 7/10s from gaming journalists would save this game, and its incredibly poor sales are testament to that, with numbers reporting less than one million units sold.It was a bombastic flop to start 2024, but it was just another check mark on the list of many screw ups Ubisoft would commit that year—but that’s a story for another time.The Ship of Theseus that was Skull and Bones had so many elements of itself replaced over the years it is damn near unrecognizable from its inspiration other than the thin coat of pirate paint that is mindlessly splashed about.The seas of video game development is a cruel mistress and the players have spoken. Skull and Bones now rests alongside Davy Jones’ locker at the bottom of the sea, a foreboding omen to the overambitious and foolhardy.
2. Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Following up after a success is a tough act to follow, especially if that success is the 2014 Game of the Year Winner Dragon Age: Inquisition. If anyone could do such a thing, it would have to be industry darling Bioware. Renowned for the Mass Effect trilogy, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, and the original Baldur’s Gate (and not to mention all the Dragon Age games), Bioware was the premiere RPG kingpin, making phenomenal experiences with great player agency that carried across multiple titles. If gamers wanted a stellar RPG to sink their teeth into, Bioware was the way to go.With Inquisition lining itself up nicely for a sequel, Bioware had laid the groundwork necessary for a follow-up game that would explore the storypath established by Inquisition’s ending—had it not been for what came next.Following the game’s start of development in 2015, Bioware began production for other games: Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem. Because of development issues, staff from Dragon Age’s team were shifted around to assist, halting progress on the Dragon Age project. However, because of the smaller scale the Dragon Age game had compared to Anthem and Mass Effect—on top of not having any room for live service additions for the company to jam monetization options into—the project was shelved in 2017. Another shining example of corporate greed and executive meddling Thus began the change of the old guard. Many of the original Dragon Age development team who were responsible for the previous Dragon Age games, like writer David Gaider, Director Mark Darrah, Designer Mike Laidlaw, and countless other veterans, began to leave Bioware. Some left when the 2015 Dragon Age project was cancelled. Others left during the 2018 rebooted project’s development. The turnover does not end there. Even as development progressed, head positions like creative director, game director, executive producer, and production director all changed hands. Some people who left, like Mark Darrah, even came back to consult this game. It is not hard to imagine why. Even as late as August 2023, another 50 people were laid off from Bioware. It is another Ship of Theseus dilemma. With so many of the creative heads and team members gone, the team behind this new game was not the same stellar team responsible for the previous Dragon Age titles—and it shines as clear as day.The rebooted project was first revealed in 2018 and officially dubbed “Dread Wolf” in 2022, a meaningful naming decision based on the ending of Inquisition, clearly designating this game as a sequel. However, this was changed in 2024 to “The Veilguard,” a clear indication that the game was moving away from its original focus, the first warning sign.The next was the terrible marketing for the game. Dragon Age has always been a rather gritty and dark fantasy series, never shying away from the grimmer and more morbid sides of the genre in its storytelling. The trailers for Veilguard were bright, flashy, upbeat, and Marvel-esque—a complete shift in tone—and many fans immediately noticed. It felt like Dragon Age for a broader audience, clearly trying to capitalize on gamers beyond the series’ core audience. On top of that, the combat for the game was massively altered. Gone was Inquisition’s tactical-action gameplay, where players had control of their entire party. Now, it was a dumbed-down hack’n’slash game with NO control of party members in an RPG—the second warning sign.Then came the damage control from the media and online content creators, decrying detractors and critics purely from a culture war standpoint rather than video game direction one—third warning sign.And when the game actually came out, the results speak for themselves.Players began to get deeper into the game, and the cracks that were already visible began to become even more pronounced. Reviewers talked about how mindless and boring the combat became the further they pushed in. The writing was also a major blunder from the previous games, toned very differently to its absolute detriment. YouTuber SkillUp puts it best, saying that “every conversation sounds like HR is in the room,” and the many clips of game footage circulating online further cements this. When all these criticisms were laid out post-launch, again, game glazers materialized to defend Veilguard and all of its pitfalls. Journalist Jason Schreier even threw his hat into the ring to defend Veilguard and its poor sales. He tried to paint the picture that Veilguard was a financial success for Bioware. However, given that Electronic Arts did not reveal sales figures and Jason eventually deleted this tweet, people began to see a much different picture. If the game was a smash hit that so many glazers online purport, one would think that EA and Bioware would absolutely capitalize on this. It is EA. Money supersedes creating good products.Instead, the game started to go on sale less than a month after releasing. Physical retailers like GameStop also offered less than usual trade credit for a AAA game release.After release, Bioware has confirmed that there are no DLC plans for Veilguard and that the team has begun work for the next Mass Effect game. Funny that.In more recent news, Corrine Busch, the creative director of Veilguard, has reportedly left EA and Bioware. It surely cannot be because of the massive success of Veilguard, right?A game that alienates its core audience by shaving away the edge a franchise is known for, that replaces noteworthy game mechanics, that condescends to the paying customer, to appeal to a wider, broader market alienates itself from what made it successful in the first place.
1. Concord
Last and definitely least: Concord.Concord is an anomaly. Not because it failed, but because, somehow, the people in charge did not see this coming a mile away.There were so many red flags prior to launch that this game would not do well, but Sony, out of sheer hubris, decided to charge headlong like a bull into every single one of those issues without a care in the world.It was referred to internally as “the future of Playstation” with “Star Wars-like potential.” Too bad nobody told the producers and executives they were talking about modern Disney Star Wars.Sony was so sure of Concord’s success, they even commissioned the team behind Love, Death, and Robots to craft an episode in the Secret Level anthology series focusing on gaming’s biggest hits. If only Sony knew what was in store for them. Industry veteran and insider Colin Moriarity also reported on the appalling working conditions surrounding Firewalk Studios, responsible for the dumpster fire that was Concord. There was allegedly a culture of “toxic positivity” pervading throughout the studio, where nothing could be criticized, only positively reinforced. Thus, it created a negative feedback loop that churned out this creative disaster.Character designs were horrifically received and endlessly mocked online. The uninspired gameplay debuted to a poor beta test that led to even fewer players attending the game’s actual launch. The knockoff Guardians of the Galaxy from Temu also did not help in this oversaturated market of poorly done and written superheroes. And all of this could be yours for the whopping price of $40, a steep asking price for a live service game in this economy. The cherry on top of this trash was the developers’ response to criticism online, which amounted to artists hurling insults at people criticizing the game, one calling them “talentless freaks.” Surely, the Concord team is overflowing with said talent. Now, if we could only locate it.But no one would get the chance, because this steaming pile of excrement was taken offline almost as quickly as it was pushed out the door. For a project that cost Sony over $400 million and a studio acquisition, Concord sure turned over the profits its executives were looking for. They must be looking for ways to reallocate resources and relaunch—No. This game was so bad and poorly received that Firewalk Studio was shuttered and all work on the game was halted to prevent the company from incurring further losses. Firewalk had plans for this game for years to come.What was to be Sony’s answer to Blizzard’s Overwatch was nothing short of abject failure. Sony’s lead live service game that resulted in so many other projects getting canned turned out to be the biggest failure of them all.8 years of planning and development for less than two weeks of operation.Nothing can top that monument of shame. It is almost poetic. In that time, a lot of excuses were thrown around trying to figure out why Concord failed.Some blamed the price tag. Others reasoned it was because it was a live-service game or another hero shooter in an oversaturated market. Maybe it was the terrible character designs? Or could it have been another victim of the current era culture war?Blame cannot be pinned on one singular reason as it is a combination of all of those things that led to Concord’s utter failure. Also, games like Helldivers 2 and Marvel Rivals shatter the narrative that gamers are sick of live-service and hero shooters in a supposed “oversaturated” market.No, what customers are tired of are poorly made games and the people that are behind that shout excuses. Video games are a unique industry where the customer is insulted and berated for not supporting things they do not like. Well, the customers spoke with their wallets and hit these studios where it hurts.Turns out insulting people away from your game is a terrible business practice. Layoffs, studio closures, and flops are not things to usually celebrate. However, when it happens to studios and companies who burn bridges faster than they burn through their budgets, we won’t blame you for cracking a smile or two.
