10 TERRIBLE Video Games (That Revolutionised The Industry)

10. The Order: 1886 Killed Off Smaller AAA Games

The Order: 1886 is one of Sony's rare AAA blockbuster misses in recent years - a visually stunning yet mechanically clunky and, dare one say, aggressively generic third-person action game that didn't move the needle an inch and quickly evaporated into the pop-culture ether.

One of the primary complaints about The Order was its short play-time of around 5-6 hours, which for a game selling for the typical AAA retail price simply seemed like an atrocious value proposition any way you slice it.

Yet The Order's critical and commercial failure had a slyly tectonic impact on the industry as a whole, effectively hammering the final nail in the coffin of smaller, more linear AAA tentpole games.

The focus became greater than ever on ensuring that AAA blockbusters gave players their "money's worth," which often equated to bloating the critical path out with tedious busy-work. Looking at you, Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Mega-budget games with short play-times were effectively phased out, in turn teeing up the rise of the "AA" game - that is, ambitious lower-budget titles that look AAA, like Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and, more recently, Fort Solis.

The Order's failure fundamentally changed both the industry and consumers' expectations of AAA games, while also birthing a revolution of glossy AA fare punching well above its weight.