10 "Next Big Thing" Video Games That Completely Flopped
6. Haze
The follow up to Free Radical's TimeSplitters trilogy, Haze was supposed to the developer's big break. In production for years with the goal of creating the next big first-person shooter franchise, Haze dropped the fun, quirky personality of the studio's previous series in favour of a grittier, more adult take on the genre that was all the rage back in 2008.
All bets were on for Haze to bring down Halo and step on the recent success story of Call of Duty 4, but once the game actually released players and critics both realised that the title never had the chance of even coming close to dethroning those two gaming giants.
A by-the-numbers and overly-serious FPS, the game seemingly threw away all of the ideas and gameplay philosophies that had made Free Radical such a special developer in the first place, resulting in a cheap cross between Halo and Crysis that didn't appeal to fans of either franchise.