Right up there between Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3, this online shooter sits not-so-pretty in ninth place as one of the most expensive games ever, made for a substantial $100 million. Why is it then that the majority of people won't eve have heard of APB? It was a great idea, touting itself as a kind of Grand Theft Auto-style MMO, pitting cops against robbers in a large, vibrant city, and was in development for around five years before it came out in 2010. You have to wonder what the hell that development budget was spent on when the game launched with just two action maps and a severe paucity of mission types. Its developer Realtime Worlds went broke a few months after the game was released, and the servers were shut down by the end of the year. Worse still, you were expected to pay a subscription fee for the privilege of shooting people online, which understandably no one really wanted to do. Online games publisher K2 Network eventually nabbed APB for £1.5 million, renaming it APB Reloaded and putting it up as a free-to-play game on Steam. A humiliating fate for a game that promised so much yet delivered pretty much nothing. Are there any we missed? Sign up to create an account if you're a fan of the section, and let us know in the comments!
Gamer, Researcher of strange things.
I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.
