10 Failed Video Games That Had So Much More Potential
5. No Man's Sky
No Man’s Sky is a title that promised a great deal prior to its release. In 2016, open-world games were steadily pushing the boundaries of scope and ambition, but this title from Hello Games wanted to go a step beyond that. Open-world is one thing, but an entire open universe? Now that’s ambition, friends.
The issue was, Hello Games is hardly the biggest and grandest studio in the industry, which made delivering on all of this quite the challenge. When it came to release, certain much-anticipated features just weren’t ready.
As a result, many were left super disappointed, presented with a grand and wide environment to explore that was largely devoid of things to do.
In a way, then, No Man’s Sky today is in a similar position to mobile hit Pokémon GO. It’s come on in leaps and bounds since it first released (with huge updates adding features like an expansive multiplayer experience), but it all arrived too late for a lot of earlier adopters, who were turned away by what was seen as deceptive PR and broken promises back then.