10 Hotly-Anticipated Video Games That Were Abandoned After Launch

8. Halo 4

Halo 4 still managed to have record sales and be one of the top three selling games in the franchise, but 343 Industries' adopting of the legendary IP quickly ended in ruin once fans got their hands on it.

Mostly down to being pipped at the post by Black Ops II releasing a week later and literally halving its playerbase, clearly many thousands of gamers wanted to play something by a more storied developer.

Naturally, it didn't help that Halo 4's post-launch maps and DLC were handled terribly, either, with Microsoft accidentally releasing a Season Pass-only map for free, only to pretend it was part of a limited offer, thereby insulting all those who'd invested cash up front.

On top of all this, you had the game's story that reframed the Master Chief as more of a trauma-addled lab experiment than a bred-for-combat badass, tons of multiplayer weapon balance issues that went unfixed, and an attitude from 343 that made the fans feel invisible.

You need only look at Halo 5 getting the lowest sales of any numbered franchise instalment, to see that the damage wasn't only for the short term, either.