10 More Great Video Games Nobody Bought

Looking at a game library of a friend is always a fun exercise. There are the obvious must-haves on every system that you expect to see some amount of but it's the oddities that are truly interesting.

The biggest games from major franchises will always make a certain amount of money based on brand familiarity. But, for every tentpole title, there are dozens of releases that appear in the marketplace and go by unnoticed. Standing in the shadow of the giants, it's very easy to be overlooked.

We've covered several of these cases in the past where video games just didn't sell despite the fact that they're strong or even brilliant titles in their own right. They just failed, for whatever reason, to get gamers to part with their cash.

There's a lot of things that go into making a game a financial success: good marketing to build hype, a perfect release window and even something as simple as making sure it has a big enough audience that are receptive to it. You can have the most incredible game ready to go but if the situation isn't right then it just might spell disaster.

What made Titanfall 2 so good is that it was a clear demonstration of listening to your audience.

Whilst the core tenants of the IP remain the same, the rest of the game feels as though it's been put through rigorous testing in a way that made Titanfall 2 make its predecessor look like a tech demo. The mech-piloting FPS sequel was bigger, deeper and more rewarding in its progression system and just offered a more balanced and engaging experience.

More than just retooling the multiplayer of course though, Respawn Entertainment gave players another reason to stick with Titanfall 2 by including a single player campaign, something that the original sorely lacked. The short story was stuffed with fantastic set-pieces that in a way excused a shorter running time. Quality over quantity was clearly a general top-down idea for the sequel.

However, Titanfall 2 got totally stiffed by its publisher Electronic Arts. Not only did it release just a week after EA’s own Battlefield 1, it did so with the looming shadow of the next Call of Duty hanging over it. Its potential sales were cannibalised and the new kid on the block couldn’t contend with established names in the genre.

In the years since, Titanfall 2’s great experience has been complimented by numerous players who got it on sale or even for free.