10 More Video Games Delayed To "Get It Right" (That Still Got It Wrong)
4. Tabula Rasa
Whilst he’ll never be a household name, Richard Garriott is an underground video game legend. His Ultima series is celebrated with having a huge impact on the Western RPG genre and creating the core concept of the MMO. After spending decades with the property, Garriott designed Tabula Rasa to be, in his words, “the be all and end all” of MMOs.
That’s a strong claim for anyone to make but when you’ve got the pedigree Garriott had, most people were interested in what he had to say.
Whilst the game was first shown at E3 2005, Tabula Rasa had already been in development for four years at this stage and had, halfway through this time, already been completely restarted. Internal conflict between staff caused the studio Destination Games to fire off 20% of the team and replace them, which meant that 75% of the game's code needed to be rewritten in the process.
After six years, the title finally appeared and Garriott’s name value would not be enough to shift copies or inspire review scores that would beat out the already massive World of Warcraft. Particular sore spots were the game’s bad crafting system, plenty of bugs and a menu that felt like a chore to navigate.
Two years after its release the servers for Tabula Rasa were closed and, subsequently, the game fell into deserved obscurity.