10 Recent Video Games With Disastrous Launches You Didn't Realise Got Fixed

It's been a common complaint among players in recent years that far, far too many major games are releasing in heavily compromised, even broken states to the extent that paying customers might be unable to even play them.

While the modern ability for developers to fix games post-launch is assuredly a good thing, it's also easy to suggest that it's too often used as a crutch, to justify shipping low-quality work at launch and fixing it up in the months that follow.

As such, there's never been less incentive to pre-order a game, because the smart play is almost always checking out reviews or even waiting a few months and playing a patched-up version of the game for far less money.

After all, first impressions are tough to shake, and a disastrous launch can doom a game's reputation forever more, even if the developer puts in all the legwork to redeem it down the line.

With that in mind, these 10 recent games all caught a ton of flak at launch for releasing in unfinished, even broken states, and as most players ultimately moved onto other things, they likely missed the fact that these games were all whipped into shape - eventually...

It isn't dramatic to say that Battlefield 2042 launched in a horrendous state. 

Even accepting that fans knew the game would release without a single-player campaign, it also bowed without even basic features like voice chat, scoreboards, and server browsers, not to ignore the lackluster weapon and vehicle selection. 

The removal of the series' class system was also widely panned, as was the overwhelming presence of bugs throughout game modes. 

This resulted in Battlefield 2042 becoming one of the worst-reviewed games on Steam and causing its concurrent player count to drop well below previous games in the series.

With successive patches throughout 2022 and 2023, however, DICE restored many of the missing classic features, reworked the maps to flow better, and revised the new Specialist system to be more similar to traditional classes.

While many players had already moved on from the game and never got the memo, it's fair to say that Battlefield 2042 is in a much, much better state today, enough that its overall Steam rating has crept up to "Mixed."