10 Times Publishers Sabotaged Their Own Video Games

10. Spoiling Jedi: Fallen Order's Big Ending Reveal - EA

Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order Cal
EA

When EA released Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order this November, it seemed as though the publisher had finally turned a corner.

Both of EA's previous Star Wars releases were met with controversy upon their respective release dates, with the first Star Wars: Battlefront reboot being criticised for a lack of content at launch, and the sequel earning equal derision for a microtransaction-heavy progression system. Thankfully developers DICE were able to revive Battlefront II after revamping the progression system altogether, but the EA Star Wars brand was still tarnished.

The single-player focused Jedi: Fallen Order was meant to change that - and it seemingly had done, until the other week. Respawn masterminded a compelling, story-driven Star Wars effort without any of the nonsense we've come to associate with EA's recent releases, but it seemed as though EA itself was relatively non-plussed. Critics noted at E3 how weird it was the demo shown to the public didn't match up with the great one shown behind closed doors, and, in the build up to the game's release, it was also noted how there didn't seem to be that much of a marketing push behind Fallen Order either.

EA seemingly sprung to life on that front the other week, but in the worst way possible. A Black Friday ad coordinated between Xbox and the publisher actually ruins the final mission's big reveal, and according to Kotaku, Respawn's devs are less than pleased - to say nothing of those players who haven't finished the game either.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and the Golden Age of Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled.