10 Video Game Patches That Actually Broke Games
5. The "Flag Drag" Patch Nerfed The Flag Carrier's Speed - Tribes: Ascend
Free-to-play FPS Tribes: Ascend was quite the revelation for a short while back in 2012, but that all came crashing down when Hi-Rez Studios put out the 1.0.1103.1 patch a few months after the game's release.
This introduced so-called "flag drag," which limited the speed that a flag carrier could sustain at higher speeds, in turn making it easier for the flag carrier to be caught by the opposing team in the misguided interest of "balance."
Except, the feeling of fast-paced flight is exactly what people loved about the game, and so cranking things down just made it feel sluggish by comparison.
It would be disingenuous to say that Ascend died off quickly, but flag drag is what prompted players to start abandoning the game, feeling that it caused an otherwise thrilling multiplayer shooter to stray too far from what made it appealing in the first place.
By 2015 the game was basically clinging to life and the community more-or-less died off shortly thereafter. If Hi-Rez hadn't been so stubborn and actually listened to players, though, it could've endured as an FPS mainstay for many more years.