10 Video Games So Bad They KILLED OTHER GAMES

Avengers ruined whatever momentum that Guardians of the Galaxy might have had.

avengers guardians of the galaxy
Square Enix

The fallout of a bad game can be akin to a bomb going off, with shockwaves spreading across months or even years after it is released. God knows Sonic fans are very tired of having Sonic 06 constantly rubbed in their faces, even coming up on 20 years down the line, but that's just the effect some games have if they're truly terrible. 

Yes, getting a really bad game can result in far worse than annoying internet memes - it can actually result in other games getting caught up in the blast. 

This is a rare occurrence, but it does sprout up every now and then. Games that bomb so hard that they either impact the success of a follow-up, cause a publisher to lose faith in the IP, order sequel development to cease, or in the worst cases, kill off the studio that made it entirely.

These games are the worst examples. Games that sank like the titanic, and the games that they dragged down to the briny deep alongside. 

10. Dino Crisis 3

avengers guardians of the galaxy
Capcom

The crash and burn of the Dino Crisis franchise is infamous among Capcom fans by this point. One of the all-time great self-destructions of a once-great cult classic game series, and it's all thanks to the broken slog that was Dino Crisis 3. 

The Dino Crisis series was Capcom's other survival horror series that ran concurrently with Resident Evil. While it had, and still has, its fans, it always struggled to establish its own identity besides "Resident Evil but now the pretty woman is shooting at dinosaurs". If it had worked, Dino Crisis 3's more sci-fi/action-heavy approach would have been the shot in the arm it needed to get mainstream attention. 

But that's not what happened, is it? 

Instead, Dino Crisis 3 was an unmitigated disaster. A clunky, janky example of ambition exceeding talent. Useless weapons, overpowered enemies, environments that are way too damn large, topped with easily one of the worst cameras in gaming history. 

Naturally, Dino Crisis 3 killed the franchise dead. We know very little about Dino Crisis 4, but we do know that it was in development around the time that 3 was released, only to be swiftly canceled thanks to the critical and financial thrashing that 3 received. 

 
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John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?