10 Video Games You Regretted Pre-Ordering

Unlike the previous entry, Fallout 76 falls on the other side of that particular false promises coin — as in, Bethesda were happy to rake in fans' hard-earned money in the first instance irregardless of the state of the game, and continue to do so with paid DLC and in-game purchases. Yikes.

Much anticipated as the next installment in Bethesda’s award-winning Fallout series, Fallout 76 quickly went nuclear, and not just because of its setting in a radioactive post-apocalypse. An exclusively multiplayer experience already had fans divided, but those who did decide to splurge the £60 to purchase the game quickly found themselves more than disappointed.

“16 times the detail,” Todd Howard promised at E3. “4x the [map] size of Fallout 4!” What did we get? Bugs in droves the industry had never before seen, rendering the game practically unplayable. It was mayhem — and it was only going to get worse.

Inevitably, in came the requests for refunds, and their initial refund policy proved so inconsistent that Bethesda decided to disallow them almost entirely. Bad luck, gamers! Fans who had pre-ordered special editions of the game were particularly furious, as a replica canvas bag included with one such edition turned out to be, er, not canvas. And no, Bethesda wasn't planning on fixing it — besides giving you £5 worth of in-game currency as compensation.

At this point, the lawsuits started rolling in. Unfortunately, the game hasn’t improved too much in the years since, and with dropping player numbers and outrageous microtransaction costs, it’s safe to say almost no one who pre-ordered Fallout 76 is happy about it.