10 Video Games You Shouldn't Have Played At Launch

2017’s Star Wars Battlefront II’s caused a storm of hatred on release. Despite being a solid team shooter, the game had lots of locked off content, such as the ability to play as notable Star Wars figures. In true EA fashion, these were only accessible with additional purchases or extreme grinds.

Famously, one Reddit user estimated that it would take 40 hours of constant playing to earn the credits to unlock Darth Vader. EA’s characteristically awful defence to this was that they wanted players to “feel as though they had earned” their unlockables.

This became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history. Five months later, EA put out an update that made all characters available to everyone.

The company’s continually sketchy microtransactions practices with pay-to-win aspects even got them the ire of politicians. It was this controversy that led the Belgian Gambling Commission to ban loot boxes in video games in their country altogether.

Technically, Battlefront II saw these mechanics ripped from the game just before launch but if you had been eager enough to get into the pre-release then you would’ve no doubt become aware of the s**tshow that lost EA $3 billion in company value.

And yet when DICE ended development support for the game in 2020, they had turned opinion around enough that there were even petitions for them to continue to provide updates. That’s one heck of a turnaround.