10 Worst Video Game Downgrades That Pissed Off EVERYONE

Just like the famous Whammy Burger scene in the legendary Michael Douglas movie Falling Down, we all know what it's like to expect one thing but receive another.

Whether via intentional misdirection or some 'clever' marketing, games are often teased at events like E3 showcasing unbelievable graphics, gorgeous lighting, and stunning environmental effects which leave gamers positively salivating in anticipation of these shiny new titles.

Come release day, however, we often find - to our horror - that the graphics and presentation have taken a massive kick in the unmentionables, and the delights promised in the trailer conspicuous by their absence.

Outrage understandably ensues as players make their displeasure at these huge downgrades known as vocally and publicly as possible despite the developers' pleas of innocence.

The devs obviously want to show off their games using the absolute best, most stunning visuals possible, cranked up to their highest settings to garner interest and ultimately shift units. However, little thought is given, it seems, to whether the current-gen systems are actually able to run them at this level.

There are tons of examples of this over-promise and under-deliver mentality, so here are ten of the absolute worst video game downgrades that pissed everyone off.

Best to get the most obvious one out of the way first...

Ubisoft's 2014 open world GTA-clone, Watch Dogs, is actually a decent game.

With a modest fanbase and a sequel, the series will soon become a trilogy with the release of Watch Dogs: Legion.

The initial 2012 reveal, however, promised so much more than we eventually got, because for a while it looked as if Watch Dogs was going to be the 'next big thing' in third person, open world gaming.

The premise of hacking the very infrastructure of a fully realised, fully populated city, disrupting and bending to your will everything from security cameras to traffic lights to help enact Aiden Pearce's revenge did materialise to an extent, just nowhere near the level we expected.

The presentation, too, was diluted in the years between reveal and launch.

Gone were the detailed and varied textures.

Absent was the complex and stunning dynamic weather.

Missing were the truly next-gen lighting and particle effects.

Ubisoft had shown their hand too soon, over-promising on what was realistically achievable.

Had they not, and had the initial reveal been a more conservative representation of what we were eventually going to get, history may have been kinder to Watch Dogs.