20 Disastrous Gaming Launches Everyone Saw Coming
6. Final Fantasy XIV
Square Enix well and truly walked open-eyed into a flaming trainwreck with their original iteration of MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV.
An open beta ran for the entire month leading up to its September 2010 release, with fans loudly indicating to the publisher that the game simply wasn't ready for prime time.
The bugs, the crashes, the atrocious interface, and rampant server problems made it clear that the game needed to be pushed back, but in a mad rush to plant another flag in the busy MMORPG space, they forged ahead with the planned launch.
Critics and players alike roasted the game for its dull world, unsatisfying gameplay, technical issues, and general feeling that it was launched unfinished, eventually prompting Square Enix to shutter it barely two years later.
But in a less expected move, they returned with a vastly overhauled reboot of the game, A Realm Reborn, in August 2013, which boasted a new engine, totally reworked gameplay system, and superior server infrastructure.
This time around they got it right, as FFXIV launched to solid acclaim and remains one of the most active MMORPGs more than a decade later.