20 Disastrous Gaming Launches Everyone Saw Coming

Cinematic action-adventure game The Quiet Man was announced during Square Enix's press conference at E3 2018, the high-profile reveal suggesting that the publisher had high hopes for it.

With its enticing premise, revolving around a deaf protagonist whose lack of hearing is reflected in the game's muted audio itself, there was clearly a ton of potential here for a fascinating feat in hard-of-hearing representation.

Yet the months leading up to the game's release were bizarrely, well, quiet, with only a few scattered previews talking about how weird it was, before the game was given a low-key release without review copies being provided to most critics.

Ultimately, to the shock of nobody, The Quiet Man was panned for its clunky combat and confused approach to its deaf protagonist. 

Many complained about the game's lack of subtitles despite the fact that the protagonist is clearly shown to read lips throughout the story, making it clear that there just wasn't enough thought put into the game on a conceptual level.

Developer Human Head Studios did release a patch containing all of the game's audio a week later, but by that point the damage had already been done and the vast majority of players had already moved on.

The Quiet Man disappeared from the gaming consciousness within days, damn-near guaranteeing that it was a massive sales flop.