20 Recent Video Games That Were Sent Out To Die
11. Mindseye
MindsEye is truly one of the most baffling AAA video games of recent years, because while there was some scattered buzz about it being directed by Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies, publisher IO Interactive only really started marketing the game in earnest a few weeks before launch.
It's a terrible strategy for any AAA game really, and underpinned the wider suspicion that this open-world sci-fi action game was an utter dud destined to incur huge losses.
In addition to this, the CLO and CFO of developer Build a Rocket Boy excited the company a week before release, critics weren't given review copies, and the devs even tried to stop streamers playing the game on its actual release day.
This all added up to a seismic wave of negativity without even factoring in the eventual reviews themselves, which were near-universally negative.
MindsEye peaked at just 3,300 Steam players and shed most of them in a matter of days, prompting the developer to begin the redundancy process mere weeks after the game's launch.
When a AAA game makes virtually no noise until the final month leading up to its release, you know it's absolutely dead in the water.
There's a reason why reputable AAA publishers spend millions of dollars over many months, even years, promoting their blockbuster projects.