7 Popular Video Games That Ruined Everything

4. Destiny

Bungie's meld of simplistic MMO quest design and character customisation with the console-born, satisfying shooting of Halo gave us something they'd nail far better in Destiny 2, but the industry has learned ALL the wrong lessons from the whole ordeal.

What was supposed to be a "10 year plan" of assumedly consumer-respecting content packs - story, weapons etc - turned into "what's the least we can get away with charging for", every single time.

The reason was largely down to original Destiny's development being an absolute mess, the project being restarted as all story was thrown out months before launch, giving us a mega slow content release schedule that others then aimed directly at.

Scores of publishers to this day attempt four-person squad shooters with loot components and a reliance on lore over story, the idea being to make something worth full price over time.

Even Bungie themselves would get embroiled in controversy over ostensibly charging £40 for dance emotes in 2015 - them being the only "new content" attached to The Taken King expansion - but such was now the way of segmenting formerly full titles to monetise content over time.

Across the eighth gen we saw countless top-tier titles try and "make a Destiny", only to flop and fail to varying degrees. Ubisoft stepped up with The Division, a solid enough shooter that feels utterly pointless over time, and Bioware tried with Anthem, another vacuous stitching together of "bankable elements" that couldn't produce a coherent whole.

Square Enix tried in 2020 with the abominable Avengers title, something that would've literally sank the entire company if not for Final Fantasy VII Remake recouping enough sales to keep them afloat.