8 Times Fan Backlash Killed Video Game Sequels

5. Fez 2

What a stratospheric rise and fall both creator Phil Fish and the potential Fez franchise had, at the start of the 2010s.

One of the most cherished early indie darlings that helped usher in a new wave of incredible video games done with much smaller teams and lower budgets, Fez remains an essential puzzle platformer to this day.

Understandably then, Fish already had ideas for a sequel, but as would become abundantly clear just a month before the original dropped, his personality was his own worst enemy.

Speaking at a GDC talk in March 2012, Fish actively called out Japanese game developers, saying all modern Japanese titles "just suck". The situation blew up and carried onto various online platforms, where Fish told anyone who disagreed with him to "choke" on his you-know-what, and tweeted that "gamers are the worst f***ing people".

One year later Fish was again in hot water over not wanting to discuss a new indie development plan from Microsoft, to which GameTrailer's Marcus Beer called him a "tosspot" and various other insults.

In the end, after so much vitriol and Phil's reputation largely in the toilet, he cancelled Fez 2, declaring it was "the end of a long, bloody campaign", before delisting everything and taking all associated websites offline.