9 Promising Video Games That Were Totally Ruined By Publisher Meddling
7. Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War
Despite being a pretty good game, the introduction of microtransactions and loot boxes in Middle Earth: Shadow of War resulted in a never ending stream of bad PR for the sequel in the weeks leading up to its release.
Fortunately, the title's main campaign managed to implement the system in a way that wasn't intrusive, but the sequel's endgame final act sadly didn't fare quite as well.
Instead of being entirely optional, loot boxes are heavily encouraged during the game's twilight hours. Tasked with defending the forts and castles you've built up over the whole game from random attacks, your army of orcs quickly starts to dwindle no matter how equipped you are, with loot boxes being the fastest way to make up for the losses.
Making matters worse, resources are limited during this period too, meaning that there isn't a reliable way to earn enough in-game currency to continue buying the boxes of orcs needed to keep your strongholds fortified.
You need to get through this stretch to see the title's 'true' ending as well, but the climax is designed in a way to either make players feel obliged to splash out to skip the grind or give up altogether and resort to YouTube.