Do long awaited games always dissapoint?

[Bacon Eater64x]

Recently there's been a lot of salt by angry HL fans that Mega Man got a new game, but realistically it could have been any other franchise than Half Life and they still would have gotten Mad. I think Okami was revelaed last year and they made a scene too.

However, if i was a Half Life fan i would NOT want HL3. Valve has never made a game of that caliber after Portal 2, and almost every franchise that gets a long awaited follow up after YEARS of anticipation gets lambasted at best and maligned at worst.

-Duke Nukem Forever: Easily one of the most despised games of the early 2010s and a was a punching bag for years after release, single handedly killed the series for now.

-Kingdom Hearts 3: While not as hated as the entry above, KH3 is easliy the most hated game in the series so far. (not counting the handhelds like CoM or RE:Coded but those don't suffer from beign heavily hyped up entries) Even if you only consider the waiting time of 2013 to 2019, it's still left a lot of people bitter, and it is easily dunked on by KH2 fans as much as Brawl was dunked on by Melee fans back in the late 2000s, and i don't think the series or fandom will ever recover from such a divisive game.

-FF7 Remake: Episodic format, heavily changing the combat, making it so that it is more of a sequel instead of you know............a remake makes it a more and more unpopular entry by the hardcore FF fans.

-Shenmue 3:.....................do i even have to say anything?

The only games i don't think suffered from this are the Pikmin Games (but i have heard strong opinions regarding 3 and 4 so i might be wrong) Silksong (which despite beign memed to death the 8 year gap is nowhere as bad as the examples above) and The Last Guardian.

Who's to say GTA6 will not be the biggest letdown in gaming? Will Half Life 3 ever live up to it should it be announced?

Come to think of it, i think Okami fans should brace themselves just in case.

 

[Stare best girl]

that's why I don't want Beyond Good and Evil 2, actually... I would be happy if gets cancelled as I wanted a proper BGE sequel and not a overambitious prequel

 

[Bacon Eater64x]

that's why I don't want Beyond Good and Evil 2, actually... I would be happy if gets cancelled as I wanted a proper BGE sequel and not a overambitious prequel

Holy fuck i completely forgot they announced that game bro.

It's been 10 literal years.

 

[redux007]

Those titles dropped the ball because their creators were not in fact continuing the saga, but were capitalizing/exploiting it. New Terminator game just dropped and it's pretty damn good, it's based on a 20 plus year old movie, too. The lag in time had no effect because its creators actually loved what they were making.

 

[Bacon Eater64x]

Those titles dropped the ball because their creators were not in fact continuing the saga, but were capitalizing/exploiting it. New Terminator game just dropped and it's pretty damn good, it's based on a 20 plus year old movie, too. The lag in time had no effect because its creators actually loved what they were making.

Nobody was anticipating a new Terminator game. That game had no expectations in the same way those titles had. No one was speculating at what a new Terminator game could be.

You are comparing apples to oranges. Imagine if Terminator was a game franchise that stopped in the 2000s and people waited an eternity for a new game, as opposed to a retro throwback entry. You might as well be comparing Metroid Prime 4 (a highly anticipated entries in the Metroid series) to Haunted Caslte Revisited (a surprise bonus pack-in title that came out of nowhere)

 

[redux007]

Nobody was anticipating a new Terminator game. That game had no expectations in the same way those titles had. No one was speculating at what a new Terminator game could be.

You are comparing apples to oranges. Imagine if Terminator was a game franchise that stopped in the 2000s and people waited an eternity for a new game, as opposed to a retro throwback entry. You might as well be comparing Metroid Prime 4 (a highly anticipated entries in the Metroid series) to Haunted Caslte Revisited (a surprise bonus pack-in title that came out of nowhere)

Your hypothetical isn't too far off from the factual situation, doh. Most of the "recent" entries in Terminator were loudly disowned by the fandom. Including the games. And, aside from the Sega CD T1 game, this is the only good 2D Terminator game to ever come out.

 

[Bacon Eater64x]

Your hypothetical isn't too far off from the factual situation, doh. Most of the "recent" entries in Terminator were loudly disowned by the fandom. Including the games. And, aside from the Sega CD T1 game, this is the only good 2D Terminator game to ever come out.

That's not what im talking about. Imagine if Terminator 2D no fate was announced in 2011 and only came out in 2026, instead of a 8/9 month wait. Those 2 are completely different situations.

If anything your example falls flat because the Terminator franchise has such low standards nowadays that people are surpised something good came out for once. It could have been mediocre by the eyes of the hardcore and its impact as a smaller scale title would mitigate it (as opposed to a mainline film like Dark Fate which damaged the series brand beyond belief)

You got to to take expectations into account. You really think a game like an hypothetical Half Life 3 and this game are even in the same ballpark? That they have the same expectation? That the impact they would have on their respective series would be the same?

 

[JG5009]

Simply, people get insane expectatives and the end product, while good, it almost never lives up to those unrealistic things, it's harder to find things that managed to survive them (even fewer of them surpassing them like Silksong) than the other way around by a mile.

This alone should be a big reason to shorten development times in general, but this ain't the PS2 era where stuff released in less than 5 years apart from the previous thing. So the only thing left is to polish the end product even more to fill the expectations, and that can end in disaster easily.

If you were to somehow make the same final game as is (just about any example) and release it 2 or 3 years earlier (even more if needed) this issue would disappear for the most part.

It's either that or simply the final product just isn't as good as the previous one and that's it (which makes things worse at that).

 

[bjork]

Half-Life 3 never could because people have had 20 years to wonder and build it up in their heads, not taking into account that not only has the world changed, but gaming as a hobby, gaming as a business, and Valve in general.

GTA6 will probably be fine because it likely won't take a ton of risks, but Half-Life has this rep for being this visionary series or whatever, so Half-Life 3 couldn't just come out and be 'another one of those,' you know? So it's a self-created problem, but they have the luxury of not needing a new hit every 12 months like other companies.

With other series, sometimes it's been so long that I'd rather just have a new IP than a new entry. I enjoy the old Phantasy Star games, but those teams are from a bygone era and have either moved on or passed away by now, so without access to their ideas, I'd rather see a series that's in a similar vein over a new entry in a series that hasn't had one in 30 years.

 

[Bacon Eater64x]

Half-Life 3 never could because people have had 20 years to wonder and build it up in their heads, not taking into account that not only has the world changed, but gaming as a hobby, gaming as a business, and Valve in general.

GTA6 will probably be fine because it likely won't take a ton of risks, but Half-Life has this rep for being this visionary series or whatever, so Half-Life 3 couldn't just come out and be 'another one of those,' you know? So it's a self-created problem, but they have the luxury of not needing a new hit every 12 months like other companies.

With other series, sometimes it's been so long that I'd rather just have a new IP than a new entry. I enjoy the old Phantasy Star games, but those teams are from a bygone era and have either moved on or passed away by now, so without access to their ideas, I'd rather see a series that's in a similar vein over a new entry in a series that hasn't had one in 30 years.

In that context i can see Mega Man beign similar to GTA. It never takes that much risks and when they do they make it a spin-off (Battle Networks, Legends and Zero) Half Life fans rag on Mega Man but that series is much safer to develop so MM fans know what to expect. Even the spin-offs develop their own formula that is easy to follow and have never been known for beign super innovative.

 

[Luxfin]

Honestly case by case basis for me. I honestly think that expectations, hype, and time-gap between releases would honestly exacerbated the disappointment to straight up kill the franchise to a certain point. Not to mention if you added in things like mismanagement, leadership, and time-scale then you have a recipe for absolute disaster of epic proportions.

For me, if the series have not had a new entry for a long time, I would try to find something that would fill that hole for me. I want something that feels like Mega-Man Legends and Bully without having to waste my time on sometime that those companies seem to think like small potatoes (Bully) or a financial risk (Mega-Man Legends). Would it have been nice to see a new entry in these series? Sure, but I try not to get my hopes up because that will lead to disappointment.

 

[JG5009]

I'd rather see a series that's in a similar vein over a new entry in a series that hasn't had one in 30 years.

This could be why spiritual sucessors might be better for many franchises, these don't need to carry the weight of an established series just to make the idea relevant again.

 

[Bacon Eater64x]

I gotta be honest guys, part of the reason im not dissapointed by the lack of X9 is that i don't think Capcom has it in their guts to make it. Classic Mega Man to has always been more consistently good than X, where i only believe 2 games are fantastic (X1 and X4) and the rest range to good enough (X2 and X8) to bloody awful (X7)

Since Mega Man comics are now a thing again, i think the safer option would be conlcuding those stories (X, ZX, Legends) via printed storytelling as opposed to waiting for a game that may never come out and ends up dissapointing.

 

[TruxtonTatsujin TruxtonTatsujin]

people actually still want Half Life 3? I thought it was just a meme at this point. Long awaited games are often the result of a troubled development, it's no surprise many don't turn out great.

 

[Bacon Eater64x]

people actually still want Half Life 3? I thought it was just a meme at this point.

Yeah, just look at the Half Life subreddit:

They are literally having beef with Mega Man fans because they got a new game. Half Life fans are becoming Mega Man's New enemy beacuse of a game reveal (to be fair i thinkGeoff's announcement didn't help matters)

 

[Dick Kickem]

Good thread OP, but I think it depends on what you mean by "long awaited games". If you mean like a CONTINENTAL SHIFT time between instalments like HL3 and Prime 4 (perceived or otherwise) then yeah, those will ALWAYS disappoint in general. BUT if you mean stuff that just go on hiatus and then come back, like Devil May Cry or even No More Heroes (I could think of other examples, but I'm a few too many beers deep), then those have a good track record of being well received within the community.

One thing that is important to note is that the general audience isn't the same as the fanbase of said game. There are layers here.

 

[JG5009]

I gotta be honest guys, part of the reason im not dissapointed by the lack of X9 is that i don't think Capcom has it in their guts to make it. Classic Mega Man to has always been more consistently good than X, where i only believe 2 games are fantastic (X1 and X4) and the rest range to good enough (X2 and X8) to bloody awful (X7)

Since Mega Man comics are now a thing again, i think the safer option would be conlcuding those stories (X, ZX, Legends) via printed storytelling as opposed to waiting for a game that may never come out and ends up dissapointing.

Classic MM can get away easily, just 8 new RMs and that's enough to get it rolling (specially with crapcom being as lazy and stingy as it can possibly get), the others have a lot of inherent issues (Megaman is basically 7 different IPs mashed into one if that makes sense) like Legends just existing there, ZX with Inti Creates, both BN and SF being too complex to consider tackling and X with no idea on how to follow it up (also the consideration that none of these are going to sell like cacom wants)


But all of it deserves to be talked in the Megaman megathread though

 

[Bacon Eater64x]

One thing that is important to note is that the general audience isn't the same as the fanbase of said game. There are layers here.

I did take that into consideration: A good example of what you said in your last pharagraph is KH3 which is why i said it was divisive instead of just outright hated. A lot of hardcore fans who played it hated the game, but i noticed a lot of people who only got to the KH series now seem to love it, probably because they don't have an idea of what to expect and that is notable as it is now the best selling entry in the series over KH1. ( i find that really funny when thinking about it)

You can even see this in Youtube reviwers too. AntDude and Johnny were very cynical to the game, but Caddicarus loved it. I feel KH3 may actually get vindicated years down the line if fate is kind to it.

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

Half Life 3 has pretty much become the new Duke Nukem Forever at this point as far as memes and hype goes. Unless every copy sold comes with a free Ferrari, it's going to inevitably fail to live up to expectations even if it's a 10 out of 10.

 

[Dick Kickem]

I did take that into consideration: A good example of what you said in your last pharagraph is KH3 which is why i said it was divisive instead of just outright hated. A lot of hardcore fans who played it hated the game, but i noticed a lot of people who only got to the KH series now seem to love it, probably because they don't have an idea of what to expect and that is notable as it is now the best selling entry in the series over KH1. ( i find that really funny when thinking about it)

You can even see this in Youtube reviwers too. AntDude and Johnny were very cynical to the game, but Caddicarus loved it. I feel KH3 may actually get vindicated years down the line if fate is kind to it.

That part about a game being vindicated years down the line is also something very important to take into consideration. All it takes is for one video that makes huge numbers saying said game is a HIDDEN GEM for people to flock towards it with more favorable opinions and since games are available for longer than they were before, Knack 2 could be taken as a good game in the future more than it is right now.

 

[Leon]

No, and i'll give you a example, the legend of heroes: trails in the sky the 1st is a remake of trails in the sky FC, fans have wanted a remake of the sky trilogy for probably a decade and not only did 1st deliver a good game, it is unobjectively a superior game to the original, alot of anticipated games do deliver, but those usually have short period for announcements.

The problems with games like duke nukem forever and vampire the masquerade bloodlines 2 is that the teams working on the sequel completely misunderstand what the fanbase behind them liked about the original, instead aiming for their "own vision", not the vision of the original game.

Even games by the same creator can misunderstand this, look at the FF7 remake trilogy, it completely misunderstood what many of the original fanbase loved about the original games, while the remake trilogy isn't bad in itself, it completely misses the mark for many of the players of the original, myself included.

As for half life 3, i don't know if it would be "better" than 2, but valve could make a good half life 3, if they wanted, as most of the original team members still work at valve, provided they remember what made half life so good.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

Well the answer is obviously no. Long awaited games are not always disappointments, hell one just won GoTY. E33 was in development for half a decade and Silksong was nominated multiple times for its 7 year development.

And obviously we have older successes too like Omori which took about 6 1/2 years to release

Dev time doesn’t matter if the game is good. Iconoclasts took as much time as Yandere Simulator to release and still turned out good.

Also Half Life v Mega Man is the second funniest beef to come out of the latter half of this year

 

[redux007]

That's not what im talking about. Imagine if Terminator 2D no fate was announced in 2011 and only came out in 2026, instead of a 8/9 month wait. Those 2 are completely different situations.

If anything your example falls flat because the Terminator franchise has such low standards nowadays that people are surpised something good came out for once. It could have been mediocre by the eyes of the hardcore and its impact as a smaller scale title would mitigate it (as opposed to a mainline film like Dark Fate which damaged the series brand beyond belief)

You got to to take expectations into account. You really think a game like an hypothetical Half Life 3 and this game are even in the same ballpark? That they have the same expectation? That the impact they would have on their respective series would be the same?

Suppose it depends on your personal values and how important something is to somebody. But, I can easily hold a major franchise up to something with a lot of hype surrounding it. But, degrees of meaning aren't really what I think is worth debating over. I think the premise of something being hyped for nearly a decade can indeed deliver. If it's actually done with respect and care. FF7 remake is narrative butchery. FF13's less than graceful transformation into FF15 wasn't very well done, either. Suppose the FF7 remake had been done as a perfect one for one with new action combat? Suppose FF15 had actually been what was promised in the original trailers for Vs13. Suppose Half Life 3 is an excellent FPS that continues the Half Life 2 plotline to an interesting conclusion? Hype might make people more critical, but it won't by default "doom" the outcome. Only incompetency can achieve that.