Video games are a medium I have held near and dear to my heart for as I can remember. From exploring the vast open lands of Skyrim to the simple fun of Mario Galaxy, video games are an artistic medium that I can’t get enough of. But in recent years, because of certain games, I find it hard to be excited about games anymore, and the reason can be traced back to one simple word: disappointment.

For the past several years now, I have had multiple developers make grandiose promises about how great and epic their games are gonna be. And then when the games are actually released, I end up getting delivered nothing but absolute dog water. True there are developers who try and fix their games, but here’s the thing, 1. They should have been finished at launch from the getgo and 2. Those types of games are few and far between. And while there are games that live up to their hype, games like DOOM Eternal, Ghost of Tsushima, Psychonauts 2, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and Elden Ring, there’s many others that were built and almost nothing but lies.

For example, allow me to take you all back in time to the year 2016, arguably one of the best years gaming has ever had, with some great examples being DOOM (2016), Dark Souls III, Uncharted 4, and Battlefield 1. Among such steller games was an incredibly hyped and anticipated game in No Man’s Sky. The game was meant to feature procedurally generated worlds and some of the most sophisticated tech and AI games have ever had, as well as so many other features. Then the game was released with a litany of technical issues and not having any of the promised features. Now, to the developer, Hello Games, credit they did eventually continuously update the game and are still updating it and not it’s a lot more close to the initially promised product, but I believe they may have unintentionally popularized the “ship out not, fix later” strategy that many other game companies have adopted.

Let me give you some of the most infamous examples of this. First, Fallout 76. This one stings pretty hard for me personally, as Fallout is a game series I have grown up with. Bethesda was a studio I had massive love for. Hell, the first game I ever played was Skyrim and the second was Fallout 3. And for a massive part of my life, it seemed like Todd Howard and his merry band of developers were people I could trust. Then they made Fallout 76, a game with massive amounts of hype. An MMORPG in the Fallout universe similar to The Elder Scrolls Online? Sixteen times the detail? Four times the map size of Fallout 4?  As a Fallout fan, what was there not to be excited about? Then they launched the game, and it was a broken, unpolished, unplayable, boring mess. Now again, much like No Man’s Sky, updates were fed to the game over time, and from what I’ve heard, it’s pretty solid now. But the lies that were given to us by Bethesda almost completely ruined any trust between them and their fans. Because of Fallout 76, I can’t feel excited for their two upcoming titles, Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI.

Another example, Cyberpunk 2077. The much anticipated game from Polish developer, CD Projekt Red. They built a very good bond of trust from their work on The Witcher series, and seemed like they were gonna truly deliver with Cyberpunk. But the game ended up being delayed and delayed and delayed again, until on Holiday of 2020, they launched the game, and all the hype around it that had cultivated for years on end was all for not. It was infested with bugs, especially on the PS4 or Xbox One versions of the game, and even without bugs, the game wasn’t the technological leap forward that was promised, and damaged the once spotless reputation of CD Projekt Red.

And then this brings us to the worst, and most recent, offender of this model, Battlefield 2042. This game was promised to be the best and biggest Battlefield yet. Battlefield is of course one of the most beloved and iconic multiplayer shooter franchises there is, and was meant to represent all of what these types of games can be, with such great examples being Battlefield 4, Bad Company and Bad Company 2, and Battlefield 1. And it seemed like Battlefield 2042 was gonna be part of this stellar lineage. But then the open beta of the game dropped, and it was an absolute dumpster fire from developer, DICE. Many fans expressed absolute concern for the game, how it was filled with bugs, boring maps, and very little content. Then after the open beta, it was announced that 2042 would not include a campaign, even after launch. Worries grew, but hope was still held out. And then the game was released, and it has now been dubbed by many the biggest AAA flop gaming has ever had. It was a trainwreck and a half, with the game lacking basic features such as a scoreboard. And DICE, rather than actually try and fix the game, decided to flame the audience for asking the game to be playable at launch, and borderline villianising their fans. The game has received little in actual updates, and for all intents and purposes, may have killed Battlefield as a franchise.

And that’s only a few of the most notorious ones. There are several others from Anthem, to Mass Effect: Andromeda, to Evolve, to Agents of Mayhem, to Balan Wonderworld, to Crackdown 3, to Back 4 Blood, and I’m just tired of being promised such grand things from game studios and delivered nothing but lies. Again, I know there are still developers that genuinely care about their craft, and you can tell from their games, but with the way others have treated not only their games, but also their fans, I can’t be excited anymore. And it’s genuinely upsetting for me personally.

I want to be excited for Grand Theft Auto VI, I want to be excited for Starfield, I want to be excited to the Breath of the Wild Sequel, I want to be excited for the remakes of Dead Space, System Shock, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, I want to be excited for The Elder Scrolls VI, I want to be excited for Bayonetta 3, I want to be excited for new games again. But I can’t do that. Because if the developers don’t care, why should I?