Unfortunately, not every video game can be successful. There are countless titles out there, and plenty don’t get the same attention or appreciation as others. Sometimes, a game’s lack of success is unsurprising. Perhaps the premise is clearly too niche, the marketing isn’t good enough, or it’s releasing at the wrong time.
Whatever the reason, the signs of imminent failure are there. Yet, occasionally, a game can have those signs, but it still ends up being a huge hit. That is the case with the following gems that prove you can’t always predict how good or successful a game will be.
The original Silent Hill 2 is one of the iconic and beloved horror games of all time. As such, fans didn’t want it to have an uninspired remake. Fears that this could happen grew when it was announced that Bloober Team was going to be the developer of the remake.
This studio is known for decent games like Layers of Fear and Observer, but they aren’t exactly as great as Silent Hill 2, nor are they that similar mechanically. Thankfully, though, Silent Hill 2 ended up being very faithful to the original and one ofthe PS5’s best horror games.
Neither the Witcher franchise nor CD Projekt Red was famous prior to the 2007 Witcher game. The book series had done well in Poland but hadn’t gained immense popularity overseas, and CD Projekt RED hadn’t made a game yet.
Therefore, it wasn’t destined to be a success. In fact, the writer of the Witcher books had so little faith in the title thathe rejected an offer for a percentage of the game’s profits. Yet, while it wasn’t as successful as the Witcher 3 would go on to be, it still did rather well and better than many would’ve expected. Plus, it is also a fantastic game.
2016’s Doom had a long and difficult development cycle that started in the late 2000s. Many things changed about the game during that time, as it is one of many titles over the years that have been in ‘development hell.’ Eventually, things started to get on track, and ID Software began to make the 2016 Doom game that everyone now knows.
It wasn’t completely smooth sailing from there, though, as a multiplayer beta was released for the game that wasn’t beloved. Yet, the final product was excellent. It wowed players because it merged elements of old-school shooters with new-school ones. The PvP multiplayer was never the game’s best aspect, which is likely why the beta had a tepid response.
You shouldn’t really doubt Mario spin-offs, asmany of them have been excellent. That said, fans weren’t excited when it was revealed that Mario would be teaming up with the Rabbids from Rayman.
Many people didn’t really like Rabbids in general, so they weren’t interested in Mario teaming up with them. Plus, the reveal of Mario using a gun seemed strange at first. However, once the game came out, public opinion changed. This is because it actually ended up being a unique and very enjoyable turn-based tactics game.
Several things about Fallout New Vegas made it seem like it wouldn’t be successful. One of the main ones was thevery short development time of only 18 months, which wasn’t a lot for a triple-A game.
This is likely why there was a lot of cut content. Typically, games can often feel unfinished when a bunch of content is removed. And when it was released, the game did feel a little unfinished, as it had a lot of technical issues. All of this should’ve killed the game forever. Yet, it didn’t, as the title was fixed and ended up being an excellent RPG and a great entry into the Fallout series.
Movie tie-in games don’t have the best reputation. There aresome good ones, but most are underwhelming cash grabs. This has pretty much always been the case, so GoldenEye 007 wasn’t heavily anticipated before its release. When it did come out, though, it ended up being a giant success.
A lot of this came down to its PvP multiplayer. The concept of players running around a battlefield shooting one another was still in its infancy back then, especially with console games. GoldenEye 007 really helped popularize this type of gameplay.
When you have a very popular series, you can’t typically stray from its core concepts without receiving some backlash. In the case of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, it does more than just stray away from classic Metal Gear conventions. There isn’t much stealth, cutscenes aren’t generally long, and action is very much the focus of the game.
Therefore, it’s completely different from the main Metal Gear games, so fans of the series weren’t too excited by it. It ended up being a really exceptional game, though. It managed to find an audience beyond Metal Gear fans and won some of the diehards around, too.
By the time Metroid Prime came around, the Metroid series had already developed a specific formula that helped create the Metroidvania genre. If your gameplay mechanics are strong enough to help invent a new genre, you probably don’t need to change too much. Yet, Metroid Prime did just that by shifting the game to first-person.
When this change was revealed, fans were very skeptical, as many believed it would be an action-packed FPS. However, while switching to first-person meant that Prime provided a different experience to earlier titles in the series, it was still a Metroid game. Exploration remained more important than combat, and it never became the action-packed shooter many expected it would. So, it was a success.
