Games That Missed The Mark So Far In 2021

E3 2021 is still fresh in audiences' minds. The expo was an opportunity to look towards the future and the great games that are on the way. But why are fans so excited for games like "Elden Ring" and "The Outer Worlds 2?" Because their predecessors were award-winning titles. And why are fans apathetic about the upcoming "Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy" title? Because audiences were burned by "Marvel's Avengers" when that game turned out to be a Hulk-sized disappointment.

Releasing a game is always a roll of the dice. Studios and publishers never truly know if audiences will actually gravitate towards their products until they appear on store shelves. Perhaps a game was hyped into hyperbole, and when the title released, audiences learned that reality didn't (or couldn't) measure up to their imaginations. Maybe a game was doomed to failure from the start. 

2021 was full of disappointing video games, and here are the ones that really missed the mark. Please note that "disappointing" doesn't necessarily mean "bad," just that the game didn't live up to expectations — especially if those hopes and dreams were unrealistic.

Shigeru Miyamoto once said, "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." However, awful delayed titles such as "Duke Nukem Forever" and "Too Human" have challenged the validity of that belief in the past. As of 2021, "Biomutant" threatens to join those ranks. 

"Biomutant" was the first project of studio Experiment 101 and was built with one goal: produce a "post-apocalyptic kung-fu fable" that would release in 2018 (via Destructoid) and blow audience minds. But you know what they say about the best laid plan of mutant mice and mole men.

Not only was "Biomutant" delayed until 2021, but critics found that the extra work unfortunately only amounted to a mediocre experience. While sites such as ScreenRant and Twinfinite praised the game's aesthetic and world, they also stated the game likes to think it is deeper than it actually is — a feeling that was not helped by the game's universally reviled narrator. 

The game's morality system is overly simplistic and many of its missions are little more than repetitive fetch quests. You might think that a so-called "kung-fu fable" would guarantee solid, weighty combat that lets players flip around like a Bruce Lee-esque ferret, but GamesRadar claimed that the fights constantly shift between "brilliantly silly" and "clumsy and clunky."

Despite all the polish Experiment 101 tried to put into "Biomutant," the game was ultimately far too ambitious for its own good. Plus, audiences hated the game's narrator so much that Experiment 101 relented and offered a downloadable mute button.

Due to the growing popularity of gaming PCs, a recent trend has seen companies porting previously console-exclusive titles to PC. However, there's more to PC games than just cramming them into a Windows 10 environment and hoping the hardware can brute force its way to compatibility. Creating a half-cocked port is an excellent way to ruin a great game.

Even though the "Ninja Gaiden" franchise hasn't seen a new entry in almost a decade, audiences still fondly remember the series, especially the "Ninja Gaiden" trilogy from the 2000s. Because of this, audiences were ecstatic when Koei Tecmo announced "Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection." Some of that elation disappeared like a ninja in the night when the bundle released.

Don't misunderstand; "Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection" is a solid bundle, but only on Xbox and PlayStation. The Switch version, however, suffers from major resolution and framerate woes, while the PC port is downright embarrassing. Sites such as Kotaku and Gamespot have reported that you can't play the game on mouse and keyboard — the default control scheme of PC games — and you need to actually modify the bundle's properties to change resolution. To pour salt into the 1080p wound, the only way to maximize the game window is to click the maximize icon in the game client's window, making for an overall clunky package for something people were looking forward to.

Koei Tecmo might have a spotty history when it comes to computer releases, but "Ninja Gaiden" is definitely a low point.

Developing a sequel for a beloved franchise is harder than it sounds. Studios often have to invent new features that don't overshadow the main draw, and fans tend to judge any new installment based on what came before. Woe be a game that doesn't measure up to previous titles.

"Harvest Moon: One World," as you might expect, is the latest entry in the "Harvest Moon" franchise. This time, the developers wanted to rake in fans with a large, explorable world. That decision was ill-thought out because, according to reviews from Nintendo Life and IGN, the game world is as big as it is bland. Moreover, this new world mutates the task of obtaining plantable seeds into an exercise in tedium. Instead of just buying seeds as usual, players need to scour the earth for Harvest Sprites, ask them for a bag of seeds, and then return to the sprites the next day for even more. Repeat until bored.

Moreover, games that tout big, open worlds usually try to simulate a lived-in land, but not "One World." Most of the game's NPCs are samey, with generic titles instead of names. These "characters" only exist to provide fetch quests — no hopes, dreams, or personalities, just an unending thirst for eggs and wool. The only positive feature of "One World" is the ability to plant seeds in different regions and obtain mutated produce, but White Eggplants are far from a saving grace.

"Harvest Moon: One World" isn't just a bad "Harvest Moon" game, it's a rotten farming simulator game, too.

Whenever a game is developed, studios must determine the lowest common hardware denominator. If a game cannot run reliably on a console, it probably shouldn't be released on that console. CD Projekt Red learned that lesson the hard way when it released the buggy "Cyberpunk 2077" on last-gen consoles, and EA also learned it with "Apex Legends."

On PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, "Apex Legends" runs like a dream, but on the Switch, the game is the apex of unplayable. Although Panic Button worked its magic to port "Wolfenstein" and "DOOM" to the Switch, "Apex Legends" was beyond the studio's capabilities. Numerous outlets, including GameSpot and Eurogamer, complained about the performance. The Switch port's textures are either muddy or outright missing, and the draw distance is severely reduced when compared to other platforms, which isn't conducive to avoiding sniper fire from PC players.

You might assume that these hamstrung graphical capabilities would at least result in smooth framerates, but you'd be wrong. Nintendo World Report experienced constant sub-30 fps gameplay, both while docked and in handheld mode. To make matters worse, firing a gun chewed up a huge chunk of the game's framerate. When a port for a game that is supposed to be 90% shooting guns can't handle the recoil of a firearm, you know something's desperately wrong.

Virtually every review out there agrees that "Apex Legends" on the Switch is the worst way to play. You should avoid the port unless you have no other alternative.

Robin Hood isn't just the Prince of Thieves, he's the downright king. Tales of his heroism and borderline supernatural archery skills have inspired a band of merry men's worth of characters and IP. One of the most recent examples is "Hood: Outlaws and Legends," a PvPvE game that pits two teams of players against each other to rob from rich NPCs and give to the poor — or to themselves, so they can purchase character upgrades. 

On paper, "Hood" sounds like a fun cross between "Assassin's Creed" and "Payday 2." In practice, it is, as Twinfinite put it, a "half-baked heist." In fact, numerous critics claimed that "Hood" feels unfinished. IGN, for example, criticized how classes are unbalanced — and claimed that a team full of Little John clones outclassed any opponents who tried to play the game as intended. Meanwhile, Wccftech stated that "Hood" has zero variety. Since the game only has four character classes, five maps, and one game mode to its name, repetition is inevitable, which is not a good sign.

However, the biggest kick in the teeth for "Hood" is its population. GameRant ran into numerous matchmaking hiccups — possibly due to a small playerbase — and witnessed braindead NPC enemies that meandered about when they should have been on high alert.

The developers of "Hood: Outlaws and Legends" plan to add more maps and modes in the future, but as it stands, the game is a case of loading a cart full of gold and then forgetting the horse to pull it.