The games that deserved a better fate

Mad Max

It never sold as well as it should have. Warner Bros. Interactive released Avalanche Studios' ambitious movie licence title on the same day Konami released Metal Gear Solid V, which of course completely ruined Mad Max: The Game and everything related to it. Basically, it was a clever mix of Just Cause's open world aspects and a tighter approach to cinematic storytelling, and both the graphics and game mechanics were certainly not lacking. Mad Max should have had a digitised Tom Hardy in the lead role and his input as a voice actor, plus Furiosa should have been included as a character, but beyond that and Warner's publishing blunders, this is a game that deserved a far better fate.

Singularity

Fortunately, Raven Software has not disappeared or been forgotten today. On the contrary, they are the lead developer on the world's fourth most popular game, Call of Duty: Warzone, and are very much a developer you can count on. Of course, there is a joy that old action veterans like id Software, Raven Software, and Epic Games are still doing well (across the board), but there is also a sadness that Raven today only works on maintaining Call of Duty. After all, they have their own library of memorable, wonderful action games that they could revitalise, innovate and expand - not least the highly underrated Singularity. That game was and still is phenomenal and hardly deserved to be forgotten, discarded and just disappear, while other, clearly less ambitious or conceptually interesting games from the same console generation got 30 different sequels.

Days Gone

Sony Bend's ambitious zombie title was never perfect. On the contrary, it was flawed and released in the wake of The Last of Us, which of course meant it was unfairly compared to Naughty Dog's masterpiece and thus dismissed in the same breath. There was never a sequel, the DLC missions never materialised, and Days Gone was forgotten as quickly as the main character Deacon could rev his motorcycle's engine. But of course it deserved a better fate. It deserved better characters than it got, and it deserved to be more. Because even if you thought the main character was a little boring, and even if you thought the dialogue was slow for long periods of time, there was so much potential in the world-building that Bend had done, and Days Gone deserved a much better fate.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

It's not just because a direct sequel to Mankind Divided was seemingly scrapped at Eidos Montreal by owners Embracer Group, it's because with both this rebooted series' first and especially second chapter, the studio hit an immersive sim formula we could have easily seen ourselves exploring again and again. Yes, the game was rushed out the door, and therefore told an unfinished story to say the least, but the structure, the design, the mechanics - it all sang such a gentle, cohesive tune that it was downright heartbreaking that it didn't sell the billion copies Square Enix clearly expected.

Brutal Legend

Since the launch of Brutal Legend, developer Double Fine has made a series of pretty solid hits that undoubtedly paint a picture of a studio that thrives on making slightly smaller projects. The Jack Black-led game was the studio's central attempt at something resembling a AAA production, and as many noted, there were some pretty obvious flaws. Still, it would have been fun to have Double Fine sitting at the AAA table, if only because they are undoubtedly thinking outside the box. Brutal deserved better because it had a rather different idea of what games should be. Instead, it ended up being a bit of a flop, and that's sad.

Prey

This isn't the only immersive sim on the list, unfortunately, so perhaps there's something about AAA bids for this particular genre that simply don't resonate with a wide enough audience. Prey was not without its problems, and still isn't to this day. And no, a sequel is probably not in the cards after Arkane Austin was shut down recently. But Prey turned out to make a bigger impression than most would have thought at first glance, and to this day it stands as a shining example of what the immersive sim genre is capable of.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

Today, British studio Ninja Theory is best known for making the Hellblade games, but before Senua was born and before they were bought by Microsoft, they were responsible for the Namco game Enslaved, which was released in autumn 2010 and forgotten the following year. Enslaved presented several game mechanics and narrative ideas that have since become something of a standard in the genre, and it was as beautiful aesthetically as it was daring in terms of boss battles, puzzles and environmental design. Of course, it should have had several sequels, and several of us on the editorial team believe that it is Enslaved and the characters Monkey + Trip that should have been allowed to live on, instead of some of the studio's newer characters.

Spec Ops: The Line

Not everyone initially failed to recognise the greatness of Spec Ops. Released as part of a deluge of US-based war titles that all tried to capture some of the Call of Duty spark, the game was dismissed outright, and on an obviously flawed basis. The effect that the twist in this fantastic action-adventure would prove to have on many was eye-opening from a narrative point of view, and seemed quite innovative for gaming in general. Only then did you realise that Yager's memorable mindfuck was cleverly designed as a sort of acknowledgement of how jaded we as gamers have become. 12 years later, this game deserves to be hailed as one of the most remarkable gaming experiences ever released.

Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs was slightly problematic for many, and we're not just talking about the game itself, but the messy path the project had to take before it was finished and rolled out on store shelves in August 2012. United Front Games began development under the auspices of Activision when it was originally going to be called True Crime: Hong Kong, but the project was cancelled, the developers were fired, founded a new studio, bought back the rights to their own project, renamed it and rebuilt large parts. When it was finally released, after a lot of ups and downs, it was a neat open-world action game, full of detail, life, movement and spatial gameplay, and that it didn't live on in more sequels is, in retrospect, just sad.

Max Payne 3

It's funny to place a game on this list that managed to sell at least four million copies, a number that many developers and publishers would give an arm and a leg for. But the problem soon became clear; for a developer like Rockstar to justify housing an IP on par with Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, the games need to do more than Max Payne 3 did. And that's a shame, because Max Payne as an IP deserves better, and Rockstar clearly had the fundamentals right. We hope that the upcoming remakes from Remedy will spark more interest.