10 Video Games That Tried Too Hard
Sometime You Just Have to Sit Back, Relax, and Enjoy the Adventure.
The best games to grace our consoles or computers are often the ones filled with confidence in their features and mechanics. Unfortunately, all too often, that confidence can lead to developers adding so many gameplay features that it actually hinders the game's success. Likewise, developers oftentimes want to chase a trend in the gaming landscape, which can alter the overal tone of the game for the worse.
The following games in this list showcase titles that simply try too hard. Whether this comes from the all too familiar issue of feature creep to a game wanting to lift the ideas, concepts, and systems of another franchise in order to take a slice of the pie. While there is certainly nothing wrong with wanting to take inspiration from other games or wanting to pay homage to past exepriences, ultimately, when a game tries too hard to be the same, it leads to a less than stellar experience for the player. With that said, let's dive into 10 video games that tried too hard.
10. Lawbreakers - The Little Hero Shooter That Couldn't
Lawbreakers was a free-to-play online hero shooter by Cliff Bleszinski and his now-shuttered studio, Boss Key Productions. Lawbreakers aimed to make a mark in an overly saturated market of online free-to-play games, specifically going up against the absolute juggernaut, Overwatch. It almost feels as if Lawbreakers was destined to fail because it was directly trying to compete in that market, and wasn't helped by the fact that it looked painfully generic and mundane. Lawbreakers looked to be the epitome of lackluster with a graphical style simply trying to mimic that of Destiny or Call of Duty, two series already enjoying their own successes.
For a game with this bumping a soundtrack, it felt like Cliff and his team themselves lacked the confidence and excitement for the title. Lawbreakers was shown off to be the next hit hero shooter installment with a massive character roster, frenetic and high-flying gameplay, and a long-term commitment to new features, heroes, and gameplay options.
While some games are able to break into an overly saturated market, such as Apex Legends and Warzone, most end up losing their player bases in a rapid manner due to the sheer factor of been there, done that. Unfortunately that was the case with Lawbreakers, with player numbers dwindling so quickly that the it had to be shut down. While there is a lot of speculation as to why the game ultimately failed, it seems to have come down to over promising and under delivering, Cliffy B's polarizing and divisive attitudes within the games industry, and an overall lack of direction and appeal for the new hero shooter.