The phrase “too big to fail” is typically associated with banks and large corporations which, even in failure, must be bailed out again and again by governments in order to prevent the wider financial system from collapsing.
Applying that logic to the entertainment industry is risky, and especially when we’re talking about something as complex as video games.
Because after all, no matter how many talented people might be working on a game, there are very few scenarios in the gaming industry where a sure-fire recipe for success actually exists.
As such it’s little surprise that countless must-win games end up flaming out every year, and in the case of these 12, they were all especially ambitious, huge-scale titles which had a wealth of industry support behind them. On paper, they sounded like sure-fire critical and commercial hits.
To be clear, this list doesn’t include games like No Man’s Sky – which rode out a rough start to become a genuinely good game – and focuses instead on games which cratered after launch with virtually no indication of recovery.
