The worst launches in PC gaming history

MikeTheNative · 3 May 2017 at 20:31

I was one of the lucky ones and BF4 worked fine for me. However Skyrim doesn't work for me at all and constantly crashes. I have basically a whole new PC and different OS and it still doesn't work.

Cromulent · 3 May 2017 at 21:16

MikeTheNative said:
I was one of the lucky ones and BF4 worked fine for me. However Skyrim doesn't work for me at all and constantly crashes. I have basically a whole new PC and different OS and it still doesn't work.

Have you tried the code fix patch for Skyrim Special Edition? That should fix up most of the problems with it.

Rroff · 3 May 2017 at 21:20

MikeTheNative said:
I was one of the lucky ones and BF4 worked fine for me. However Skyrim doesn't work for me at all and constantly crashes. I have basically a whole new PC and different OS and it still doesn't work.

Cap framerate to 56fps with V-Sync off (helps a lot of you have G-Sync or FreeSync as it runs perfectly smoothly and fairly responsively with adaptive sync at that low framerate) - Skyrim hates high framerates and on some systems the physics engine will crash it out constantly above 60fps and occasionally at exactly 60fps (possibly due to rounding errors or something).

DONOHUE07 · 3 May 2017 at 22:03

I don't think it fair to criticise an early access game for a poor release, as don't believe it's been 'released' yet.

For me BF4's release was appalling, it takes some beating

kola · 3 May 2017 at 22:07

Wow launch was amazing for me , weird

MikeTheNative · 3 May 2017 at 22:31

Cromulent said:
Have you tried the code fix patch for Skyrim Special Edition? That should fix up most of the problems with it.

Rroff said:
Cap framerate to 56fps with V-Sync off (helps a lot of you have G-Sync or FreeSync as it runs perfectly smoothly and fairly responsively with adaptive sync at that low framerate) - Skyrim hates high framerates and on some systems the physics engine will crash it out constantly above 60fps and occasionally at exactly 60fps (possibly due to rounding errors or something).

Thanks for the tips, but it seems to be when loading either to a new area or loading a save.

Terminal_Boy · 3 May 2017 at 22:40

Mine would be Dayz SA, but as it's never going to get out of Alpha, it can really be counted as having launched.

Jono8 · 4 May 2017 at 08:37

Rome 2 was awful. Even the desktop icon was broken ( it was horribly low resolution).

Not only was the performance awful, I got the feeling CA all got round a table and went "yeh, you know all those features that everyone loves that have been in previous Total War Games? Well we are going to scrap them"

Chonky · 4 May 2017 at 11:42

For me it was WWII Online. Massive hype for what the game was going to offer, and then a 70Mb patch on release day (2001, so 56k dial-up for most), technical issues, performance issues, player cap, missing features. Still enjoyed playing, but it took a while before things settled down.

SPG · 4 May 2017 at 13:03

Anarchy Online
Black Ops.

(conan was a joy for me)

Kainz · 4 May 2017 at 13:10

Off the top of my head I think New Vegas would be the worst launched game for me. It was a complete random CTD fest at launch and was unplayable at best for a long while. I turned to the net for answers only to find a great deal of players in the same boat. I never did get far in the game as a result - all I remember are lots of deaths via large fly things.

Vimes · 4 May 2017 at 13:11

Jono8 said:
Rome 2 was awful. Even the desktop icon was broken ( it was horribly low resolution).

Not only was the performance awful, I got the feeling CA all got round a table and went "yeh, you know all those features that everyone loves that have been in previous Total War Games? Well we are going to scrap them"

The Angry Joe review for that was pretty spot on.
Also some of his play videos were hilarious, showing the troops attacking one minute and then retreating the next second.!

jmc007 · 4 May 2017 at 13:13

America's Army.

Gregster · 4 May 2017 at 16:02

Kainz said:
Off the top of my head I think New Vegas would be the worst launched game for me. It was a complete random CTD fest at launch and was unplayable at best for a long while. I turned to the net for answers only to find a great deal of players in the same boat. I never did get far in the game as a result - all I remember are lots of deaths via large fly things.

Good point on that and I was in the same boat as you. I was a huge Fallout 3 fan and super excited to grab New Vegas but I ended up not playing it, as it was so random in the CTDs, I just gave up in the end. Shoddy work.

balky12 · 4 May 2017 at 16:36

Conan was terrible. On all fronts. We talking launches or short life spans?

The Division was a huge let down and Tera, anyone play that? Also I though ST: TOR was pretty bad.

Besty · 4 May 2017 at 17:42

For me, Battlefield 4 was the worst launch in modern memory and not only that, the game remained broken well beyond launch. It was only until they let another studio fix it that the game could be classed as sorted.

A painful lesson learned for EA and DICE.

Pixel · 4 May 2017 at 17:57

X: Rebirth was a disaster of a release.

The game was unfinished and unplayable due to bugs.

Vern1961 · 9 May 2017 at 12:10

Pixel said:
X: Rebirth was a disaster of a release.

The game was unfinished and unplayable due to bugs.

It took around two years of patches and gameplay fixes to get to a reasonably playable state. Even then, you really had to buy the DLC in order to find locations selling parts needed to build the required stations in the main plot (which then hung there in space serving no useful purpose). The solitary main campaign ended abruptly, leaving the player wondering if they won or not.

Plus you never really felt you were floating in space, felt more like an underwater environment.

Lunatic Dreyfus · 9 May 2017 at 17:18

Pixel said:
X: Rebirth was a disaster of a release.

The game was unfinished and unplayable due to bugs.

That whole debacle was a textbook example of how to **** away years of community good will in one deceptive cash grab.

I remember the official forum's being wildly unpleasant prior to release. There was no previews (of note) and so little information that the whole thing stunk of a set up, but any mention of doubt had the fan boy's descending en mass.

I'm just glad I didn't buy, especially with it being £40 on release! The Youtube let's plays made it look horrendous! I can only imagine what Egosoft are up to now.

HangTime · 9 May 2017 at 23:48

I think people seriously forget how bad some games used to be. Unreal would crash on startup if you had a Cyrix CPU, and back then I didn't have the internet at home so had to go and fork out at an internet cafe to download a patch onto a floppy disk over a shared ISDN connection (having already spent over an hour on the phone to the publisher). It wasn't great on non-3dfx hardware either by all accounts thanks to buggy D3D renderer but luckily I had 3dfx. And Unreal was a AAA release, leaving the bugs to one side it was probably the best SP FPS at that time.