14 DAY TRIAL // The traditional flurry of new game releases ahead of the winter holidays has all but slowed to a halt, meaning all the major titles that battle for the hearts, minds, and wallets of gamers are available on store shelves and have been rated by media outlets.
Unfortunately, while quite a lot of quality experiences have rolled out in recent months, almost all of them have encountered some pretty serious issues or would have been in dire need of a delay so that extra polishing and bug fixing could be done by their respective developers.
Unity was the biggest offender
By far the worst offender is Assassin's Creed Unity, which arrived from Ubisoft back in November and was supposed to herald a new age for the long running series. The actual title, however, did not do that, as it suffered from issues across the board, relating to gameplay, visuals, online functionality, and much more. Even now, after several updates, there still are things wrong with the game, which highlights that it needed a much bigger delay, even if it would have meant missing the yearly release cycle.
Ubisoft is also to blame for The Crew, which launched last week and immediately suffered from online issues, which are pretty much the biggest problems for most games nowadays. The fact that the title relies on a connection to Ubisoft's erratic uPlay servers to remain functional worsened the situation, and many fans are already abandoning the multiplayer racing title.
Sticking to the racing theme, Driveclub was also a big offender in October, as after one whole year's worth of delays, it encountered serious online issues at launch. While the title promised a solid social racing experience that allowed players to form clubs and compete with others online, the result was a barely functional multiplayer mode that suffered not just from a limited number of servers, but also poor mechanics that didn't work as intended.
Even one of the game of the year contenders, Dragon Age: Inquisition, isn't without blame, as BioWare's title crashed incessantly on both my work and my home PCs. I tried practically every possible combination of solutions to remedy this but it was useless, as the random crashes still kept happening.
Most other large games, from Destiny to Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare or Lords of the Fallen, have had some issues plaguing them at launch.
Some games are getting delays to avoid this
Is it too much to ask to have a functional game released when it's ready and not when it's the most favorable for the profits of the publisher? Probably, at least judging by recent titles.
It's also worth pointing out that at least some titles have been saved from the shoddy release strategy, starting with Battlefield Hardline and continuing with Evolve or even The Witcher 3, which have all been delayed for extra polishing and to avoid the recent controversies that plagued the aforementioned games.
Sure, these issues can be solved via updates and patches at a later point in time after the launch, but it still leaves a sour taste in the mouths of players who pre-ordered or got the title on its first day of availability.
