8. Anthem
You know your game is bad when road maps are canceled, you forget your own anniversary, veteran developers leave the team and you ultimately suspend updates to regroup or just give up entirely. While the developers who left BioWare typically said the project is in good hands on the way out, it became more clear over time that the project was not in good hands. Though there are doubtlessly talented developers at BioWare to this day, it could be that Anthem shouldn’t have released, to begin with. Like many other items on this list, Anthem has had a long and painful road, but it began with promise. Many gamers tried the demo ahead of the release of the game and genuinely enjoyed it, but shortly after launch, it became clear that the game was extremely flawed and it remains that way to this day. While many people speculated that EA would end BioWare after two major flops, we remain confident that Dragon Age will breathe new life into the development studio and gaming industry alike. It’s fun to fly around like Iron Man but the novelty only lasts so long and a game can’t be built around that entire concept and unfortunately, BioWare never added anything meaningful through updates.
7. DOTA 2
DOTA 2 is widely considered the second most popular MOBA next to League of Legends but the player counts have been dropping off a cliff lately. One of the primary reasons for people leaving DOTA is definitely competition and another is the release of DOTA Underlords which Valve has put a lot of time and resources into. The original DOTA was a Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos mod in which players would scramble to defeat their enemies ancient while bypassing enemy AI along the way. Although the gameplay has been refined by titles such as DOTA 2 and League of Legends, titles like Smite make it more personal by moving the camera from an aerial view to something closer to the characters and ultimately the action. While Smite and League of Legends have maintained a steady player base and community by releasing constant updates, it seems as if the updates DOTA 2 has received aren’t enough to keep their player base engaged. DOTA 2 peaked at around 1.29 million active users but those numbers have fallen to a measly 370,000 and DOTA Underlords is bleeding gamers too. According to Riot Games, there are approximately 100 million League of Legends players, while Smite has around 35 million. According to these numbers, Defense of the Ancients is a dated concept in comparison to MOBA such as Smite and League of Legends. Pour one out for the sequel of the first of its kind.
