How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. How can you disappoint me? More ways than I can count. Here are three high-profile titles from 2018 that illustrate different ways games can disappoint.

Fallout 76

I shrugged and thought “pass” when Fallout 76 was first announced as a multiplayer survival game with PvP. I enjoy survival games, but being harassed by PvP when I’m trying to create and maintain a livable infrastructure in a hostile environment doesn’t interest me. However, my interest picked up when Bethesda revealed the creative way Fallout 76 planned to handle griefers. I began to think the game could be fun.

As everyone reading this is probably aware, Fallout 76 has had a very rocky start. Game-breaking bugs, technical problems, crashes, game systems that are at odds with each other, a monotonous eat/drink/craft gameplay loop, and a world that feels empty and soulless have resulted in almost uniformly bad reviews. And then there are all the complaints from players who aren’t happy that Fallout 76 is focused on cooperative multiplayer rather than the single player experience.


While it’s hard to imagine a more disappointing launch for a triple-A game from an established development studio, Fallout 76 was not that great of a disappointment for me. My interest in the game developed late. I respected Bethesda’s attempt to try something different within the Fallout universe and wasn’t put off by the shift from single to multiplayer. Fallout 76 is a disappointment, but my disappointment is muted because I never had high hopes about how Fallout would fare as a multiplayer game.

Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 is a much better game than Fallout 76 on the technical and gameplay fronts. Ubisoft has perfected the Far Cry experience and FC5 is the series most fully realized entry thus far. Nevertheless, Far Cry 5 was a much greater disappointment for me than Fallout 76. Bethesda tried to do something different with Fallout and failed spectacularly. Ubisoft promised something different and much more interesting for Far Cry and didn’t even try to deliver. That’s disappointing.

During the months leading up to Far Cry 5’s release, Ubisoft carried out a relentless advertising campaign focused on how this iteration of Far Cry would be different. It was set in the United States rather than a fictional country. There were hints that the game might address some of the social and political problems that divide the country today. It didn’t, but it was only mildly disappointing because they were only hints.

Ubisoft also made a big deal about how Far Cry 5 was going to pay serious attention to the social and psychological factors that lead people to join messianic cults and allow the cult’s charismatic leader to exert an extreme degree of control over their thoughts and actions after they’ve joined. The developers pitched it, academics specializing in cult behavior were consulted, and game content and design was influenced by their insights into the phenomenon. At least that's what we were told.

That’s not what we got. The social dislocations that can make a charismatic leader sound appealing were reduced to setting the game in rural America, an ugly stereotype if there ever was one. Instead of cult psychology we got a magic drug that turns people into killer goons. Instead of a close-knit population trying to deal with the rise of a dangerous cult from within their midst we got a “Resistance” of killer goons eager to slaughter their former neighbors, friends and family members.

Ubisoft’s emphasis on how Far Cry 5 would present an informed look at messianic cults and charismatic leaders was misleading and duplicitous. If you like Far Cry, that may not matter because FC5 is another reskinned Far Cry game. If, like me, you’ve gotten tired of the Far Cry formula and the advertising campaign gave you high hopes for something more nuanced and engaging, Far Cry 5 was a great disappointment.

Red Dead Redemption 2

This one hurts. I loved Red Dead Redemption and still think it’s one of the best games I’ve ever played. I found its story moving and compelling. John Marston is one of the most engaging characters I’ve come across in a video game. The mutual attraction between Marston and Bonnie McFarlane in the early game was handled with a level of sensitivity, depth and restraint that is rare in any game, let alone one from Rockstar. Daren Bader’s brilliant art direction is so evocative of the American desert Southwest that I found myself with a bottle of water by my side because playing made me thirsty. I’ve been looking forward to RDR2 from the moment I set the controller down for the last time in RDR1 eight years ago.

Red Dead Redemption 2 has so much that made the first game great. The story is great, the voice acting is great, the opportunity to see what happened to Marston before the events of RDR1 is great. RDR2’s graphics are beyond great, especially when played on an Xbox One X which renders the entire game in native 4K.

RDR2 has everything I hoped it would have and more. I should love this game but instead it’s been a crushing disappointment for one simple reason. It’s not fun to play.

Almost every basic game mechanic is grindingly tedious in Red Dead Redemption 2. The simple act of getting from here to there t a k e s f o r e v e r whether you’re on foot or horseback. The UI is so clunky and awkward it feels like it was designed by people who’d never played a console game. Simply playing the game demands constant attention to fiddly minutia that is tedious beyond belief. Get a haircut. Trim your beard. Take a bath and wash your clothes. Clean your guns, oil your guns. Feed your horse, brush your horse, pat your horse. Don’t eat that, you’ll get fat. You’re too skinny, eat some more. Wear a coat, it’s cold outside. Now it’s too hot, you’re overdressed. All this fussy activity is defended, or at least discussed, in terms of RDR2's supposedly enhanced degree of “realism” which is ludicrous in a game with a magic hat that returns to your inventory no matter where you leave it.

I keep trying to enjoy Red Dead Redemption 2, but its awkward and tedious gameplay keeps getting in the way. Maybe a day will come when there’s a prolonged dearth of games that are fun and playing RDR2 won’t seem like such a chore. But today’s not that day. Today Red Dead Redemption 2 is a bitter disappointment.

There’s a theme in this catalog of disappointing games. The more you care, the greater the potential for disappointment. Objectively, Fallout 76’s gross failures are far more serious than Red Dead Redemption 2’s tedious gameplay, yet F76 was a mild disappointment and RDR2 broke my heart. Video games are like all important things in life in that regard. Caring deeply opens you up to crushing disappointment. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This year wasn't all disappointment and bad news.