By Evan Regan
While the genre has slowed down a lot of late, back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, first-person shooters were all the rage. They were everywhere, dabbling in every genre, and doing everything from recreating iconic World War 2 battles to sending soldiers into outer space. Inevitably, some of these games sold well, and many more underperformed financially.
However, not all of those underperforming games are bad. In fact, a handful of them are really great games, but due to factors both known and unknown, they failed to find an audience. Those are the games we're celebrating here. These FPS games sold poorly, but they're still great games. Maybe they're even worth checking out today, or at least holding their place in gaming history so that a remaster or remake is one day possible.
Resistance 3
Ended With A Bang, Sold To A Whimper
- Sold just 180,000 units in its first month, less than one-third of Resistance 2's first-month performance.
Resistance 3 was a victim of circumstance. It was the culmination of a PS3-exclusive trilogy from Insomniac Games that was, in many ways, a response to the success of Halo on the Xbox. However, Resistance 3 had something on every major FPS franchise of the time. It was grittier than Halo, more fantastical than Call of Duty, with more interesting weapons than Battlefield and more interesting enemies than Killzone. Resistance 3 is a truly special game, but it couldn't have been released at a worse time.
Launching in 2011, the same year as Battlefield 3, FEAR 3, Crysis 2, Duke Nukem Forever, Killzone 3, Rage, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the unfortunate truth is that Resistance 3 was buried under a sea of similar titles with more hype behind them. Many of those aforementioned titles didn't perform all that well either — critically or financially — but their word of mouth was much stronger. Couple that with Resistance 3's adherence to more old-school FPS mechanics, like health packs instead of regenerating health and a weapon wheel instead of a primary-secondary roster, and despite how great its campaign is, it just never took off.
Titanfall 2
Retroactively Elevated To Classic Status
- Sold 385,000 units in its first week, about 75% less than the first game despite being a multiplatform launch.
Hindsight is 20/20, and boy, is that true with Titanfall 2. A game that, today, is considered one of the best single-player FPS campaigns of all time struggled a lot at launch. Much like Resistance 3, it was a victim of circumstance, releasing smack in the middle of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Battlefield 1. An FPS would need to be the second coming of Half-Life to perform well in that release window, and as good as Titanfall 2 is, it's not that good.
Despite great word of mouth and consistent discounts aimed at encouraging players to give it a shot, Titanfall 2 still underperformed its predecessor, which is likely why a third sequel has yet to materialize despite vocal and persistent interest from the gaming community. There's still time for that to change, but with Respawn's attention split between Apex Legends and the Star Wars: Jedi series, the franchise may be on the shelf for a while yet.
Bulletstorm
A Fun-Focused Arcade Shooter That Was Poorly Marketed
- Took two years to reach 1 million sales, and failed to break even financially.
Another FPS casualty of the stacked 2011 release lineup, Bulletstorm had trouble conveying what it was about. Its world was loosely reminiscent of Borderlands, but it had a more melee-focused combat system, and the writing was brazenly goofy. Meanwhile, gameplay had high-score numbers popping out of enemies and a slew of environmental kill options, drawing the "shooter" aspect of its first-person shooter label into question.
Then there was the Fox News controversy, where a Fox reporter (baselessly) linked Bulletstorm to a rise in sexual assault cases two weeks before the game's official launch, damaging its reputation before it was even available for purchase. With a slew of other FPS games launching that year (including Killzone 3 on the same day), Bulletstorm never stood a chance, but it does deserve a second chance if you're looking for an over-the-top shooter to try out.
Rage 2
Hurt By A Lack Of Name Recognition
- Only managed to match 25% of the original game's first-week sales.
There was a lot of hype surrounding the first Rage. It was a new IP from id Software, the studio that all but created the FPS genre with Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake, and it boasted some of the most detailed graphics that anyone had ever seen (at the time) and some impressively reactive enemy AI. The final product was... a bit lackluster; not bad, but a bit repetitive and lacking in variety. Rage 2, released 8 years later, sought to amend that, and it largely succeeded.
This sequel addressed virtually every complaint about Rage. The world was too brown and gray? Rage 2 is an explosion of color, with bright purples and blues in everything from the environment to combat abilities. Combat was too same-y? Rage 2 is almost a power fantasy, with combat abilities that encourage aggression and movement over cover shooting and ammo management. Exploration was too empty? Rage 2 features a massive open world where vehicle combat and racing can happen at any time and side content is hidden everywhere. The issue was, unlike the first game, which had a massive hype wave behind it, no one was all that excited for Rage 2's release almost a decade later, and without that momentum, it failed to meet expectations.
Singularity
The Coolest Time-Travel Shooter You've Never Heard Of
- Released in the middle of summer with almost no marketing from Activision, and sold less than 400,000 units as a result.
Singularity is one of those games you may have heard of in passing, or not at all, but very few people actually played it. It's an over-the-top shooter that gives you time-travel abilities for both combat and narrative purposes. It certainly doesn't rewrite the book on FPS games, but it's a fun and unique game that not enough people played.
"It's better than you expect it to be" was a common sentiment among critics, who were generally pretty pleased with Singluarity and reviewed it as such. However, Activision sent this game out to die, with the most barebones marketing campaign you can imagine and a release date right in the middle of the dry summer months. This is largely what did Singularity in. It's not clear why Activision gave up on it, but it's worth a revisit today, because there's still nothing like it.
Read the full article on GameRant
This article originally appeared on GameRant and is republished here with permission.
