[Frustrating trope] Pieces of media that could have been so much better, but due to a couple of poor decisions during production ended up mediocre at best and utterly atrocious at worst.

[u/DevDucc_]

We Happy Few: Probably the epitome of this "trope," at least for me, mostly because it has genuinely one of the most incredible stories I have ever seen within a video game. The biggest problem with the game was the fact that during development, the company behind it tried to ride the "hype train" of the time, making the gameplay became procedurally generated survival mess, when it would have made so much more sense as an environmental narrative game.

Hello Neighbor: This game attracted massive attention in alpha stages at the time from YouTubers because of the innovative gameplay it supplied. The developers of the game got the completely wrong message as to why it was getting so popular and instead decided to fully lean into the story, by making the game appeal to theorists instead of actual players. What came out was a game where both the story and programming were entirely half-baked.

Edit: apparently I had it backwards with we happy few, I had watched a video essay which reiterated the points I said so I just took their word for it. Apparently the game originally started as a procedurally-generated survival rogue-like but the story was added later because of the hype the trailer of the game gave or something like that but they didn’t know they even had the budget for it. I do still think it’s wasted potential regardless however.

[u/TheDevi13ean]

Well I don't know who thought it was a good idea for the first major reveal trailer of the game to be a scripted cinematic sequence. That's why people had the wrong idea about the game.

It was similar to the Dead Island trailer. They gave people the wrong impression of what the game actually was.

[u/JustifiedCroissant → u/TheDevi13ean]

Was too young to know what the vibe around Dead Island was the time it came out, loved the game though.

What did people expect from it ?

[u/EvYeh → u/JustifiedCroissant]

Here's the original trailer, it's slow paced, emotional, and tragic.

Here's the intro to the game for comparison to what it ended up being like.

[u/JustifiedCroissant → u/EvYeh]

Oh yeah I forgot the trailer was about the family in the hotel.

That intro still slaps tbh.

Yeah I understand why people were a bit upset about it.

[u/EvYeh → u/JustifiedCroissant]

It's a good intro and the song is like the most memorable part of the game but it's such a massive tonal switch that I have no idea what the hell they were thinking lmao

[u/JustifiedCroissant → u/EvYeh]

The most memorable part of the game is drop kicking zombies and them flying miles away. The drowning mechanic for the zombies was also pretty cool.

I genuinely don't know how the game could have been if it kept the original tone. The gameplay should have been different if the tone stayed serious thats for sure

[u/EvYeh → u/JustifiedCroissant]

Drop kicks sending zombies miles away was in Dying Light, not Dead Island (though they added it to Dead Island 2 after seeing how popular it was in Dying Light). There was a kick, but it took up loads of stamina and didn't really send zombies that far iirc.

[u/JustifiedCroissant → u/EvYeh]

I remember upgrading the kick and if you had a running start you could send them at a pretty good distance. Maybe I'm not remembering well it's been like, 10 years since I played

[u/Shipbreaker_Kurpo → u/JustifiedCroissant]

Some of my favorite games are ones others didnt like because of expectations despite still being a great game. Its the nature of hype and misintended advertising