That summer drought was not playing around, was it? Things were so dire, you were probably excited about The Sims 4 — before, you know, you played it. With all the controversy, console warring, and general nonsense that comes with the game industry, I thought we should take a moment to truly appreciate of the games we are about to be swamped by in the coming months — and why they all might suck…some of them are going to suck.
September 9th — Destiny
Why It Might Be Good: Bungie. When was the last time Bungie made a bad game? The last thing the studio did was Halo Reach and that game was bad ass. Remember Grifball? There’s no way Destiny sucks.
Why It Might Suck: In all my time playing Halo, talking to friends about Halo, or reading Halo forums did I ever see someone say: “I want more Halo, but I want it to be like an MMO”. Now, you can shake Destiny any way you want, but hearing names like “The Darkness” and “The Fallen” bring back memories of “The Flood” and “The Covenant”. You have a little AI buddy who follows you around, not unlike Cortana. For Bungie wanting to do something totally different than Halo, they certainly made something a lot like Halo. Destiny is Halo: The MMO.
September 19th — Wasteland 2
Why It Might Be Good: A Kickstarter darling which was backed by a passionate fan base. Make no mistake, this feel good story is all about the fans.
Why It Might Suck: Games which are made for a certain group of people end up being enjoyed by those people and few others. While it’s great to see a fan base moved to basically self-fund a game, it’s hard to get people amped about something so few — comparably — are excited for. So get jacked, Wasteland fans. Everyone else…did you hear about this game Destiny?
September 26th — Hyrule Warriors
Why It Might Be Good: Nintendo has been trying to put this game in everyone’s hands and on everyobody’s radar. The holy — possibly, unholy? — union of Tecmo Koei and Nintendo seems to be a blissful merger and the series seems to faithfully blend Zelda and the Dynasty Warriors franchise.
Why It Might Suck: Yeah, but it’s still Dynasty Warriors, right? Is anyone — except for a few of weirdos out there — THAT excited about Dynasty Warrior? This sounds like a cool reskinning of the franchise, but something I would expect a modding community to do…and not charge $60 for.
September 30th — Forza Horizon 2
Why It Might Be Good: Forza Horizon did a great job of taking the racing formula and applying it to an open world concept. The last great racing game on the Xbox 360 might have it successor be the first great racing game on the Xbox One.
Why It MIght Suck: I’m still trying to wash the taste of Forza 5 out of my mouth with all of its dirty DLC transactions and other garbage. I know the franchises differ after the “Forza” part, but I’m not ready to make nice.
September 30th — Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
Why It Might Be Good: Lord of the Rings fans have come away from early showings legitimately impressed and trumpeting their experience. Not to mention Warner Bros actually moved the game “up” in its launch date instead of back (unless you’re a previous-gen owners). They want you to play this game, so you probably should.
Why It Might Suck: After getting Jackson’s phenomenal trilogy on the big screen, LOTR fans have not been treated kindly, especially when it comes to video games. It’s been a lot of Aragon’s Quest and War in the North nonsense. It’s hard to shake those memories when looking at Shadow of Mordor.
October 3rd — Super Smash Bros 3DS
Why It Might Be Good: It’s Smash Bros, mother fucker. ‘nuff said.
Why It Might Suck: Is it better than my N64 version? Yeah, I thought not.
October 7th — Alien: Isolation
Why It Might Be Good: This is the Alien game fans have been waiting for. Taking a page out of the Outlast playbook, Creative Assembly seems to have focused on a first-person atmospheric horror game where players spend more time running for their lives than shooting bad guys.
Why It Might Suck: Creative Assembly is most famous for their Total War games (see: Shogun, Medieval, ect.) Taking on first-person survival horror is about as far from a PC strategy game as one can get. What we’ve seen is good, but no one ever did trailers highlighting the worst part of their games.
October 7th — NBA2K15
Why It Might Be Good: There is a legitimate argument for NBA2K as the best annual sports game. Last year’s career mode introduced interesting cutscenes which fleshed out the story of your created character, making your legacy more than stats and contract talks.
Why It Might Suck: Honestly, the biggest news I’ve heard about this game is about Pharrell producing the soundtrack. Sports games are more often than not repetitive, highlighting a couple small evolutions and updating the rosters.
October 7th — Driveclub
Why It Might Be Good: There’s not a lot to talk about here. We’ve been waiting on Driveclub for about a year now, and first saw it back in winter of 2013.
Why It Might Suck: The lead designer left the project back in March. The game has been on ice for nearly a year. There’s not a lot which would inspire confidence here. On top of that, there really isn’t anything that makes Driveclub stand apart from it’s proven racing counterparts.
October 14th — The Evil Within
Why It Might Be Good: Shinji Mikami is responsible for two of the best survival horror games to date (Resident Evil and Resident Evil 4). His return to the genre is much anticipated. From I’ve played of the game, there’s plenty to be frightened by.
Why It Might Suck: Survival horror has evolved a lot since Resident Evil 4. Games like Amnesia have redefined the genre and blasting away evil dudes doesn’t quite pass for horror these days.
October 14th — Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
Why It Might Be Good: Borderlands isn’t a particularly difficult formula to follow. Co-op multiplayer? Check. Weird monsters? Check. Shit-ton of guns? Check. How do you mess up Borderlands?
Why It Might Suck: We could have said all the same things about Batman: Arkham Origins last year.
October 21st — Fantasia: Music Evolved
Why It Might Be Good: Harmonix have an impressive pedigree making music games. If anyone can find a way to make Kinect not be awful, it’s the people who made the Dance Central and got people to fill their homes with toy guitars.
Why It Might Suck: Eventually, jumping around like a fool and waving your arms to songs like “Feel Good Inc.” might get old. Maybe.
October 24th — Civilization: Beyond Earth
Why It Might Be Good: People dig the Civ series and Beyond Earth isn’t looking to shake up the formula. If you like Civ, here is more.
Why It Might Suck: Do you not have a whole day to sit there and choose between alien studies or terraforming? Maybe this isn’t for you.
October 24th — Bayonetta 2
Why It Might Be Good: Platinum Games knows how to make an action game and they’ve been itching to make this one for a while. Hard to imagine they miss the mark here.
Why It Might Suck: Bayonetta is a lot of button prompts to make creatures explode into blood. Then you’re clothes turn into giant black fists which pummel your enemies to a pulp. Yeah, it’s kind of dumb.
October 28th — Sunset Overdrive
Why It Might Be Good: Sunset Overdrive drips with attitude and the idea of creating your own survivor who can blast their way through Insomniac’s wacky, colorful world sounds like a great time.
Why It Might Suck: The game has yet to show us the “Daaaamn!” moment. We’ve seen plenty of cutscenes where characters act crazy. But we’ve yet to see gameplay which separates this title from another third-person shooter — and adding parkour doesn’t count.
November 11th — Assassin’s Creed Unity / Assassin’s Creed Rogue
Why They Might Be Good: Seeing Unity ditch the ship combat and budding civilizations and get back to a vertical metropolis is nice. Conversely, Rogue seems to be offering more of what made Black Flag good.
Whey They Might Suck: Assassins’ Creed has been stuck in the mud for a while now. Even when it’s good, it’s not THAT good. Rogue and Unity don’t look like they are going to buck any trends, which have become old hat in the series.
November 11th — The Crew
Why It Might Be Good: While Forza Horizons is bringing you another open world region to drive around, The Crew is giving you the whole of the United States. The game has been pitched as a racing MMO as players live in a shared world, rolling around with other connected players. It’s fairly ambitious for a racing game.
Why It Might Suck: MMOs already have a habit of becoming repetitive in their missions structure, now you take away all the abilities and skills and replace them with the singular objective of “Drive!” It’s not hard to imagine this game getting repetitive.
November 18th — Dragon Age: Inquisition
Why It Might Be Good: A giant open world you can traverse without loading screens. More character customizations options. This can’t be worse than Dragon Age 2.
Why It Might Suck: We all remember Dragon Age 2.
November 18th — Far Cry 4
Why It Might Be Good: Dude, a Nepalese setting for Far Cry is one of the best ideas I’ve heard. Honestly, this is one of the few franchises where even if it’s just more of the same, it still feels fresh enough to not be old.
Why It MIght Suck: Far Cry is a weird series. The weirder it gets, the worse it is. It looks like Far Cry 4 might have more of the strange fantasy elements…and maybe some more cultural insensitivity? We’ll see.
If you’re wondering where Call of Duty is, then you’re probably buying Call of Duty. There’s nothing more to say on that game. What are you most excited about this Fall? Let us know what games you think will suck and which you are aiming to pick up.
nobody said anything about the witcher 3, everyone knows that game will be good
At some point, Steve, every article must end. I’ll turn my ever-skeptical eye toward The Witcher 3 as it draws near…
Alien Isolation will be a « sleeper » hit ( do you remember the game: « Escape From Butcher Bay » ?? this game WAS a sleeper hit for sure ) … so, i’m not worried about it ( this game is mine ) …. i’m more worried about The Evil Within … this looks like Resident Evil 4-5 with a bizarre twist of Shadows of the Damned’s graphics ( i never played this one because it was not in my field of vision ) ….. anyway, that’s just my opinion 🙂
I think with the Alien IP and positive word of mouth Alien Isolation will be a full on hit — not sleeper about it. And I think you’re right. We’re all waiting to see what The Evil Within comes out as.
I don’t Think he mentioned the Witcher 3 Steven, because He was referring to games coming this Fall after the drought.. That’s why he doesn’t go past Far Cry or Dragon Age really.
I think all of these games look sweet.. Especially Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor.. THAT GAME IS GOTY 2014 imo, IT looks like it will be AMAZING. Obviously, I am stoked for Dragon Age: Inquisition.. That game will take a few months of my life away.. and I will be ready for The Witcher 3 when it comes out!
I can’t wait.. I got like 20+ games pre-ordered for this fall / winter.. best lineup in years for me.
As a fellow Dragon Age fan, I am hoping to lose an embarrassing amount of my life to Dragon Age as well.