10 Video Games That Changed Due To Fan Feedback
What did you vote in "The Fate of Carmine"?
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00:00Video games are an inherently collaborative art form, but those collaborators don't always come
00:05from inside the companies making these major releases. In fact, sometimes it's the fans who
00:11directly influence how a game is made. Whether it's because the developers sought advice from
00:16diehards before committing to an idea, or backlash forced their hand to change a controversial
00:21feature, fan feedback has been integral in shaping some of the biggest games ever.
00:27So with that in mind, I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Video Games That Changed Due To
00:32Fan Feedback.
00:3410. Battlefield 2042 Is Reintroducing Classes And Changing Map Designs
00:40Battlefield 2042 might be the most hated game in the whole franchise,
00:44and the reason it has that reputation is thanks to its disaster of a launch.
00:49Despite promising to be a comeback, the launch release was a Frankenstein's monster of a game,
00:54one that systematically stripped out the core elements that made Battlefield great in the first
00:59place. In this sequel, gone were standard classes, replaced instead by controversial specialists,
01:05essentially Overwatch-style heroes. The tight level design was chucked out for wide open,
01:11bland spaces, and the destruction had all but been removed entirely.
01:16One year later though, and Battlefield 2042 has undergone a major reworking that continues to
01:22be added to, thanks to fan criticism. After initially ignoring some of the player's biggest
01:28gripes, the developers eventually relented, and have announced that previously removed features
01:33such as classes will be reintroduced to the game. Likewise, the original maps are in the process of
01:39being revamped, with new versions that play far better. It might be too little, too late for some,
01:45but it is evident that the devs are responding to fan feedback in some capacity.
01:509. Halo Infinite Is Delayed A Whole Year
01:54Initially set for release alongside the Xbox Series X back in 2020, the fan response to Halo
02:00Infinite was so negative that Microsoft took the unprecedented move of delaying their flagship
02:05title, a mere few months before it's release date no less, by a whole year. And you can see why.
02:12The gameplay that we saw in 2020 looked incredibly rough, and absolutely not of the quality everyone
02:18expected of a next-gen Halo. Fans were vocal about their disappointment, pointing towards
02:24hilarious memes like Craig to lament that Halo Infinite just wasn't on track. Microsoft fortunately
02:31heard loud and clear, and delayed the game indefinitely. And while Halo Infinite might
02:35still not be where it needs to be today, can you just imagine how broken it would have been had it
02:41dropped in 2020? At least the year-long delay helped get the fundamentals right, and resulted
02:46in a title that, at first anyway, was a whole load of fun.
02:508. Star Wars Battlefront II Rips Out It's Entire Progression System
02:54Star Wars Battlefront II is the game on this list that caused the biggest fan backlash. Hell,
03:00the sequel caused such a stink that it resulted in the most downvoted comment in Reddit history,
03:05and allegedly even reached former Disney head honcho Bob Iger. The biggest problem was the
03:11microtransaction system that EA and DICE implemented in the multiplayer. It certainly
03:17wasn't the first game to feature loot boxes and in-game currency, but it was the one that pushed
03:22these systems to a breaking point. Before release, fans worked out that unlocking heroes, which were
03:28available from the start of the previous game might I add, would take tens if not hundreds of
03:33hours of grinding. Essentially forcing players to pony up money to bypass the time sink entirely.
03:39Throw on top of that a pay-to-win loot box system that gave bigger spenders better weapons
03:44and abilities, and it was just a complete mess. EA as such were forced to respond,
03:49and they tore out the progression system and over the next couple of months,
03:53reshaped it entirely. The launch version of Battlefront II was poison, but it might never
03:58have become the genuinely stellar shooter it is today without this controversy.
04:037. Destiny Replaces Peter Dinklage With Nolan North
04:07Considering it was the first of its kind, it probably shouldn't have been surprising that
04:11Destiny's launch was as rough as it was. Blending MMO sensibilities with regular first-person
04:17shooting, Bungie's new IP was an ambitious game that buckled under its own weight. The one part
04:23of the title that fans didn't expect to be so rough though, was everything surrounding the script,
04:28story and performances. Sadly, what transformed Destiny from being a little bit disappointing
04:34into a bonafide mega-meme was Peter Dinklage's role as AI companion, Ghost. His bored monotonous
04:41performance, and that saying something coming from me, was made even worse by the lines that
04:46he was forced to spout. Yeah, everyone remembers that wizard came from the moon, but that was just
04:52the tip of the iceberg. Instead of living with the mess they'd made, over a year later,
04:57Bungie actually drafted in industry veteran Nolan North to re-record all of Dinklage's work to give
05:03the character a bit more, well, character. While Assassin's Creed Unity is now remembered
05:13for its glitches and horror show faces, another controversy dogged it before release. See,
05:19previous AC games had featured female playable characters, usually only in the multiplayer,
05:25but the option for co-op players to choose a different gender was removed entirely from the
05:30game prior to Unity's launch. That's questionable as it is, but the devs put their feet in it
05:35completely when they attempted to justify this omission. In interviews they mentioned
05:40how this option was originally planned, but was eventually cut due to quote,
05:45a lot of extra production work. In response to this, fans and journalists called BS,
05:50saying that the excuse that it would apparently double the workload was completely overblown.
05:56Now, there was nothing the studio could do for Unity itself in response, especially after the
06:00mess at launch, but the desire to see playable female characters didn't fall on deaf ears.
06:07The next game, Syndicate, featured the option to play as a female protagonist,
06:11and it's become a staple of the series ever since, resulting in one of the franchise's
06:15strongest characters, Cassandra, in AC Odyssey. 5. Days Gone makes Deacon St. John more likeable
06:22Days Gone turned out to be way better than a lot of people expected, but for a long time,
06:27it looked as though it was going to be a total disaster. The early trailers were rough,
06:32while a lot of the pre-release previews reiterated the same criticism, that being that lead character
06:38Deacon St. John just wasn't compelling enough. Though performer Sam Witwer was giving it his all,
06:45the material itself wasn't up to snuff. The biker was essentially nothing more than a dime a dozen
06:50post-apocalyptic anti-hero with a heart of gold. And that's fine, but it's boring. His character
06:56arc didn't help either, as Deacon was initially constructed to be purposefully unlikable,
07:02in order for him to redeem himself over the course of the story. However, fans and playtesters
07:07responded negatively to this, saying that being forced to play as an unlikable and irredeemable
07:12dude for the first 10 hours or so would simply sour us against him even more. In interviews,
07:17the devs explained that they took this feedback on, smoothed out some of his rougher edges,
07:22changed some of the lines that took particular flack, and morphed him into a character that
07:26players could actually relate to. And it worked! Deacon St. John is cool, and it's a shame we won't
07:32see any more of him.
07:334. Geese of War III Let You Decide Carmine's Fate
07:38One of the most beloved running jokes throughout Epic's original Geese of War trilogy involved the
07:42Carmine family. In the first game, players were introduced to Anthony Carmine, who lasted all of
07:47about 5 minutes before getting shot in the face. In the second game, Ben Carmine joined Delta Squad
07:54as a rookie, and for a while it looked like he might avenge his brother. Sadly, he ended up in
08:00the belly of a giant worm, torn to pieces by a bunch of critters. Fans knew that Epic were going
08:06to continue this trend and have yet another Carmine sibling in the third game, this time called
08:11Clayton, and the big question was whether or not he too was going to succumb to a tragic and
08:17kinda hilarious death. However, the devs decided to let fans in on the fun, and left it up to them
08:23to decide whether the next Carmine would make it through the game unscathed. The Fate of Carmine
08:29promo was then launched, where Xbox players could buy either a Save Carmine or Carmine Must Die
08:35t-shirt for their online avatars, and whichever side sold the most would influence the story.
08:42All proceeds went to charity, which came to around $150,000, and in the end, Clayton ended up making
08:49it out alive. 3. Far Cry 5's DLC was shaped by a fan survey
08:54After Far Cry 3, Ubisoft's franchise had a bit of an identity crisis. The 80s action movie pastiche
09:01Blood Dragon released as a DLC for the third game, and everyone loved it, with many fans and
09:06critics even saying they preferred it to the more realistic base experience. Far Cry 4 continued
09:12what 3 started, but spin-off Primal again flirted with a more imaginative setting, going back in
09:18time to 10,000 BC. After this, in 2015, Ubisoft released a poll to fans, asking them what kind
09:26of worlds they'd want to see from future games. There were a bunch of things they could vote on,
09:32including a spaghetti western pastiche, an island of dinosaurs, vampires, and a sequel to Blood
09:38Dragon, all suggesting the franchise was again going down a wackier route. And while these ideas
09:45didn't make it into the next numbered release, they did act as the base for its DLC. In fact,
09:50all of the expansion packs for Far Cry 5 came from ideas included in this poll, those being a zombie
09:57outbreak, a trip to another planet, and the Vietnam War, so it can be assumed they were the
10:03ones that received the most votes. 2. Mass Effect Andromeda's direction was decided over Twitter
10:10The poll sent out to Far Cry fans had plenty of different scenarios that Ubisoft wanted opinions
10:15on, but when it came to continuing the Mass Effect franchise, Bioware had a much more straightforward
10:20choice they needed to make. The third game had resolutely rounded off that trilogy, and the
10:26choice made by players at the end of that sequel changed the very fabric of the universe, so there
10:32was no way for the devs to follow up on it without picking one ending as canon, which would have
10:37disregarded the choices of so, so many players. Most fans then assumed that a continuation of
10:43the series would happen via a prequel, chronicling the first contact war and the humans discovering
10:49the mass relays for the first time. That would have been a little bit limiting though, as it
10:53would have had to tie directly into what we knew from the trilogy about that period, which was a
10:58lot thanks to those absolutely chunky codex entries. Because this is the modern age then, Mass Effect
11:04director Casey Hudson simply took to Twitter and asked fans what they wanted to see from the next
11:10Mass Effect game. Though this wouldn't have been the sole reason that Mass Effect Andromeda opted
11:14to venture into a new galaxy, it certainly would have influenced the decision. 1. Metal Gear Solid 4
11:21is an entire game of fanservice. Every sequel following the first PS1 Metal Gear Solid game
11:27was supposed to be the last game in the franchise that director Hideo Kojima ever made. After this,
11:32MGS2 ended Solid Snake's journey on an ambiguous note, putting the focus on the player and their
11:38own meta journey rather than the in-game conflict between heroes and villains. After that, the
11:44director jumped into the past with MGS3 to focus on Big Boss' early years as a war hero, rounding
11:49off his series in a satisfying way. Or so he thought, because even though years had passed,
11:56fans still demanded to know what happened to Snake, Raiden and everyone else following the
12:00events of the second game. Consequently, Kojima felt obliged to return to answer all of the
12:06lingering questions, as well as make good on some of the concepts that fans didn't gel with before.
12:11There's a reason then why Metal Gear Solid 4 is referred to as fanservice the video game,
12:17and that's because it bent over backwards to explain pretty much everything about its
12:21convoluted plot, while at the same time turning the despised Raiden into a total badass ninja.
12:27And of course, that doesn't mean it's bad, I love the game, but it is undeniably a game made
12:32for fans first and foremost. So that's our list, I want to see what you guys think down
12:37in the comments below. What do you think about the way these games evolved, and are there any
12:41instances of fan feedback evolving games that I missed off here? Let me know, and while you're
12:46down there could you please give us a like, share, subscribe and head over to wotculture.com
12:49for more lists and news like this every single day. Even if you don't though,
12:53I've been Josh, thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.