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15 Video Games That Were Amazing Except for One Huge Problem

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So great, if only...

Nazarii Verbitskiy

Gaming - September 19th 2026, 00:00 GMT+2

Mafia III — 15. Mafia III (2016)
Lincoln Clay's revenge story in Mafia III hits hard for about six missions before the game shows its hand. New Bordeaux looks incredible, the soundtrack rarely misses, and the opening betrayal still holds up as one of the better setups in the genre. Then the checklist grind kicks in, and every district turns into the same three icons copied and pasted across the map. A story this sharp deserved a structure that didn't actively fight against it. | © 2K Games

Kingdoms Of Amalur Reckoning — 14. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (2012)
Nobody expected an MMO-turned-single-player game to have this much combat polish, and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning still surprises people who skip past it. The fate-shifting combo system made hacking through enemies feel better than most full-priced action games of its year. But the world around that combat is stuffed with fetch quests and lore nobody asked for, stretched across a map too big for its own good. The studio behind it collapsed before a sequel ever had a chance, leaving a genuinely fun fighting system stuck inside a bloated shell. | © Electronic Arts

The Outer Worlds — 13. The Outer Worlds (2019)
Halcyon is a solar system run entirely by corporations, and The Outer Worlds mines that joke for everything it's worth. The writing lands constantly, companions have real personality, and the choices actually reshape conversations in ways bigger games fake. Scale is where it falls apart, though, since the whole adventure wraps up in a fraction of the time its influences needed. Obsidian built something clever and then seemingly ran out of budget to let it breathe. | © Private Division

Assassins Creed Unity — 12. Assassin's Creed Unity (2014)
Paris in 1789 has never looked more alive than it does in Assassin's Creed Unity, with crowds packed into streets and Notre Dame rebuilt stone by stone. That achievement got buried on release under a mountain of broken faces, floating weapons, and characters falling through the floor mid-cutscene. The internet turned Arno's warped face into a punchline before anyone could talk about the parkour improvements underneath. Years of patches eventually fixed the technical mess, but the launch damage to its reputation never fully went away. | © Ubisoft

Vampyr — 11. Vampyr (2018)
Blood-drinking as a moral tax is the whole idea behind Vampyr, and it's a genuinely rare hook for an action RPG. Every Londoner has a name, a routine, and a reason not to kill them, which makes each feeding decision sting. Combat is where that tension collapses, since the clunky swordplay and stiff animations make fights feel like a chore instead of a consequence. A game this confident in its writing deserved mechanics that could keep up with it. | © Focus Home Interactive

Mass Effect Andromeda — 10. Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017)
Facial animation became the whole conversation around Mass Effect: Andromeda, which is a rough outcome for a game with this much actual content. Characters would blink at the wrong moments or stare blankly mid-conversation, and clips spread faster than anything from the questlines underneath them. That's a shame because the combat overhaul was genuinely the best the series had played, giving Ryder more freedom than Shepard ever had. A launch obsessed with jank buried a game that improved on its predecessors mechanically. | © EA

Star Wars Jedi Survivor — 9. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (2023)
Cal Kestis spends Star Wars Jedi: Survivor fighting enemies, solving puzzles, and occasionally battling the game itself just to keep moving. Frame drops showed up in cutscenes, in open areas, even in menus, on hardware that should have handled it fine. None of that changes how good the lightsaber stances feel or how much weight the story puts on Cal's slow unraveling. Performance problems this consistent shouldn't coexist with combat design this sharp. | © EA

The Saboteur The Midnight Show 2009 — 8. The Saboteur (2009)
Occupied Paris drips with atmosphere in The Saboteur, swapping between grim black and white and full color depending on how much resistance work you've done in an area. That visual gimmick alone made it stand out from every other open world game in 2009. Unfortunately the shooting and driving both feel stiff, like the mechanics were an afterthought bolted onto the concept. A game this original in presentation deserved gunplay that didn't feel like a chore. | © Electronic Arts

Mad Max — 7. Mad Max (2015)
Vehicular combat rarely feels as brutal as it does in Mad Max, where every car fight ends in scrap metal and sparks flying off the Magnum Opus. The wasteland looks genuinely hostile, sand storms rolling in and turning the world into something you have to survive just to drive through. But the story runs out of ideas fast, leaning on repetitive camp-clearing that stretches the same three objectives across dozens of hours. Combat and driving carried a game that had almost nothing else going for it. | © Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Cropped New Vegas Fallout New Vegas — 6. Fallout: New Vegas (2010)
Bugs weren't an occasional annoyance in Fallout: New Vegas, they were basically a second layer of gameplay running underneath the first. Quests would break, NPCs would vanish, and the game crashed often enough that saving every five minutes became instinct. None of that stopped the writing from being some of the best the franchise ever produced, with factions that actually made players think about who deserved power in the Mojave. The technical mess never managed to bury just how good the choices underneath it were. | © Bethesda Softworks

Batman Arkham Knight — 5. Batman: Arkham Knight (2015)
Six years later and the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight still gets brought up as a cautionary tale. Frame rates collapsed, textures refused to load, and Warner Bros. pulled the port from sale entirely for months. What got lost in that mess was a Batmobile-heavy Gotham that actually nailed the feeling of being hunted by an army. The suit fit perfectly. The tailoring just happened to be on fire. | © Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Alpha Protocol — 4. Alpha Protocol (2010)
Picture a spy thriller where every conversation feels like defusing a bomb with a stopwatch running. That's the pitch behind Alpha Protocol, a game built entirely around dialogue timers and reputation consequences nobody else was attempting. Then you actually shoot something, and the cover system and animations feel like they wandered in from a much older, much worse game. Sega barely marketed it, and the combat gave them every excuse not to. | © Sega

Sleeping Dogs — 3. Sleeping Dogs (2012)
Hong Kong never looked or moved like it does in Sleeping Dogs, all neon reflections and market stalls you can shove enemies through. Wei Shen's undercover cop routine gives the brawling real weight, blending martial arts choreography with actual environmental kills. The shooting sections, though, feel bolted on from a different, blander game entirely. Whenever a gun comes out, the whole thing loses its personality. | © Square Enix

Red Dead Redemption 2 — 2. Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)
Arthur Morgan's slow unraveling carries Red Dead Redemption 2 further than almost any character arc in the medium. Weather rolls in, horses react to terrain, and camp life feels lived-in rather than staged. None of that changes how looting a corpse or skinning an animal turns into a stretched-out animation ritual every single time. Rockstar built a world this detailed and then let its own realism slow the whole experience down. | © Rockstar Games

Cyberpunk 2077 — 1. Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)
Night City sold itself on scale, and somehow it still delivered on that promise even while breaking constantly around it. Cars T-posed through traffic, NPCs vanished mid-conversation, and last-gen consoles ran the game so poorly Sony pulled it from the PlayStation Store. Underneath the chaos sat writing sharp enough to carry an entire genre, especially once Keanu Reeves showed up as Johnny Silverhand. It took years of patches for the game people wanted at launch to finally show up. | © CD Projekt

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These games got almost everything right, then tripped over one glaring flaw that fans still can't forgive. Here are 15 video games that were amazing except for one huge problem.

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These games got almost everything right, then tripped over one glaring flaw that fans still can't forgive. Here are 15 video games that were amazing except for one huge problem.