AAA Games That Flopped Hard on Steam

Not every video game can have a triumphant story of captivating the hearts and wallets of fans and critics alike, and it’s resulted in some pretty disastrous launches for AAA games, and even worse drops of player counts. Below, we’ve outlined some of the biggest high-profile games and development teams that produced titles that might not have been bad, but didn’t hit the market numbers needed to be seen as a success story. The games below flopped pretty badly on Steam, the most famous PC platform for games, so check out which AAA releases weren’t as successful as they’d hoped, or needed to be, to keep their services going.

Payday 3

Only Having an All-Time Peak of 69,112 Players Made Heisting a Disaster

Released

September 21, 2023

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ // Blood, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language

Payday 3 had so much promise for so many, especially since it had been a decade since the beloved Payday 2. With so many mechanics and systems in place that seemed to make Payday 3 look like an amazing and industry-standard one-up from its predecessor, fans were quickly let down by a disastrous launch thanks to its always-online status. Connecting with friends and other players was a nightmare, and trying to play alone was impossible. These elements, paired with the fact that there simply weren’t a lot of heists to do on launch, meant that people turned up for Payday 3, but quickly took off their masks and returned to Payday 2. Payday 3 never really saw the players gained on launch come back, and even now, there’s only ever around 500 players on at a time. Despite how the game runs now, and how it feels better than Payday 2, Payday 2 still blows Payday 3 out of the water with 30,000 daily players and an all-time peak of 247,628 players, begging the question of if those players can ever be won back when the previous game could be run on any system, had so much content, and never had server issues.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Ubisoft Missed the Mark for Feudal Japan, Meaning Only a Peak of 64,627 Players Became Assassins

Released

March 20, 2025

ESRB

Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language

For years and years more, players have been asking Ubisoft to develop an Assassin’s Creed game in feudal Japan. Unfortunately, they were beaten to the punch by Suckerpunch Productions with Ghost of Tsushima, a game that excelled in mastering the art of combat for both stealth and loud action in a beautiful world, combined with a beautiful story. That was just one of the many elements that led to Assassin’s Creed Shadows underperforming on Steam, as not only had another developer done it better, but Ubisoft itself had stuck with the same stale formula for years, to the point where Assassin’s Creed just feels like a trademark stapled on any game set in the past. While dual protagonists of a samurai and shinobi sound interesting, players expected the usual design of an oversized map, repetitive tasks, and bugs, and that’s without mentioning the controversy surrounding the time period. All of these factors weighed heavily on Ubisoft, which only managed to grab an all-time peak of 64,627 players on Steam.

Diablo 4

An Ultimate Action-RPG Experience Only Brought An All-Time Peak of 55,561 Players

Released

June 5, 2023

ESRB

Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact

Diablo is famous among gaming circles for being one of the first and best action RPGs that combine the dungeon crawler genre with epic fantasy to produce immense replayability with gorgeously brutal worlds and loot. The series was dormant for the longest time after Diablo 3 in 2012, so many players were excited to see Diablo 4 usher in a new age of Action RPGs, MMOs, and adventure. Unfortunately, the 2023 release only proved that this genre of gaming had become far more niche, with more modern games taking the spotlight from what once was so popular with CRPGs, and Diablo 4 only amassed an all-time peak of 55,561 players on Steam. There’s still a fifth of these players active every day, and Diablo 4 continues to stay supported by Blizzard Entertainment, but for how long? The gameplay and general design might be a great way to spend your free time, but microtransactions and a repetitive endgame plague even the best of live-service games these days.

Marvel’s Avengers

An All-Time Peak of 28,145 Players Proves That Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Might Be a Gaming Dud

Released

September 4, 2020

ESRB

T for Teen: Language, Mild Blood, Violence

Marvel had been absent from the AAA gaming space for quite some time, until Marvel’s Spider-Man swung onto PlayStation 4 consoles and revitalized the brand outside of their selection of movies. To keep the hype growing, Marvel teamed with Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics to bring forth Marvel’s Avengers, a co-op and live-service title that would pit the most famous of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes together to showcase their incredible powers and allow players to fulfill the fantasy of being a superhero. Unfortunately, despite the grand visuals, the gameplay was lackluster and slow, and poor word of mouth spread to the point where players were not interested in seeing what new heroes were being added, or what the game had to offer, thus leading to Marvel’s Avengers shutting down and being taken off of virtual stores in September 2023, with an all-time peak on Steam of 28,145 players, which is rather astronomically bad for a franchise of characters that have amassed billions at the box office.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Only An All-Time Peak of 13,459 Players Proves the Suicide Squad Kills Hype, Not Sales

Released

February 2, 2024

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Violence

Ever since the announcement of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, fans were cautious and not-so optimistic. Rocksteady Studios had a winning formula with Batman and the Arkham combat, so to continue the Arkhamverse story where Batman is now a villain, the Justice League (and their first introduction in the universe) are enslaved by murders to Brainiac, and the combat leaves behind the Arkham-feel for a more run-and-gun vibe, received less than stellar reactions. All of this, paired with yet another live-service game, led to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League being a disaster on launch that never found its legs, with just over 13,000 players checking out the game on Steam at once. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League never got to reach the potential that it desired due to its low sales, but it did prove that fans wanted more Batman and more Arkham combat, not more live-service games. While there is a fun experience in terms of story and gameplay within Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, the wacky band of playable characters and what it does to its superheroes isn’t enough to win fans over, thus ending content support after January 2025, just 11 months after release.

Skull & Bones

The First AAAA Game Invites Players to Sail the Open-World, But Only 2,581 Players Accepted

Released

February 16, 2024

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood, Strong Language, Use of Drugs, Violence

Skull & Bones is a very strange entry that boasts itself as a AAAA experience, but the only reason it can be as such is because of its over-inflated budget that doesn’t exactly warrant as much. Skull & Bones is all about naval battles on the high seas, providing players with the experience of a pirate ship (notice how we said pirate ship and not pirate), to battle and loot other pirate ships as you follow waypoints, collect loot, and turn in quests. The majority of the game is just a repeating fetch quest, which is neither engaging nor enjoyable, and the years of delays and lackluster gameplay turned many fans away before they even tried it. Those who did try it were none too positive, thus scaring away other potential players who expected more than just naval battles with moving ships and blasting cannons, thus leading this AAAA game to experience a disastrous all-time peak of 2,581 players on peak, and a fifth of which have stuck around.

Redfall

Kill Vampires and Fight Through Glitches With Just 1,560 Other Players at Launch

Arkane and Bethesda seem like a winning combo, but Redfall proves that not every game can be a success or a cult classic. Redfall was an FPS title that combined hero shooter abilities with an open-world, co-op fun, and plenty of vampires to kill, akin to Left 4 Dead. Only, Redfall launched in a less-than-stellar state, with a gameplay loop that just didn’t seem very thrilling or frightening. The bugs present turned so many players away, and the engagement players will get from its narrative is practically non-existent. With fun being the focus of every game, especially for ones with a co-op shared experience, many turned their backs on Redfall and drove wooden stakes into what could have been a good game, resulting in a measly all-time peak of 1,560 players, the discontinued development of Redfall, and the unfortunate closure of Arkane Austin.

Saints Row (2022)

A Quirky GTA-Like Experience, Killed By Its Own Writing and Epic Games Exclusivity That Only Welcomed 2,975 Players

Released

February 25, 2022

ESRB

r

Engine

proprietary engine

While not a GTA-killer like players once believed it to be, Saints Row accepted the fact that it could still be a fun experience enjoyed by many with its quirky tones and outlandish gameplay. However, that message seemed to be lost when the franchise received a much-needed reboot, but one that didn’t feel very Saints Row. The reboot had much of the quirk, but lacked the charm, providing players with a rather stale open-world with a mixture of characters and a narrative that seems not to understand what people loved in the first place. Players could see what was happening with Saints Row from a mile away, so a series that was already struggling to amass an audience found itself even further separated when the reboot launched in 2022, and Steam players had to wait an additional year thanks to Epic Games Store exclusivity, which further hurt the potential sales. With just an all-time peak of 2,975 players, leading to the long-time developer of the Saints Row series, Volition, shutting down.

MindsEye

Former Grand Theft Auto Devs Couldn’t Save This Action-Adventure From Amassing More Than An All-Time Peak of 1,393 Players

Released

June 10, 2025

ESRB

Rating Pending

Developer(s)

Build A Rocket Boy

Publisher(s)

IO Interactive Partners A/S

Engine

Unreal Engine 5

Marketing off the backbone of former Grand Theft Auto developers doesn’t always work out, and MindsEye is an example of that. MindsEye had the premise and the potential in its design, with a promise of a story-driven action-adventure within the near-future, in which players experience the life of a former soldier with a haunted past and technology that’s set on destroying us. Even with creation tools to create your own missions, the fun of MindsEye never truly reaches its heights, and this is a AAA game that was plagued with bugs and missed marks that isn’t anything truly terrible, but isn’t anything so memorable either, which is why word of mouth continued to spread to the point where MindsEye released to just over 1,000 players of an all-time peak, and those numbers show no signs of growing, even with MindsEye‘s own promise to be ever-expanding with “new playable content delivered regulary.”

Concord

Another Live-Service PvP Game That Lasted Barely 14 Days With An All-Time Peak of 660 Players

Systems

Released

August 23, 2024

ESRB

t

Developer(s)

Firewalk Studios

Publisher(s)

Sony Interactive Entertainment

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Perhaps no AAA game has lived such an interesting life as Concord, a game that PlayStation saw as its next big thing, which restructured the entire company’s output when it came to live-service games. Concord was a bright and hopeful new galaxy of potential, ready to show off immense world-building and a cast of strange alien characters, only to be thrust into the typical PvP hero shooter genre with live-service elements that many had already grown tired of at this point. With so many players not interested in yet another FPS hero shooter, Concord released and saw hardly any players embrace its creativity, leaving it in such a dire state that within just 2 weeks, the game was not only shut down, but also completely refunded to those who purchased it. On Steam, only 660 players turned up for its all-time peak, proving further the terrifying reality that AAA games must face when it comes to an ever-demanding and changing market of players.