Weekend Question: What game are you glad you waited to play?

[PCG Jody]

I ask the PCG staff a regular Weekend Question and post the answers on the site. If you'd like to throw in an answer here, I'll squeeze the best into the finished article!

This week's question is: What game are you glad you waited to play?

Over on the Patient Gamers subreddit they only talk about games at least six months old. I just looked, they're happily chatting about Halo 3, Psychonauts, and 2020 indie game Call of the Sea. One of the best things about playing games when they come out is getting to be part of the conversation surrounding them, and though it may not give you the same sense of cultural moment at least there's one place just for talking about games that aren't brand new.

As for why you'd wait, the reasons are obvious. Patches and updates, complete editions with all the DLC, discounted prices. The longer you wait the more likely there are to be mods, ray-tracing, and guides for when you get stuck. Wait long enough and a flat game might get a VR mode, or a VR game might get flattened.

Maybe you got spoiled on part of it, or missed out on the multiplayer being populated, but what's a game you liked more because you waited?

 

[Pifanjr]

I started playing Total War: Warhammer II about 3 years after it launched when one of my friends shared his game library with me. From what I've read the game had quite a lot of issues when it released, but after three years almost all of those had been fixed, plus all the DLC except for the last one is half off multiple times a year.

 

[Brian Boru]

Patient Gamers subreddit

Hey thanks for that, I may have found my spiritual home! Wow, half a million members!

Patches and updates, complete editions with all the DLC, discounted prices … mods … guides

All those, and add in lots of good player reviews, especially recent ones which reflect the current state of the game rather than whatever condition it was in at launch.

Then there's the biggie of being able to run it well on stable mid-range hardware, a significant saving of both money, and time from bleeding edge glitches.

To quote member @DXCHASE "Most games I looked forward to this year were buggy, broken and had terrible servers/problems connecting for several days/weeks"

what's a game you liked more because you waited?

Almost everything I've bought for the past ~decade, but Civilization 6 is a good ambassador for them all.

I waited for 5-6 years, because Civ's track record is significant improvement via the 2 major expansions in the first 3 years. They do some patches on the final one, and then the fabulous community produce an unofficial final patch, and the best mods get updated or created at that stage.

There were loads of quality comments about the game on CivFanatics, so I knew what I was getting—ie I was neither delighted or disappointed. Anything which puzzled me when playing was just a search away.

We the playing community are in a fortunate place today that there are loads of older games which are still fine plays today. So far this year I've had my usual good fun with games from 2005, 2007, 2010, 2013…

 

[ZedClampet]

Total War Troy. This is the one they gave away for free at launch on Epic, but it was pretty far from being a complete game at the time. Later when they came to Steam, they added a huge update that basically finished the game.

Creative Assembly has become really bad for this. Warhammer 3 launched in what should have been considered an early access state.

 

[McStabStab]

At the top of that list is No Man's Sky. It didn't interest me at launch and with the wave of backlash Hello Games was facing I figured I would never touch the game. Then the "Next" update came out two years later and people started talking about how amazing the game had become. I grabbed it for 50% off and it was one of the best gaming purchases I've ever made.

 

[jrahman01mar]

League of Legends

 

[mainer]

Many times I'm just too impatient to wait to purchase a game that I'm looking forward to, like an Elder Scrolls or Fallout game, even knowing that there will be bugs and limited mod support at release. But there are also a few games that I've waited on purchasing and been happier for that decision.

I think the most notable of those games would be waiting on the purchase (and playing) of the first Witcher game, which was first released in 2007. I was really interested, but hesitated because it was from a developer I'd never heard of before and it was a "game world" that I never knew of, having not read the Andrezj Sapkowski novels. But in 2008 the Enhanced Edition of The Witcher was released, and that was the one that I bought and played. It had numerous bug fixes, better animations, translation corrections, re-recorded voices, and reduced load times (which were reportedly as much as 80% faster).

It was a great game, and still is, but I think my experience with it was more enjoyable because I waited for that Enhanced Edition.

 

[Colif]

Many times I'm just too impatient to wait to purchase a game that I'm looking forward to, like an Elder Scrolls or Fallout game, even knowing that there will be bugs and limited mod support at release.

This is me though I don't pre order games any more - I learned that lesson, I have been known to play pre release.
I can't think of any I have waited to play. But I am selective and rarely buy any these days. I research them first... contemplate and never actually buy anything. I was going to say unless its a series I already know but too many of them have gone bad in recent years... even the next Diablo is under a cloud... an immoral one.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Skyrim. I didn't get into it until the Special Edition came out, which I believe made it a better experience.

Arkham Knight. I didn't play it until they patched it and it wasn't crap anymore.

No Man's Sky. I didn't play it until this year, so I didn't have to go through years of disappointed expectations. It was already a robust game when I got to it.

 

[Brian Boru]

I'm just too impatient to wait to purchase a game that I'm looking forward to … even knowing that there will be bugs and limited mod support
…
my experience with it was more enjoyable because I waited for that Enhanced Edition.

So the initial launch mess doesn't sour your experience?

I got Civ6 free on Epic and played ~10 hours just to get a quick look to satisfy curiosity. But I knew it was far from the finished article, and didn't want to risk being turned off. I bought a complete edition on sale ~a year later for $40, and have over 100 enjoyable hours in it since, and many more to follow.

 

[Zloth]

I do most games late now. It paid off well in Just Cause 3. Not only did I get the game and all DLC for cheap, not only did I get the benefit of patches, but I also had the ghosts of some friends' past play-throughs to try and match! Fun stuff!

 

[ZedClampet]

So the initial launch mess doesn't sour your experience?

It doesn't really bother me. Unless there are game breaking bugs, I really don't pay much attention to it. Little bugs here and there don't make any difference at all to me.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Waited about a year for Cyberpunk 2077. By the time I played it, there were still some bugs but it was perfectly playable and I guess working mostly as intended. I played it mostly as a stealthy hacker, and it worked well that way.

I didnt have that much hype for the game in the first place, but I thought it was a pretty solid 7/10 game by the time I played it, had fun all the way. Honestly I could have done with less Keanu in the story if anything.

Normally I'm happy to wait for a discount on most things anyway though.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

It doesn't really bother me. Unless there are game breaking bugs, I really don't pay much attention to it. Little bugs here and there don't make any difference at all to me.

The worst ones, though, are when the game runs choppy at launch at like 25-40fps, and then later, they come out with a patch that magically makes it run at a smooth 60fps.

 

[ZedClampet]

The worst ones, though, are when the game runs choppy at launch at like 25-40fps, and then later, they come out with a patch that magically makes it run at a smooth 60fps.

Honestly, I can't think of a game I bought at launch that did that.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Honestly, I can't think of a game I bought at launch that did that.

Did you buy Arkham Knight or Assassin's Creed: Unity? Halo: Combat Evolved was definitely like that when it first came out for PC back in the day. I've had a ton of games that ran like crap at launch, then smoothed out later on. The first Watch Dogs was like that, too.

 

[mainer]

So the initial launch mess doesn't sour your experience?

I'm not sure if you're talking about new games in general, or The Witcher, or maybe Bethesda games like the Elder Scroll series. For me, I'll wait on certain games, like I did for The Witcher, and wait for an "enhanced" or patched version. Others, like games from Bethesda or Piranha Bytes, I'll either buy day one, or even pre-order, knowing full well that there will be bugs. I accept that fact, but I know that I will love certain games even in their "raw" form. In all the years that I've been playing I have yet to experience a game breaking bug, or technical issues so bad that the game wouldn't run.

Sometimes those bugs can be funny little graphical anomalies, kind of a specialty of Bethesda games:

 

[Sarafan]

I would want to say that I waited until Cyberpunk 2077 received all those patches, but unfortunately I played it on release date. I'm glad that I waited until the complete edition of Skyrim was released however. The game was known for being very buggy. When I played Skyrim most of these bugs were non existent. Also the DLCs influenced the gameplay in a meaningful way. House building, the option to become a vampire and the possibility to visit Solstheim once again are all very interesting features.

I'm not a huge fan of the further re-releases of the game, but it's hard to deny that this is one of the best games in history of the industry. Even the unpatched version was unmatched in its time when it comes to open world design. The complete (or special, or whatever it's called right now) edition improves it even further and I'm glad that I didn't play the game right after it was released.

 

[Slasken]

Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the games that comes to mind. I played it after the DLC, Frozen Wilds, came out, so I could play through both the main game and DLC at once.

 

[ZedClampet]

Did you buy Arkham Knight or Assassin's Creed: Unity? Halo: Combat Evolved was definitely like that when it first came out for PC back in the day. I've had a ton of games that ran like crap at launch, then smoothed out later on. The first Watch Dogs was like that, too.

Nope. Didn't get any of those at launch. I don't pre-order games, generally speaking, and I always check the user reviews before purchase, so for me buying at launch means some time on launch day, not right at launch, and there is information to go on by the time I purchase.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I would want to say that I waited until Cyberpunk 2077 received all those patches, but unfortunately I played it on release date. I'm glad that I waited until the complete edition of Skyrim was released however. The game was known for being very buggy. When I played Skyrim most of these bugs were non existent. Also the DLCs influenced the gameplay in a meaningful way. House building, the option to become a vampire and the possibility to visit Solstheim once again are all very interesting features.

I'm not a huge fan of the further re-releases of the game, but it's hard to deny that this is one of the best games in history of the industry. Even the unpatched version was unmatched in its time when it comes to open world design. The complete (or special, or whatever it's called right now) edition improves it even further and I'm glad that I didn't play the game right after it was released.

Skyrim isn't as buggy as it was originally, but it still has a lot of bugs. Even in the Special Edition, I once saw Wooly Mammoths floating up in the sky because of a glitch.

 

[Zimbaly]

Oh man that's a tough one. A few games I've really wanted and I'd just suck it up and pre order or buy close to release. Most thankfully I haven't regretted.... most....

As for ones where I waited. I'm glad I waited for Cyberpunk, but that was cause I didn't have a pc to run it either. So that was a win win. I don't think it would of ran on a A10 5800k with a geforce 1050.

Starcraft 2. I bought the "first one" and came close to beating it. I got bored though and put it on the back burner. Well now it looks like they gave the other two away after so long???? I just restarted it and it looks like I have the other two parts. WIN!!!

The early Souls games. I never got into them like others did. I never bought the systems they were on either until they were starting to die out. Glad I waited so I could just dive head first into those games. They are both utter garbage and amazing at the same time and by being late to the party, there was less invasions and pvp and more people leaving symbols to help. Made things so much more enjoyable.

I still have my copy of bloodborne and the last guardian so if I ever get a ps4 *as in my kid gives me his, even though he won't and has a ps5* I can enjoy those games long after everyone else had..... oh it shall be great....

On a side note. I put off ARAM and TFT in LoL and I just got into aram over the past year "hardcore" and have been hooked on TFT the past month after hating it the first few times I tried it. It just sucks ya get no exp for TFT.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

@Zimbaly Dark Souls would have been a good one for me! I struggled with Demon Souls when it released and gave up. If it wasnt for the DS wiki, guides and messages available by the time I played then I probably would have bounced off there too.

Once I was into it and played the other games I've now bought Sekiro and Elden Ring at launch because I wanted to be part of the discovery, but without the crutch of guides in DS I wouldnt have got to that stage.

 

[flashn00b]

Brigador: Up-Armored Edition.

Definitely one of the best top-down action games (it's more of a vehicular combat simulator due to tank controls and directional damage), though I obviously didn't get it when it was a new game. From what i've heard about Brigador's early development, it had a very troubled start due to the game initially using the Screen Absolute movement system rather than the Relative movement system.

The trailer also didn't help sell the game since the game should be taken at a much slower pace than how the trailer suggests (also didn't help they were using the faster AGRAV vehicles for most of the trailer). A combination of a revised control system, the addition of more playable vehicles, and MandaloreGaming shilling the game has done huge favours for how the game turned out.

 

[Zimbaly]

@Kaamos_Llama I didn't play Demon Souls first. I played Dark Souls on pc when it came out. It had horrible chunky controls that I hated, but a game so brutal I loved it. I sucked so bad at it. Spent hours in it and just couldn't get it. I couldn't parry, roll good, dodge. Didn't know what I was missing till I saw a video..... dump all points into health/strength and Hulk Smash everything in the giblets!!!