E3 Promises That Were Total Lies

On May 11, 1995, the Los Angeles Convention Center hosted the first ever Electronics Entertainment Expo, more commonly known as E3. Despite some heavy competition from the Consumer Electronics Expo, E3 quickly became the go-to video game event during the summer, as companies like Nintendo, Microsoft, and eventually Sony gravitated toward it as it grew over the years. Eventually, the annual convention became a staple of the gaming world and has been home to some of the biggest announcements in the industry's history.

At a convention like E3, it's important for companies to appease not only fans, but also the media and corporate big wigs. That's why developers and publishers often make high-profile announcements like console debuts, early looks at popular franchises, and in recent years, the occasional surprise same-day launches. However, sometimes these companies go too far, making lofty promises that never come to fruition. So, let's take a look at some of the biggest E3 promises that turned out to be total lies.

At E3 2011, the Nintendo crew unveiled the Wii U to much confusion. Was it a new console? Was it simply a controller? Most importantly, could you play it on the go? Despite the answer to the latter being a big fat "no," there was still a lot to love about the predecessor to the Nintendo Switch. Yet, even with all the good, there was some bad, and a great deal of that bad can be traced back to that initial announcement.

At the E3 reveal, Nintendo played a sizzle reel, which featured seven games that were meant to be massive parts of the Wii U rollout. However, only three of those games actually made their way onto the console. During that reel, the acclaimed developer showed off Darksiders 2, Tekken, Metro Last Light, Ghost Recon Online, Ninja Gaiden 3, Dirt, and Aliens: Colonial Marines. Only Darksiders, Tekken, and Ninja Gaiden actually made it to the platform, which reminded gamers that not everything promised leads to actual results. It's a big part of why the Wii U flopped.

False advertising certainly isn't exclusive to the video game industry, but there have been some glaring examples of it throughout the years. Few were more blatant than Gearbox Software's Aliens: Colonial Marines. Shown off at multiple game conventions over its six-year development cycle, including a big showing at E3 2012, the Borderlands developer had gaming fans hyped up for this first-person shooter. Via a demo, the industry got a look at the gorgeous environmental effects, dynamic lighting, and massive detail that really immersed you in the Aliens world.

Yet, while the demo shown off to the world at E3 and subsequent conventions was the product of a massive amount of work, it looked nothing like the final game. Upon release, Colonial Marines received terrible reviews and was met with ire from video game fans all over the world. People panned it for looking nothing like the demos that Gearbox and CEO Randy Pitchford showed off, going as far as to file a lawsuit against the company as well as publisher Sega.

From the beginning, it was clear that BioShock Infinite had ambitions of being remembered and revered for years after its release. In many ways, the finished product achieved those lofty goals, but it also failed an audience that expected more from the game — expected more of what it saw during an exciting E3 2011 presentation. On stage during this event, Irrational Games showed off a fantastic early look, one that included a much more sophisticated version of Elizabeth.

In this version of Infinite, Elizabeth's supernatural summoning powers offered much more flexibility in terms of gameplay than players found in the final release. Her powers allowed her to summon a multitude of objects and weapons to help solve problems, finish fights, and get protagonist Booker DeWitt out of sticky situations. While her summoning powers stayed in the release version, they were way less exciting and interesting than what was laid out during the early demos. This, along with many other portions of the game, proved to be too ambitious. Luckily, the end result still turned out to be a solid game.

Nintendo has made some mistakes throughout the years at E3; some could argue that this is why they now elect to release Nintendo Directs during the show instead of doing massive press conferences. The gaming juggernaut has certainly made people mad at times, especially after promising things that simply don't come to fruition. Take The Legend of Zelda for example. During the GameCube reveal at E3 2001, Nintendo showed a highlight reel of multiple games including a new Zelda adventure that looked like the logical upgrade to the N64's Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Fans were extremely excited, especially since this lined up with the footage shown at Japan's Space World 2000.

What was baffling was that, less than two months after E3 at Space World 2001, Nintendo showed off a completely different Zelda adventure that left people scratching their heads. This cel-shaded, cartoony game looked nothing like the mature, gorgeous experience that fans saw not long before. The vocal outcry was heard around the internet, something that wasn't nearly as common as it is today. Nintendo duped it's audience, but luckily for them and for the fans, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, released in 2003 in North America, turned out to be fantastic.

Originally announced at E3 2006 alongside the Nintendo Wii, Project H.A.M.M.E.R. was designed as a darker, more mature gaming experience for the upcoming console. A story-driven action title, Nintendo had big plans for the game, one of which included the main character wielding a massive hammer as its main weapon — something that surely would have been fun with motion controls.

Unfortunately, the game fans were promised never came close to release. After an overhaul due to the determination that it simply wasn't fun to play, the game went through an unannounced redesign. With a more family-friendly, "cute" art style, one that fit the Wii aesthetic, Project H.A.M.M.E.R. became known internally as Wii Crush. The revamp did nothing to help the project move forward, and eventually, Nintendo fired the company leads and canceled the game in 2009, disappointing the more hardcore fans of the console.

First released in 2004 for the original Xbox, Phantom Dust — a real-time strategy-action game — had a small but loyal following. It certainly gained cult classic status, but most people were completely surprised when Microsoft revealed a reboot of the title at E3 2014. Included in those surprised by the reveal were the developers at Darkside Games, the team tapped to work on the game. See, at the time of that announcement, the Darkside team was in the early stages of development, but nowhere near prepared to show off the game. What Microsoft put together for audiences was a pre-rendered trailer that no one at the developer actually worked on.

Passed off as a trailer representing the game Darkside was working on, this reveal generated hype throughout E3, despite the dev team's lack of involvement. Less than a year later, Microsoft canceled Phantom Dust, leaving the developer in the dust. Darkside shuttered its doors. Meanwhile, Microsoft continued to say that the project would move forward, but didn't give specifics. Finally, at E3 2016, the company revealed that the reboot had shifted to a remaster for the Xbox One, essentially going back on its promise from just two years earlier.