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Watch the worst downgrades in PC gaming history

Game downgrades

Listen: we’re a bit worried about you this E3. It’s not that we don’t want you to get excited, or to lose yourself in the noise and the lights and the CEOs walking woodenly across LA stages. It’s just that we hate to see you disappointed.

Right now is probably the best time to take a sober look at the crimes of E3s past, before the gamer high kicks in. Here are the impossibly shiny games that suffered severe downgrades long before we ever got to play them. Just a timely reminder of what can happen in the wake of a brain-boggling stage demo.

Read more: the game trailers that lied to us.

You could probably name a few of them right off the bat. Some of these games have become notorious for what they left on the cutting room floor. Others turned out great, despite their failings – but all of them over-promised. Be forever wary of the optimistic vertical slice.

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