Some of our favorite PC games started life in much worse shape than they exist in today.
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Built on the aging Aurora engine, performance was never smooth when the original Witcher launched. It wasn't until the Enhanced Edition hit in 2008 that big improvements were made, inlcuding 80 percent faster load times.
Rome 2's massive map ran poorly at launch, even on top-end hardware. Worse, the AI was completely broken. Thankfully, the free Emperor Edition hit 12 months later and finally put Rome 2 in good shape.
Dark Souls was a disaster at launch. Keyboard controls were terrible and you couldn't even change the resolution. Modder Durante soon proved the savior, sharing a version where you could unlock the frame rate and bump the game to 1080p or higher.
Rushed out after only a year of work, KotOR 2 scrapped entire planets to make its release, and was still buggy when it was launched. Again, mods saved the day, fixing game-breaking bugs and improving cutscenes.
One of gaming's greatest reurrections. Released with a heinous interface and nightmarish controls, it took 2013's Realm Reborn relaunch to fix the MMO. With subsequent expansions, FF14 has kept getting better and better.
Its studio shut just a year after this borderline unfinished game launched. Plagued by bugs and broken quests, it was such a mess, the game is still being patched to this day. 15 years of patches on, and Vampire is finally pretty fun.
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