Fight Club didn’t just gain notoriety in Hungary’s political scene in a rather ridiculous way – years ago, there was also a video game based on the film that even featured the frontman of Limp Bizkit. It became an infamous release, disowned by David Fincher himself. The game arrived too late and added nothing to the legacy of the film.

The video game industry has long since realized that not every movie needs a video game adaptation. But in earlier console generations, bad movie games were the norm — from Batman to Star Wars to Harry Potter. The worst examples, however, came when developers tried to adapt films that were never meant to be games in the first place — like Reservoir Dogs or Fight Club.

Fight Club was particularly baffling. Directed by David Fincher, the film remains one of the most analyzed and divisive movies of the 1990s. Fincher himself has expressed discomfort with the way fans idolize the film’s protagonist, saying “I don’t know how to help those people.” In 2004, despite all this, we got a Fight Club game on PS2 and Xbox — a late, unwanted adaptation that nobody had asked for.

A senseless brawler from the very start

Even if the premise seemed questionable, things got worse when it turned out to be a straight-up fighting game — and a bad one at that. Developed by Genuine Games and somehow published by Vivendi, the title was a far cry from its genre contemporaries like Tekken and Street Fighter. It included gimmicks like an X-ray damage system reminiscent of later Mortal Kombat entries, but the gameplay was shallow and forgettable.

The story mode made things worse. What could have been the game’s core feature was a weak street-level tale told through static images, stiff voice acting, and characters that didn’t even resemble Edward Norton or Brad Pitt. The plot failed to capture the film’s themes and focused instead on an anonymous character climbing through the fight club ranks to become Tyler Durden’s right-hand man.

And before fan backlash even began, the team had to contend with opposition from Fincher and Norton themselves. According to Time Extension, both were firmly against the game. They blocked the use of their likenesses and reportedly fought hard to prevent the game’s release. The only recognizably famous face in the game ended up being Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit, a fan of the movie who was included as a playable character.

There was a reason no one wanted this game to exist. While the developers tried to make gritty and brutal combat, they clearly missed the point of the original material. The game had no time to polish its mechanics, and no story worth telling. Vivendi rushed the project to completion, leaving players with a mediocre brawler built on empty cameos and a misused license.

Even nostalgia can’t save this one. Critics at the time panned the game’s confusing concept and shallow mechanics, calling it a poor man’s Tekken. Today, the only people who seem to remember it fondly are the devs — and even they admit they wished they could’ve done more.

Source: 3djuegos