The worst video games of 2023 according to Metacritic
Most years in gaming are littered with forgotten mediocre titles that get branded with scores of 6s and 7s, but it takes something truly special to be so hated as to become one of the worst-rated games of the year. It requires a game to be so bad that there are almost no contrarian defenders claiming it’s “underrated”, which is something the gaming community doesn’t do very often.
Whether it’s because the game is a buggy mess, offensive in its presentation, or even just soul-crushingly dull to play, these are the games that the critics utterly hated in 2023.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Activision
Metascore: 53
When the campaign for CoD MW3 was released it was slated for being one of the worst CoD campaigns of all time thanks to its dull gameplay and potentially offensive story. Then, when the multiplayer modes dropped a week later, it didn’t fare much better. The low amount of new content didn’t justify the full $70 price tag, and many felt like it would have been better served as DLC for an existing CoD game like MW2.
Unholy
Unholy
Hook / Duality Games
Metascore: 52
This dark horror adventure game certainly looks the part, but it misses the mark on just about every other aspect. This is the first game on the list not to have a single review score higher than 70, thanks to clumsy controls, terrible AI, and a series of uninteresting puzzles.
Xuan-Yuan Sword: Mists Beyond the Mountains
Xuan-Yuan Sword: Mists Beyond the Mountains
Gamera Games
Metascore: 52
This game, part of a classic series, was unfortunately the victim of terrible localization that made the game’s story fall flat and made it hard to endure for most of the runtime. The gameplay mechanics are mostly fine, although not anything super special, and it doesn’t help that it doesn’t hold up much from a graphical standpoint.
Crime Boss: Rockay City
Crime Boss: Rockay City
505 Games
Metascore: 52
One of the more high-profile failures of the year, Crime Boss’ star-studded cast ended up being its biggest downfall, as almost all of them put in terrible performances that made the game’s story completely uninteresting. It also missed the mark from a gameplay perspective, with good concepts for levels and heists, but proving far too repetitive and not nearly meaty enough to keep people interested.
Loop8: Summer of Gods
Loop8: Summer of Gods
Marvelous
Metascore: 49
Loop8 had all the makings of an interesting Persona-style cross of a life-sim, and RPG pulled together with a time loop mechanic. It fumbled all of those ideas, though, with characters that don’t grab you, a glacially slow pace to the story, and combat that is functionally fine but rather boring when taken over the entire game’s runtime.
Quantum Error
Quantum Error
TeamKill Media
Metascore: 42
We now cross into a game that has over 50% negative reviews from critics. Quantum Error sees you play as a firefighter who also packs guns and takes on rogue AIs in a horror setting. It’s a lot to take in and it doesn’t do a good job of any of it. Shooting feels weak, the firefighter gameplay isn’t interesting, and it’s filled with the most bog-standard horror game tropes.
Testament: The Order of the High Human
Testament: The Order of the High Human
Fairyship Games
Metascore: 41
Testament is the tale of a developer letting the scope of their game get way out of hand and the quality of the game suffering massively as a result. It seems cruel to brand it as “Skyrim, but awful”, but that’s pretty much all that comes to mind to describe it. It’s a fantasy RPG that just fails to intrigue in any way.
Greyhill Incident
Greyhill Incident
Perp Games
Metascore: 38
This game looks alright in stills and screenshots, but as soon as it all goes into motion it falls apart. The game’s visual style is no different than every other early-access survival game on the market and the gameplay is just as boring, having you run around aimlessly in the middle of nowhere doing nothing of any interest.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
Daedalic Entertainment
Metascore: 34
This was undoubtedly the highest-profile flop of the year, with a game that was barely functional and extremely ugly when it launched, so much so that the team behind it had to release a public apology. Even if it had worked as intended, Gollum still wouldn’t have been that good a game, as the gameplay was boring at best and frustrating at worst.
Skull Island: Rise of King Kong
Skull Island: Rise of King Kong
GameMill Entertainment / IguanaBee
Metascore: 23
While we’ve all become numb to the terrible design and the asset flips of the Steam marketplace and indie market, every now and then something truly diabolical is allowed to slip through the cracks onto a high-profile platform, and we all get to point and laugh at it. Skull Island: Rise of King Kong was that game this year. It’s horrible to look at, awful to play, and breaks most of the time anyway – and the developers had the gall to ask $40 for it.
