2022 wasn't really a great year for gaming because of the number of titles that didn't live to the hype or promises they made. Not every single game mentioned here are utter terrible games, they are big titles that got a ton of serious issues that made them unfortunately underwhelming experiences. Here are the biggest disappointments of 2022.
10: The Callisto Protocol
Developer: Striking Distance Studio
The Callisto Protocol was a survival horror game that offered tons of promise, it was going to be a successor to Dead Space even being directed by Glen Schofield who co-created the Dead Space series. It took plenty of inspiration from the franchise from the health system which is displayed on the character in this case Jacob's back neck, you're fighting against infected monsters and you also get a suit which is also familiar. They got the setting and atmosphere pretty well and the game looks pretty good but the combat is very problematic as melee combat is often difficult to handle especially with multiple enemies attacking you. Monitoring your health was made difficult because of it being difficult to see on Jacob's back neck and the difficulty can often get way to difficult at times. The Callisto Protocol also suffered from terrible performance and technical issues when it launched leaving it to a very UN-smooth experience. Shame The Callisto Protocol didn't reach the potential it could have been.
9: Bayonetta 3
Developer: PlatinumGames
PlatinumGames have done a fairly good job with some of their hack & slash action titles especially with their first two Bayonetta where they introduced their hot female protagonist, stylishly brilliant combos and just all around butt kicking attitude. With the third game though not everything turned out great and ended up joining the ranks of third entries in trilogies where they didn't live up to expectation. Bayonetta's voice actress Hella Taylor got replaced for Jennifer Hale after a pay dispute, the storyline was a mess especially with the ending, it had technical performance issues, camera problems and the Witch Time mechanic has been reduced, like seriously you don't get that much Witch Time to take advantage of combos. Bayonetta 3 really wasn't as stylish as it could have been compared to its predecessors.
8: Dying Light 2 Stay Human
Developer: Techland
February 2022 was looking to be a rather incredible month of releases and Techland's Dying Light 2 Stay Human should have been a vastly superior sequel that could have improved on the original. After all of the time spent in development we would think we could had something competent, while the parkour and open world setting where promising however it was bogged down with tons of bugs and technical issues which made the game's AI and missions a mess. Even after months of release it is still considered a buggy technical flawed mess of a game and that is the worst part. Techland simply repeated all of the same mistakes that they did with the first Dying Light game.
7: Sonic Origins
Developer: Sonic Team
There have been dozens of classic Sonic The Hedgehog game compilations that have been released over decades and many have been really good so what happened here? Sonic Origins is a compilation that features Sonic The Hedgehog 1, 2 & 3 & Knuckles from the Mega Drive era alongside Sonic CD plus a few extra modes and missions that you can do as well. This compilation was not without a number of issues, first of which was the small number of games just with additional stuff, the second was going through music changes for Sonic 3 because of licenses with Michael Jackson's involvement with the game and the game's suffered a mass amount of bugs and glitches something that other Sonic compilations never had before. Lastly and the worst offender was that Sega threw microtransactions where certain menu features can be purchased with real life money which for a Sonic compilation is a disgrace. Sega even delisted the old Sonic games on older platforms to make sure that the only way that you can play Sonic CD and so on is to play this messed up compilation. There are so many better Sonic compilations that came out before this that did everything better and didn't need any kind of microtransactions.
6: Rainbow Six Extraction
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
It was hard to tell what was the next Rainbow Six game was going to turn out like till they finally showed off the final name and also gameplay. Rainbow Six Extraction took the gameplay elements from Rainbow Siege and brings it to a Cooperative experience where every mission involves going to alien-infested areas to fight against aliens while you take samples, materials and other kinds of Intel you find. It does implement the mechanics from Rainbow Six Siege such as reinforcing doors and windows to prevent entry and every operator has different abilities and having to try and get back lost operators is tense but not everything is great. Every mission is repetitive and uninteresting, the story is poor and the overall experience doesn't seem impressive. Not the kind of thing that Rainbow Six should be going towards.
5: Mario Strikers Battle League
Developer: Next Level Games/Nintendo
Nintendo haven't been doing a great job with their releases of their sports titles and if the Mario Golf game from last year shows signs of the sports games getting lazier and lazier than the same can be said for Mario Strikers Battle League. The best to come from this modern interpretation is the solid customization of each of the characters and the Striker Club where it offers some solid multiplayer gameplay. The biggest issue is that like with Mario Golf Super Rush there is very little on offer, it has only a very small character roaster and modes including lackluster single player content. You can see what the game what the game has to offer in only a few hours and the new content they added post launch was too little and too late, compared that to the Mario Striker game on the Gamecube or the Wii which came out 15 years before this. That's right, this is the first Mario Strikers game in 15 years since the Wii and this is the best they can do? It shows that Nintendo really needs to up their game up and put more content in their sports titles at launch next time instead of trying to offer them up through patches and updates months after launch.
4: Pokemon Scarlet & Violet
Developer: Gamefreak
How could a Pokemon game turn out to be a complete underwhelming disaster. Now for clarity there is nothing remotely wrong with Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, it plays like every other mainline Pokemon game where you wonder around and engage in Pokemon battles so that you can capture them & train them up so that they can face off against other rival trainers. The issue with the game is that Gamefreak and Nintendo rushed it out while it was in a unfinished state leading it to be a bug filled mess with a lot of technical problems. These include many environmental texture pop ins, low resolution quality areas, Pokemon that you are trying to start a fight against getting stuck in walls, several animation glitches where Pokemon Trainers end up having a fit and needing an exorcist, massive stuttering frame rate issues, Pokemon you summon onto the field end up being invisible leading to strange animations and so on. Now the amount of bugs & glitches present in the game are hilarious and ended up becoming memes of the internet but you can't deny that this is an absolute embarrassment even for a mainline Pokemon game entry. Not to mention that some of the plans that Gamefreak could have had with the game never made it in currently. Compare this to Pokemon Legends Arceus which felt like a very good step in a new direction for the long running franchise. With other large open world games that came out on the Nintendo Switch before this it is just unacceptable that Gamefreak rushed this out the door and left Pokemon fanatics a complete unfinished buggy mess that shouldn't have turn out like that but here are in 2022 of all things.
3: Call of Duty Modern Warfare II (2022)
Developer: Infinity Ward
We all know the cycle that happens every year where we will always see a new Call of Duty and this has always been a thing since the franchise's WWII days. The Modern Warfare entries in the series have always been the ones that produce the most hype and solid praise for their Single Player Campaign and the for the most part it delivers in the Single Player department. Excellent storyline and writing with also returning characters like Soap, Captain Price and Ghost, incredible graphics especially on last gen systems and fantastic production values. It's everything we know about the Call of Duty series for better and for worse and while that is not a bad thing this entry still has it's share of faults that really make this year's entry disappointing. The Multiplayer while the same like every single entry in the series had issues however like PC players being forced to give up their mobile phone numbers just so that they can play the game, the weapon customization options feel toned down and lackluster making weapon loadouts more complex than it needed to be, and some of the multiplayer modes like Hardcore game types were oddly missing at launch. The worst of all was that physical versions of the game didn't even contain the game on disc, instead what was on disc was a 70MB license key file that when you plug the disc in gives you a full game download which you need to get online in order to play it, and the game comes on a 100GB download. This was a huge egregious and an unspeakable act from not only Infinity Ward but also Activision Blizzard because there is nothing on disc and it seriously goes against video gaming preservation which leaves players with an empty plastic case with nothing of value inside. Even last year's Call of Duty Vanguard had the multiplayer content on disc and full gun customization which felt perfect and it also had a good Single Player Campaign which reminded us that Call of Duty titles will always deliver in their WWII settings and that is saying a lot.
2: The House of the Dead Remake
Developer: Forever Entertainment/MegaPixel Studio
What is it with video game remakes never succeeding at capturing the nostalgic feel of the original? The original House of the Dead game kind of demanded some kind of modern console release after Sega released versions of The House of the Dead 2, 3 & 4 to the Wii and the PS3 consoles alongside The House of the Dead Overkill. So we ended up with a rebuilt from the ground up remake of the first House of the Dead game and it does maintain the bad voice acting that the series is known for but spelling errors also, really? Was that intentional? The House of the Dead Remake looks like a 2006 game that came from the Xbox 360/PS3 era as the graphics look unremarkable and has some questionable physics. I know that PC and PlayStation players will have PlayStation Move and Sinden Light Gun controllers ready to go making the experience better for them, not so if you are playing the Nintendo Switch version because playing that version with the Joy-Cons is horrible. The crosshairs often go wherever they please and pressing the trigger on the Joy-Con causes the crosshair to hover away from enemies causing you to miss a lot which is something you don't want for a Light Gun Shooter. Also the Nintendo Switch version is the worst performing version because of the really bad frame rate, you do have the option of playing the game on Performance Mode but however it makes the graphics even worse. The worst thing is that Forever Entertainment and MegaPixel Studio planned not only to do the remake of the first House of the Dead game but also the sequel as well and after seeing how this game turned out is a sign of not so good things to come and that is kind of sad. While it shows that people have interest in the Light Gun genre again this series is a rotting corpse that is haunting the modern gaming world in a bad way.
Dishonourable Mentions:
Trek to Yomi (Flying Wild Hog)
New Tales from the Borderlands (Gearbox Software)
Martha is Dead (LKA)
Marvel's Midnight Suns (Firaxis Games)
The Dark Pictures Anthlogy The Devil in Me (Supermassive Games)
1: Gotham Knights
Developer: WB Games Montreal
There was a lot of pressure writing on Gotham Knights' hands, it could have been an open world game where it could have been good as it focused on new characters plus it would have been fine in CO-OP but however the game failed to deliver us that. Combat wasn't really anything too special, the open world aspect was massive but it was so empty and lifeless and full of meaningless collectables with bland & repetitive missions. The storyline and the writing was honestly the worst thing about Gotham Knights as every character doesn't have any development or even get a single clue as to what is going on. It didn't take any of the plus points from any of the Arkham games yet it tried so hard to bring Gotham into a open world setting and yet the game turned out into a big disappointment from poor game design and badly written storyline making it the pick for Most Disappointing Game of 2022.
Do you agree with this list? What other games of 2022 left you very disappointed?
Written By Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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