2022 was a big mess of a year for gaming as many developers released incomplete broken gaming experiences, awful business practices from horrid game companies, loads of terrible shovelware that managed to find their way onto console platforms. From really bad gameplay, bad design, bad presentation and sound, it's time to dive into the worst of the worst pieces of garbage of 2022.
10: The Last of Us Part I
Developer: Naughty Dog
Don't get me wrong, the original Last of Us game is still pretty incredible and for a game that's nearly a decade old the game still holds up to a degree. However, the same cannot be said for this so-called remake. Did we need a remake of a game that already works on PS5? Aside from all of the accessibility options and taking advantage of the PS5 hardware this doesn't even act or feel as a remake in any shape or form but more as a lazy remaster which made people question the developer's vision as a remake or was it even necessary to begin with. It literally is the exact same game with little to no changes or improvements to gameplay. On top of everything else there are no multiplayer features for this new version and worst off it costs £70 and for an old game like this that is a big rip-off especially considering that this is the exact same as you played on PS3. This was nothing more than just a giant cash grab as it possibly could as the developers didn't remotely do anything to make it a full remake. To tell you how pointless and worthless this so-called remake is, you could boot up the PS4 remaster of The Last of Us on the PS5 without any issues which is way cheaper and still has Multiplayer Online servers still up and running today compared to this which has nothing going for it.
9: Nintendo Switch Sports
Developer: Nintendo
Nintendo released plenty of games this year that felt very incomplete and of course they continue to release sport games with very little content on it. Nintendo Switch Sports is a series of different sport minigames in which there are only 6 of them which is only a small list of games to play which barely feels like it is worth the asking price tag. While Bowling is there and still good but however both Tennis and Badminton both play similar, Soccer arenas feel very large yet empty and lifeless and Volleyball isn't really all that fun. They can be played both offline but the single player content was seriously lacking, they can be played online as well but the connections are not great. Compare this to Wii Sports Resort or even the original Wii Sports which had way more sport games and content which were way more fun to play than this. Nintendo planned to add the Golf game onto through an update that was originally planned for release in fall of 2022 ended up being delayed until winter 2022 which they did before with Wii Sports Club on Wii U, yep, they repeated the same mistake they did with the Wii U and did not learn from it, yet even if they did release the Golf game with the whole package that still wouldn't be enough to satisfy the price tag. Everything about Nintendo Switch Sports would have been excusable or in fact acceptable if the game was one of those Nintendo Switch launch titles but here, we are in 2022 and Nintendo gave us this. It's one of those cases where Nintendo didn't care about the quality or value of a game, market it to draw suckers in and release it in the condition it is in promising new content and fixes in later months when it is already too late and that's the saddest part.
8: Postal 4 No Regerts
Developer: Running With Scissors
The Postal games have something of a reputation where they are games that are so bad that they end up being good. Postal 1 was dark, Postal 2 was a guilty pleasure that is hilarious yet offensive, Postal III sucked and was one of the worst and then we have this. Postal 4 No Regerts (yes, they spelled 'Regrets' wrong intentionally) is an open world sandbox game where you wander around doing errands or you can go exploring and cause all kinds of trouble to the people with insane prejudice. What is also insane are the bugs and glitches and bad performance and also some of the physics are just hilarious like kicking people that sends them flying to the sky. There are so many aspects of the game that are so broken but you can somehow get a couple of laughs out of it. Don't let some of that fool you, the game is bad, the game's awful performance problems and poor gameplay elements really do make everything so terrible to play. Let me remind you that this game is no longer in Early Access and that this game is said to be the true sequel to Postal 2. At this point I couldn't care if this game gets fixed up and would rather stick to Postal 2 instead, at least I can get plenty of enjoyment from that even with the problems that game has.
7: Saint's Row (2022)
Developer: Volition
There were some not so good things that were going to come for this reboot of Volitions open world sandbox game especially about the tone that the studio was going to take with it. That all changed when the game actually came out and everything about this reboot was an unfinished mess that heavily disgraced the Saint's Row name. The storyline and the writing were so bad that it was impossible to care for any of the characters or the world, many elements of the game including missions really felt so dated that nothing was really done to take the series forward and on top of everything the performance. It was full of technical performance problems from stuttering frame rates and large amounts of bugs and glitches that made it completely intolerable. The Saint's Row reboot failed to meet exceptions and failed so hard alongside leaving so many fans polarized that Volition ended up being transferred from Deep Silver to Gearbox Software. Saint's Row didn't deserve
6: Dragon Ball The Breakers
Developer: Dimps/Bandai Namco
You know what the developers thought would be a great concept for a Dragon Ball game? Well, they thought that it would be great if you were playing as a regular human instead of a super saiyan warrior. Dragon Ball The Breakers is an online asymmetrical multiplayer much like Dead by Daylight where you and other human players have to go around each area to find Super Keys to power up the Time Machine so that you and the others can escape either alone together all while one player who gets to play as a Dragon Ball villain tries to take out all other players. It is such an unenjoyable multiplayer game as there are only three maps and they are somewhat identical, while playing as a human you spend the majority of the match running around searching boxes and hoping that you find important items while one player as a Dragon Ball villain can destroy parts of the map. Players can fight back against the villain by finding items like Rocket Launchers to damage the villain directly but there are items that can power you up which allow you to take up the soul of powerful Dragon Ball warriors. However, this only last for about a minute but get damaged and the timer goes down faster so you might end up only getting the powers for about 10 seconds or less and that would be the only time you get to have any fun at all in a match that lasts 15 minutes. The kicker is that the soul power of the warriors that you can use from the characters is received through a Gacha System, you spend tickets and all forms of currency that allows you to purchase a character at random. You might end up with a Goku, you might get a Vegeta or you might end up stuck with a Yamcha and you can even spend real life money to get the the best currency so that you can buy more characters. Yep, it is a pay-to-win game. On top of everything, it even has a Battlepass and this game even costs money to purchase. Such a wasteful excuse of a Dragon Ball game that isn't fun and ruins any kind of potential it could have gotten.
5: CrossfireX
Developer: Smilegate Entertainment/Remedy Entertainment
Oh, here it is, the so-called PC legend itself which got unveiled at E3 2019 which was CrossfireX announced coming to the Xbox platform. This game came out after getting delayed twice and getting two different studios to work on it which involved Remedy Entertainment who worked on the Single Player and Smilegate Entertainment for the free-to-play multiplayer mode. CrossfireX finally came out and oh boy was it so bad. The mechanics and the gunplay where unrefined and unpolished the single player storyline and characters were awful and terrible, there were many technical performance problems at launch and the multiplayer gameplay was atrocious that you would be forgiven that you were playing a Beta Build that feels like it was barely started. If you guys think that CrossfireX is some kind of PC legend let me, ask this, how did a game like that even become some kind of legend? What made it so special that we would care for something like this?
4: Waifu Impact
Developer: Mitsuki Game Studio
Okay let me ask some questions, how did something this get approved? Who allowed this to be released? How did Sony of all companies alongside Nintendo think that this was acceptable for release on their home platforms and on their digital store fronts? Who looked at the game and said “Yes, we can sell this on PlayStation Store and the Nintendo EShop?”. I'm not even sure why the game is even called Waifu Impact, did the developers intend capitalize on Genshin Impact? If so then that is just plain stupid. In the game you are playing as an Anime Girl in a Bikini shooting at other Anime Girls in Bikinis with a water gun and you do this for every single stage that is very large empty and so lifeless for stars. These are used to unlock other Bikini clad girls to play as and also photos of them for you to look and they look absolutely ugly & seriously disgusting both in game and photos. From bad controls, no fun or impact to the shooting, ugly girls that are so awful to look at and their Bikini Swimsuit outfits are just so disgusting that is impossible to even look at them. This game is a degrading abomination that questions people's life choices, not from just playing such an indecent steaming turd like this but also makes you think to yourself “Is my life worth throwing away just for this unspeakable inappropriate trash like this?” It's provocative for the wrong reasons, it looks ugly, horrible and degrading to everyone and it is an unspeakable horrendous excuse of a game that you must never play or even look at. Stay away from Waifu Impact at all costs.
3: Overwatch 2
Developer: Activision Blizzard
Now we are one of the biggest offenders of the year. The original Overwatch was a very enjoyable and satisfying team-based shooter that enjoyed the competitive Esports gaming scene. Overwatch 2 on the surface doesn't seem to be bad, it does function and it can be fun at times, that is if you can actually play the game. Overwatch 2 was filled with problems. The first was that the game suffered with a multitude of technical problems, bugs and glitches that can make this unplayable and also the server issues where you are in a middle of a match when suddenly you get disconnected from the game and thrown back to the title screen and have to wait in a queue to be able connect, yes it used a queue system to handle the player base and all of those happened day one when the game launched and boy did it go badly alongside DDOS attacks it got on top of that. The second was that Overwatch 2 doesn't have as many game modes or maps as the original and there was very little game to it to warrant the two in its name. You'll be playing the same modes and maps which end up getting boring really fast, PvE modes were said to be coming which people were looking forward too but however they have not been confirmed and is nowhere in sight of release currently. The third and perhaps the second biggest offender with Overwatch 2 was that Activision Blizzard killed off Overwatch 1 and shut down servers for that game just to get people to play the sequel which currently has less on offer than the original game. This was done in order for the company to handle the monetization, which was handled horribly, which led to massive negative feedback. Some heroes where locked under the Battle Pass which forced the player progression just to unlock them on top of emotes and other cosmetics. So basically, whenever there was a new hero character that comes out you can buy the Battle Pass and get enough levels to be able to unlock the new character. That means that heroes that you unlocked before in the original game were now locked behind mundane Battle Pass progression requirements meaning that you have to play for hours just to be able to play as a new character. They did this just for the purpose of getting people to play them despite having little game in it than the original and no one liked it because the developers made the system pay-to-win in a sense. On top of everything Activision Blizzard in attempts to prevent players who were banned after playing the original game before from playing the sequel were asked to give out their personal mobile phone numbers just to be able to play the game and when the game launched the pre-paid mobile phone numbers didn't work for a lot of people causing them to be locked out of the game and it frustrated everybody who couldn't get it to work. It's a tremendous downfall of a fantastic online hero shooter that was so good back in 2016 and now the sequel ruins everything by Activision Blizzard's worse off monetization schemes, mobile phone numbers requirements and a disastrous launch. What a shame Overwatch 2, what a shame.
2: Diablo Immortal
Developer: Activision Blizzard
During announcements people had a lot of negative responses after learning about the next Diablo game being on mobile devices and yep, they had every right to not have hope for it because no gaming monetization and pay-to-win money scandals would have come will ever compare to this year's biggest scandal of the year which is this game. For the most part it is a Diablo game made for iOS devices where you pick a class, explore dungeons, do some quests while you fight enemies by touching them and you use whatever abilities you have to crush them and lastly get loot granting you a power boost. It would seem to be faithful Diablo game made for mobile gaming but with a terrible plot and voice acting however the game became heavily panned for the egregious amount of microtransactions and progression which led to earning very low review scores from users on Metecritic. To give you an idea of how outright deceptive the system is there are over 20 different types of currency available in game from in-game money, to upgrade materials and you have not only one, not two but THREE different Battlepasses which offer up different unlocks that you could get. Don't want to waste time grinding to get your character stronger and more powerful to take on more challenging quests you can spend real life money to instantly power up your character. The designers made the paid microtransaction system in such a way that it offers chances of getting legendary items but you weren't always guaranteed to get one, did you know that there was one user on Twitch who spent over $10,000 on the loot boxes and ended up never getting the items he wanted. All of the things that you paid real life money including updates and cosmetics is tied to only ONE character which means that trying out different classes or starting with a new character is completely separate from your first character and making another character just so you could try a different is going to cost you more money. Diablo Immortal is an app designed to use as many manipulative microtransaction practices against the players life spendings as it possibly can, it's no wonder that the game is banned in some countries because of these kinds of practices. Activision Blizzard has been getting themselves into these kinds of manipulative business practices in recent years but no other practices come as outright manipulative, egregious, and offensively deceptive as a mobile game like Diablo Immortal.
Dishonourable Mentions:
Scorn (Ebb Software)
Dolmen (Massive Work Studio)
Vampire The Masquerade Swansong (Big Bad Wolf)
Garfield Lasanona Party (Balio Studio/VetaSoft)
Kao The Kangaroo (Tate Multimedia)
1: The Entire Square Enix Company
Oh, Square Enix you guys never cease to amaze me when it comes to self-destructive tendencies and complete deception against the gaming community. Long story short, Square Enix found themselves in massive hot water when the company president Yosuke Matsuda replied “Games are not about fun.” followed by NFT & blockchain business practices and even defending them and saying that they are beneficial plagued the entire company from the beginning of the year. They even ended up losing company trust from their own purchased studios like Eidos Montreal who then ended up breaking up with them to tackle their own licensed franchises without Square Enix getting involved. If you thought that was bad Square Enix's titles that they have been releasing haven't been fairing any better. Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin was a lame souls/borne knockoff that took the storyline of the very first Final Fantasy game and rewrote it with one dimensional character with terrible writing and dialogue done entirely for stupid unfunny memes. Any attempt to try to have character development was lost because of the main character Jack who just completely shuts every character down without purpose, making him a very unlikeable doofus. Chrono Cross The Radical Dreamers Edition came out with slightly slower speed than the PlayStation original and has serious Frame Rate problems. Valkyrie Elyism was a poor Action RPG spinoff with combat that feels unpolished, overly long boring areas and weak storyline and also no minimap and you are forced to replay a chapter if you so much as miss a single blossom that you need to collect. Then you have the live service gaming scene which they have been failing so hard at. Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier was a terrible mobile spinoff of FFVII that tried to go for the Battle Royale style shooter and it controlled so clunky and terrible that it was hard to tell who the game was for, only for the game to give players messages that the game is shutting down in January 2023, it didn't even last a single year. Chocobo GP was a lackluster racing game which had a terrible monetization scheme where it had a battle pass and microtransactions with premium currency that expires, Square Enix did try to make the microtransactions less expensive but it's too late as fans were burned out from it really bad. Babylon's Fall was one of the worst games of this year as it was a weak, terrible and shallow action game experience from Platinum Games of all people with Square Enix wanting to heavily monetize it and further ruin it the same way on how they ruined Marvel's Avengers their other live service game. Every was so displeased with it and expressed how lame, terrible and how awful and boring and repetitive the game was that Square Enix announced that Babylon's Fall will shut down its servers on 23rd February 2023. It shows that Square Enix just isn't cut out for live service gaming and it will continue to be the company's downfall because of the awful monetization schemes that they keep doing. On top of everything Square Enix released lazy Cloud Versions of the Kingdom Hearts games for the Nintendo Switch and Day One when it launched it was abysmal because the Cloud Servers didn't work properly at all which caused mass delay in responsiveness making each game virtually unplayable. Square Enix still sees NFT business practices as something that is profitable as they announced their new Parasite Eve game Symbiogenesis which is nothing more than an NFT Art Gallery. As of the start of this New Year the Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda is still committed to the NFT, Blockchain schemes that are still getting massive backlash from gamers so you can expect to see more live service games and other greedy practices failing and then dying shortly after like 4 or 5 months and not lasting a single year. Square Enix should just be glad that they have whatever respect they still somehow get from Final Fantasy XIV and the Dragon Quest games seeing that is the only franchise from Square Enix to escape from the greedy manipulative practices that is making the company sink into EA levels of greedy, I swear if wasn't for Final Fantasy XIV Online still giving the company the revenue they still get alongside the most die-hard fans who still try to defend the company, they wouldn't be around anymore and we'd be done with their garbage they continue to make.
Do you agree with this list? What other atrocious, trash filled games of 2022 did you have the unfortunate displeasure of playing?
Written By Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
Log in to comment