advertisememt

Top 10 WORST Video Games of 2022

Top 10 WORST Video Games of 2022
VOICE OVER: Riccardo Tucci WRITTEN BY: Ty Richardson
2022 had a lot of great games...and some that were pretty bad. For this list, we're looking at the games that crashed and burned the hardest this year. Do note that we will not be considering shovelware for this list. Our countdown includes “CrossfireX” (2022), “Scorn” (2022), “Waifu Impact” (2022), “Kao the Kangaroo” (2022), and more!

Script written by Ty Richardson

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today, we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Worst Video Games of 2022. For this list, we’re looking at the games that crashed and burned the hardest this year. Do note that we will not be considering shovelware for this list. Which of these games left a sour taste in your mouth? Let us know in the comments.

#10: “Dolmen” (2022)


We’re always down for a game set in a Lovecraftian world and loaded with cosmic horror, but in a sea of “Dark Souls” clones, “Dolmen” fails to distinguish itself outside of its sci-fi visuals. Everything about it is just so predictable. “Gee, I wonder if I’m going to get ambushed on this wide bridge. Golly, I hope there isn’t an enemy waiting at the end of this narrow corridor.” It’s the same tricks and tropes we’ve seen over and over and over again. If “Dark Souls” was the innovator and games like “The Surge” took the formula and ran, then “Dolmen” has lumped itself in with the laggards: late to the party and it didn’t even bring a bag of chips.

#9: “Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong” (2022)


“Vampire: The Masquerade” is that one person who peaked in high school and never really amounted to much afterward. “Blood Hunt” was a remarkably well-made game, but the same cannot be said for “Swansong”. Look, when you’re making a narrative-driven game, you need to make sure your writing and character-development are top-notch, and “Swansong” just doesn’t reach the bare minimum. The pacing is all over the place, the characters are bland, and there is no emotional weight to be found. Gameplay wise, vampire powers take the backseat and are rarely ever used in a creative way, which is something that should have taken precedence given this is a vampire game, specifically a “Vampire: The Masquerade” game.

#8: “ELEX II” (2022)


When THQ Nordic proudly announced a sequel to “ELEX” in 2021,we were left utterly confused. Who exactly was asking for a sequel to one of the worst games of 2017? Now, here we are with “ELEX II”, and it just exudes mediocrity. Sure, it looks fine visually, but what about the gameplay? Not great. How does that combat feel? Janky as hell. Is it at least well-optimized? About as well-optimized as the PC version of “Gotham Knights” (that’s bad). Fifty bucks might be a lower price point than most RPGs, but that doesn’t excuse the shoddy performance, which is something we’ve come to expect from developer Piranha Bytes.

#7: “Scorn” (2022)


“Scorn” very much feels like a repeat of 2018’s “Agony”. Here is this game from a small team that have created a beautifully grotesque world for a potentially groundbreaking experience. Is it just as bad as “Agony”? Probably not, but it certainly didn’t turn out as well as we hoped. The puzzles are so obtuse that you’re most likely going to spend more time randomly pushing, pulling, and turning things until something happens. As for the save system, your game only saves when you’ve beaten a chapter, which is horrendous considering how long some chapters take to finish. Given that “Scorn” spent eight long years in development, this should have come out sparkling.

#6: “Kao the Kangaroo” (2022)


In a world where 3D platformers have seen a resurgence, one would hope Tate Multimedia borrowed some cues in their effort to bring back “Kao the Kangaroo”. Alas, this kangaroo can never seem to pack a punch. The combat gets stale rather quickly as you mash the same combo over and over again, and it is way too common for enemies and objects to bug out. The level design does nothing interesting and the music gets irritating awfully quick with its short loops. Once again, Kao falls by the wayside as Crash, Mario, and Sonic continue their success, and at this point, we have to wonder if there is any hope left for him.

#5: “Waifu Impact” (2022)


You want to know the price of pain? Do you want to know the price of utter monotony, sheer boredom and dispassion for the medium that is video games? It’s five bucks. It only costs five dollars to completely drain yourself of any motivation while anime girls run around shooting each other with water guns. It’s just you and an empty world of god stars where every enemy is the same single character model over and over again. Take it from the writer of this very video, who got the Platinum trophy twice: you do not want to drop your hard-earned five dollars on this game. There are better things to do with that money than support something so banal and lazily cobbled together.

#4: “Lego Brawls” (2022)


Having been on iOS and Mac in 2019, one might assume “Lego Brawls’” multi-platform launch meant there was a promising experience we had been missing out on. On the contrary, no. “Lego Brawls” is one of the most confusing and chaotic games we’ve played in a long while. Between the stage hazards, visual effects, and seven other players running around on screen, it's almost impossible to keep track of what’s happening in a match. As for unlocking characters and customization parts, “Lego Brawls” forces you into an unbearable grind. There are much better Lego games that you can complete in a shorter amount of time.

#3: “Diablo Immortal” (2022)


Of all the games to shamelessly gouge people’s wallets, none have proven more egregious this year than “Diablo Immortal”. What starts out as a solid mobile spin-off of the dungeon-crawling RPG franchise quickly devolves into a pay-to-win scheme where shelling out hundreds or even thousands of dollars is the only way to net high-end gear. Just as we saw with EA’s “Dungeon Keeper” back in 2014, “Diablo Immortal” is clearly a product made to coerce you into giving it more money for very little value. Once again, Blizzard finds itself with yet another game bombarded with low user scores on Metacritic.

#2: “CrossfireX” (2022)


At E3 2019, Xbox proudly announced the arrival of “a PC legend” coming to Xbox. That supposed “PC legend” was… “CrossfireX”. After two delays from a 2020 and 2021 release window, “CrossfireX” eked its way out from the murky depths back in February. And it sucks. Not only is it the weakest game Remedy Entertainment has ever worked on, but the core gameplay developed by Smilegate Entertainment was a disaster. Mechanics were unrefined, there was almost zero polish to it at launch, technical problems occurred left and right, and the gameplay felt like we might have been playing an alpha build of “Call of Duty 2”. What reason could there possibly have been in calling this “a PC legend”?

#1: “Babylon’s Fall” (2022)


You can release a broken product. You can launch a shoddy monetization system. You can spit out something for the sake of tax write-offs. What you can’t do is shell out something so cynical and cashgrabby that it makes your entire studio look financially desperate. “Babylon’s Fall” was a monumental embarrassment for Platinum Games on account of the game’s failure to properly explain its mechanics, its frequent recycling of assets (some of which were borrowed straight from “Final Fantasy XIV”), and generally dull gameplay. There is nothing of substance here, and the fact that “Babylon’s Fall” has had physical copies destroyed and announced its shutdown six months after launch shows that Platinum Games did not care about it enough to give it their best effort. It's safe to say that in all of 2022, this was a failure bigger than Google Stadia.
Comments
advertisememt