Even with several problematic launches, 2023 has seen some fantastic-looking games that have pushed the limits of what’s possible in video games. However, not all games offered a stunning or decent presentation, much less appealing visuals. That they’re not so polished while some still demanding full price is something to behold. Here are 10 of the worst-looking games of the year in terms of visuals.
Redfall
Initial reveals of Redfall didn’t look terrible. The lighting, shadows and overall mood that Arkane Lyon was going for looked intriguing and could have made for intriguing supernatural action. Things took a turn when it was confirmed not to launch with a 60 FPS Performance Mode on Xbox Series X/S.
Nothing could have prepared us for the actual game, though, with its broken animations, lackluster facial animations, terrible effects, pop-in, bland world with lifeless textures and overall lack of polish. The 30 FPS mode wasn’t the worst on Xbox Series X, but the motion blur still isn’t ideal. Having no animated cutscenes throughout the game feels like the cherry on top of this dumpster fire of a presentation.
AEW: Fight Forever
When AEW: Fight Forever was announced, it was hyped as paying homage to WWF No Mercy on the Nintendo 64. You can feel that with the perspective and some of the idle animations. However, it also feels like it wants to be a major wrestling title with its price without doing the appropriate groundwork with its mechanics, animations, features and much more.
The animations during actual combat look and feel incredibly janky. Some wrestlers barely resemble their real-life counterparts, and the glitches and bugs, like wrestlers clipping into the environment or phasing through ladders, are just terrible. The fact that so much work went into nonsensical mini-games rather than polishing the overall presentation – like having full entrances, fleshing out Road to Elite or improving the character creator – says a lot about the overall focus.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
On the one hand, you have to feel bad for Daedalic Entertainment. It probably wanted to make an adventure game and explore different avenues for the legendary character, like the moral choices between Smeagol and Gollum. However, unlike Deponia, it went with an action-adventure focus in full 3D. It also focused on some of the least interesting parts of Gollum’s life imaginable, like spending time in prison guiding a bird and then, get this, guiding a fellow prisoner.
Throughout all of this, the facial animations, texture quality, environments, and so on look horrible. The performance is also horrid with all the glitches, clipping and whatnot. If priced lower, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum may not have received much blowback. Unfortunately, at $60, with day one DLC costing extra, it just looks so much more awful.
Crime Boss: Rockay City
When you’re watching glitzy, edited trailers for it, Crime Boss: Rockay City looks decent. The lighting and shadows aren’t the worst, and sometimes, the city seems to come alive due to multiple light sources. On closer inspection, the textures on environments, characters and weapons look off.
The enemies animate in such a rudimentary manner. All NPCs suffer from almost no facial animations, and the big-name Hollywood actors fare only slightly better, looking uncanny at best and wooden at worst. One could forgive this if the script was better or the gameplay was compelling, but alas.
Ravenbound
Ravenbound could have done something with its lore and presentation. Not many games dip into Scandinavian folklore with its dark themes and whimsical yet terrifying creatures. Unfortunately, it seems that developer Systemic Reaction’s reach exceeded its grasp. The massive open world feels dull and lifeless with the same enemy camps and the same-looking enemies with the same limited animations (right down to the same telltale charge before an attack).
Texture quality in the environments and on models is poor, while Ravenbound’s performance was very iffy at launch (visibility during rain while activating Ravensight was non-existent). All in all, its mid-tier presentation needs a lot of work and polish.
Wanted: Dead
Wanted: Dead is a game that badly wants to emulate the look and design of sixth-generation console titles. Which is fine, but it didn’t need to look this poor. The textures on characters and environments already look pretty average, but outside of finishers, the character models animate stiffly with little by way of facial animations. There’s a constant jank to it all, but at least it’s over-the-top and crazy, right?
It feels like the same problem as AEW: Fight Forever – that developer Soleil wanted to make a throwback title instead of polishing the presentation but slapped a “homage to the classics” label on it to excuse the same. “It’s supposed to look like this, you see!” Regardless, the overall result is awful, even with the random wackiness.
Farming Simulator 23
It should be reiterated – when I saw the critics panning this game, I had to do a double take because Farming Simulator is generally well-liked. Farming Simulator 22 sold over 1.5 million copies in its first week and has 94 percent positive user reviews on Steam. So how did we get here? Farming Simulator 23 didn’t release on Xbox, PlayStation and PC like other platforms.
It arrived on iOS and Android and was ported to Nintendo Switch. The production values are not up to par, and the overall scale, sense of freedom and feature set also suffer from this paring down. The worst part? Despite looking so middling, it runs terribly on Nintendo Switch.
Redemption Reapers
Considering the experience of Adglobe and Binary Haze Interactive on the stunning Ender Lilies, the shift to a more realistic style for Redemption Reapers is somewhat puzzling. Given the post-apocalyptic nature of this medieval world, the gritty monotone visuals make sense, but they still feel overly washed out at times. While the cinematics look decent, the environments look extremely dull.
Character models also feel low-res, with animations that could have been better. It’s harsh, I know, especially since it doesn’t have the biggest budget, but even Harvestella from Live Wire (who also worked on Ender Lilies) looks better.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
It’s not that the aesthetic of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is bad. Team Ninja has always done good with its action hack-and-slash titles (except maybe Stranger of Paradise in terms of fidelity), and Wo Long’s showcase of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is quite good. Unfortunately, it’s weighed down by dull textures, lackluster facial animations outside of cutscenes and average-looking environments.
Its fidelity is probably on par with Nioh 2, which isn’t terrible, but considering the latter is a 2020 title originally exclusively for PS4, you’d expect some improvements at this point. Of course, the fact that Wo Long continues to have performance issues on PC also doesn’t help.
Greyhill Incident
Once again, when viewing the Greyhill Incident in trailers, it appears to be a low-budget B-movie-style game that could offer some fun and decent visuals. However, you’re exposed to wooden animations and awful character models during gameplay. The facial animations fare worse – the little grey aliens have very little, not even when taking damage or getting shot in the head.
Expected, but still lame, as their bored walking animations make you ponder their existence instead of feeling threatened. At the same time, while it does offer some interesting lighting and shadows, Greyhill Incident piles on the motion blur and washed-out textures. On the bright side, at least it’s true to the name with all the “grey” you’ll see.