Regarding the Steam release, InGame Studios head of development Jarek Kolar stated, “We are so thankful to the growing community for sticking with Crime Boss as we work tirelessly to improve and build upon the game. Crime Boss: Rockay City coming to Steam is another huge leap forward for the game, and we welcome people to revisit Rockay with fresh eyes. We’re so excited for the future of Crime Boss.”

Cagnali’s Order puts a RoboCop spin on things with the police department joining up with an “evil mega-corporation’s robotic police squad.” There are four missions, new enemies, a new boss to battle and new playable characters. You can even wield a laser gun.

Crime Boss: Rockay City is also available for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, though it received mixed reactions when it launched last year (check out our review). Several updates and DLC have been released since then, adding more content and improving the overall experience. There’s more on the way, with the next update, Baker’s Angels, launching in July, followed by Legends in September, Nightmare in Q4 2024 and Winter Ops in Q1 2025.

PS5 players can play these through backwards compatibility, but in terms of exclusives, there’s Crime Boss: Rockay City and Deceive Inc. Meanwhile, both platforms can play sci-fi survival title Stranded: Alien Dawn. As for Classic games, available exclusively for Premium subscribers, there’s 2Xtreme, G-Police, and Worms Pinball. All three are playable on PS4 and PS5.

It’s also worth noting that Horizon Zero Dawn will be leaving the catalog on May 21st, so play it now while it’s available. Be sure to check out this month’s free PlayStation Plus Essential titles as well, including Destiny 2: Lightfall, Ghostrunner 2, Tunic and EA Sports FC 24. They’re available until June 3rd, though EA Sports FC 24 can be claimed by June 17th.

Without further ado, here are our picks for the 15 most disappointing titles of this year.

Forspoken

You could argue that Forspoken didn’t have much hope due to lackluster marketing and delays. Nevertheless, this was the newest title from Luminous Productions, with many of the team having worked on Final Fantasy 16 and a PS5 console exclusive for two years.

Unfortunately, after the demo and with the game, Forspoken revealed itself to have shallow dialogue and irritating banter, a bland open world and an unlikable protagonist in Fray (which is a shame given how interesting the story becomes later). Such was the response to Forspoken that Luminous shut down and merged into Square Enix after its DLC, In Tanta We Trust.

Redfall

Hi-Fi Rush and Starfield often come to mind when talking about the major Xbox exclusives this year. It’s not that everyone forgot about Redfall, but that they did so without much effort. At launch, Arkane Austin’s first-person co-op shooter had a suitably macabre setting and aesthetic to work off of but squandered it with tedious gameplay, completely barren environments with little to nothing going on, copious bugs, performance issues and a terrible plot with poor characterization.

Its quest design and so-called immersive sim elements are also an embarrassment. Subsequent updates have improved the experience, but Redfall is still a huge step down for Arkane Austin, especially after Prey.

Quantum Error

For all the strong survival horror titles that hit the mark this year, several missed the mark, and Quantum Error unfortunately qualifies. Despite some great lighting, the stealth gameplay feels tacked on and awkward, while the shooting is as generic as they come. The story could have been better if it wasn’t presented so poorly with its amateur cinematic angles and shoddy voice acting. Quantum Error ultimately feels like it warranted much more than the developer could deliver, bringing the whole product down.

Flashback 2

Microids’ sequel to the classic 2D platformer from Paul Cuisset shouldn’t have turned out this bad, but alas. Almost everything about the title is riddled with issues when it’s not just bad. Though the animations and aesthetics can be decent, the multitudes of bugs, horrendous aiming in combat, terrible dialogue, baffling armor mechanics, and half-hearted cover-based gameplay make you question everything. Perhaps the only mercy is that it isn’t too long…unless your save gets corrupted and you have to start over.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

It’s a meme of sorts to expect anything from Call of Duty, much less Activision, but this was a new Modern Warfare title. The previous two entries in the reboot trilogy offered some intriguing mechanics and memorable campaigns, even if the cracks were starting to show in the second entry. By comparison, Modern Warfare 3’s campaign falls apart almost immediately.

It’s mind-numbing Open Combat missions with boring objectives, a story that’s so by the numbers you can practically paint them in, a distinct lack of polish and embarrassing short playtime. This is from a franchise known to deliver quality cinematic campaigns more often than not. Zombies is slightly better, while multiplayer buckles under the weight of skill-based matchmaking, packet bursts and horrendous spawns.

Payday 3

At first, many were disappointed at being unable to play Payday 3 due to servers going – and staying – down for days at a time. However, after finally getting into matches, even as crashes and disconnects occurred, many were let down by the challenge-based progression, the lack of a pre-game chat, no offline play while solo, no lobby browser, a clunky UI, etc. Though it’s received updates to alleviate several issues, like finally awarding Infamy Points on heist completion, Payday 3 is still far from reaching the same heights as Payday 2.

The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria

Return to Moria, at least the start, is brimming with potential. This is a new adventure in The Fourth Age, with the Dwarves retaking their home and facing a shadowy curse as they explore its depths. Some mechanics were also pretty unique, but it all fell apart due to jank, poor combat, terrible AI, lack of freedom when mining and some shoddy building mechanics. What could have been a Valheim-esque adventure in Middle-earth is instead an awkward meandering.

Crime Boss: Rockay City

Proof positive that loading a game with Hollywood actors doesn’t equal success (and many of the performances aren’t even all that great). While the shooting isn’t terrible, it comes at the price of stealth and missions that encourage going guns-blazing more often than not. Throw in all the bugs, terrible writing, repetitive objectives and general lack of polish, and you have a disastrous title that’s more like Takers than Heat.

Exoprimal

After playing the open beta, Exoprimal looked like it had potential as a dumb hack and slash heavy co-op game. However, the lack of content forced PvP, and somewhat repetitive objectives remained concerning up to the full release. Due to how the story works, events can feel disjointed, while the dialogue ranges from awkward to unfunny. There are some positives for those who want to smack dinosaurs and various improvements courtesy of patches, but Exoprimal feels like it could have done better with a stronger focus on pure co-op PvE.

Immortals of Aveum

A single-player-focused magical first-person shooter with an epic scale, talent like Gina Torres and an extensive campaign, that too with striking visuals? Immortals of Aveum seemingly promised it all and delivered on some fronts (Torres was quite good) but suffered with many others. Lackluster story-telling and graphical issues, particularly with HDR, made playing a headache in several ways. The shiny presentation couldn’t save the below-average gameplay with its damage-sponge enemies and an annoying gear grind. It’s a better experience technically after several patches, but far from delivering on the hype.

Atlas Fallen

You have to feel bad for titles like Atlas Fallen. Developed by Deck 13 of The Surge fame, it’s an action-adventure title with a double-A budget, a unique world and unique movement options (like sand surfing). The premise is wasted with underwhelming writing, and the combat, the most important aspect of the experience, is sluggish and shoddy. It also doesn’t help that the world doesn’t have much going on, even with some strong aesthetics on display.

EA Sports FC 24

It’s probably not that surprising in retrospect, given how the FIFA franchise fared over the years, but EA Sports FC 24 was an opportunity for a fresh start. However, while the gameplay remains enjoyable, it doesn’t improve enough, much less advance the status quo. Career Mode is still a rote affair, the new interviews are incredibly lackluster, and the presentation feels like it’s slumming in certain places. Some positives, like PlayStyles and the new UI, are worth mentioning, but if you’re a hardcore FIFA player hoping for some evolution, EA Sports FC 24 disappoints.

Layers of Fear (2023)

Layers of Fears, renamed Layers of Fear, is a remake of Layers of Fear and Layers of Fear 2. Sounds confusing? It’s also a sequel with a new character, The Writer, who must link the stories together while dealing with the oddities of the Lighthouse. While the visuals look good, as Bloober Team’s other Unreal Engine 5 titles have, the bland gameplay and story-telling don’t form a cohesive whole. It’s not the worst horror game out there (Stray Souls would like a word), but many issues undermine the entire experience.

The Last of Us Part 1 (PC)

You’re probably wondering, understandably so, why The Last of Us Part 1, a remake of one of the greatest games ever made, is on this list. The answer lies in the PC version, which launched in a catastrophic state. Shader compiling took hours upon hours, broken textures rendered characters into monstrosities, performance issues abound, glitches, bugs, crashes – the list went on and on. It made for good comedic material, but those wanting to experience the classic on PC for the first time were far from amused (especially for the $70 price point). Months and months of continuous patching finally put it in a good place, but not without some questioning Sony’s PC porting efforts.

Sonic Superstars

After Sonic Mania and Sonic Frontiers, I looked forward to Sonic Superstars, with bright 3D visuals and gameplay in line with classic titles. While it felt good to play, some inconsistent Zone design, irritating boss battles and gimmicks overpowered the experience to an annoying degree. Other issues like the underwhelming music, boring Battle Mode and the new Special Stage also made it hard to warm up to. While not the worst game in the franchise (that honor still goes to Sonic ’06), Sonic Superstars is underwhelming – a definite plateau in quality over more recent titles.

The update brings quite a few major features to Crime Boss: Rockay City, including new scenarios and environments, like the Gas Station, Car Dealer, and Truck Convoy missions. These new locations will appear in the game’s campaign, as well as its Crime Time mode.

The progression system for individual characters has also seen some changes in the update, allowing progression to persist through campaign runs for characters. A character dying in their character mission will now no longer reset the plotline. Instead, it resumes in the next campaign run after the last successful character mission. Plotline resets will now only happen if a character dies in a regular mission rather than their character mission.

Crime Boss: Rockay City is also getting quite a bit of rebalancing, as well as improvements to its stealth gameplay. Players will be able to make use of stronger stealth takedowns, and enemies are now perceptive and reactive to the actions of players sneaking around. Balancing changes include changes to the campaign economy, and how silencers work.

Further details about the update, which now includes the ability to kick or mute players, or even examine their profiles in multiplayer, as well as a new way to play the game by shuffling the game’s mission chains around, can be checked out in the patch notes below.

UPDATE NOTES:

New scenarios and environments

• Those missions appear in both the campaign and Crime Time and provide variety in both gameplay and environments.

Earlier respect levels

• Gas Station.

Mid-to-late respect levels

• Car Dealer
• Truck Convoy

Improved stealth gameplay

• Stronger stealth takedown
• Balanced AI perception and reactions
• Rebalance of silencers

Shuffle mission chains mode in Crime Time

• This is a new way to play missions: Randomized mission chains which come in three challenging difficulty tiers, that give greater rewards and respect points when fully completed

“New Blood” Urban Legend difficulty balance

• Adjusted difficulty for first Urban Legend chain

Character missions’ persistency

• The player’s progression through individual character missions is remembered through campaign runs, and a unique character dying in their character mission does not cause the plotline to reset – in the next campaign run, it resumes after the last successful character mission instead (or gives the maxed-out character if it was completed)
• The plotline only resets when the unique character dies through regular means, and not in their character mission

Added option to kick/mute/examine profiles in missions in Multiplayer

• This is dependent on the platform. Kicking is only available to hosts

Turf war Defence can be played without soldiers

• Touchdown can go alone to the Defence mission

Balance changes to campaign economy

Alongside the release of the Tactical Weapon Pack, Crime Boss: Rockay City has also gotten a major new update that brings with it improvements to the gameplay, new features, and quality of life updates. The update is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

A big new feature in the game is the addition of the Respect stat for the title’s Crime Time game mode. The Respect stat goes up or down depending on the success of missions. Higher Respect levels unlock additional missions, as well as weapon rewards and character ranks. Players will have to find a balance between their Respect and HEAT levels, leading to a risk vs reward tradeoff.

Crime Boss: Rockay City is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Check out the full patch notes for the update below. For more details, read our review.

MAIN IMPROVEMENTS

• Respect stat in Crime Time
• Respect in Crime Time is increased with successful missions and lost with failures.
• Respect affects available missions, weapon & generic character rank, mission rewards, and HEAT (police intensity in missions).
• When reaching the Respect Level “Connected” (the second of six levels), big missions, such as Money Train, Import Export, The Hidden Vault, and Dragon Dogs can appear on the map as regular missions, instead of being available solely as contracts.
• In Crime Time, HEAT is based on respect. Higher RESPECT brings more heat, so while the game offers more opportunities, they are harder to complete. Lower respect goes with lower heat.
• Dropped weapons can be picked up in FPS missions
• Characters retain their original weapons after the mission is finished.
• Weapons picked from the ground have reduced damage.
• Improved aim assist for controllers
• Aiming sensitivity is slowed down when aiming near the target.
• Aim assist now slightly helps with tracking targets.
• Slight bullet magnetism is in effect.
• Adjusted Difficulty in Baker’s Battle
• The overall difficulty of the Baker’s Battle was reduced.
• Adjusted Loot Bags
• The number of loot bags in missions now scales with difficulty and the number of players.
• Leveling up teammates
• Characters in Crime Time now gain experience from being sent to missions and eventually become eligible for a promotion. The promotion gives them better stats and new perks.

FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS

• Important map landmarks spawn on pre-defined turfs. Based on a community proposal, we made sure special buildings are spawning on the same tile every time
• New environment added: Garage.
• Stealth kill: To give the player a choice between silencing and killing civilians and guards, the first stealth melee attack makes the civilian/guard/police go to the ground. Any subsequent attack will cause damage. Gangsters are killed outright as before.
• Baker can let go of generic characters from the team.
• Enemy waves in turf wars will spawn on a single edge instead of multiple edges. Before, the player could have been overwhelmed by incoming forces and unable to find a good cover position.
• Unique characters keep their rank (rookie, veteran, elite) persistently between campaign runs and reset upon death.
• Cutting off attacking rivals from territories under attack cancels the attack and the territory will no longer need to be defended.
• Detailed character info now describes the conditions for unlocking unique characters in Crime Time.
• Monetary rewards and spawn probabilities for individual money-making mission types now vary slightly with the player’s respect. This applies both to Baker’s Battle and Crime Time.
• Attack Territory missions sometimes had difficult starting positions, in which the player was immediately exposed to enemy fire. This is now adjusted, so that players start in a relatively covered area further away from enemies.
• Jewellery Heist and Bank Robbery missions should spawn more in the campaign now. It is partially dependent on respect as well.
• Added beeping sound to enemy grenades.
• Increased audio volume of security cameras when being detected.
• Increased audio volume of ignited explosive barrels before the explosion.
• Attack territory icons now have the same color as the enemy gang.
• Increased prices for rare, epic, and legendary weapons in Crime Time.
• We added new events to the campaign. Those events lower police HEAT in case they are completed successfully.
• The number of detectives spawned per campaign is lower now. Previously it was possible to encounter 10 detectives in the campaign. Now it should be around half that number per playthrough.
• The monetary value for loot categories in the stash is now more dynamic. It can change quite a lot from day to day and is dependent on item type.
• Gold and silver should be much scarcer in money-making missions before reaching the formidable respect level in the campaign.
• Day indicator added to Main Menu screen.
• Added a variant of Attack Gangsters – Beach.
• Added a Variant of Attack Gangsters – Port.
• Added a variant of Attack Gangsters – Canal.
• Added a variant of Robbery – Shipping Office.
• Added a random event spawning the mission type “Place Bomb”. When completed successfully, the player will neutralize an enemy turf.
• Enemy AI will find it harder to shoot you from greater distances.
• Bots will not try to revive a teammate that is near danger (like a grenade).
• Controller – the selection of missions on the map has been improved; the d-pad allows players to quickly select the closest mission in the given direction and the left stick activates the virtual cursor for precise selection.
• Controller – Slider for selling loot from stash is faster.
• Controller – Prioritize use over reload is now set to Yes as default which leads to a much smoother experience. It can be manually changed as before.
• Improved mission detail with new risk indicators.
• Improved weapon and character icon background for better rarity differentiation.
• The text size of the current bonus objective is increased in the HUD.
• Most of the UI elements are now controllable with the left stick alongside the d-pad.
• Mantling over obstacles should now be much smoother.
• You can now sprint and crouch with a body bag.
• Super Strapped boss bonus no longer deletes Travis Baker’s equipped weapon when selected.
• Selected equipment is saved and not changed after a mission,
• Pressing ‘Esc’ in the lobby now works properly as “Back” and doesn’t open the Pause menu anymore.

BUGFIXES & CHANGES

• AI avoidance of danger areas improved. AI should no longer run on a grenade when reviving a player. or dodging enemy fire. AI should not navigate to fire to assist the player or other AI.
• Negative values for cash should no longer appear.
• Bots use mounted guns correctly and should not get stuck anymore.
• Aim Assist was not working on clients.
• Robbery loot crates should no longer spawn away from the player’s reach.
• Incorrect rotation of AI/ player animations in Robbery is now correct.
• Bots are not stopping inactive with loot bags at the escape van.
• Remote explosives will now properly reduce the number of charges when shot.
• Ladders should now be more reliable.
• Interrupting reloads, magazine check, and weapon inspection when switching bots is now more reliable.
• Baker’s perks work even when Baker has no equipment.
• Shield-equipped enemies can now be pinged.
• Sensor grenade no longer pings dead bodies.
• Enemies should no longer trip over loot bags laying on the ground.
• Time limit bonus objectives now start correctly after the mission black screen, not before.
• Weapon inspection should be more reliable on a controller (Hold D-Pad right)
• Various FPV animations should not play over each other.
• Inverting controller should no longer also invert the bot selection menu, or lockpicking minigame.
• Improved PS5 controller haptics on PC. Previously haptics on the PS5 controller did not vibrate correctly.
• The application should no longer stay in process after force-quitting it.
• Equipment animation is no longer played when pressing the Equipment button while on a ladder as a client.
• The user no longer returns to the title screen after accepting an invite to the same lobby.
• Civilians killed by clients are counted correctly in detailed stats now.
• The upgraded buzzsaw and drill were not set to the correct value.
• The player counter no longer shows more slots after several missions are played in a row in 4 players.
• The player can no longer reconnect as the same character after dying in a mission.
• Van doors no longer appear closed for join-in-progress players.
• The game no longer enters an unresponsive state when accepting a session invite while fading out of the escape cutscene.
• The “Revive” option no longer remains on the player after giving up when “Dead”.
• The lobby now recovers from an internet outage. Before it could have entered a non-responsive state.
• A selected character should load much faster now.
• The player animation no longer stutters when observed in Spectate mode.
• You no longer retain your campaign character if you join a Crime Time mission from active gameplay in the campaign.
• Optimization of throwing bags. It should be smoother on all platforms.
• Fix: When a client joins a Dragon Dogs session in progress if the host’s character was in the initial lift, the player was then not able to see the host’s character in the game.
• The player no longer becomes “Not ready” before the loading screen.
• A client joining a session in progress for the second time will no longer get into the JIP menu again.
• Left stick binds are no longer triggered twice when a player is a host in a multiplayer session.
• Navmesh fixes.
• Performance optimization.

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.

REDFALL

Redfall always looked like it was going to be very different from Arkane’s traditional offerings, but the general expectation was that, given the studio’s innate talent and impeccable track record, it would at least be a good, well put together game. In the end, it definitely wasn’t. Not only does Redfall almost completely lack the strengths one usually associates an Arkane game with, it’s not even good at the new things it tries, with everything from its open world and its co-op gameplay to its loot mechanis coming with major issues. Add to all of that some significan technical hiccups, and what you have is a game that woefully falls short of expectations for an Arkane joint.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: GOLLUM

Let’s be fair here, no one really expected The Lord of the Rings: Gollum to be anything more than middling or passably enjoyable at best- but we also didn’t expect it to be literally one of the worst games in recent memory. Daedalic Entertainment’s stealth action-adventure game took its sweet time to finally release, and when it did, it stumbled with its first step and fell flat on its face. Nothing about The Lord of the Rings: Gollum works. It has boring quest design, little to no exploration, broken combat and traversal mechanics, and a deluge of technical and performance problems that make it nigh on impossible to get through. You don’t play The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. You endure it.

LAYERS OF FEAR

For a while, Bloober Team has been pumping out psychological horror games that range from middling to genuinely good, and this year, the studio went back to the very beginning to bring back Layers of Fear. Combining, connecting, and reimagining the first two games while adding its own new content on top, the new Layers of Fear looks excellent and has a fascinating premise- but as is often the case with Bloober, it doesn’t do justice to that premise. It ends up being a fairly dull, repetetive, and rote game that relies on its visual prowess to the exclusion of almost everything else. We can only hope the Silent Hill 2 remake fares significantly better.

TCHIA

We’d had our eye on Tchia for a while before it launched, with Awaceb’s tropical action-adventure game looking increasingly promising with each of its pre-launch showings, and though the final product is certainly not without its merits, it didn’t quite live up to our expectations. Yes, it has a gorgeous setting, and making your way around the island is fun, for the most part. But the game’s mechanics and systems never quite manage to get their hooks in, leaving us with a pretty but fairly unremarkable experience.

CRIME BOSS: ROCKAY CITY

Over the years, many have tried their hand at the co-op first person shooter heist genre, and very few have managed to enjoy the kind of success that the Payday series has seen. Crime Boss: Rockay City was certainly eyeing that throne, and with its star-studded cast of actors, it looked like it might actually take a big swing. The actual game itself, however, was not only disappointing, it was just downright terrible. Whether you’re playing its single player roguelike campaign or diving into its co-op offerings, the game’s aggressive mediocrity taints every second you spend with it, with its awful voice acting, bland design, repetitive loop, and boring core gameplay dragging down the experience into the doldrums.

RAVENBOUND

Ravenbound has a promising premise on paper as an open world roguelite set in a world inspired by Scandinavian folklore, but when you actually get down to playing the game, you realize that it’s woefully underbaked in almost every way that matters. Its world is a vast one, but given how empty, bland, and vapid it generally feels, exploration ends up being significantly de-emphasized. Combat can get repetitive instead of decent enemy variety, while the game also does itself no favours with its poorly balanced difficulty curve. Add to that an unfortunately healthy dose of technical issues, and you get a pretty underwhelming game.

FORSPOKEN

A big new AAA open world IP from Square Enix? To say that people were curious to see how Forspoken would fare would be an understatement, even back when it was called Project Athia, though unfortunately, it didn’t even come close to matching expectations. A premise that’s interesting on paper is let down by annoying characters and poor writing. An open world that should have been begging to be explored ended up being empty and uninteresting. The combat system, while flashy and enjoyable, failed to make up for deficiencies in boring quest design. The fact that Forspoken failed to meet Square Enix’s commercial expectations was, ultimately, not surprising in the slightest.

THE LAST OF US PART 1 PC

Frankly, we’re still baffled that this was allowed to exist. Naughty Dog, more than almost any other studio in the entire industry, is associated with an obsessive level of attention to detail and quality assurance. Polish and Naughty Dog go hand-in-hand- which is why it’s so surprising that The Last of Us Part 1’s PC port might be one of the worst PC ports in recent memory. Even looking at brief clips and individual screenshots, it was hard to believe that something this broken had been allowed to release. When you actually played it, it quickly became apparent that the state of the game was somehow even worse. It’s a real shame, too, because this will forever be remembered as the manner in which this legendary franchise made its PC debut.

LEGO 2K DRIVE

Unlike many other games on this list, LEGO 2K Drive is not without its merits. Its world is vibrant and colourful, it has an impressive suite of customization options for building any kind of car you want, and, as you’d expect from a LEGO game, it’s very kid-friendly and easy to get into. It is, however, also quite vapid. What you see is very much what you get, and with that lack of depth, LEGO 2K Drive ends up like a shallow experience that runs out of steam too quickly, whether that’s because of its how uninteresting open world exploration is, or its lackluster optional content, or any number of other issues.

LEAP

LEAP isn’t exactly a game that’s grabbed a whole lot of headlines, so to say that expectations were high wouldn’t exactly be fair. But this is still very much a game that doesn’t do justice to its interesting premise. The sci-fi competitive FPS boasts slick visuals and cool traversal options, but all of that gets bogged down in its tedious gameplay loop and how unsatisfying its moment-to-moment gameplay largely feels. Especially in a genre that’s this competitive, LEAP fails to make a mark in any meaningful way.

STRAYED LIGHTS

We don’t want to be unfair on Strayed Lights here, because for a game developed by a small team with a unique vision, it does actually get some things right. The story, the music, and the aesthetic, for instance, are legitimately solid and worthy of praise. There’s plenty else in the game, however, that drags the experience down, from its frustrating combat to the lackluster platform to its technical issues. The fact that there are parts of the game that are genuinelty good makes the parts that aren’t feel that much more frustrating.

STRAY BLADE

You’ll never see us turning down the chance to play a new Soulslike, especially one that’s trying to shake up the genre’s formula the way Stray Blade was promising it would. But though there’s something to be said about the idea of viewing the genre through a less gloomy lens, the actual execution of many of the game’s core pillars leaves a lot to be desired. The clunky controls, uninspired level design, and technical issues combine to make Stray Blade quite a frustrating experience, even if it isn’t one that’s totally without its merits.

CRASH TEAM RUMBLE

Again, in the name of fairness, it’s worth pointing out that Crash Team Rumble is definitely a game that you can have plenty of fun with- especially for fans of the series, given how well it translates that Crash feel into a MOBA experience. As it stands right now though, it’s also pretty barebones, with its launch offerings, especially in terms of the modes on offer, being quite limited. Of course, we’re hoping that Crash Team Rumble will be supported so well that including it on this list in retrospect feels like a mistake- but with live service games, you can never tell how long of a lifespan to expect.

GREYHILL INCIDENT

A small production in every way possible, criticising Greyhill Incident would almost feel unfair under most circumstances- but unfortunately, there’s plenty to criticize in this game. The core premise of a survival horror game where your main enemies are aliens is certainly an interesting one, but from its awful dialogue to its painfully shallow mechanics to the mind-numbing level design, Greyhill Incident messes up (to say the very least) in too many ways to be anything more than a disappointment. And even that might be a generous description.

RISEN (PS4)

In the many, many years since its launch, the original Risen has amassed a reputation as one of the RPG genre’s proper diamonds in the rough, though with its 2023 port, there was way more of the rough than there was of the diamond. Janky animations, disappointing and minimal updates to the gameplay and visuals, clunky combat, and technical problems combined to paint the ageing experience in what wasn’t exactly the most flattering light. Maybe this is one flawed gem that should have been left in the past.

Alongside the console release date, the studio has also revealed its plans for future content for the game. While not too many details about the roadmap have been revealed we do know that three paid expansions are planned for Q3 2023, Q1 2024, and Q2 2024. The expansions are titled Dollar Dragon: Gold Cup, Sheriff Norris: 99 Problems, and Nasara’s Revenge respectively.

The roadmap also reveals that free updates are planned for every quarter from Q1 2023 all the way up to Q2 2024. Crime Boss: Rockay City will also be getting paid content drops, including weapon packs and cosmetics.

Crime Boss: Rockay City was originally released on PC back in March. For more details about the game, check out our review.

My experience playing Crime Boss: Rockay City has been something of a roller coaster. At first glance, I thought the game was going to be a level-based shooter with GTA vibes and a similar style of writing. That’s not what the game ultimately is though, and the truth is much stranger. Is Crime Boss: Rockay City worth your precious time and legally earned, not stolen money?

To begin, Crime Boss: Rockay City is not exactly a run-of-the-mill level-based shooter. It does have a number of maps that missions play out on, but a more appropriate descriptor would be “action roguelike”. In fact, the game’s campaign actually bills itself as a “unique roguelike experience”, something most people will probably skim over.

"The enemy AI is not very bright, and as long as you’re crouched you have so much time to get out of their line of sight before you’re “spotted” that you could essentially crouch-walk through entire missions without being discovered for the most part."

But before you dive headfirst into the campaign, the game strongly suggests you complete the tutorial. In it, my initial expectations were turned upside down when I was presented with a tutorial that surprisingly outlined a heist game, where you go into an area with a squad of four characters that you can switch between and disable security, infiltrate a facility, steal the goods, and get out before the cops show up.

Instead of immediately shooting up the place, you’re shown that you can threaten civilians and security to make them surrender and avoid conflict, and then zip-tie them so they don’t become an issue during the heist. In fact, I don’t think you fire your gun once in the entire tutorial, or at least I didn’t. From this first taste, Crime Boss seemed like it would be a thoughtful game where patience and strategy are rewarded, one where you don’t need to leave piles of bodies in your wake.

And then you jump into the real game, and those new expectations also get turned on their head and thrown out a window.

The game’s intro is loud and bombastic, with plenty of bullets, blood, and bodies. This is what we were shown before the game’s release, though it’s not really what the whole game is, and later missions only get rowdy if you want them to. Seriously, the enemy AI is not very bright, and as long as you’re crouched you have so much time to get out of their line of sight before you’re “spotted” that you could essentially crouch-walk through entire missions without being discovered for the most part.

I was able to do that for many of my missions, which also revealed one of many bugs and glitches in this game: enemies just pop into existence when the getaway car arrives, but not in places where it would be discreet. I had enemies materialize just a few feet away from me once I had enough loot to exfiltrate, breaking immersion immediately. While sneaking is an option and it’s incredibly easy to do, it seems that the developer’s intent is probably to have the majority of missions devolve into shootouts pretty often so that you miss these magical henchmen.

"The more attention you draw and the more trouble you cause, the more highly-equipped police will show up until you inevitably get overwhelmed by enemies who sometimes feel invincible. It disincentivizes getting into action and feels unbalanced."

When the bullets do start flying, it’s a mixed bag. There’s a confident smoothness to zeroing in on enemies, and the guns I used felt appropriately powerful with decent feedback so my comparisons to level-based shooters held up in that regard, but then you have the GTA-like heat system. The more attention you draw and the more trouble you cause, the more highly-equipped police will show up until you inevitably get overwhelmed by enemies who sometimes feel invincible. It disincentivizes getting into action and feels unbalanced.

And that’s not even the worst of it.

The game is structured in such a way that you only spend short bursts of time actually on missions that quickly become repetitive and boring, with the rest of your time being spent in cutscenes or managing different facets of becoming a “Crime Boss”. You hire crew, sell goods you steal in missions, and expand your area of influence with Turf Wars. The issue is that there are only a handful of models for the crew members, resulting in you having multiple of the same people with different clothes which is jarring to see, selling your wares is just a menu, and Turf Wars are tedious.

What’s even worse, is that since the game is a roguelike, crewmembers who die in missions are gone for good, and if you happen to take the protagonist out on a mission and he dies, the entire run is over. This is standard for the genre, but when a game feels as buggy and broken as Crime Boss, it’s very off-putting. The game is only occasionally fun to play, which is worsened by what was supposed to be its headlining feature: its cast.

As you probably know from the trailers, Travis Baker is played by Michael Madsen, an actor known for his roles in movies like Kill Bill, Species, Reservoir Dogs, and The Hateful Eight. Mr. Madsen is sixty-five years old now, though his in-game model represents a de-aged version of him as he was in his mid-thirties. And he’s not alone! This game also stars a few other de-aged stars you might recognize from the 80s and 90s, including Kim Basinger, Michael Rooker, Danny Glover, Danny Trejo, and Chuck Norris. The entire cast was clearly hired for the purpose of nostalgia rather than their voice-acting abilities.

"The entire cast was clearly hired for the purpose of nostalgia rather than their voice-acting abilities. To the aging actors’ credits, they aren’t given much to work with in terms of writing."

To the aging actors’ credits, they aren’t given much to work with in terms of writing. The story is structured and presented as an early 90s action film, perhaps as a means of making the younger versions of its now aged cast make more sense, but it unfortunately also has all of the poor representation, objectification, and ham-fisted dialogue those movies are known for, And not even in a fun way. There is also a forced attempt to be “wacky” that doesn’t do the game any favors. A scattered number of scenes and lines elicited a singular chuckle from me, but the vast majority of those were thanks to the comical disinterest you can hear in Chuck Norris’ voice as he patronizes you about how you messed up your run.

This game was reviewed on PC.

NOTE: This interview was conducted prior to the game’s launch.

"In Crime Boss the Hollywood superstars do play their most iconic characters from the 90s. We haven’t cast them in our story, we have invited them to go back in time, let them again experience what they have been famous for since 30 years ago."

Obviously, one of the most eye-catching things about Crime Boss: Rockay City is its incredibly star-studded cast. What motivated the decision to go with a cast full of such recognizable actors for this game, and what has the process of working with them been like?

Signing up all these Hollywood talents took quite a significant time and the cooperation with their busy schedules is quite difficult. But their input into the characters via their voice acting is extremely valuable. It’s improving the narrative experience quite dramatically.

In Crime Boss the Hollywood superstars do play their most iconic characters from the 90s. We haven’t cast them in our story, we have invited them to go back in time, let them again experience what they have been famous for since 30 years ago. With Unreal Engine technology we have provided them with their young bodies and let them jump into the story of Rockay City.

The game portrays these actors in their physicality of the late 80s and early 90s. For example, Mr. Chuck Norris is now 82 years old. So, it was not possible to use photo scan or mocap. But they did record the voice lines for their characters, and sometimes also amended the script lines with their take on those characters, that they have portrayed in the 90s.

Co-op is obviously going to be a big part of the experience, but what would you say to players who’re looking for a single player experience?

The primary game mode, Baker’s battle, it is the single player campaign – a narrative roguelike experience. There are other game modes, Urban Legends and Crime Time which utilize the cooperative play.

Baker’s Battle is the ultimate single player experience of Crime Boss, where players take on the role of Travis Baker, played by Michael Madsen.

Every step of the way you are competing against Sheriff Norris, who is in charge of law enforcement and will be constantly collecting evidence against you. The better planned a job, and the better executed it is, the less evidence you’ll leave behind. Go in all guns blazing and Norris will likely win in the long run.

Maintain your turf and fight various gang bosses of Rockay City including Dollar Dragon, played by Danny Trejo, Hielo, played by Vanilla Ice, a cunning Asian warlord, and the dreaded Italian mafia.

The end goal of Baker’s Battle is to become the King of Rockay, which means dominating every inch of turf in the city.

"Baker’s Battle is the ultimate single player experience of Crime Boss, where players take on the role of Travis Baker, played by Michael Madsen."

Specifically where the game’s big set piece heists are concerned, what can you tell us about their structure? What sort of a balance will they strike between stealth and combat?

The big heists are the highlight of the heisting of Crime Boss. The main ingredients unpredicted challenge and replayability. The big heists are designed for coop gameplay and are 10-30 minutes long. They are quite challenging to finish in the flow single player campaign, but then Baker became super rich.

The flow of the heists is set by designers. It has relatively linear structure, so the objectives are often very same each playthrough. But there are options and players need to proceed cleverly to succeed. Some set up of the missions can change based on the events and decisions in the previous plotlines. On top of that, there is a built-in variation of the environment and position of elements. The AI is completely systemic, reactive on what is going on. Put it in a word, by one of our focus testers “The missions are repeating, and they feel familiar. But not in a way that they would feel repetitive. It’s about getting better and maximizing the efficiency and results.

Our goal is to have the FPS missions bursting with atmosphere, where the planner (Danny Glover in big heists, or Damion Poitier for small hits) communicates with the crew via radio comms. Damion was also the writer, and with the team of writers they have adapted basic dialogues of the 30 different characters to give a Hollywood spin on everything. So, whichever characters are sent on missions, there will be a unique dialogue for every character. Damion has a vast knowledge of jargon and accents, so he helped us a lot.

In some games you need to replay the missions many times to understand the environment, to learn every path of each guards, to be able to perform a perfect heist. This is exactly the opposite what we do. We don’t have checkpoints, it’s actually quite hard to retry levels in Crime Boss. It’s desired that players cannot “learn” or memorize the paths and ways how to complete the missions. You know what the objectives are, you know the space, but things are different. And you need to react onto it. The goal is quick fun and replayability. Think of the games like Counter Strike. You know that you need to find terrorists and disable their bomb. You know the flow. You know the environment. The mission is simple, and you have played it hundred times. But every game is a bit different and every time it is quite challenging and unforgivable. We are trying to bring this exclusive experience from competitive multiplayer games into single player and into coop.

What has your approach been to designing Crime Boss’ different locations, and what sort of variety do they bring in terms of how players are encouraged to tackle them?

The game is set in the 90s. The world was quite almost the same as now, but also very, very different. Mobile phones just appeared, computers started to be used widely in business, there was no internet widespread amongst people, news were printed on paper, TV was a thing, there were no social networks. Everything was simpler, nicer, brighter. It was a time when the men were men and women beautiful. This was the time which we still remember as we have enjoyed it through our teenage years, action movies and pop culture in general. Rap, rock, grunge, rave and disco music, summer, holidays, sins, neon, MTV and cheesy action movies.

Rockay City is a fictional city due to its decadency and high rate of crime. Criminals rule the city, while law enforcers are struggling to fight them. This is far from any reality but works well for the context of the game. Almost like the comic themed Sin City. The closest real-life inspiration are Miami and Los Angeles.

"Criminals rule the city, while law enforcers are struggling to fight them. This is far from any reality but works well for the context of the game."

Given the game’s structure and its focus on co-op, is its post-launch roadmap something that you’ve given a lot of thought to? Should players expect new content and steady support after the game’s release?

A lot of things in the game are modular – environments, scenarios, events, plotlines. The campaign is procedurally created on the fly with these modular pieces. Player will be playing it over and over, with a different experience every time. Adding new pieces into the mix, can extend the amount of variations that are available.

We have a lot of plans for the upcoming years, regarding the current project and the new ones, but let’s focus on finishing Crime Boss first. Hopefully the game will be well received by players so we will be given opportunity to realize our ambitious future plans.

What can you tell us about the campaign’s roguelike structure? How will the turf war mechanics play out specifically?

In Crime Boss you are Travis Baker. You may play everything just as Travis, he is quite a powerful character. But if you die, that one run of the campaign is over. Everything restarts. But that’s not a bad thing. Because every run of the campaign is different, offering different opportunities, story plotlines, choices, and outcomes. The cutscenes are the narrative thread for each character, but the direction of the story is directly impacted by the player’s decisions and actions. In the new run, you may do much better choices, so you progress faster.

For playing Travis Baker in missions, you are rewarded with boss points (these are the XP points). You also get points for completing the campaign run (even if you fail). With these points you level up. With each boss level, you choose a perk or improvement that is persistent. There are no skill trees, you are presented with random 3 cards and you pick one.

In the game menu, there is a boss office, empty and ruined at start, but turning into a showroom of power and wealth after some successful runs (the boss room and asset there are persistent throughout the multiple runs). Assets are expensive, but each brings a lot of boss points when purchased. So, you are turning cash into permanent growth of the boss level.

The most difficult thing for us as designers is to explain and teach this roguelike gameplay to the players. Other FPS games are not designed like this, so it takes time for players to embrace the failure and keep restarting. But our focus tests are showing the players who are restarting the campaign often, are enjoying the game much more. They can improve, make some better decisions, be more successful in individual missions and progress faster and further. So hopefully by the time of release, the game will be good enough to teach this to all players. I hope the players will be open to learn this innovation and enjoy it.

How will Sheriff Norris function from a mechanical standpoint?

Sheriff Norris, played by Chuck Norris, is player’s biggest enemy. Sheriff is hunting down the criminals in the sin infected Rockay City, which means he will become the major obstacle in Baker’s rise to power. Sheriff Norris is also the reason, why police will always win. Well, almost always, but this is the challenge for the player.

Sheriff is investigating Baker’s crimes (based on the leads player leaves in the missions). With progressing investigation, there is more police heat, which means, that cops will react faster and more vigilantly on crimes, making heists and other criminal activities harder and harder. Sheriff will strike on Baker’s organization, once his investigation is finished. And there is no way how to defeat Sheriff Norris. Sheriff is teaching players that crime doesn’t pay.

Sheriff is a narrator of certain events, we let the player experience them through dialogues between Sheriff Norris and Lt.

"Developing cross-gen compatibility is complicated and limiting. On old gen we would not be able to let player to play missions in the generated city environments, let player combat with armies of enemies and have high quality metahuman facial animations."

Roughly how long will it take to see through the game’s story?

The story of Crime Boss is pretty simple, and players should understand (or see through it) pretty quickly. But there are nuances, variations, that will make the story changing every campaign run. The modular narrative of the single player campaign is composed of plotlines, events and choices that pretty much differ each time a player goes through it. The game is not created to let you experience a different experience and stories. But in 40 hours you will most likely gone through the basic beats and events. Unless we add more plotlines and events into the mix…

What was behind the decision to not develop Crime Boss: Rockay City as a cross-gen title?

Developing cross-gen compatibility is complicated and limiting. On old gen we would not be able to let player to play missions in the generated city environments, let player combat with armies of enemies and have high quality metahuman facial animations.