Well, we’re still seeing new ideas in games today, but what’s perhaps more common are promising ideas that end up flopping. Whether it’s overpromising, poor execution, or trends chasing monetization, these games prove that a great idea alone isn’t enough.

Here are 15 revolutionary gaming concepts that sounded incredible on paper but then folded like a deck of cards with its execution.

Exploring A Full-Sized Galaxy – Starfield

Everything that Todd Howard presented to us about the then-upcoming open-galaxy Bethesda RPG seemed too good to be true. Skyrim in space was enough to get most of us in pre-order lines, but the promises went much further than that. There’s the hundreds of explorable solar systems with thousands of planets, sure, but the customizable space ship and ability to fly your ship and recruit crew members excited me the most. Unfortunately, when the game released, it was apparent that Todd’s promises really were too good to be true. There were practically no memorable characters, nearly every planet was devoid of interesting content, and ship navigation was frustrating and under-utilized. The game sold well enough due to initial hype, but a 97% player drop-off after six months and the broader damage to Bethesda’s reputation paint a clear picture of Starfield’s shortcomings..

Pirate Live Service – Skull and Bones

Just about everybody wanted a large open-seas pirate game where filled to the brim with tense ship battles and sea shanties, but the developer somehow managed to screw that up completely. The biggest failing with Skull and Bones was that it was a $70 title with a predatory live service model tacked on top of that. You had to grind for what seemed like hundreds of hours obtaining the ‘pieces of eight’ just to upgrade your hard-sought pirate ship equipment. The whole experience was just so bogged down in incremental monetization that even the few fans that were left had a hard time sticking with it for long. So much for the first ever AAAA game.

Hunters vs Hunted Multiplayer – Evolve

I wasn’t exactly the biggest Left 4 Dead fan in the world and even I was pretty excited about Evolve in the 2010s. Evolve pitted a group of hunters against a horrific Godzilla-like human-controlled opponent, differentiating Valve’s team-based shooter with an asynchronized matchup. The big distinction with Evolve is the colossal prey is just one human-controlled creature, resulting in a lopsided 4 versus 1 scenario. Matches were novel and hilariously fun … for the first couple hours. Running around as a hulking horror monster in search of four helpless little humans makes it hard to frown. But the novelty wore off pretty quick. The balance issues, very thin post-game offerings, and hefty price tag for what was essentially a repetitive game loop contributed to Evolve devolving to the husk it is today.

Open World Parkour – Forspoken

I remember being pretty hyped for Forspoken right before its demo released. It was made by the Final Fantasy XV studio using their in-house engine, all of which I’d been a big fan of. And the open-world parkouring just looked absolutely mesmerizing to top it off. Well, after playing the demo, I found myself frankly appalled. The best thing I can say about Forspoken is that it looks nice and has a serviceable soundtrack. The dialogue is perhaps the biggest culprit behind it’s failure, but the repetitive enemy encounters and throwaway isekai story don’t help sell the game either.

Your Choices (Don’t) Change Everything – Mass Effect 3

A lot of gamers want a good choice-driven narrative and plenty of games have attempted it over the years. Yet, carrying over those choices for a meaningful endgame remains an elusive accomplishment for many titles. Mass Effect 3 is perhaps the best example of this. Mass Effect 2 was noteworthy for carrying over key decisions made from the first game and branching those off into even more scenarios into the third game. Yet, Mass Effect 3 ended on a whimper with originally only three endings. The worst part about the narrow endgame funnel was just how paper-thin the different endings were. It’s like all the player-driven choices throughout the three games came to the same uninspired conclusion, albeit with a different color tacked on.

Mandatory Crafting – Metal Gear Survive, Fallout 4

I’m all for looting abandoned houses in open-world games, especially when paired with a robust crafting system. Yet, some games rely a bit too much on crafting to advance the main story. In the case of Fallout 4, crafting is absolutely essential no matter what you plan on doing in the game. The game’s big draw, other than being another Fallout, was its settlement creation system. Yet, to properly build up your settlement, you had to grind for loot and craft like crazy. And then on the extreme spectrum, you have Metal Gear Survive, which made crafting the core gameplay loop, and by extension, the only loop the game had to offer. Crafting is a fun aspect of gameplay, but there’s such a thing as too much of it, as is the case with these two games.

Detective Vision – Batman: Arkham Series, The Last of Us Part 1

Batman: Arkham Asylum made many of us fall in love with detective vision gameplay. Turning on the infrared goggles and snooping the environment for clues just added so much to the setting and gameplay. But then, it seemed like every other game out there started implementing it, and the novelty didn’t quite stick. The Witcher 3 had Geralt investigating hundreds of trails using his witcher sense, but fans generally like it there because of his fun banter. But the later Arkham games and The Last of Us Part 1 tended to overuse detective vision to the point where it slowed down not just the gameplay but story as well.

Procedural “Infinite Story” Generation – No Man’s Sky Launch, Daggerfall

I remember how skeptical a majority of gamers were when Sean Murray talked up his infinite galaxy filled with procedural generation in No Man’s Sky. The game released and, well, a majority of gamers felt correct in their initial skepticism. No Man Sky’s launch lacked the touted multiplayer component that it now enjoys, but it also felt barren and void of meaningful content, something procedural generation often struggles with. An earlier example of empty fields of infinite procedural generated content was Bethesda’s Daggerfall. Daggerfall boasts a staggering 62,000 to 80,000 square miles of traversable land with well over 10,000 towns. It was simply the largest game at the time of release, dwarfing most modern open-worlds today. Yet, the dungeon design was … well, absent. And the actual content within such mammoth maps were repetitive and shallow, even if other systems were novel and fun at the time.

Memory Editing — Remember Me

On paper, Remember Me’s mix of third-person action combat, platforming, and puzzles in the form of Memory Remixing should’ve been the beginning of a new hit franchise. DontNod had the budget and concept for a longlasting series and rewriting people’s past to influence an outcome in the plot was the big selling point. And you don’t just rewrite memories in cutscenes, you actively re-arrange objects called glitches in the subject’s mind like a puzzle. It’s a truly terrifying ability, and one that would’ve rivaled the Animus from Assassin’s Creed if it was used more fully in the game. In the end, Remember Me was known for its subpar combat encounters and underbaked story. If only Remember Me could’ve remembered the Memory Remix mechanic enough for gamers to remember it.

Possess Enemies On-the-Fly — Mindjack

Who remembers the Japanese cover shooter game from the early 2010s, Mindjack? Yeah, probably not many. Besides the generic third-person shooting mechanics and forgettable sci-fi story, it had an innovative mind-hacking mechanic thrown into the mix. Being able to possess enemies and convert them to your side on-the-fly sounds pretty dang fun, until you realize the AI is awful in Mindjack. The repetitive level design and bland missions didn’t help the promising mind-jacking concept either.

Open-World Live Service Campaign — Anthem

Bioware is still chugging along today even after lukewarm releases like Dragon Age The Veilguard and Mass Effect Andromeda, but Anthem was the signal that the  studio just wasn’t the same anymore. Despite building a reputation for rich storytelling and immersive character interactions, EA made Bioware go the live service multiplayer route with Anthem. That decision didn’t go well with longtime fans or newcomers. The launch was plagued by glitches, bugs, and crashes galore. And the long-term looter-shooter loop didn’t do enough to keep players around. This is alll despite a genuinely fun jetpack system that allowed players to fly around with their mechanized soldier through the environment with ease. It’s a fun game to fly around in, but was a chore to actually do anything else.

Superhero Looter-Brawler – Marvel’s Avengers

Marvel’s Avengers was another game that cashed in on the live service looter band-wagon, with the advantage of having the Marvel IP tied to it. There was actually quite a bit of hype building up for Crystal Dynamics’ huge new AAA superhero game. It came out during a time of Avengers high and within a game industry that hadn’t capitalized on it yet. Needless to say, many gamers desperately wanted to pick their favorite Avenger and fight some baddies in a high quality action game. But the aggressive repetition within the mission design and lack of a post-game severely hindered what was supposed to be an ever-evolving game. If you’re going to make a game with the kind of structure of Marvel’s Avengers, at least build it around a compelling story and interesting gameplay.

AAA Episodic Storytelling – Telltale Games

Where’s Telltale Games been, by the way? Episodic interactive game dramas just aren’t the same since Telltale’s reign in the 2010s. Telltale’s The Walking Dead fomented a revolution in the episodic potential for smaller-scale video games. But it seems that ever since Telltale’s Game of Thrones, the formula just hasn’t seen the same kind of success. The stagnant cell-shaded art style contributed to gamers just getting tired of Telltale games, but the realization that choices were largely illusory or at least highly bottlenecked also likely played a role in the genre’s decline.

Time-Manipulation Shooter — TimeShift

Everyone loves a good bullet-time Matrix moment in movies or TV, especially so when we get to control it. TimeShift leaned into the slow-motion cool factor and then cranked it up a notch with full control over time itself. Centering a first-person shooter on time manipulation abilities just seems limitless in its potential. But despite the ability to freeze time in the middle of firefights, the game just felt lackluster to play. Like Anthem, the game had one cool thing going for it: the time-bending abilities, with nothing else to compliment that. The story, while told within a cool dieselpunk setting, was awkwardly paced and surrounded by forgettable characters. And the enemies were bullet-sponges without much thought put into their encounter design. We all love a good time-bending mechanic, but TimeShift just didn’t make a good game around it.

Cloud-Powered, Fully Destructible Cities — Crackdown 3

Gamers were surprisingly delighted by the chaotic sandbox that Crackdown 2 provided and hyped up the next game beyond what it was capable to deliver. The third game executed on the sandbox action hero concept about as well as MindEye did the GTA formula (okay, maybe not quite that bad). Where the second Crackdown delivered on laughs and mindless fun, the third drilled repetitive urban landscapes and bland mission design into our tired hands. Even the advertised cloud-powered destructible environments didn’t make the final cut into the game, except for the now-dead multiplayer mode that nobody played. Crackdown 3 failed to iterate or improve on the chaotic sandbox formula that fans loved about the second one, so much so that even Terry Crews couldn’t save it.

But things didn’t go well for the game even before it could hit the shelves and actually have a chance at success. Frey and Cuff’s conversations became the focal point of derisive smear campaigns that colored many gamers’ early impressions of the title, creating the impression of bad writing and a lackluster dynamic between the two central characters.

But was that focus on a single flaw the right way to evaluate the merit of a game that brought a surprising amount of depth to areas that mattered? Perhaps not, but Forspoken fell prey to a form of culture that could make or break the success of a new IP looking to break into a very competitive genre.

But, nearly three years after the original release and a very solid DLC chapter later, Forspoken has finally managed to win us over completely. It’s a good game with minor flaws and deserves the chance to shine just like any other title. Still a bit sceptical? That’s all right. Join us as we try to change your mind.

Bad Publicity

A few stray lines of dialogue, along with complaints from early preview builds of the game, showcased a lot of dialogue between protagonist Frey and the mysterious “Cuff” as they embarked on their adventure brought one of its most well-known flaws to light: Frey’s characterization.

As a girl thrust into an adventure she had no intention of undertaking, her troubled childhood and life as an orphan were great narrative avenues to flesh out her character. However, her foul-mouthed, brash nature did receive a lot of backlash once the game was released but much of it was colored by opinions formed before that?

An endless flurry of memes ridiculing the game and its writing, talking lines out of context to show a inconsistent opinion on the quality of its writing and dialogues. While we must concede that they could have been better, things were nowhere close to being as bad as some painted them out to be. Forspoken didn’t really stand a chance in the court of public opinion, not when it hadn’t even made it to its players’ hands yet.

Another interesting facet of the situation was the game’s positioning. The Luminous Engine was meant to make good use of current-gen hardware to craft an experience that combined excellent visuals with solid gameplay, an effective recipe for an action-adventure title. Thus positioned as a flagship PS5 title, Forspoken was burdened with high expectations it had no hope of meeting as it was at the time of its release.

It also had to compete against other great releases like Elden Ring which continued to stay on top of the conversation despite being nearly a year old at the time of Forspoken’s release. It didn’t help its cause when its PC version brought performance issues with it, a serious offence considering the game’s high price tag.

Working in tandem, all of these factors acted against Forspoken, making the game quickly fade into obscurity despite all of the promise it showed. But for those who managed to play through it, things were a little different.

The Hidden Potential of Forspoken

Lurking deep within the storm of bad press was a solid game that delivered on its vision while also being a reasonably fun experience to boot. As a visually stunning experience that aimed to make traversing its open world as fun as possible while also delivering an action-packed adventure, Forspoken wasn’t too shabby.

For starters, its unique brand of magic and parkour was both simple to use and quite a sight to behold. Frey’s newfound powers were put to excellent use, allowing her to leap, bound, and soar across the world with reckless abandon in a traversal loop that we still find quite addictive. It’s always great when an open-world title has you favoring actual travel instead of teleporting between locations via fast-travel, after all.

And then there was the combat. Dive deep enough into Frey’s arsenal of skills and there was a lot to like just waiting for players to discover and use. Elemental attacks, crown -controlling AoEs, attacks that made good use of Frey’s mobility, and a few very cool abilities like a rapid-fire lightning gun made the combat system a real treat for players who liked a meaty action-focused gameplay loop.

The visuals helped things along, with spells bringing some very well-implemented particle effects to the table while the world’s desolate state and the imposing stature of bosses like the Tantas were all quite engaging and helped sell the story that was on offer. And speaking of the story, Frey’s character arc was often written off as a generic coming of age story but did actually make sense from a narrative perspective.

Her rough life and a distinct mistrust toward the world around her made her aversion towards her destiny make sense for the most part. We’d probably be swearing at the top of our voices too if we were pulled away from our lives and asked to help save a kingdom we’d had no stake in before too. Her dialogue, even the weaker bits of it, fits a lot better when taken against the narrative backdrop that the game sets up as opposed to a few isolated clips that do not convey the nuance between their lines entirely.

However, it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies with Forspoken, and the game did have its issues. In the interest of fairness, we’re going to take a look at those too.

Room for Improvement

While Frey’s lines weren’t all bad, there were a few instances where her modern sensibilities did not merge well with the game’s fantasy setting. Her dialogues did have a few genuinely awkward lines, a problem that was made more evident thanks to how chatty she was with Cuff, and the constant repetition of scripted banter between them. They soon became an annoyance instead of a fun way to flesh out the story’s leading lady and her companion.

And while the world we got to explore was indeed stunning, the things we got to do in it soon became repetitive. Too much of the open world relied on outdated methods of structuring progress, and the side content delved too deep into generic objectives to make it worthwhile. This was an issue that combined with the game’s pacing to become quite a hindrance to a good time.

With most side content requiring Frey to clear out a lot of enemies, the opportunity to put the game’s combat front and center was always there. However, with a lot of important abilities hidden away behind important story encounters, that opportunity was wasted in favor of a story that spent too much time with exposition and too little time allowing its players to actually enjoy the adventure it was trying to involve them in.

The pacing is especially egregious in the game’s opening hours, and it’s going to be a while before you get to the parts of it that are actually good. Minor performance inconsistencies also hampered the game’s success. However, none of these issues deserved the fallout that followed the game’s release, an unfortunate situation for Luminous Productions, despite the story expansion bringing a more focused experience, a stronger story, refined combat, and the general impression that it was what the entire experience was meant to be.

A couple of months was all it took for the studio to be merged back with its parent company, a move that was meant to ““strengthen future AAA development”, but potentially intended to offset the critical failure of Forspoken, and the high costs of maintaining the Luminous engine in the absence of the means to justify its presence.

Forspoken might have saved Luminous from its fate if only it had been allowed a fair perception of both its strengths and weaknesses by the gaming world at large. It’s failure to garner a response that could justify the costs associated with its engine has now shut the door on a potential sequel that could address all of the issues that the IP’s debut brought to light.

It’s a sad case of wasted potential, and an unfortunate situation for a game that might have had a better time of things on the commercial front with better marketing, positioning, and a stable launch. But alas, Forspoken will remain a title that’s easy to recommend but unlikely to gain the appreciation it deserves for the things it manages to get right.

But if you’re willing to look past its flaws, it might be a great choice for the holidays if you have nothing else to play and no plans.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Players like to be rewarded with additional story, characterization, and fun upgrades upon discovering more of the open world, not another checkmark on a map. The Witcher 3‘s world is huge, but players don’t complain about it being bloated because it’s filled with unique landmarks and interesting side quests around every corner.

These 10 games even manage to disappoint the casual collectathon fan with their uninspired locales and boring terrain, proving that games need to do more than merely populate the world with objects. Here are 10 more open world games in recent years that have suffered from bloat.

Forspoken

Like other games on this list, Forspoken had a ton of potential leading up to its release. We first saw glimpses of it with the impressive next-gen demo when the PS5 was announced but the final result was severely lacking. The best thing about the game, its versatile and engaging parkour, isn’t facilitated well by the open world.

For one thing, there’s entirely too few things to do in the magical world of Athia. What’s more, there’s an absence of ‘magic’ to capture the imagination in the world, consisting of empty rolling hills dotted with repetitive activities as it is. What hinders the empty exploration further is Frey’s constant quipping and complaining. If you’re not keen to hear constant quips and snarky complaints over the course of several hours of empty, though fun, world traversal, you’re not going to have a good time in Athia. After critical and commercial failure, the studio was shuttered.

Rise of the Ronin

Team Ninja’s design identity lives and breathes by its dense and action-packed linear nature, so naturally, the decision to go open-world in their next samurai game was ambitious for the team. Being the first open world game from the studio, Rise of the Ronin doesn’t falter too hard, but it could’ve been better within a more streamlined structure.

The refined action combat the team has been known for helps the formulaic world activities feel a bit more fun than they otherwise would. This is the third game on the list to feature dozens of bandit camps in its large world, but there’s also genre mainstays like watchtowers, and … cats to pet across mid-19th Century Japan, okay at least that’s kind of charming. Still, the lack of organic environmental discovery, unlike, say, Ghost of Tsushima’s waypoint wind, and a more empty and boring world map than other games within the space, keep Rise of the Ronin from reaching the potential set by its unique time period and deep combat. Hopefully, the developers will keep on investing in this IP, because there is potential here and a Rise of Ronin 2 could be a genuinely great game.

Biomutant

Unlike Gotham’s largely samey environments, the open world in Biomutant is rather diverse and visually unique across biomes. But visual distinctness between the six tribal regions  is where Biomutant’s open world stops being impressive – unless you enjoy the busywork of clearing checklists, that is. Completing the many outposts, resource towers, ruins, and fast-travel signpost rewards you with little while being but it’s as shallow as it is repetitive.

But the combat and quests don’t really do anything interesting to accommodate the rote world activities, firmly solidifying Biomutant as a quintessential ‘mid’ game. It’s unremarkable, but not bad per se, and when multiplied by the huge open world and all its repetitive activities, makes for a lot wasted time one could have spent in more meaningful game worlds. Biomutant is a prime example where a stong investment doesn’t always result into a meaningful product.

Gotham Knights

If rote repetition is the death knell of open worlds, Gotham Knights feels oddly lifeless for a city meant to be in constant crisis. All of the positives of the Arkham games, save some of the third-person combat DNA, is gone with this game. Sure, there’s some fun stealth sections to be found within the story chapters, but a majority of the game’s content is beating up the same thugs and solving copy-pasted crimes throughout Gotham to grind towards Knighthood progression.

Players can typically look past a bit of padded grinding if the world feels alive and responsive, but Gotham also fails on that front. Alleyways are mostly empty, civilian traffic is practically non-existent, and the city doesn’t evolve or react to story advancements or a recently liberated borough. At least the game looks really nice with its lighting. Gotham oozes atmosphere on a superficial artistic level despite the lack of liveliness and organic activities. Gotham Knights does have its shining moments, but very few of them have to do with the open world structure. Honestly, at this point, we just need a new Batman Arkham, not to mention the disaster that was Suicide Squad.

Just Cause 4

While Biomutant can’t reasonably be considered bad by any means, Just Cause 4 certainly can. The only thing I’m uncertain about is if this game suffers more on the story or exploration axis because it sucks at both. First and foremost, there’s just way too many patches of nothingness in the game world, resulting in terrible activity density.

At least Rico’s versatile grappling hook can be played around with to traverse the boring environments because it’d be downright sleep-inducing to go anywhere in this game otherwise. Accommodating the poor map design is a total absence of a minimap or radar. I mean, come on, an open-world game with no way to track points of interest at-a-glance, and one with such a bloated and empty world at that, is inexcusable. The missions and side activities are also far less creative and interesting than previous Just Cause titles, and the game crashes pretty often. You know what, I can’t even point the main blame on the open world, Just Cause 4 is just plain bad. It’s amazing how the series shifted into a complete free fall after Just Cause 2. Such a massive shame!

RAGE 2

Rage 2 is another game on this list that certainly isn’t altogether bad; its open world design just kinda feels tacked on to extend game time. Avalanche studios used Id Software’s wonderful gunplay tech to craft a fast and fun gameplay. Shooting in Rage 2 feels fast paced but with very lackluster and repetitive map design, its potential is severely diminished. There’s hardly any reason to spend time checking off side activities due to the drip-fed upgrades that players are rewarded with. This is thanks largely to a pretty early plateau in the upgrade tree, which maxes out your character pretty quick.

And without any meaningful side stories or lore to discover out in the wasteland, exploration is largely an exercise in repetition. The rapid pacing of the gunplay also just isn’t well suited for the wide swathes of land, something a more densely populated map could’ve remedied a bit.  It’s a shame Rage 2 faltered on the open world front. A synthesis between Id gun mechanics and the open world chaos of Just Cause 3 set within a Mad Max-esque setting seem like a dream come true. But Rage 2’s world is largely average and is enough to pull down the game’s otherwise fun gameplay and traversal mechanics. It’s unlikely we will ever see a new RAGE game and that’s such a disappointment.

Mafia III

The original studio behind the first two Mafia games merged into Hanger 13 for Mafia 3. Hanger 13’s debut game lacks a lot of the charm and density the previous games had, going for a quantity over quality approach. The territory control system quickly becomes repetitive, with little variation between districts. The world itself, a fictional version of New Orleans, also lacks intriguing landmarks and unique stuff to do within it. It’s just a shallow and hollow open world all-round.

At least the story and atmosphere somewhat make up for it; however, repetitive side objectives are often mandatory to progress the main plot, harming that aspect as well. Here’s hoping the Hanger 13 has learned from their first game and refined Mafia: The Old Country’s Italy into something more engaging.

Saints Row (2022)

In a lot of ways, the 2022 reboot of Saint’s Row feels like a first draft of a game from a decade ago. It’s got the basic elements to make a classic Saints Row experience, but hardly any of the creativity, charm, or polish. Where previous Saints Row games made exploring and causing mayhem unpredictable and fun, this reboot turns every open world activity into a chore.

Criminal Ventures are just one example of this; once you do your first couple insurance fraud busts and repo jobs, you’ve pretty much seen done them all. The world does little to encourage curiosity either, considering how empty and vacuous it feels. What’s really a shame is the lack of charm across the whole experience, thanks in part to the odd incongruent meshing of attempted wackiness with serious drama, resulting in an experience that falls flat in the end. This release, more or less, has killed Saints Row.

Crackdown 3

Out of all the games featured on this list, Crackdown 3 reigns supreme when it comes to boring environments. We all wanted to explore a dark sci-fi city in the sequel, but the city’s repetitive building designs make exploration feel stale and uninspired. It’s one of those games where the asset reuse is so glaringly obvious that it significantly detracts from the experience. But it’s not just the bland environments of the city that hurt the open world experience, mission and enemy variety is severely formulaic too. What puts the nail in the coffin is the paltry rewards for doing open world activities.

You’re mostly just collecting ability orbs after completing activities or exploring environments with no interesting lore or customization. And of course, Crackdown 3 commits the major sin of mandating side content to progress the main story, this time in the guise of collecting intel for regional boss fights. At least there’s the charm of playing as Terry Crews throughout the formulaic experience, but even that wears thin pretty quickly. With Microsoft cancelling projects left and right, the future of Crackdown seems like it’s done and dusted.

Need for Speed: Payback

Need for Speed: Payback is a game I still kind of enjoy playing to this day, but it’s not to experience the exploration or anything. No, it’s the superb vehicle selection and customization which is the main draw of the game, but even that can be had in the better NFS maps that Heat and Unbound facilitate. Payback’s fictional map is quite large and spread out, but it features no police chases outside of scripted events.

Instead of hiding from cops and making an intricate escape through a dense downtown route, you’re just collecting stuff and starting events on the map. This makes Payback’s map the least dynamic and least designed for racing than any of the modern-era NFS titles. Fortunately, a lot of great Need for Speed games were released since then, so let’s hope this continues into the future.

PS4 players get Rabbids: Party of Legends and PHOGS, while those on PS5 get exclusive access to Luminous Productions’ Forspoken. Meanwhile, Premium subscribers can look forward to playing Sly 2: Band of Thieves, Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, and Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy on PS5 and PS4, while PlayStation VR2 gets Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge.

All Classic titles sport rewind, custom filters, up-rendering and rewind functions, making it the best time to experience them. As for December’s PlayStation Plus Essential titles, head here for more details. They’re available until January 6th, 2025.

HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST

We’ll start things off with one of the most obvious entries. Horizon Forbidden West had the tall order of one-upping its predecessor’s open world, and it did so with surprising ease and confidence. Its map is massive and brimming with engaging quests and breathtaking sights, making exploration endlessly engaging in a way that’s rare to see in games. The fact that it’s also one of the best-looking games ever made only makes its map that much more unforgettable.

FINAL FANTASY 7 REBIRTH

One of the most recent entries on our list, and also one of the most outstanding. Honestly, it’s hard to believe that something on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s scale can even exist in the current AAA market. Its world is mind-bogglingly large, but on top of that, also boasts some of the most impressive environmental variety you’ll ever see. There’s a bevy of towns and cities to visit, an impressive variety of side activities, minigames, and side quests throughout the map, a startling number of unique traversal methods across different regions- and that’s just scratching the surface.

GOD OF WAR RAGNAROK

God of War Ragnarok took the wide-linear, semi-open world approach of its 2018 predecessor and did what you would expect a sequel to do by expanding its scope by a noticeable degree. There’s a handful of large, semi-open maps that you explore throughout the game, and each of them houses a hefty amount of side content that’s almost always well worth seeking out. Some areas are particularly excellent- like the Crater in Vanaheim, which might just be one of the best areas in any God of War game ever

MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN 2

After letting players zip through the same New York City map in two games, with Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Insomniac decided to expand the available play space by nearly doubling the size of the map. But Spider-Man 2’s New York isn’t just impressive because it’s larger- it’s particularly impressive because, typically enough for the series, traversing it is an absolute dream. Significant improvements to the core webswinging mechanics (most notably the faster speed of movement) are combined with new mechanics like the Web Wings to ensure that moving through Spider-Man 2’s Manhattan never, ever gets boring.

NIOH

Nioh was obviously not anywhere close to being an open world game, but in spite of its segmented, level-based structure, it was a surprisingly (surprisingly at the time, at least) beefy experience. Levels in Nioh could be quite large, and exploration was often handsomely rewarded. If you’re the sort of player that doesn’t just stick to the critical path, you can lose yourself in Nioh’s world for dozens upon dozens of hours on end.

RISE OF THE RONIN

Breaking from tradition, Team Ninja recently delivered its first ever open world game in the form of Rise of the Ronin, and though the game’s execution of some of its new ideas divides fans, there’s no doubting that those looking for a massive map to explore will find it here. Rise of the Ronin’s 19th century Japan map is brimming with things to do, and regardless of whether or not it sticks the landing in other areas, when it comes to its traversal mechanics, the game never loses its charm.

FINAL FANTASY 16

Final Fantasy 16 not being an open world game was a disappointment to some, but even with its semi-open structure, the action title succeeds in giving players a large world to explore. There’s a number of sizeable maps that players visit throughout the entirety of the game, with an abundance of side quests, hunts, and more to seek out. Admittedly, mileage varies on how engaging that content is- but those who love the game’s combat enough to fully dive into all of its offerings aren’t left wanting.

FORSPOKEN

The prospect of a new AAA open world action RPG IP from Square Enix was an exciting one on paper, but Forspoken turned out to be one of the more prominent high-profile failures of the industry in recent memory. Even so, though it disappointed in a number of key areas, Forspoken still had its strengths. Chief among them were its traversal mechanics, which made zipping and flying across its world a constant blast, even if other aspects of the open world experience were often subpar.

INFAMOUS 2

We’ve spoken about inFamous Second Son in previous editions of this feature, so here, we’re going to turn the spotlight on its immediate predecessor. Though not as large the many PlayStation open worlds that followed in the years after its release, inFamous 2 was a sizeable game in its own right. The city of New Marais also looked and felt much more alive than the first game’s Empire City, and above all else, served as an excellent sandbox for players to wreak havoc in as a superhero (or supervillain).

THE LAST GUARDIAN

The Last Guardian is another example of how even a linear game craft a deceptively large world- one that perhaps feels even larger than it is. Environments in the acclaimed action-adventure title were often quite large, of course, while their underlying atmosphere of mystery made them seem that much more imposing. And of course, with a companion like Trico always by your side, exploring your surroundings and discovering secrets always felt rewarding, especially as your bond with the adorable creature grew.

KILLZONE SHADOW FALL

Killzone Shadow Fall did something most had never thought Killzone would ever do by shedding the hyper-linear design style of its predecessors in favour of much larger and more open-ended levels- and it worked out surprisingly well. By presenting players with a number of different options when chasing specific objectives, levels in Shadow Fall often encouraged exploration in ways that you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a Killzone game. Of course, it was by no means a massive experience in any sense of the word, but it provided an exciting glimpse of what a Killzone game in a larger, more open world could look like- one that still hasn’t been followed up on, unfortunately.

RETURNAL

Given its roguelite nature, you become very familiar with each of Returnal’s six biomes as you make your way through the game, and it’s hard not to be surprised at just how large the game is. Each biome is not only significantly different from most others, they’re all also surprisingly large, and made to feel even more so that the randomization of which areas and rooms you see in each biome changes in every run. Add to that rewarding optional content and some sprinkles of solid Metroidvania-style exploration, and traversing these large maps manages to remain compelling throughout the game.

UNCHARTED 4: A THIEF’S END

Naughty Dog has mastered the art of crafting linear, cinematic experiences like no other studio has been able to, but it has also been sprinkling larger and more open-ended levels into its games over the last several years. That started with Uncharted 4, which not only has a semi-open world section in Madagascar, but also has regular levels that are much wider in scope than previous Uncharted titles. Like a couple other Naughty Dog games in recent (or relatively recent) years, it’s an intriguing glimpse of what a non-linear Naughty Dog game would look like.

UNCHARTED: THE LOST LEGACY

Immediately after Uncharted 4, Naughty Dog followed up on its semi-open world section with a similar section with an even wider scop in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, even if the game itself was obviously smaller in totality. Specifically, we’re talking about The Lost Legacy’s Western Ghats, a fairly sizeable map that players are allowed to explore freely, as much or as little as they want. Traversing through the environments in your 4×4 and seeking out optional content and hidden treasure is surprisingly engaging, ensuring that this section stands out as a highlight of the game.

30. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst

The fact that the world of Mirror’s Edge had such untapped potential, to the point that many desired a sequel years after its launch, is a testament to its impact. The first-person parkour model would be in other titles, most notably Dying Light, but the focus on platforming and skill-based jumping, not to mention the gorgeous dystopian world, helped it stand out.

So when DICE finally announced Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, which offered a more open world, the excitement was palpable, even if it was revealed to be a reboot. While it retained the fluid movement and responsive controls, the world felt barren, the story rudimentary and the ending inane. DICE has no plans to return to the franchise, and for all its appealing aspects, Mirror’s Edge is pretty much dead.

29. Rise of the Ronin

As a fan of Team Ninja’s Nioh series and even finding some enjoyment in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, it’s sad to see how Rise of the Ronin turned out. On the one hand, it’s earned some praise for its combat and even the directions you can take the story. On the other hand, critics have expressed disappointment with its open world, English voice acting, story and visuals.

While there were plenty of comparisons to Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima, I feel that they’re both distinct enough and trying to do their own thing. So why is Rise of the Ronin so underwhelming? Well, for starters, it’s a PS5 exclusive in development for seven years, with Sony’s support, which lends certain expectations. This isn’t to say that all reviews were equally hard on the game, as indicated by the 76 Metascore, but ranking fifth in physical sales for the UK at launch and dropping to 14th place the next week is nothing short of disappointing.

28. Need for Speed (2015)

Years of requests for a new Need for Speed Underground title and Electronic Arts delivered…sort of. Employing real-world legends like Ken Block, it was ultimately about a cast of street racers struggling to get noticed. While the customization and visuals received praise, the uninteresting story, AI prone to rubberbanding, multiplayer and lack of certain features (including drag racing) soured fans. There was also the always-online requirement with no option to pause. It would have qualified as one of the weaker games in the franchise, but then Payback happened and drastically lowered the bar.

27. Biomutant

When a game like Biomutant promises a massive world with choices and consequences, extensive character customization, vehicles, deep combat mechanics and much more, it’s hard to not get hyped. The fact that it was five years in the making, with Experiment 101 consisting of former Just Cause developers, further contributed to this. However, all those intriguing bits turned out to be incredibly shallow, from the story and combat to the mission design and annoying narrator. An update helped improve things, and with a million units sold in a few months, it was far from a flop, but it still has a ways to go.

26. The Order: 1886

Ready at Dawn’s The Order: 1886 received extensive attention for its graphics, with gorgeous facial animation and lighting. The presentation also received significant praise, but everything else left much to be desired. The campaign was ephemeral, with the disappointing story (despite such an intriguing setting and premise) and over-reliance on quick-time events bogging down the overall gameplay. Ending on a cliffhanger with no prospects for a sequel didn’t help either.

25. Exoprimal

Piloting exosuits to battle hordes of dinosaurs sounds like a good idea in theory, but what is live service? The developer’s to join the trend resulted in Exoprimal, which featured a story focused on time traveling, simulations run by a rogue AI called Leviathan, and so much dino slaying. The story felt disjointed, with the characters getting little development, and the lackluster map variety and repetitive objectives brought the experience down. The developer has expanded on the different modes at least while also adding new Alpha variants of Exosuits (Beta variants are coming soon), but its launch state was just so underwhelming.

24. Star Fox Zero

Not that Star Fox had the best run since peaking with Star Fox 64, but Zero had PlatinumGames involved. Surely, the Wii U controls would allow for a compelling shoot-’em-up experience. As you’ve probably guessed, that isn’t the case, as the controls were criticized for their unwieldiness. It also didn’t help that the experience heavily mirrored Star Fox 64, though some critics enjoyed the approach. With less than 500,000 copies sold, it flopped hard, and there hasn’t been a follow-up ever since.

23. Thief (2014)

One of the most beloved cult classic stealth series of all time, Thief was considered as revolutionary for PC players as Metal Gear Solid for consoles. So when Eidos Montreal announced a reboot, there was excitement and perhaps a little trepidation, especially after Garrett’s old voice actor was replaced. A dull performance was the least of the game’s problems, with the level design, AI and story all feeling out of sorts. While opinions settled more on the slightly above side, Thief (2014) couldn’t match up to the original games in player freedom and choice.

22. Days Gone

The praise for Days Gone, Bend Studio’s open-world zombie survival title, cropped up most when it was free on PlayStation Plus. Full credit to the team for sticking with it and adding sizable new content and features, but that’s not the launch version. The latter was roundly criticized for its excessive bugs, performance issues and loading screens (that too after delays for more polish), to say nothing of the bland story and awful dialogue. The open world, the motorcycle maintenance mechanics, the shooting – nearly everything had its downsides.

Make no mistake – there were some positives, from the immense undead hordes to the progression, and it notched up some impressive sales numbers, topping the UK physical charts for three weeks in a row and outselling the combined total of Bend’s previous games. However, it was nowhere near the high bar set by first-party Sony titles. Perhaps for this reason, the publisher didn’t greenlight a sequel and directors John Garvin and Jeff Ross subsequently left the studio. As beloved as it is now, there’s no denying that Days Gone underwhelmed at launch.

21. RAGE 2

For its time, RAGE was trying to do something technologically ahead of its time courtesy of id Tech 5. However, it faced criticism for its overall story and forgettable characters, not to mention the aggravating cliffhanger at the end. The fact that it launched after the more successful Borderlands, which captured the Mad Max feel of a post-apocalyptic wasteland far better, also didn’t help. Nevertheless, it did receive some praise for its visuals, combat, side missions and AI.

With RAGE 2, Avalanche Studios decided to go for a more traditional open-world first-person shooter with vehicles. You had the usual enemy camps to clear, some points of interest and enemy convoys to assault, while the story was a paint-by-numbers “gather the MacGuffins” before a showdown with the big bad. The combat and visuals were still worthy of praise, but everything else felt further downgraded over the original, and it had microtransactions.

20. Immortals of Aveum

Coming from a new team with a five-year development cycle and emphasis on a single-player campaign with no microtransactions, Immortals of Aveum was a noble endeavor. Problems arose with the overall story, graphical issues on consoles, iffy dialogue (with the cast trying its very best to elevate it), and controls. With the emphasis on fast-paced mage combat, encounters could feel repetitive, ultimately underwhelming despite some impressive set pieces. Again, it received updates and new content while attracting a following, but Immortals of Aveum failed to leave a mark.

19. Shenmue 3

A sequel that fans (and creator Yu Suzuki) craved since the second game’s release in 2001. An announcement years in the making with $6 million in crowd-funding. A launch finally happening four years later, mired in controversy due to Epic Games Store exclusivity and a publishing deal with Deep Silver. Shenmue 3 finally arrived in 2015 and was panned for its outdated mechanics and storyline that ended on yet another cliffhanger. While some found the antiquated mechanics to be the appeal, it ended up feeling inconsequential and just another chapter in the ongoing story which would likely end.

18. The Callisto Protocol

Spiritual successors to classics from the original creators never fail to generate attention, as seen with Striking Distance’s The Callisto Protocol. This Dead Space tribute sported gorgeous visuals punctuated by over-the-top and grotesque death sequences. Delays and declarations of crunch didn’t help, nor did the performance issues at launch. Of course, despite all that, the experience was dragged for being overtly linear with shoddy melee combat, no option to skip the death scenes, a short playtime, heaps of unrealized potential and ultimately, not measuring up to the legacy of Dead Space.

17. Rainbow Six Extraction

After the success of the limited-time mode Outbreak in Rainbow Six Siege, Ubisoft did what any self-serving publisher would do – spin it off into a new game and monetize it. Extraction would take a while to launch, initially announced as Rainbow Six Quarantine in 2019 (and eventually abandoning the name for obvious reasons).

It would finally arrive in January 2022 after multiple delays and revealed itself as a session of interconnected areas with procedurally generated objectives and enemies. The sparse content, terrible objectives, bad AI, laughable story and repetition sadly made for a dull experience. While the developer would tout three million players in the first week (likely in no small part thanks to Game Pass), you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who remembered it past the first month.

16. Crackdown 3

Before Microsoft pushed cloud gaming via Game Pass, it hyped the computational powers of the same and how they would revolutionize gaming. Crackdown 3 was an example, touted as having a fully destructible open world. It eventually relegated into a separate mode, which quickly died out, while the base campaign launched after years of delay and generated ire for its archaic, repetitive design. Could you have some mindless fun? Sure, but it was a far cry from what Microsoft hyped the project to be and far from the next big leap for the franchise.

15. Resident Evil 3 (2020)

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis has always occupied a weird place due to its shorter length and unorthodox features (like the titular villain). Releasing in the shadow of the brilliant Resident Evil 2 didn’t help – unfortunately, that same fate awaited Resident Evil 3 remake. Despite some fantastic visuals and combat, it was more notable for omitting areas (city hall, the clock tower and more were nowhere to be seen) or changing some of the original’s most iconic moments.

Barring the final sequence, none of them felt like an improvement. The fact that Mercenaries wasn’t included, but we got Resistance, a terrible asymmetrical multiplayer mode, didn’t help. Even with sales at 8.4 million, Resident Evil 3 is considered the weakest of the modern remakes.

14. Wolfenstein Youngblood

MachineGames delivered not one but two excellent Wolfenstein titles, reviving the franchise for a new generation with some incredibly cinematic storytelling that remains impressive to this day. How did it follow these up? Why, with a co-op title focusing on B.J. Blazkowicz’s daughters, Jessie and Zofia. The initial gameplay showings weren’t terrible, and the prospect of venturing to Paris to take out Nazis was appealing.

Unfortunately, Wolfenstein Youngblood fundamentally failed to capture what made the previous games so successful. Enemies were bullet sponges, causing players to constantly run out of ammo, and the missions were forgettable, with bizarre hub-like stages that felt utterly unnecessary to the campaign’s flow. Throw in terrible AI when playing solo and microtransactions, and it felt like a poorly conceived side story rather than a proper follow-up to MachineGames’ hits.

13. Forspoken

You want to believe that Luminous Productions had good intentions when designing Forspoken, first announced as Project Athia. Boasting a premier writing staff and billed as a two-year PS5 exclusive, it could have been the developer’s next big thing. While the combat wasn’t terrible, it did little to uplift the barren open world and dull activities.

The initially awful dialogue and plot also weighed it down, but even as things improved over time, the story was over quickly. It wasn’t long before the developer declared that Forspoken’s sales were “lackluster” and by May, Luminous was reorganized and merged into the publisher.

12. Mighty No. 9

Also considered one of the worst games ever made, Mighty No. 9’s development history would have suggested otherwise. It was helmed by a new team at Comcept who promised a spiritual successor to the Mega Man franchise when the developer had effectively kept the series on the back burner.

Then the delays happened, and that whole second Kickstarter campaign to fund a completely different project. By the time Mighty No. 9 launched, it was beset by performance issues, terrible voice acting, lack of content and an overall feel that screamed “cheap imitation” rather than spiritual successor.

11. Skull and Bones

Before its multitude of delays that whittled any faith that anyone had in the developer to deliver a competent pirate game, Skull and Bones had some potential. Its first announcement trailer gave the vibe of an Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag but a stronger focus on naval combat that fans had demanded for years. Of course, then the delays happened, followed by reports of reboots, behind-the-scenes issues, incompetent upper management, leadership departures, etc. When Skull and Bones was close to launching – for real this time – Yves Guillemot made the baffling decision to call it a quadruple-A game instead of the tried and true “triple-A.”

Upon launch, and to no one’s surprise, Skull and Bones was a live service grind for “loot”, punctuated by increasingly dull missions and tedious back and forth. Good thing it sold for $70 and included microtransactions. The results were telling – less than one-fourth of Sea of Thieves’ launch sales in the UK and allegedly 850,000 players, including those who played the free trial.

10. Marvel’s Avengers

Marvel’s Avengers didn’t have the best of reveals, competing against the first-ever gameplay of Final Fantasy 7 Remake on the same E3 showcase. Nevertheless, despite how many felt about the lack of resemblance to the Marvel Cinematic Universe actors, it didn’t look terrible either. Live service was seeing a downturn, but with Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal at the helm, how could it go wrong?

Cut to the underwhelming beta and full release, and the distinction between Marvel’s Avengers and a title like Marvel’s Spider-Man became clearer. Despite unique kits for its heroes and some decent visuals, the mission design, objectives and loot were subpar. Post-launch support added some new heroes and content, which did little to raise the player count, and it was subsequently delisted from storefronts in September 2023.

9. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3

While one may joke that Call of Duty is a disappointment year in and year out, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 felt especially egregious. Reports indicated that it was to be an expansion to Modern Warfare 2 focusing on the Mexican cartel that underwent a reboot into a full-fledged game. Calling it that feels dirty due to the painfully short campaign with its lackluster and ultimately inconsequential story that sets up yet another sequel.

Perhaps even worse is the Open Combat Missions, promising sandbox-style action but coming off as lazy with simplistic objectives. Multiplayer was knee-capped out of the gate with the focus on remastered maps for its core 6v6 modes, and despite some solid gameplay, the age-old issues of skill-based matchmaking (or at least how COD approaches it) and connection issues still cropped up. Zombies was the only good thing about this release, but that’s been abandoned after some lackluster updates. At least the microtransactions continue to roll in.

8. Anthem

After the mess of Mass Effect Andromeda, it was the turn of the main BioWare team to produce something special. It was…a live service looter shooter, which emphasized co-op over the developer’s tried and true single-player story-driven approach. As impressive as the initial gameplay reveal seemed, it was reportedly fake – Anthem’s development period was plagued with issues, from crunch to terrible management.

The result is a mess, with poor characterization and dialogue, bad mission design and objectives, a baffling lack of quality of life, performance issues, bugs, glitches, unimaginative loot and a barren endgame. Despite changes and updates, Anthem’s attempt at a do-over was ultimately rejected by EA, and support is effectively dead (though servers remain available).

7. Ghost Recon Breakpoint

Speaking of an underwhelming launch, we have the developer going from Ghost Recon Wildlands, which grew into something great to Ghost Recon Breakpoint and its removal of AI teammates, looter shooter elements, bland open world, bullet sponge drones, bugs, glitches, the list goes on. Why did the developer suddenly want to adopt a shared world shooter approach with the franchise (besides live service revenue)? No one knows, but it was disastrous. The developer would eventually claw a good game out of it, one that still fell short of Wildlands, but at least offered a more tactical experience without worrying about gear scores.

6. Resident Evil 6

After Resident Evil 5, impressions of the franchise weren’t exactly the most positive, with many feeling it veered too much into a more action-heavy approach. Even if Resident Evil 6’s trailers were full of action, there was still the hype behind seeing so many fan favorite characters (and Jake) tearing it up together. The result offered some pretty good combat but flopped in multiple ways. The characters felt off, and the overall pacing of walk a few feet, cutscene, rinse, repeat was a killer. While Resident Evil 6 saw decent sales, its critical reception was in the gutter, but thankfully, it led to the rebooting in Resident Evil 7: biohazard.

5. Payday 3

Considering the ups and downs that Payday 2 saw, it was in a pretty good spot by the time Starbreeze stopped producing new content. Payday 3 would have been the perfect opportunity to start over with a fresh new slate, avoiding its predecessor’s mistakes while ushering in a new age of heist-focused co-op gameplay. Of course, it wasn’t to be with the always-online requirement and lack of an offline mode souring fans early.

This would come back to bite the development team when server and matchmaking issues ensured fans couldn’t play for days. Even after their resolution, the sequel faced heavy criticism for removing features present in Payday 2, whether it was the pre-heist planning map, text chat, or just the option to unready. Sales were below expectations, and given the poor reception, Starbreeze has replaced its CEO to try and turn the ship around. Thus far, it doesn’t look like it’s happening anytime soon.

4. Redfall

Arkane Austin, which specialized in immersive sims like Dishonored and Prey – didn’t inspire too much confidence when it was revealed to be working on a co-op looter shooter. The lack of an offline mode or progress for other players except the host in co-op also didn’t help. On the bright side, the state of Redfall made both issues feel like water under the bridge.

Horrendous AI, performance issues, bugs galore (including catchy music playing during serious scenes), horrible bosses, a dull story, lackluster characterization, bad mission design – everything went wrong. You may argue that expectations were low, but Redfall sunk lower, and still flounders despite some major updates.

3. Battlefield 2042

This one hurt for longtime fans of the franchise, especially coming off of a relatively disappointing Battlefield 5. With no campaign, Battlefield 2042 promised a return to everything that made the series great, wrapped in the veneer of modern combat and massive 128-player battles. Reports emerged of troubled development, and the beta earned some ire, but fans were still hopeful.

Cue the disappointment and savage response on Steam, with the sequel becoming one of the lowest-rated games in the platform’s history overnight. From the removal of the class system to the visuals, destructibility, map design and the scoreboard – that damned scoreboard – Battlefield 2042 was a letdown in every way. It’s improved over the years but is still a far cry from the series’ peak.

2. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Before it was revealed as a live service looter shooter with a boring mission design, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League had a suitable amount of hype. How could fans not be excited when it was Rocksteady’s first new game since 2015’s Batman: Arkham Knight? After its disastrous showing last year, it was delayed almost a year from its original release. Maybe it would add an offline mode and tone down its live service elements, including but not limited to microtransactions and a battle pass.

As it turns out, none of these things happened, and when Suicide Squad launched, it was begrudged for its terrible mission design, repetitive gameplay and boring endgame. After Warner Bros. admitted that it fell short of expectations, Rocksteady would focus on fixing the plethora of network issues and bugs while prepping the first post-launch season. Unsurprisingly, Season of the Joker was another miserable disappointment with its utter lack of story content, boring “new” missions, annoying grind to unlock the Joker as a playable character and audacity to charge for immediate access.

1. Mass Effect Andromeda

Of all the games to disappoint over the years, this one probably hurt the most. It’s not like Mass Effect Andromeda was the next mainline title in the franchise or one that had the budget and resources of Mass Effect 2 and 3. However, as the first new entry in five years, fans looked forward to it all the same. The potential for a new story and setting with an open-world twist also sparked interest. When Andromeda launched, it was quickly clowned for its bugs, facial animation and dialogue.

Those who dived deeper discovered barren planets, uninteresting characters who couldn’t hold a candle to the original heroes and a low-stakes plot. The underwhelming critical reception and sales wouldn’t outright kill the franchise entirely (as evidenced by the recent Legendary Edition and upcoming sequel), but it was the first time that fans began to question BioWare. Of course, Anthem happened, and the rest is history, but Mass Effect Andromeda hurt more.

Redfall

It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that Arkane’s recent release Redfall was anything short of utterly disappointing. The game’s concept combined with the developer’s signature gameplay felt like a formula ripe for success, but the end result was a hotchpotch of ideas that never quite hit the mark. There are a few moments of greatness hidden somewhere deep beneath the pile of technical problems and frustrating game design, but those aren’t nearly enough to redeem Redfall’s fall from grace.

Forspoken

Forspoken was one of the earliest games to be showcased for the PS5, so naturally fan expectations were high. And to be honest, Forspoken did deliver with its smooth movement system that is an absolute joy to interact with. But everything surrounding that central mechanic such as the story, the gameplay, and the open-world designs left something to be desired – which ultimately made the end result an extremely underwhelming experience.

Mass Effect: Andromeda

The Mass Effect series still stands tall as one of the most prestigious RPGs of all time, and Mass Effect: Andromeda was set to be the next evolution of the franchise. Bioware tried some interesting things with the game, but the product heavily suffered due to development issues ranging from an unwieldy Frostbite Engine and external pressure from publishers. The final product was a technical mess, and while post-launch updates have fixed those surface-level issues – the design issues continue to make Andromeda a promising but failed experiment.

Gotham Knights

Gotham Knights felt like an interesting spin on the established formula of the Arkham games at first glance. The trailers and pre-release gameplay looked promising, but the final product was a bog standard co-op shooter where players would take on repetitive mission types and keep grinding towards arbitrary higher numbers. Add to that a weak story and poor graphics, and Gotham Knights becomes one of the worst games of recent memory.

Duke Nukem Forever

Duke Nukem Forever spent more than a decade in development, so when the game was finally set to release in 2011 – franchise fans rejoiced at the prospect of a modern sequel. Upon release, Duke Nukem Forever was harshly criticized on account of its tasteless humour, uninteresting gameplay, and poorly written story – which put a final nail in the coffin of this once prestigious franchise.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 (2023)

It’s fair to say that none of the Call of Duty games have been okay experiences but the recent release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has to go down as one of the most disappointing releases in the genre. And a lot of that criticism can be chalked up to the game’s blatant use of mindless missions, and its switch to an open-zone structure for select missions also feels extremely rushed and half-baked.

Rainbow Six: Extraction

The developer really knocked it out of the park with Rainbow Six: Siege, a game that continues to be one of the most popular multiplayer shooters on the market after such a long time. The developer tried to take those foundations and placate a wider audience with a zombie shooter in the form of Rainbow Six: Extraction, but those mechanics never really fit well with one another, to begin with. It’s not a horrible game, but it is a very mediocre release that never really reaches its true potential.

Marvel’s Avengers

A live-service game where you play as powerful superheroes from the Marvel universe was a formula ripe for success. Marvel’s Avengers was one of the most highly anticipated games of its time, and it quickly morphed into one of the most disappointing games following its troubled release. The game’s story wasn’t really interesting or engaging, the mission designs were extremely repetitive with you having to hold down choke points from enemies, and the progression loop was entirely based on chasing high numbers. The developer tried to turn the game’s fates around with post-launch updates and DLCs, but none of that really worked in the end.

The Callisto Protocol

The Callisto Protocol was hyped as the next big thing for survival horror, so there were more than a few people waiting to see what’s in store. We wouldn’t say that The Callisto Protocol is a terrible game; it has some really pretty visuals and the combat is pretty smooth too. But the game just couldn’t nail the ominous atmosphere that we loved in Dead Space and the jumpscares also fell flat in comparison to its inspirations. It wasn’t able to live up to its promise, and fans weren’t happy at all.

Thief

Thief: The Dark Project was a game that was well ahead of its time, and it’s a game that arguably laid the blueprint for modern stealth games to follow. So when the developer announced that Thief would be making a return with a reboot, many were understandably excited at the very prospect. The game was released in 2014, and failed to meet expectations by a significant margin. The gameplay felt watered down in comparison to the original, the story felt like a hotchpotch of ideas, and the game lacked any sort of personality – ultimately making it a bland experience.

Anthem

After a disappointing run with Andromeda, millions of Bioware fans had their eyes set on Anthem – the latest live-service RPG from the team behind Mass Effect. The game looked really promising in trailers and footage, but the final release was a faint shadow of what could have been. A weak story, half-baked mechanics, and blatant issues with the progression are just some of the problems that Anthem suffered from – which culminated in the game being yet another disappointing release. The developer wished to solve those issues with Anthem 2.0, but the developer pulled the plug before that update could see the light of day.

Need For Speed: Payback

Need For Speed: Payback released at a time when publisher EA went all out on microtransactions, and Payback also had all the markings of an unethically designed game. The progression was created to drive players into buying real currency with money, and that didn’t go unnoticed by players. In addition to this, Payback wasn’t really able to impress with its open-world or customization options or even the driving mechanics – which ultimately made it one of the biggest disappointments of its time.

Mafia 3

The Mafia series is known for its quality writing and interesting mission design, but the open world has always been somewhat bland with little in the name of interesting side activities. Mafia 3 tried to right those wrongs with an overhaul of its open-world designs, but those changes ended up biting back in the foot. The mission design was pretty redundant, culminating in a frustrating moment-to-moment gameplay experience. The story tackled some interesting themes, but it also felt flat compared to what came before.

Crackdown 3

Crackdown 3 was yet another game that suffered delay after delay, and when it was finally released in 2019 – there was a general consensus that it should have spent even more time in the oven. Crackdown 3 is an extremely dull game with a frustrating and repetitive gameplay loop, and it’s all presented without much attention to detail. Everything from the story to the gameplay and progression falls flat on its knees – making it a big disappointment for the patient fans.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint

The Ghost Recon series has been on a downward spiral as of late, and Breakpoint might just be the series at its absolute lowest. The game tried to refine the ideas introduced in Wildlands, but the execution left a lot to be desired. The systems and mechanics never quite meshed well with each other, and the many technical inefficiencies also don’t make things much better. It flopped on a critical and a commercial level, and that failure is what has resulted in the series being put on an indefinite hold.

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.

Block Your Shots

In some shooters, like Left 4 Dead, the AI is intelligent enough to move out of the way of your shots. In others, like the infamous Daikatana, your companions, Superfly Johnson and Mikiko, will run in front of your shots. Friendly fire is also enabled, so they can take damage and fall amid their stupidity, which is probably their least annoying trait.

Final Fantasy 16

Final Fantasy 16 may start fairly linear with some levels but quickly expands into more open environments like Rosaria and Sanbreque. The vistas are gorgeously rendered, and you’ll discover more side quests, interesting characters, and Notorious Marks to take down. Later, you’ll probably search for some rare materials and maybe take on some high-level Hunt targets.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Tears of the Kingdom’s events are in the same Hyrule as Breath of the Wild, and while there are similarities between the two maps, the sequel’s size is simply breathtaking. The Sky Islands hold numerous secrets, while the surface has been revamped with new dungeons, Shrines, Skyview Towers and areas. Then there are the Depths with overwhelming Gloom and hidden secrets that beg to be explored. Suffice it to say that the new Zonai vehicles are a must when getting around.

Diablo 4

Even if one region can blend into another at times, Diablo 4 has an impressive scale. The Fractured Peaks with their snow-covered surroundings; Scosglen with its creepy woods and shores – there’s a lot to take in, and that’s before you wander off towards the dozens of different Dungeons. When that’s not enough, Strongholds with unique goals, side quests, World Events, and more await your frantic clicking.

Everspace 2

It’s crazy to think that Everspace 2 wasn’t supposed to start with this massive scale when it entered early access. The full title offers multiple star systems, each with random distress calls, side missions, puzzles, High-Risk Areas and much more to explore. You can pick up new spaceships, mine materials, take on new companions and maybe venture into Ancient Rifts for some end-game challenges.

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores

Burning Shores is an expansion, meaning it won’t approach the base game’s scope and scale. However, considering Forbidden West’s massive size, being one-third as big is still pretty significant. Along with venturing into Fleet’s End and meeting its various characters or venturing to the newest Cauldron, underwater exploration expands significantly thanks to the new Waterwing, while the skies are like their own region due to the massive clouds.

Forspoken

Its open-world design leaves much to be desired, but you can’t accuse Forspoken of not being large in scale. Each region has its share of treasure chests, resources, activities and hidden Labyrinths. There are even powerful world bosses providing a tough challenge, side quests, the standard towers, refuges and much more to discover. Traversing all of it is also pretty enjoyable once you master the magical parkour.

Hogwarts Legacy

Not factoring in the 100-plus side quests, the world of Hogwarts Legacy can be pretty absurd in its scale. When you venture outside the school and start taking in the Highlands with its enemy outposts, Trials and powerful foes, there is much to discover. Whether you’re content with raising fantastic beasts in the Vivarium or battling in Dark Arts Arenas, the world provides plenty of chances to test your spell-wielding.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was already incredibly vast with its environments, but Jedi: Survivor goes much bigger. Some areas like Coruscant are straightforward but offer plenty of chests, Bounty Targets and secrets.

Like a Dragon: Ishin!

The Yakuza/Like a Dragon series has prided itself on packing its worlds with stuff to do, and Like a Dragon: Ishin! is no exception. Kyo during the Bakumatsu is full of restaurants to eat at, schools to train and even underground arenas to fight (not counting the dungeons). You’ll spend much time running around, helping people in deep Side Stories, and maybe some farming on the side. Even if its structure is from 2014, Ishin!’s world design carries over into the modern era quite well.

Sons of the Forest

Despite being in early access, Sons of the Forest offers a vast sandbox to mess around in. The expanded building and options allow for creating extensive bases, but there’s plenty to see when you venture into the caves or discern the island’s mysteries. Foraging for resources during different seasons with Kelvin, sledding off the highest peak or fighting for your life – Sons of the Forest truly has it all.

Dead Island 2

Forgoing its predecessor’s open-world approach, Dead Island 2 relies on self-contained levels teeming with zombies. However, when you’re not progressing through the main story, there are plenty of weapon quests, Missing Person reports, Special Infected and more. There are tons of activities to experience, even if you’re just looking for better weapons to slay the undead.

Miasma Chronicles

Like Mutant Year Zero, Miasma Chronicles offers a massive world with side quests and secrets to explore. However, the post-apocalyptic United States is two to three times larger, with varied locales, tons of buildings to explore, containers to loot and enemy outposts to sneak through or attack head-on. It further feeds into letting you approach conflicts in any way you choose, even if combat could be improved.

Atomic Heart

Much like several other titles on this list, Mundfish’s action RPG shooter isn’t a massive open world but one broken up into different biomes. There are dozens of main story chapters to complete, but wandering through the different biomes reveals memorable side content, lore, loot, flying houses to find and robots to alert and subsequently fight. The story is the main appeal, but these little detours are worth it.

LEGO 2K Drive

LEGO 2K Drive has its share of issues, which is a shame, given the game’s potential. Bricklania is a fully realized playground with lots of content to experience, whether you’re venturing through the canyons and rivers of Big Butte Country and taking in the sights at Prospecto Valley. It’s not a seamlessly connected world like Forza Horizon, but each of the four biomes has enough to keep you busy.

WILD HEARTS

While Monster Hunter Rise saw Capcom going smaller scale with its levels, Omega Force saw the scale of Monster Hunter World’s levels and went even bigger. The different Hunting Grounds of Azuma each sport unique Kemono to hunt and are massive, making traversing them equally enthralling thanks to the combination of zip-lines, Rollers, and gliders.