Going through the worst video games of 2023 based on Metacritic scores sure is a ride. While you’ve got your usual complaints – too many microtransactions, not enough to do, and things like that – there’s a streak of broken promises and severe pushback against questionable monetization that runs through most of them this year. Kickstarter backers expected more, sports fans got less, and tight publishing schedules meant some games shipped long before they should have. Then there was Activision Blizzard, whose games just did not fare well with consumers this year.
It’s not a pretty task, but we’ve sorted through the rubble and picked out the worst games of 2023 according to Metacritic user scores.
Curse of the Sea Rats
- User Score: 2.4
- Critic Score: 61
Critics considered Sea Rats an average action platformer, which is fine. Consumers took a rather dimmer view, and there’s a reason for that. Sea Rats relied on a Kickstarter campaign, so those who backed it and supported it financially were expecting something more than just “average.”
NBA 2K24
- User Score: 2.2
- Critic Score: 69
Sports games have a pretty rough go of it in the user score section. Fans grew tired of annual releases with few big changes in the 2010s, and it hasn’t changed much since. In NBA 2K24’s case, many of the changes have actually made the experience worse mechanically and technically, with new-gen updates not available on PC and a slew of microtransactions that angered players.
Diablo 4
- User Score: 2.1
- Critic Score: 86
Most critics consider Diablo 4 a highlight of 2023, and they praised the story and refined combat systems above all else. 80 percent of almost 9,000 user reviews disagree with those positive takes, though for quite different reasons. Most of them take issue with how Activision Blizzard handled microtransactions and purchasable skins after launch – most skins cost about as much as the game itself, a problem made worse by the fact that Diablo 4 isn’t a free-to-play game. It doesn’t help that Activision Blizzard isn’t a company in many people’s good books this year either, or, admittedly, for the last few years..
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
- User Score: 1.6
- Critic Score: 53
Here’s one where critics and fans were more closely aligned. Modern Warfare 3 didn’t go over well with a lot of people, with its short campaign shipped at full price and even multiplayer modes that seemed unfinished compared to what Activision delivered with Modern Warfare 2.
Blood Bowl 3
- User Score: 1.6
- Critic Score: 57
Older Blood Bowl games are pretty popular with a certain set of sports fans, but that’s because they actually shipped in finished form. Blood Bowl 3 was loaded with bugs and other problems at launch, and while they’re likely to vanish as the team patches them out, it still left a poor impression.
Overwatch 2
- User Score: 1.4
- Critic Score: 79
Overwatch 2’s Steam release kicked off its exit from early access, and it went over horribly. Within hours, it became one of Steam’s worst-reviewed games of all time, as players expressed their disappointment with expensive skins, broken promises – including no PvE mode, which was originally the justification for removing Overwatch 1 – and a lack of any big changes compared to the first game.
Madden NFL 24
- User Score: 1.3
- Critic Score: 65
Madden NFL 24 didn’t do anything wrong, necessarily, but the issue was that it didn’t really try to do anything right either. Madden 24 is very much more of the same, plus it launched with a fair share of glitches and problems.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
- User Score: 1.2
- Critic Score: 34
Gollum is one of the rare cases where critics and consumers disliked the same things and disliked them strongly. Gollum was a horribly buggy game that didn’t deliver on the team’s original promises and, somehow, felt even clunkier and less satisfying to play than the PS2-era licensed platformers it seemingly took inspiration from.
Greyhill Incident
- User Score: 1.0
- Critic Score: 38
Greyhill Incident is one of those unfortunate cases where a game never surpasses its inspirations. Everything Greyhill tries has been done before, which makes it hard to recommend checking out.
Pinball FX
- User Score: 0.6
- Critic Score: 74
Pinball FX was always going to struggle. While the dev team envisioned it as a soft reboot of the series, they expected players to pay $10 for every new table they wanted – even if they owned the same table in other games. That’s just asking for horrible reviews, which is a shame, as the game itself is pretty good.
Written by Ryan Woodrow and Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
