Metacritic Reveals The 10 Worst Video Games Of 2021

And to think GTA trilogy is still in the charts, just shows metacritic doesnt have much inffluence.

And surely there's been worse games than balan wonderland

Wow, just noticed project zero in there as well and I enjoyed that game, just goes to show you shouldn't put too much into review scores

I played Recompile, Dark Alliance and Skate Bird all on game pass. I thought Recompile was pretty good and I want to go back to it. I felt like dark alliance just needed a lot of polish/patches and I expect to try it again soon. Skate Bird was bad. I would of bought it too and I'm glad I got to try it out.

I didn't realise Necromunda was reviewed so poorly. All the coverage I saw of it, and gameplay videos seemed quite positive, or average at worst. Surprised it's the 3rd "worst" xbox game this year.

@Halucigens I've heard that SkateBird has a patch that's really improved the controls. Not had a chance to revisit it, but heard it really helps. That was only one of it's issues, but glad to hear they did something.

@PhileasFragg maybe these review sites should revise their reviews once patches have been released, I mean a game could be buggy and broken on release then 2 months after be fixed and be one of the best games of the year, but it would still have the review scores of its initial release which would put people off buying it.

If your interested in a game its always worth taking the gamble instead of basing your purchase off a written review

Necromunda: Hired Gun is much improved from its launch state. Framerate and glitches all improved drastically. It’s a pretty fun Doom-like shooter. I’d give it a 7.5/10 in its current state.

I don’t understand why the devs didn’t delay it. A few more weeks even would have made a huge difference to release with those patches. Probably be in the 70s and not 40s on Metacritic.

As someone who has played every Pes religiously since the original and ISS before that....wtf where they thinking...game is unresponsive and stripped back garbage....even years where Pes was weaker it still was a decent game...but efootball 2022 is abysmal....

I just hope it doesn't kill the series off and they can go back and build off what they had with the previous games

12 Minutes has gotten off very lightly not showing up on this list.

@PhileasFragg Maybe I'll check it out. I still visit Skater XL and Riders Republic to get my extreme sports fix.

Seeing GTA there is pretty sad even if i'm mostly ok with the PS5 version. Who would have thought EA would have put out a far better and more feature complete remaster collection then R* this year.

@UltimateOtaku91 nah, these devs/pubs should put out a finish product. For some $60+ is too much to gamble.

I'll still buy Creed Champions when it's a tenner or less...

Oh man Hired Gun isn't actually that bad is it? I've read some of the reviews back when it launched but figured it might be worthwhile for the €20 it currently costs in the sale?

@SteveButler2210 I enjoyed 12 minutes till the twist and they just lost me. Such a shame as really interesting premise.

12 minutes was a fine game...nowhere near being deserving of this list....solid 7 out of 10

Wow, Yuji Naka really hit it out of the park. Balan Wonderworld has almost as high a Metacritic score as the entire GTA trilogy!

Necromunda is great...for the 5 mins that you aren't suddenly falling through the floor that is

How is Cyberpunk not on this list? Its still a broken mess!

@UltimateOtaku91 Nor should it have much influence. It's an aggregator with a methodology that will never inherently make full sense: it assigns scores to reviews that don't use them, and absolutely no media outlet has a true standardized metric or process for scoring within their organizations let alone outside of them (to the point where the same John Doe doing a review for a game they rate 8/10 will still mean something different for another game also rated at 8/10; similar case for the Jane Smith's review for the same games, regardless of whether she works at the same employer or not).

Plus, no offense to everybody, but it's kind of lazy to look at an "aggregated" score and be done with it.

@MyThoughts31 This list is for games released in 2021, Cyberpunk was released in 2020.

@UltimateOtaku91 It's not the best in the series but Maiden of Black Water is a very solid game in its genre. I pre-ordered it and I also have the Wii U Limited Edition.

@Jark Since Metacritic exists, any game above 60 might be great. Scores depend on the genre, the franchise, the publisher, the website and the reviewer. To get critical acclaim requires a list of boxes that not all games will tick. It's somewhat like trying to reach the end of the Treasure Chest game in Ocarina of Time.

@Jark Metacritic is a plague, saw it destroy the industry in real time from the inside.... It's so horrible....

Hitchhikers guide always rings true. The meaning of life is 42. The quality of a game is 84. Who needs words, we have math to decide for us!

@SteveButler2210 No way, 12 Minutes doesn't play very fluently, but it's so creative it doesn't deserve to be on the list with worst ratings.

I played SkateBird for a minute, and a 60 score is way too forgiving.

Furthermore, I agree with @NEStalgia. Some of the games I loved most this year are The Gunk, Omno and The Procession to Cavalry, which I wouldn't have picked up from the Metacritic rating.

That's the thing though, isn't it?

Trying yourself on Game Pass > Metacritic.

I played 12 Minutes until the end and I got all the achievements. The gameplay is rough and annoying and the story did nothing for me but like Last Stop I beat them without paying a cent, on Game Pass. The voice acting is good. I enjoyed more Last Stop and it got worse reviews (69 vs. 74). The best thing about 12 Minutes is to call the insurance company and they keep you holding the line for the whole game cycle, twelve minutes, brilliant criticism 😂.

Game Pass > Metacritic (like the comment above). Seriously, Game Pass might be the first thing to challenge reviews, especially for new and small games.

The list only factors in initial review scores. A lot of these have since improved enough to comfortably escape this list.

The GTA Trilogy fully deserves its spot, though. It was a lazy cash grab by R*, who seem to subside purely on nostalgia and decades old releases these days.

To each their own, of course - I know some folk genuinely enjoyed it, but it wasn't to my taste at all.