10 Most Disappointing Video Games Of 2023 (So Far)

It's going to be hard to forget how hard Redfall BOMBED.

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Mundfish

We've just crossed over the halfway point of 2023 and it's been a strange year indeed. Every franchise under the sun is pumping out remakes, PlayStation have unveiled "Project Q" which is basically a Wii U controller for the PS5 and the expected reveal of Metroid Prime 4 as Nintendo's holiday title still seems to be absent.

Taking a step back to look at the games we've had drop in the last six months tells a story of two very different halves.

The biggest successes were all approached with some hesitation. Could a remake of Resident Evil 4 live up to the original? Was Final Fantasy XVI absolutely ditching turn-based mechanics going to dilute the franchise? Was Tears of the Kingdom going to be too similar to Breath of the Wild? Thankfully, each of these games have all found themselves with largely positive receptions.

But there have been as many, or in fact more, games that had our interest that totally dropped the ball in some form or another. Some of these titles might still be worth playing but they weren't the homeruns that they needed to be or that we were hoping for.

Nobody likes to be disappointed, especially not when games are more expensive than ever.

10. Star Wars Jedi Survivor

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Respawn

Performance issues are the order of the day, and have been for some time in gaming, and there seems to be no end in sight.

And here's the thing - Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a good game. In fact, some people absolutely love it, and they're quite right to! It offers plenty of gameplay variation and the visuals give a stunning look into the galaxy far, far away.

A worthy sequel that goes toe-to-toe with 2019's Fallen Order.

That doesn't mean however, that it didn't immediately set everyone's teeth on edge thanks to the industry standard of awful optimisation issues. Whilst MetaCritic is a poor place to look for user scores these days, Jedi: Surivor's negative reviews definitely paint quite the picture as many players were felt horribly let down by the game's performance woes.

Screen-tearing and an inconsistent frame rate were pretty much an issue on every system, but PC players had it worse with all manner of freezes and shader stuttering. Poor optimisation options left players without any way of trying to correct the problems themselves. Updates have been since issued but what's incredibly damning is that these same troubles were present in Fallen Order and never truly fixed.

Hence, angry fans that say "enough is enough"! You know, until next time...

Contributor
Contributor

The Red Mage of WhatCulture. Very long hair. She/they.