10 Video Games With Incredible Stories But Terrible Gameplay

Soma is an extremely moody survival horror game best remembered for its deeply unnerving, mysterious narrative, in which protagonist Simon Jarrett slowly comes to learn the jaw-dropping nature of his presence at an underwater, remote research facility.

The story packs quite the visceral punch, especially once all the cards have been played at game's haunting end, yet the narrative is wrapped around a perfunctory, low-effort gameplay loop.

Exploring the facility to gradually uncover clues about your predicament is fine enough, but developers Frictional Games decided to pad things out with tedious enemy encounters.

The hide-and-seek stealth gameplay manages to be both boring and frustrating, as though Frictional felt they had to include these mechanics to make the game more appealing to those who would otherwise dismiss it as a "walking simulator."

In fact, the pushback against the enemy design was prominent enough that Frictional eventually released a "Safe Mode" update, which stopped the game's monsters from killing the player, allowing them to just focus on the infinitely more compelling story.