The year 2021 is coming to a close, so it’s time to look back at what the year has offered when it comes to video games.
Some phenomenal games like Hitman 3, Far Cry 6 and Mass Effect Legendary Edition brought a smile to gamers the world over, but there were also plenty of duds.
And many who enjoy video games have long relied on Metacritic to separate the wheat from the chaff, picking up the top-rated games and avoiding those whose score appears within the dreaded red box…
Metacritic itself recently posted its list of the worst video games of 2021, with 10 games having the dubious honor of being amongst the year’s worst.
These games were not only made by small indie developers, but there were also some big names involved – the likes of Konami and Rockstar put out games so bad that they made Metacritic’s worst of 2021 list.
Actually, Konami’s eFootball 2022 was regarded by Metacritic as the worst game of the year… It seems the Japanese company’s rebranding of its Pro Evolution Soccer franchise and adopting a free to play model did them no good, as eFootball 2022 was ridiculed at launch this September due to its inadequacies, including its poor graphics and lack of content, amongst other things.
Its Metacritic score of 25 is testament to that.
It was a promising game which turned out to be a dud, as Konami has seemingly handed over the market to its big rival FIFA this year, but we expect this to improve in the future as the inevitable patches arrive.
Also, much was expected of Rockstar’s remaster of the Grand Theft Auto games. The remastered trilogy including GTA III, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas should have been a cracker (like EA’s Mass Effect Legendary Edition was) but instead turned out to be a dud.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition arrived with a plethora of issues that made enjoying the games impossible for many people. The remastered trilogy of GTA games scored a lowly 47 on Metacritic for the Nintendo Switch version, which was the worse version of the lot according to critics. This is even more jarring taking into account that the original games which comprise the remastered trilogy had 90+ scores back in the day, as Metacritic points out.
Although at least Rockstar has promised to fix the games via updates, so here’s hoping that the trilogy is in much better shape in a couple of months’ time, even if Rockstar’s reputation definitely took a hit this year.
Other games making the list include Necromunda: Hired Gun, a first-person shooter which takes place in the world of Warhammer 40K. This was criticized due to its buggy release, unexciting action and for being a bit too similar to Doom, but obviously not as good.
There’s also the FMV game I Saw Black Clouds (pictured above) on the list of worst video games of 2021. Because even though you might think that interactive movie type video games had long gone out of fashion, some developers are still producing them, even if I Saw Black Clouds definitely isn’t the best example of the genre according to the critics.
See below for a list of the 10 worst games of 2021 according to Metacritic.
10. Necromunda: Hired Gun (scored 49 on PS4)
9. Demon Skin (scored 48 on PC)
8. Arkham Horror: Mother’s Embrace (scored 48 on PC)
7. I Saw Black Clouds (scored 48 on PS4)
6. Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition (scored 47 on Nintendo Switch)
5. Of Bird and Cage (scored 44 on PC)
4. Taxi Chaos (scored 42 on PS4)
3. Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood (scored 42 on PS4)
2. Balan Wonderworld (scored 36 on Nintendo Switch)
1. eFootball 2022 (scored 25 on PC)