2023 was a bumpy year for the whole entertainment industry. Gaming prices have been up recently as the recession kicked in after the pandemic. That’s where the good old gaming industry wants to lure more players into paying more money after they’ve bought the game already. Premium accounts, alongside other money gambling simulators such as the opening of “mystery” boxes and other microtransactions, are just the tip of the iceberg. Paying for cosmetics seems reasonable if we don’t count advertising to children. As we can all witness gaming industry is declining year by year, in terms of quality of course. More and more fans are switching to indie games if they’re looking for a good story or a different type of gameplay. Without further ado let’s take a roller coaster of time and go back to revisit Worst Games Of 2023 for PC.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
Image Credits: Daedalic Entertainment
Since I’m a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings and the whole Tolkien Universe, this was one personal. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was the game which I don’t know who hated more; developers or the players. The fall of the Gollum game foreshadowed that 2023 was going to be a nasty year. Every year after 2019 seems to get worse, ever since the Pandemic started and ended, but that wasn’t the end as the financial crisis and recession arrived right afterward. The failure of Gollum in my mind and heart was worse and the Pandemic and recession combined. The first problem with The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was that the graphics were better in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King from 2003, at least for that age it was decent, to be honest. What Amazon’s Rings of Power was for LoTR movie fans, so was Gollum for LoTR gaming fans.
If we neglect the huge problem of outdated graphics and textures, we’ll have to take a closer look at the gameplay. Everything was clunky to be modest, from the camera which is all over the place to the animation stopping during the dialogues. The biggest problem is that the game had a bright future and it had a nice first trailer, but it was all just for hipe in the end. The story is boring, so we won’t even bother covering it. The game in some parts doesn’t allow you to run and you can just walk past the guards as they can’t see you at all. You’ve got a couple of hours of good old “press “X” to perform Slave labor”. If there was one positive thing to say about this game it’s that it was nice to hear the voice of Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf once again. Even Metacritic put it as one of its 10 worst games of 2023.
The Last of Us Part 1 (PC)
Image Credits: Naughty Dog
Okay, first we’ve got to talk about porting games from consoles to PCs. Back in the early 2000s and 2010s, it was fun looking at all the people on YT and other platforms and forums using emulators. Once the gaming industry saw a huge potential in “rereleasing” the same game just with clunkier controls, the era of “porting games” was born. I’m not talking about porting 8-bit games to PC, since this was done for free and with love by real game fanatics. Now let’s not be too harsh, some games are really good ports like Death Stranding, Days Gone, and Mad Max, just to name a few. Overall that wasn’t the case for most games and one of them is The Last of US Part 1.
Boy oh boy, where do we start? First of all The Last of US was released a decade ago (2013) and if you want it to play in 2023 you’ll need GeForce RTX 4080 or Radeon RX 7900XTX. Texture quality in the game is far behind other games of 2023 and compared to consoles it’s more similar to PS3 than PS5. Even if PC players swallowed this and bought more powerful cards, the game was still crashing for most players. If you look it up on Steam it has a 6/10 score which is disappointing for Naughty Dog as a well reputable gaming company. Some players even compare it to be even worse than infamous The Callisto Protocol from 2022. FPSs are falling even during the cutscenes for players who have the most powerful PCs. Mouse controls are lagging and glitching, overall the game isn’t optimized for PC at all, but the price is modest $59.99.
Greyhill Incident
Image Credits: Refugium Games
Although the other games on our list are AAA games, I decided to put this one on a list as it was kind of a personal disappointment. I’m a true fan of horror games and especially indie games or even more particularly indie horror games. Greyhill incident was the horror for horror games, it was what Gollum was for LoTR fans, it was an overpromised and overhyped mess. I’m working in marketing, but man what can these companies do is called scamming and not a marketing stunt or trick. First of all, the gameplay is terrible as you’re running around a town filled with the stupidest NPC aliens ever. The story is nonsense and it’s kinda funny since the creators of the game were inspired by the movie Signs and Fire in the Sky. The part about a government alien conspiracy is both bland and disappointing. The overall graphics on the other hand aren’t “that bad” Since it was an indie game I won’t be too critical about this part. Greyhill Incident was something that I hoped they wouldn’t mess up, but even the indie gaming industry makes mistakes from time to time.
I have a problem with indie games like this disappearing, as the idea and the trailer as well as the gameplay seemed perfect. I can understand why big corp studios and franchise like Assassin’s Creed are failing their fans, one aspect of it being brand recognition. On the other hand, if the management sees that the numbers are going up and the game is selling, it’s okay for them; but for indie games, this is not the case. Just like Eminem says in “Lose Yourself – You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow; This opportunity comes once in a lifetime”. Greyhill Incident just like the Gollum will be remembered as the worst game of 2023 by not only horror fans but among indie gaming fans too.
Diablo IV
Image Credits: Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
Big news for Diablo fans from Blizzard, another franchise has been successfully ruined! Hip hip hooray! Yes, indeed, they’ve officially destroyed Diablo IV and its community in less than a month. Unfortunately, as a huge fan of games developed by Blizard, this was well expected. After seeing the Warcraft III Reforged and if you remember the Diablo Immortal announcement being “booed” by the fans…well this was foreshadowed a long time ago. First of all Blizzard nerfed dungeons after launching Diablo 4 to prevent players from leveling rapidly. Next, they’ve nerfed abilities that were the best in each of the classes. Most of the players used the same builds for their heroes, and thus the game became less and less fun…Once again the giant soulless corporate entity took away the happiness from the players.
Just like the rest of the games on this list Diablo 4 has 6/10 on Steam which is humiliating for the franchise and Blizzard. It’s not new that big gaming companies have stopped caring for their fans, but this was just right in the face. I just have to comment on the humble price of only $69.99 for the basic edition and $99.99 for the ultimate edition. By many true Diablo and Blizzard fans, this was probably the worst game of 2023, as most players waited for it since 2012. Blizzard just simply isn’t the same company anymore, they’ve done what they did and they should rather create a whole new game or just stop destroying good old projects. This reminds me of an old South Park episode with Indiana Jones, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas.
Will 2023 be missed as a year for gamers?
This is it when it comes to the worst games of 2023, and this was just the most anticipated and most ruined project; there are plenty more to come. Some of the games that received positive feedback were Baludrs Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, Alan Wake 2, Amnesia: The Bunker, and Hogwarts Legacy, just to name a few. Another contributing factor to the gaming industry is massive layoffs, especially in Blizzard. Again it has to do with the pandemic and recession, but we’ve all felt the impact. If 2023 was a person I’d say to it “Go home you’re drunk” rather than “You won’t be missed”- like we all did to 2020 and 2021. Hope that you’ve all enjoyed the recap of worst memories from 2023 and stay positive.
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