2021 has been a strange year for video games. While there are many titles that have taken the Internet by storm, some have done so for the wrong reasons. The ongoing pandemic has caused many studios to work from home, leading to delays and reworks, tougher working conditions, and difficulties meeting deadlines.
Many publishers and investors force their programmers to release unfinished games anyway and fix the problems later. This is something we saw prominently in the case of Cyberpunk 2077, and it's a practice that's still being maintained.
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Games from high-budget developers have high expectations to live up to, and when those expectations aren't met, they spark violent reactions on social media. So, here is a list of the worst games of 2021.
After two years of development by its mobile games division, Rockstar Games has released a remaster of its classic titles – GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas. The trilogy was renewed for a new generation and featured major visual and technical overhauls that received poor reception.
Upon release, the version was riddled with bugs, typos, poorly rendered textures, and more. Character models looked warped, bridges were missing, and the iconic soundtrack was dropped.
In San Andreas, some people experienced rain so heavy that it was nearly impossible to see anything on the screen. To add salt to the wound, data miners on the PC version were able to find comments from rude developers, unlicensed music files, and the controversial 'Hot Coffee' minigame within the code.
As damage control, Rockstar withdrew the PC version from sale and shut down their servers for 24 hours to fix the issues. Or, more importantly, to get rid of these “unintentional files”. Rockstar has since started working to squash the bugs and, as a sign of apology, has even brought back the original trilogy to its online store.
One of this year's most ambitious shooters, Battlefield 2042 got off to a brave start when it announced the withdrawal of its single-player story mode. With a heavy focus on its multiplayer segment, the game introduced cross-platform play, larger maps, and 128-player matches.
The stakes were extremely high, and even the early access version made it clear that the game was far from over. But EA released the game anyway and within a week, BF2042 became one of the lowest rated games on Steam.
Since launch day, reports about unstable servers and ridiculous bugs started piling up. The game would crash when entering a match, bullet hits would not register, and it was a general mess.
Weapons and vehicles were also unbalanced where you could drive hovercrafts through vertical walls and it was practically more reliable than an army tank.
Classic Battlefield hallmarks such as destructible environments and realistic soldier movement are no longer were viewed the most, and the developers even tinkered with its iconic soundtrack, where it almost sounds like the cries of whales.
But above all, its biggest lack of judgment has to be the removal of the leaderboard and voice chat from the game. In an online multiplayer shooter, these things are essential to help you strategize and plan your actions.
But, the developers got rid of it as a way to prevent toxicity, although muting the voice chat is always an option for players. The BF2042 is now undergoing major changes in the form of 4 separate patches.
To compete with EA's FIFA franchise, Konami decided to go with a free-to-play strategy this year, where players could enjoy the football simulation game as an online service.
The title, formerly known as 'Pro Evolution Soccer' was renamed 'eFootball' and was the first in the series to use Unreal Engine 4, although it didn't work very well.
Upon release, eFootball 2022 became a laughing stock, where fans and critics alike commented on its atrocious visuals. It wasn't long before embarrassing images of a deformed Ronaldo and a tired-looking Messi were making the rounds on social media.
From a technical point of view, the game had a sluggish engine that was unresponsive to its controls, poor gameplay, and the grass fields would frequently start flickering. Even the core aspect of a football game, the physics of the ball were completely different where it would behave strangely and not go to the person you were passing it to. Furthermore, it was also lacking in content, offering only 9 playable teams and a single ticket to an online tournament.
eFootball 2022 currently has a negative reception on Steam, and Konami has even had to come forward and apologize for its mistakes, promising to fix the game in future patches.
The main purpose of creating a VR-based shooter is that you get more flexibility than on a standard console or PC. DOOM 3 VR, however, is a direct and completely unaltered version of the classic PC game, made for the keyboard and mouse.
The environment and enemies are on a two-dimensional plane, certain moves don't work as intended and are generally slow, and don't even allow you to dodge incoming projectiles. approach.
Upon its reveal, Balan Wonderworld became one of the most anticipated titles of this year, all thanks to the involvement of its visionary director Yuji Naka. As a 2D/3D puzzle platformer that drew heavily from their previous 'NiGHTS' games, it was rather slow and had a weird control scheme that relied on a tedious one-click mechanic. button.
Structurally, it was like a sandbox Super Mario game, but here you could put on different clothes. that would give you special abilities, go through levels and fight a boss at the end of each chapter. It's a lot of content for a simple platform game, and it feels like a mess. Visually, it looked like a game that was released 10 years ago and the story was told in chunks, forcing the player to buy a separate e-book to get the full story.