25 Worst Video Games of Each Year (2000 - 2025)

Top 25 Worst Games of Each Year (2000-2024)


Welcome to WatchMojo, and today, we’re going through the past quarter-century and looking at the worst game that came out between 2000 and 2024. Who’s ready to wallow in the filth?

2000: “Mortal Kombat: Special Forces”

Midway was really struggling in getting “Mortal Kombat” to transition into the early years of 3D gaming. Some may point to “Mythologies” as the worst game in the franchise, but there is a strong case to be made for “Special Forces”. A game starring Jax and his burly cybernetic muscles sounds awesome until you start littering the game with the same two corridors and rooms as the previous two. It winds up making the game feel insanely repetitive, especially when all we’re doing is just going room-to-room to beat up baddies. That’s your loop? Really?

2001: “The Simpsons Wrestling”

Now, you want to talk about one of the worst games to come out on the first PlayStation console? Here’s your big ticket item! “The Simpsons Wrestling” is an absolute mess from head to toe with its annoying audio, horrendous visuals, and unbelievable busted gameplay. Regardless if it’s you or the AI, be prepared to hear the same couple of sound effects and dialogue in quick succession. And pray to God that you don’t ever have to fight Ned Flanders as he is the one character that breaks the entire game. You would think that title would go to Mr. Burns and Smithers as you fight them both on a 2v1 match, but when you got Mr. Diddly-Doo here calling God to strike you down repeatedly, controllers will get thrown.

2002: “Sneakers”

Between the Big Three, Xbox has never really had that strong of a lineup when it comes to exclusives. Case in point, “Sneakers”, an action-puzzler published by Xbox Game Studios themselves when they were known as Microsoft Game Studios. “Sneakers” tasked players with leading groups of mice through a series of rooms to fight other mice hiding in various spots. And that’s all there is to this game. Wander around, fight mice, head to a slightly bigger area, fight more mice, rinse and repeat until you fall asleep. Or hope the tediousness causes the disc to crash. Considering this was a game you could only buy from a Toys R Us store, you would hope the toy store chain would have known this was not worth the investment before the game was out.

2003: “Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing”

In the wonderful world of racing games, you will never find a more wretched hive of bugs and glitches as “Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing”. Look, we won’t judge anyone for shopping at their preferred retail store, but being a WalMart exclusive game is already setting off some alarms in our heads. “Big Rigs” lacks any semblance of vehicle physics, collision detection, not even proper level design as you can drive over any and all terrain regardless of whether it makes logical sense. This would only be one of the earliest signs of GameMill Entertainment’s abysmal efforts in becoming a notable games publisher.

2004: “The Guy Game”

Given the hot water “The Guy Game” found itself in after launch, it’s impossible for any other game that came out in 2004 to top this one. For those unaware, “The Guy Game” was a simple trivia game where players had to answer questions from various categories. The better they perform, the more uncensored the game gets as…um, “Hotties” expose themselves to the camera for getting questions wrong. It could have been deemed as just a weird game for anyone to own until one of the contestants filed a lawsuit against developer Topheavy Studios towards the end of 2004. Turns out, the contestant was not of age when she participated in the game’s recording. The Texas justice system ruled in favor of the contestant and ordered Topheavy to cease all distribution of “The Guy Game”. Topheavy’s response on their website: “the Man has decided that our fun and hilarious presentation of spring break revelry just wasn't appropriate for the world of gaming." Topheavy would close its doors in 2005.

2005: “Ninjabread Man”

Moving on to slightly less manure-filled pastures, “Ninjabread Man” was just one of many shovelware titles flooding the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii throughout the 2000s. While a violent gingerbread man sounds like it’d make for an awesome video game, the idea is quickly deflated when you realize the game is only three levels long, not including the tutorial. Its reputation only worsened as developer Data Design Interactive would take the game’s levels and reskin them for a handful of other games. So, if you ever played “Rock & Roll Adventures”, “Trixie in Toyland”, or “Anubis II”, you have experienced the same clunky combat and unreliable controls as “Ninjabread Man”.

2006: “Sonic the Hedgehog”

While revisionists today like to pretend like “Sonic ‘06 was actually good”... No. No, it wasn’t “actually good”, and it never has been under any lens. For some reason, SEGA joined the handful of other publishers that were trying to make their cartoony mascots gritty in embarrassing ways. But what made “Sonic ‘06” stand out from “Bomberman: Act Zero” were three things. First, the broken physics which often made Sonic uncontrollable or defied any and all logic in physics. Second, the lack of unique visuals in environments, resulting in a generic-looking game. And lastly, shall we all remember that infamous kiss scene? Yeah, “actually good” our keisters!

2007: “Boogie”

Developers, if you ever have your heart set on making a music game for your next product, it is absolutely critical that you make your controls and input latency as accurate and responsive as possible. EA Montreal seemed to have forgotten that little tidbit as “Boogie” was as hard or easy as you wanted to make it. The microphone peripheral barely worked half of the time while the motion controls for dancing were so loose that you could just flail the hell out of it and still pass every song. That said, good luck getting through your favorite songs if you’re wanting to sing and dance to them.

2008: “FaceBreaker”

For a time, Electronic Arts was making a solid push for sports games aimed towards casual players with their “EA Sports Freestyle” label. The first of these games was “FaceBreaker”, and it was not only the first under this label, it was among the worst games EA ever published. We can respect the presentation and character designs here, but when the AI is so unforgiving with its input-reading and borderline Touch Of Death combos, “FaceBreaker” becomes utterly rage-inducing and annoying. It doesn’t help that some characters have game-breaking moves like hypnosis or firing missiles.

2009: “Rogue Warrior”

An action game starring Mickey Rourke sounds like it could make for a highly entertaining experience. Plus, we don’t see many games set in the Cold War era. The thing is that “Rogue Warrior” was too painful to play even after Bethesda brought Rebellion Developments in to try and save the game. Alas, it was too late. “Rogue Warrior” was plagued by an absolutely abysmal story, boring combat encounters that amounted to visceral shooting galleries, and an absurdly short campaign that would only take you a little over an hour to finish. The only thing that came out of this game that was kind of neat was the famous rap Rourke performs during the credits. At least that turned out to be “so bad it’s good”.

2010: “Final Fantasy XIV”

Most folks forget that “A Realm Reborn” was not the first iteration of “Final Fantasy XIV”, hence the name. No, the original version was a completely different game in the worst ways possible! While many loved the world of Eorzea, the user interface was abysmal in how menu-riddled it was, not to mention the general confusing layout. Plus, the game constantly suffered from performance issues no matter which way you went; frame drops, stuttering, and glitches aplenty! With it having been so long since we started with “A Realm Reborn”, it’s almost hard to comprehend that this rendition actually existed at one point.

2011: “FlatOut 3: Chaos & Destruction”

The “FlatOut” series has enjoyed a quiet life, earning its own slice of the niche vehicular combat genre in gaming. However, things were looking rather bleak when this third entry in the franchise exploded onto the scene…and crashed and burned in the most miserable way possible. From the general performance issues to the obscene amount of bugs and glitches, it’s hard to tell what exactly happened here. Was the game rushed out the door? Or was this just a bad circumstance of awful programming? No matter which you spin it, “FlatOut 3” was simply unsavable as it also had some abysmal controls and questionable AI. “FlatOut 4” thankfully turned out better than we had dreaded, but even so, it wasn’t as great as “FlatOut 2”.

2012: “Infestation Survivor Stories”, aka “The War Z”

Remember the era of Steam Greenlight and the amount of drivel that spewed from that program? Well, “Infestation: Survivor Stories” was among those. The game was originally listed as “The War Z” until producer Sergey Titov received a notice from the United States Patent and Trademark Office to rename the game to avoid violating Paramount Pictures’s trademark of “World War Z”. But this would be the least of Titov’s worries because after seeing some fairly positive reception, Titov went on a spree of awful behavior using homophobic slurs, dismissing any criticism thrown at the game, and advertising features that weren’t even present. Things got so bad that Valve began investigating the game, Titov, and his development studio, OP Productions, as hackers began trying to get the game taken down. Hey, what else would you expect from one of the key developers behind “Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing”?

2013: “Ride to Hell: Retribution”

We don’t see many games centered on motorcycles or biker gangs unless they’re being portrayed as thugs, in-game enemies to throw at the player. “Ride to Hell: Retribution” could have been a gateway for folks interested in biker culture until folks got their hands on it. Oof. Major oof. It wasn’t enough for developer Eutechnyx to implement lazy shortcuts in animations and reused assets. No, let’s go ahead and depict every woman in this game as a prize to be won and reward the player with steamy cutscenes between missions! This wasn’t just a complete trainwreck of a game; it was a complete exploitation and objectification of women in the most offensive, tasteless, and insensitive way possible.

2014: “Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric”

Look, Sonic may be seeing better days in the modern era, but man, the Blue Blur was on a really bad run for a long, LONG time! “Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric” was practically the death knell for SEGA’s longtime mascot as the publisher bet big on this reboot only to flop and dry out like a cod in the desert. “Rise of Lyric” was infested with bugs, glitches, and performance issues around every freakin’ corner! Cutscenes show characters t-posing a few frames, frame drops happen at random parts of the game, Knuckles can jump forever just by frequently hitting pause and can potentially skip a substantial part of the game… What hurts more is that Quality Assurance staff had to come out as the public dogpiled on them to say they warned both Big Red Button and SEGA about the game’s poor state. Clearly, they were ignored.

2015: “Alone in the Dark: Illumination”

“Alone in the Dark” just can’t seem to catch a break anymore, not like it did in the good ol’ days, anyways. Even after the awful 2008 reboot and the mediocre 2024 reboot, “Illumination” remains the worst title in the franchise’s history. Just everything about this game reeks of sheer laziness in quality between the stiff character animation, constantly recycled environments, and overreliance on random generation for its level design. Perhaps “Alone in the Dark” would have had a future as an online co-op multiplayer game had there been more time and care put into crafting a morbidly imaginative world rather than trying to shortcut its way to success.

2016: “Umbrella Corps”

Speaking of games focused on online multiplayer, does anyone remember the dumpster fire that was “Umbrella Corps”? Yes, this was a PvP “Resident Evil” spin-off where Capcom desperately wanted to break into the eSports scene… Even though nothing about “Resident Evil” ever screamed “competitive play”. (Isn’t that more “Street Fighter’s” thing?) The thing about “Umbrella Corps” is that it was so chaotic that no one could ever tell what in the hell was happening. You want a typical team deathmatch, but you also want zombies and biomutants running around attacking everyone and everything? What about that seems entertaining enough to catch the eSports crowd? Thankfully, Capcom ditched this before they got too deep into potential post-launch support.

2017: “1-2-Switch!”

The Switch’s launch year was absolutely stellar with titles like “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” and “Breath of the Wild”. But “1-2-Switch”? …”1-2-Switch”? Who in their right mind saw this game and thought, “Yes, I NEED this”? This was a fifty-dollar package of cheaply designed minigames made to demonstrate the tech integrated into the Joy-Con controllers. Had this been a part of the Switch at launch, perhaps we wouldn’t be talking about this game and instead be dunking on, say, “Star Wars Battlefront II”. But when you want us to pay fifty bucks to compete with our friends in cow-milking and pretend-eating… Let’s be real here.

2018: “Super Seducer: How to Talk to Girls”

Oh, look - an early glimpse of the manosphere! In 2018, we named “Super Seducer” the worst game of the year, and we’re putting another glaring light of scrutiny on it now. Unrealistic in presentation, creepy in execution, “Super Seducer” claims to help players talk to women and get dates all while depicting women as easy to manipulate and ultimately gamifying what should be the romantic part of life. Somehow, self-proclaimed pickup artist Richard La Ruina still managed to get two sequels out of this endeavor before leaving the gaming industry and YouTube.

2019: “WWE 2K20”

At the time “WWE 2K20” came out, it was almost a tradition for WatchMojo to put a WWE game on the Worst Games of the Year list. Trust us, there were a ton of bad ones. Unbeknownst to us, this would be the last gold mine of surreal technical problems we would see from the franchise. From jiggly rope physics to bugged character models, “WWE 2K20” became the laughingstock of the internet for a solid month or two in 2019 as more and more clips went viral. The reception was so poor that 2K had to come out and announce that the franchise would be skipping a year so that the publisher and developer Visual Concepts could figure out how to move forward with the franchise. Imagine our surprise when “WWE 2K21” came out as amazing as it did! And so ends an era of dunking on this series once a year.

2020: “Warcraft III: Reforged”

Everyone draws their own starting point from when Blizzard Entertainment truly burned all of its goodwill. For most, that point was “Warcraft III: Reforged”. What was supposed to be a remake honoring the 2002 RTS turned out to be a lazy remaster lacking in features that were promised during marketing. Where were all of the shiny new cutscenes? Angering fans even more was the hostile End User License Agreement which stated that any mods made under “Reforged” would be immediately under Blizzard’s ownership. The fans were pissed, and that is putting it super gently! Listen, when your game gets review-bombed so hard that it becomes the lowest user-rated game on Metacritic, you know you have royally screwed up!

2021: “Balan Wonderworld”

A brand new 3D platformer from famed developer Yuji Naka, the co-creator of “Sonic the Hedgehog”? Sounds like enough reason to get excited, especially with the unique theme of musical theater tied to it. Ultimately, Naka’s attachment meant nothing to the game’s quality as “Balan Wonderworld” would go so far as to taint it. Not including the touchpad, D-pad, and analog sticks, controllers have eight usable buttons: four face buttons, two shoulder buttons, and two triggers. So, why does this game dedicate every single one of them to a single ability? It amounts to piss-poor design and a severe lack in implementing creative gimmicks to help the game truly shine. But sure, let’s focus on the feel-good attitude over everything else. No one will mind the de-rendering objects and awkward reuse of the same mocap dances.

2022: “Babylon’s Fall”

Prior to 2022, PlatinumGames had been in a slump with several games having flopped about as hard as most of the entries on this list. And yes, we mean critically AND commercially. Surely a partnership with Square Enix might revive faith in the studio in some way? Not with “Babylon’s Fall” it didn’t! But come on, guys - did anyone truly expect a live service game with copy-pasted corridors and a gameplay loop that made no sense to really take off? Not in your life, sport. “Babylon’s Fall” didn’t even live for more than half a year before Square Enix pulled the cord. And to think there were people dumpster-diving for discarded GameStop copies just for a temporary free game!

2023: “Lord of Ring: Gollum”

Oh, wait…hang on–

2023: “The Lord of the Rings: Gollum”

Sorry about that typo; ChatGPT must have bugged out. Moving on, “The Lord of the Rings: Gollum” was the worst game we had seen in 2023, and we saw some massive stinkers in the tail end of the year with “Skull Island: Rise of Kong” and “The Walking Dead: Destinies”. But “Gollum” was such an enigma in how long it spent in development and the public perception that no one was really wanting a game starring Gollum and Smeagle. Everyone thought the game would turn out unremarkable at most. What we witnessed was a technical trainwreck of game-breaking bugs that could be easily replicated, areas where you could see skyboxes and dev assets, and frequent crashes caused by Gollum’s hair physics, which were removed from the game prior to launch. This all resulted in the development side of Daedalic Entertainment being closed entirely; the company is now focusing only on publishing games.

2024: “Concord”

When isolated to the game itself and only what the game delivered, “Concord” isn’t terrible - just mundane, lifeless, and erratic in character design and art direction. However, the reason it was 2024’s worst game is because of the impact. Absolutely no one wanted this game, and reception was so bad that Sony pulled the game from sale less than two weeks after launch with servers being shuttered not long after. Digital customers were refunded their forty bucks while physical buyers were now stuck with plastic containing now-useless, inaccessible code. And as if things couldn’t get any worse for Sony, word got out by Colin Moriarty, founder of podcast network Last Stand Media, that “Concord” had cost Sony nearly half a billion dollars between the game’s development and the acquisition of developer Firewalk Studios. Today, “Concord” only exists as a random episode of the Amazon series “Secret Level”. As for Firewalk Studios, the company was closed by Sony in October 2024, a little more than a month after the game’s removal from storefronts.


Did you suffer through any of these games yourself? Let us know down in the comments.