Top 10 Most BROKEN Video Games of All Time

Upon launch, this MMO had more game-breaking issues than there were entries in its franchise. A clunky battle system, incomprehensible UI, and a distinct lack of content forced Square Enix to extend the free trial window twice to try and convince longtime fans to stick around. Unfortunately, cosmetic patches and more fetch-quests couldn’t fix a gameplay loop that was fundamentally flawed, especially when it ran slower than a Chocobo. It proved such a disaster that the only way to fix it was to completely start from scratch. While “Final Fantasy XIV” may be well-regarded today, it’s because it quite literally is a different product from this abysmal excuse of an MMO.

Honestly, it’s impressive this game is capable of booting up at all. Behind the scenes frustrations led to the Atari take on the beloved film receiving just over five weeks of development time. That’s right, this entire game was conceived and made in a month and a half, and boy does it show. It takes less than ten minutes to complete, but that’s only if you can figure out what its cumbersome interface is saying. It’s hard to stay engaged when the gameplay is overly simple yet aggressively buggy at the same time.

Every continent has bugs, but no one could have predicted that this corner of Tamriel had a full on infestation. At release, the game buckled under the weight of its massive content with movie-length load times, frequent crashes, and glitches galore. It’s understandable given the scope of the title, though that didn’t stop players from immediately figuring out how to break the game’s systems - at least, the ones that weren’t already busted to begin with. The janky physics and inconsistent framerate were addressed with post-release patches, but even today, horses are still pushing dragons off cliffs. It seems these bugs are just native to ‘Skyrim,’ after all.

Few games can boast failing in as many categories as this wannabe actioner. Last-minute script changes, graphical concerns, and developer disagreements led to a game that never found a clear direction. But, the countdown to its liftoff came too soon, and naturally, getting pulled in so many directions eventually snapped it into pieces. The release was so panned it even sparked a lawsuit about false advertising between the trailers and final gameplay. Somehow, though, that’s not even its biggest gaffe. A typo in the game’s code resulted in horribly dumbed-down enemy A.I.. Yeah, just one misplaced letter sank the entire campaign. If that’s not an apt metaphor for this game’s fate, we don’t know what is.

It’s not hyperbole to say, right out of the box, this game was unplayable. Sure, you could complete the tutorial and mess around with the park creator, but everything else was added with a gigantic day-one patch. Since the licensing deal with Activision was on its last wheels, this skateboard was shoved onto half-pipe with no regard for quality control. The outdated graphics, glitchy physics, and clear cut-corners meant these skaters weren’t doing tricks as much as they were wiping out. Embarrassingly, even the opening logo has audio lag. That’s right, this game can’t even make it to the skate park before falling on its face.

Befitting its title, this beloved game series had its own fall from the precipice of high expectations. The multiplayer-focused open-world, which was the main selling point of this entry, was boringly barren of anything except for glitches - and that’s if you could connect to the server at all. The poor online functionality was an unmitigated disaster, made all the worse by the fact there was so little to do even if you did manage to get in. The lack of NPC stories made the world feel empty, and left players with the resounding impression that the game was unfinished.

The only successful ring-out this wrestling game achieved was for its franchise. After over a decade of yearly releases, a change in developers caused such a leg drop in quality that the entire series was reevaluated. It wasn’t just the tired gameplay or marked regression in graphics; faces were literally melting off players. It was nearly impossible to hear the bell ding without the ref going haywire or a wrestler distorting out of their own skeleton. While the franchise bounced back from the ropes after a much-needed break, no one was victorious for this round, that’s for sure.

Admittedly, there is a surprising amount of fun to be had here, but it’s definitely not the way developers intended. The gameplay, cutscenes, and camera are all broken to the point of parody. This action-game would be better described as a comedy, especially when dramatic moments are ruined by firearms clipping through their targets. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of hilariously ugly graphics to help the medicine go down, too. It’s a failure in basically every regard, but at least it’s so outstandingly defective that it’s kind of amazing at the same time.

“Game” might be too strong of a word for this one, since that implies a baseline degree of functionality. At a genuinely impressive Metacritic score of eight out of one hundred, this widely panned racer can barely rev its engines without lagging. And don’t even bother sticking to the roads. Who needs them when you can just clip through any obstacles? Even more, the map seems to be loading in as you drive on it, which is apt since your car has no collision detection, anyway. It’s hard to even call it broken because there’s so little here to break.

Even the blue blur can trip when going this fast. Against a tight holiday launch window, the team behind this maligned title definitely put out one of the most memorable “Sonic” games, for better or for worse. Honestly, kudos to anyone who manages to beat this the intentional way. At a certain point, the ludicrous skips and bugs feel like a cheat code left in to apologize for the asinine level design. It’s telling that this game is still borderline unplayable even if you abuse glitches to skip massive sections. It’s just really that bad. While it sounds antithetical to his M.O., this is a case where Sonic should’ve slowed way down.