Top 10 Most Hated Video Games of 2024

Usually, making a game free to play is a good way to mitigate bad publicity, but in this case, it was not. “Silent Hill: The Short Message” was widely hated not for its short length or its barebones gameplay, but rather the lack of any meaningful messaging behind its story. For the roughly-three-hour playthrough, all the game says is how depression and anxiety are awful without really conveying the true struggles behind them. It's merely a hollow shell of serious subject matter desperately trying to replicate the clever storytelling we experienced in “Silent Hill 2”.

Credit where credit is due, “Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection” has gotten better since it launched in March 2024. However, that catastrophic launch has forever tainted its reputation. “Battlefront Classic Collection” was a trainwreck in terms of technical performance with explosive audio spikes, visual glitches, and abysmal online connectivity. Oh, and did we mention the game only launched with three servers? You could say this collection was botched in the most irresponsible manner imaginable, and so many folks were infuriated that you’d be lucky to find even one server halfway filled with players. Really, the outrage against this was far greater than the noise we saw with “Star Wars Outlaws”.

For the most part, Bandai Namco’s 3D arena brawlers have been decent cookie cutter games for various IPs. Although, some reached their breaking point with “Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash”. With its basic button-mashing and lack of any substantial mechanics for its combat, “Cursed Clash” felt like BNE only made the game to cash in on “Jujutsu Kaisen’s” popularity. There was simply nothing here that made the game stand out aside from its license - not its level design, not its controls or gimmicks, not even its own UI! Some gamers are even discussing whether or not BNE has an unfair monopoly on licensed games based on anime while demanding the company start investing in these properties properly.

At one point, “MultiVersus” did seem like a worthy competitor to take over the hole left behind by “Smash Bros. Ultimate”. Alas, the full version 1.0 launch could not have gone anymore terribly as it did in May 2024. Not only did the gameplay drastically slow down with some characters getting smaller movesets, “MultiVersus” was even more egregious with monetization than it was during beta! Players were really expected to fork over ten bucks for Tom & Jerry or fifteen bucks for The Joker. You’re kidding us, right?

After having been tormented through two reboots, “Alone in the Dark” returns with a third, but under a new owner: THQ Nordic. And as expected, it was anything but decent. Developed by Pieces Interactive, “Alone in the Dark” had ambition in modernizing the IP in a new era of survival horror, yet seemed to forget how to be a compelling game to begin with. Inconsistent tones, uninteresting characters, flat performances, clunky controls, and awkward combat all made this revival less than stellar. Pieces Interactive was closed less than three months after the game launched, and now, everyone is left wondering why “Alone in the Dark” should ever come back again.

After two stellar games like “The Stick of Truth” and “The Fractured But Whole”, one would hope a third game would turn out just as amazing. Unfortunately, that was not the case. “South Park: Snow Day” made us wish we were in school as it turned out to be one of the most boring multiplayer-focused games we’ve played all year. Between the constant interruption of gimmicks mid-combat and the game’s extremely short length, “Snow Day” was reminiscent of the first “South Park” games from the 90’s and 2000’s in the worst ways possible. Even at thirty bucks, this game is not worth your hard-earned cash.

Video games do sometimes get political, as do most forms of entertainment. But get overt or even preachy with your message, and that’s what will draw you extreme ire from players. “Dustborn” was lame in every aspect you’d expect from a video game. Gameplay boils down to wandering around hallways and talking to characters about feelings and unmitigated emotions. The story is inconsistent in tone throughout and hits its own messages over your head with a 5-ton sledgehammer. And for a game themed around garage band music, one would hope the songs would be decent. Alas, no. Though some outlets claim “Dustborn” sold just fine, a low player count on Steam suggests otherwise.

When you have a studio like Rocksteady that specializes in single-player superhero games, what do you suppose their next game should be? Well, according to Warner Bros, it should be a live service online multiplayer game. Despite having a solid story and combat, “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League” suffered greatly in having a eyesore of a UI, a convoluted economy, a mundane endgame cycle, and above all, a lazy ending that only served to somehow justify the game’s live service aspect. “Kill the Justice League” wound up costing Warner Bros two hundred million dollars in losses, and even after suffering from this, the corporation is still insistent on its live service agenda with future titles.

When it was first revealed at E3 2018, there was something about “Skull and Bones” that seemed promising. But after suffering several delays and even an entire restart on the project, what hope was there in this game turning out decent? We’ll admit that “Skull and Bones” was one of the most technically sound launches Ubisoft has ever seen. However, the barebones open world and inanely basic combat left much to be desired. With Ubisoft deeming it “a quadruple-A game”, this immediately made “Skull and Bones” as well as Ubisoft the laughingstock of the gaming community throughout 2024. And yet, they didn’t suffer as badly as our final entry.

2024 was loaded with some embarrassing video games, but none crashed and burned in such a devastating blaze of glory as Sony did with “Concord”. What was supposed to be Sony’s first foray into the hero shooter genre turned into a self-inflicted four hundred million-dollar humiliation. Players were simply not impressed with the game in any way as characters lacked any creative visual designs or personality. It received so much hate and apathy that Sony pulled the game from sale without warning less than two weeks after launch. Developer Firewalk Studios was shut down in October 2024, and as for “Concord”, this will forever be the IP Sony will never want brought up ever again, not even for a joke.


Did you try out any of these games for yourself before the internet set them ablaze? Share with us in the comments below.