Most Disappointing Video Games of All Time

The Top Ten
1 Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)

Those who followed this game before it's release know that there was loads of hype following it, with various publications claiming it was going to be quite the title. However, upon released it was revealed that the final product was left in an unfinished, buggy, and flatout painful state that did serious damage to Sonic's credibility. Apparently, the build used for the final product was NOT the latest build of the game, however was forcedly used due to SEGA's poor reputation for getting games released for certain dates (To keep with it being released for Sonic's 15th Anniversary), and because the latest build was not stable and polished enough to be used.

What a disappointment to say the least.

As one of my all time favorite franchises, I was stoked for this game. This game was so bad that I did not even finish it. I am a completionist and a die hard Sonic fan, so I was expecting to at least play through it, but nope. After a few hours of playing, I had a decision to make: Take it to Game Stop for hardly anything in return or destroy it. It was with great regret that I had to abandon a Sonic game, but I was pushed to do so. I threw the case and then let the disc become crushed underneath my belongings, letting it sit, stored and unplayed ever since.

It's Sonic 06. God, it was made in 2006... 666. It had no hope. Sonic is a horrible franchise. It needs to end. Sega is trying WAY too many gimmicks and if it wants good games, make a new mascot. This game, is just AWFUL. Everyone thought we were going to get a great Sonic game, but no. Too many glitches, some scenes look nice and the others look like 1999s. I just don't get how they failed. Great job Sega. Just give up already. They tried Sonic Boom, they failed.

This is one of those games that even the developers must have thought "people are going to hate this game". It's shameful that Sega let this turd reach store shelves, as Sonic's already diminishing video game reputation was on thin ice.

It wouldn't be until Sonic Colors (2010) and Sonic Generations (2011) that I'd feel comfortable buying another Sonic game.

2 Duke Nukem Forever

The definitive #1 for me. Anyone who grew up playing Duke Nukem 3D, remembers how amazing the gameplay was, Duke's witty lines of humorous gold, and an all around fun shoot'em'up experience. Years of development hell later and we're left with a shattered, watered-down catastrophe of a game that spits on the face of former Duke Nukem fans harder than nearly any other game franchise to date. A good reason why this game went from being a hyped release to littered in the Bargain Bin in a mere matter of MONTHS.

15 years in development hell & this is what happened. The PC version is better than the Xbox 360 & PlayStation 3 versions. This is the last Duke Nukem game that will ever be released. The Duke has died.

The long wait time made this one all the more disappointing.

Slow dev cycles are bad because the graphics are outdated by the time its finished.

Instead of waiting for it in 2001 skip 10 years later and we get one of the most disappointing games of the modern era.

3 No Man's Sky

This is the game that has sworn many gamers off from ever considering getting into the "hype-train" of a game before its release. After the ENDLESS amounts of praise and anticipation surrounding it prior to its release, things quickly turned overwhelmingly sour when much of what was promised for the game turned out to be nothing more but a bunch of lies, made only worse when Hello Games (the developers of No Man's Sky) seemed to be blatantly ignoring the complaints of gamers for what seemed like ages. Only recently has the team been trying to fix their wrongs, but the impact that it left meant that the damage was simply permanent, and its reputation simply just cannot be saved.

Also, Sean Murray is an absolute tool.

The idea is amazing, roam around the universe, infinite variables, new creatures everywhere. However I think they just said some things they couldn't deliver so while it is a good game its not what most expected ti to be

This game is proof that video games should always be ready at launch and that you shouldn't make promises you can't keep.

Game was overly hype for a indie game. I say no more. Indie games are indie games.

4 Destiny

Wholeheartedly disagree. Did it have a good story, no. Was it at total blast to play, yes. A bunch of people whine like baby about DLCs you don't even have to buy and people say, oh it sucks because its not as good as halo. It really makes me mad because people talk about what it could of been. It doesn't have a plot to speak of but it is super fun and exciting once you get the hang of it. A Great game, not disappointing. Why don't you haters just go back to playing your precious halo if you love it so much

Let's run down why it's disappointing
1. ) it's boring
2. ) there was too much hype
3. ) they ripped parts of the game to sell as DLC
4. ) it was published by Call of Duty publisher Activision
5. ) it had more put in marketing than it did in it's development 300M to advertisements 200M to development
6. ) it's repetitive
7. ) it's a game that was abandoned after a month because how boring it is

I expected this game to by the best ever! And I'm not the only one. Hundreds of thousands... Seriously hundreds of thousands thought it would be the best, if not one of the best. This game was a huge disappointment... Activision destroyed my favorite video game company, Bungie, and ruined what could have been a masterpiece!

How the hell is this game a dissapointment? Destiny wasn't what it promised to be sure, but it still managed to keep me and millions of gamers entertained with unique gameplay mechanics, amazingly well designed gear and a ridiculously fun and smooth gameplay experience. The definitive multiplayer experience on current consoles.

5 Halo 4

This really shouldn't be number three. This Halo had the best moments between Cortana and the Chief. It also has some great shootouts. The two things this game really lacked was good map design and vehicle moments. The multiplayer is one of the best of the Halo franchise. This game doesn't deserve to be on this list.

Damn this game pissed me off. I have never been more disappointed in such a franchise when this came out. This was like a betrayal. it felt like playing a Call of Duty/Halo hybrid. Even the multiplayer didn't have hope, the ordnance ruined it.

The game tried too hard to appeal to a broader audience by including mechanics from call of duty, which really don't fit in halo. The campaign is alright, but the MP is the most disappointing part for me.

Anybody who lives and breathes the halo franchise would be disappointed with this game. I don't know any halo fanboy that enjoyed this game.

6 Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

This is more or less a game that's unfairly pissed on simply due to its namesake. It may not be what you wanted or expected, but if your willing to put that aside, what you'd actually find out is that this game isn't really that bad at all.

Despite never having been able to play the first two games, I can say that this one has nothing going for it. Boring, bland, tedious and departed from the original formula don't describe this game enough.

This is not a bad game. But it suffers from Star Fox Adventures syndrome. If people had gotten a platforming Banjo game a year earlier, they probably would not have minded this.

If you never played banjo-kazooie or play the game, giving it a last chance, then you'd like it. But as a banjo-kazooie fan, I was disappointed.

7 Resident Evil 5

It's a very good game. It's just not a horror game. If this were named something else and not Resident Evil, people would like it.

An ok game but it could not beat Resident Evil 4.

Resident Evil 5 is okay, but 6 is really a load!

8 Cyberpunk 2077

Yeah, this game basically used Keanu Reeves as a crutch and we were expecting this to be a masterpiece, in part because it's developer, CD Projekt Red, were also behind The Witcher III.

What do we end up getting, after all the hype, anticipation and winning several awards for presentation? A totally buggy mess where the game is filled with glitches, graphical distortions and wonky gameplay that wound up made the game unplayable. That's on top of CDPR promising that the game will "come out when it's ready" and will be filled with so much content. Welp, that's now harsher in hindsight, right?

This game is a prime example of how even the most anticipated games can fall off really short and why excessively hyping up anything, let alone a video game, can be a pretty bad idea. It happened with The Last of Us II, so Cyberpunk isn't any different. No wonder 2020 turned out to become one of the most disappointing years in entertainment.

9 Metroid Other M

"Other M? " Dear Shadow what does that mean!?

Hello, wasted character development.

Samus was ruined

10 Mass Effect: Andromeda

There's a lot of bad games on here that I'd vote for before this if the first 3 games never existed. To be fair though even on it's own without the comparison it's still pretty boring. They went from a more linear approach in the old games that was cinematic, and had interesting and unique missions to this crap which felt like a ubisoft Montreal game with 90% generic filler missions. it made me hate this game so bad I couldn't even finish it. Less is more unless your name is rockstar and I wish devs would figure this out soon cause I hate open world games now due to devs thinking every square inch of the map needs to have some tedious activity shoehorned into it. I wish devs would start making more linear games again...at least some of them.

Buggy, terrible story that just tries to rip off the original trilogy, horrible graphics, bad voice acting, boring maps repetitive quests. I loved the original trilogy and was so excited for this. What a bloody waste

The Contenders
11 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5

I am a huge fan of the THPS series, and this one was disappointing to say the least. However, the last gen version isn't glitchy at all, but it's kinda boring.

One of the worst games of all time.

12 Mighty No. 9

After an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign, fans were hyped for the true spiritual successor to the Mega Man franchise. After years of waiting, hoping, and funding, we were left with a game with boring level design, boring gameplay, and Mega Man 8 level of bad voice acting. This game had so much potential, and it ultimately flopped.

After this was released, Mega Man 11 was announced, making this game obsolete in every sense of the word.

Basically megaman meets anime. Bad voice acting, and bad gameplay. Just don't buy it.

Mighty No.9 is to video games as Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid is to anime.

13 Bubsy 3D

The original 2D Bubsy titles were mediocre at best, but had a few fans left and right. This pretty much not only killed Bubsy, but was in my opinion one of the strong points of what led to the eventual demise of Accolade only a mere 3 years later after this game.

What could possibly go wrong? Use your imagination.

To be honest, the Bubsy franchise sucked from the start, so this wasn't such a disappointment.

So the 2 2D Bubsy games were average, then we get one of the worst games of all Bubsy 3D.

That squirrel thing is drunk... Or high... Or both...

14 Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival

This isn't even a game. I mean, we all play Skyrim, Pokémon, Final Fantasy etc. to have fun, right? But Amiibo Festival isn't fun at all. So what is it then? A non-game?! Anyway, me having a lot of nostalgia from playing Wild World as a kid, I was really exited for the game. I was a bit disapponted that it was going to be a board game, but Happy Home Designer was a fun spinoff and this was Nintendo... It couldn't possibly be that bad, right? Yes, yes, yes. I HATE this game! So here's the formula they went with for this game; take the original Mario Party, add amiibo, takeaway the luck, take away the unique spaces, takeaway the fun and slap on Animal Crossing. Oh, and I almost forgot! There's not a SINGLE minigame in the already boring board game. Every time I see Isabelle walk out of the little train in HD, I'm just sad from the wasted potential. If you want AC, GO PLAY NEW LEAF! It's great. Trust me.

THIS GAME SUCKS! Its Mario party but not really it has little fun very boring and also has no action like a regular animal crossing game would have.

Where do I start?
this game it's like a cash grab because Nintendo thinks animal crossing fans will buy it
I gave it a fair shot because it was cheap and had 2 amiibo figures
and honestly the only way it could be " Fun " is if I drank a few 6 packs of alcohol

15 Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

After the masterpiece that is the first castlevania game, Simon's quest was such a disappointment. It's the most cryptic game ever, and the stupid text boxes when it changes from day to night ruin it.

16 Super Mario Bros. 2

The charm of this game is that it was different from the first one. The gameplay was really good and many enemies became regulars in future Mario games.

Hey why is this on the list just because it wasn't a true Mario game doesn't mean it was bad.

The actual Mario 2 is not a good game. We lucked out here in the west. Quit complaining.

Cause it was a completely different game from the first.

17 Star Fox Adventures

Just because the Star Fox 64 elitists hate it, doesn't mean you should listen to them.

That's not how you spell Star Fox Command.

This game is awesome

18 Mass Effect 3

Ending aside this entry is fantastic. I was more disappointing when I played 2 and realized they had removed ALL weapons and armor collecting from the first game.

I loved Mass Effect 3 other than the ending.

I know people don't like the endings (although I did) but you judge the entire game not taking in account the 98% of the game, some of the best story arcs in gaming like curing the Genophage or the Quarian-Geth conflict [to name a few] were awful too? To each his own I guess...

The ending enough said.

19 Action 52

If you get this game and check all 52 games, all you'll be wishing for is your $200 back.

20 Mario Party: Island Tour

Ugh I thought this game would be good. Isn't Mario Party games awesome well this game will change your mind. The games have poor gameplay and poor map designs. And it feels like the npcs have more of a chance of defeating you.

This game disappointed me. The worst part is that the RNG is terrible on my cartridge. I keep getting numbers BELOW 3. And the game is boring. The only fun gamemodes are unlocked later, and I found a total of 1 FUN GAMEMODE. Nintendo you should be ashamed of yourself.

21 New Super Mario Bros. 2

I remember back in 2012 when this was announced. I was very excited for this. When I finally got to play it on launch date, I hated to admit it, it was my least favorite Mario platformer I've ever played.

I have no problem against putting the focus on collecting coins, but make sure you can't get too many lives of them. Also did I mention I thought this game was too easy when I played it?

This is the weakest out of the series. It's a ripoff of the Wii, it only has 6 worlds instead of the normal 8! The story is excellent but everything else is just a diet-Mario Bros Wii which was one of the best games of all time.

The final boss was just too easy. His hand smashes the floating platforms so sllouwwleyy...5/10

How can you get a game over? Unless you die unpurpose many times, this game provides almost no challenges.

This game could have had so much potential. But it was too easy and too short.

22 Fallout 76

Multiplayer was never Bethesda's thing, they should never have tried their hand at it.

Why is this below New Vegas?! That's the best Fallout ever! 76 is a steaming pile of crap.

Most boring and worst games of all times.

I expected so much better.

23 Hunt Down the Freeman
24 The Elder Scrolls Online

The elder scrolls franchise gradually got better since 1994 until this game. After the three amazing games of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, this game was a major disappointment.

25 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Not really, sure, there were very few newcomers in the base game but who cares? We got GENO in as DLC!

Nintendo just serves it's fans the same old crap every time. "Ultimate" more like failure.

8Load More
PSearch List