Most Disappointing Game of 2023 - Article
by Craig S , posted on 22 January 2024 / 4,883 Views
Who doesn't love a good dose of schadenfreude every now and then? There was no shortage of that on offer in terms of video games last year, hidden in plain sight amongst the more genuine disappointments (I'll leave it for you to decide which category each of the following games falls into).
One unfortunate trend when it comes to the biggest disappointments of the last year was that so many were new IPs, including Bethesda's latest major release Starfield, the Arkane Studio B-team's abortive attempt at a co-op vampire shooter, and Square Enix's action RPG Forspoken. Mega-franchise Call of Duty and the perennially delayed The Lord of the Rings: Gollum round out the list of Nominees.
The Shortlist:
Redfall
Forspoken
Starfield
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
The 'Runner Up':
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
It probably doesn't augur well if you're one of the first 9th generation games to be announced but don't launch until four years later. Take a widely and wildly popular IP, add in a developer most well-known for developing point-and-click adventure titles attempting an entirely different genre, delay the game not once but several times, and you have a recipe for one of the worst and most disappointing games of the year
The 'Winner':
Starfield
There's a certain irony in Bethesda releasing one of its least buggy games - and an ambitious and highly anticipated new IP at that - and it nonetheless proving a disappointment to many. Much like Cyberpunk 2077 winning this same award back in 2020, Starfield isn't a bad game and it's certainly nowhere near the worst game of the year, but the gulf between expectations and reality was so wide that it resulted in a community backlash. Another parallel would be a game that it's often closely compared to: No Man's Sky. It was eviscerated at launch but a lot of hard work and frequent updates from Hello Games have salvaged its reputation.
These three titles are cautionary tales of how hype built up by developer promises, when mixed in with fan expectation that goes unchecked, almost inevitably results in disappointment. And yet those two other examples do show that there's a path for redemption for Starfield, if Bethesda is willing to commit to constantly improving it.
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I think a lot of people here are conflating most disappointing with the worst, but those two are completely different things. A perfectly good game can be the most disappointing release of the year if the final product simply didn't live up to its pre-release hype, which is what clearly happened with Starfield, while I don't think Gollum or Redfall, for example, had nearly the same lofty expectations placed on them. As such, the disappointment just wasn't nearly as big.
Similarly, the game I was most disappointed by (Forspoken) was that because it was the only one on the final shortlist that I was genuinely interested in prior to release, so it being the mediocre thing it turned out to be was far more disappointing to me than any of the other games here that I just didn't really care about in the first place.
Disappointment: the unhappiness or discouragement that results when your hopes or expectations have not been satisfied, or someone or something that is not as good as you had hoped or expected.
The category here isn't about the worst game, it's about the game that failed to live up to the expectations placed on it. Many said that this game would be "the game of the generation", a "space odyssey" never seen before, GoTY favorite or, at least, strong contender... we know that this did not happen, and that the final result was far below what was expected... so yeah, very disappointing
Exactly. Starfield is still a pretty good game....it's just not the Game of the Generation everyone claimed it would be. IT's nowhere near as bad as any other of the games on this list, but none of the others had expectations that high.
starfield won an award!
i thought Starfield was going to be massive in sales and popularity, so yes a disappointment
Always love this kinda category. "Art Direction" sure, usually ends up as best game to or something but this one can be really unique based on what the game is meant to offer based on what we got. The shortlist being vastly different in scope too, for all the broken buggy messes that was Redfall or Gollum, for all intents and purposes, Forspoken was a great well made game that just didn't offer anything and no one bought (I played the demo, gameplay was fun but apparently story was just not what people expected).
Missing PayDay 3 from the list too, which launched to all kinds of issues.
I mean... even within the context of being "disappointing," Starfield's top spot feels too absurd. Even if the early trailers weren't super promising, I at least figured Redfall would properly function at launch. Being such an obvious stain on Arkane's legacy hits with more oomph than any other options imo.
I had zero expectations for redfall, I thought it looked mediocre at best from the very first trailer. Starfield however is a new Bethesda RPG, Fallout 3,4 and Skyrim are three of my favourite games of all time. I even bought into early access for Starfield and... Yep it was definitely the biggest disappointment of the year for me. The biggest disappointment in a very long time.
Redfall I never cared for, Starfield I thought would be one of my favourite games ever. There's the disappointment. The game with the biggest reputation will always have the higher potential for dissapointment. You don't have to be the worst game to be the most disappointing.
Like I said, I understand the context. Even if I've never personally understood the cache a "Bethesda RPG" carries, I'm not blind to it factoring in. Although I'm still left confused about trumpeting Fallout 4 but then cutting off the line at Starfield, especially when godawful aspects like 4's dialogue wheel aren't there. That's just coming from an outside observer who doesn't know all the ins-and-outs of 4's or Starfield's design though.
-"Redfall I never cared for, Starfield I thought would be one of my favourite games ever."
Just to be clear, I can appreciate those personal stories too; I'm just surprised at the sheer volume of like-minded people for Starfield to win gold. Sure, Redfall's early impressions weren't flattering by comparison, but there was still something about a storied dev behind Dishonored, Prey, etc. taking a crack at a co-op focused shooter. To be met with a unanimous "oh god, turn it off" response strikes me as the bigger story.
Bethesda RPG's are just far more popular than Arkane games so there's a much larger number of people to potentially be disappointed. Skyrim sold 60m, Fallout 4 will be well over 25m. Can't be disappointed by a game you were never interested in.
If the question was which dev dropped the ball the most from their usual standards than yeah Arkane.
So based on your last sentence, Redfall should be considered the most disappointing, right? Let's compare what those studios released last gen. Going from; Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 to Starfield is not even close to being as bad as going from; Dishonored 2, Prey, and Deathloop to Redfall.
At least an argument can be made about Starfield having aspects better than those previous games. There is nothing about Redfall that is better, not even graphics. The fact there are people in this article saying Starfield doesn't deserve most disappointing game, is already enough reason that it doesn't deserving that title.
No because Redfall didn't disappoint me. It's a pretty simple concept to grasp. People that didn't give a shit about Redfall aren't going to be disappointed by Redfall. People that didn't think Redfall was going to be good aren't going to be dissapointed by Redfall. The most disappointing game is the game with the most people having high expectations and feeling let down.
"The fact there are people in this article saying Starfield doesn't deserve most disappointing game, is already enough reason that it doesn't deserving that title."
Wow so 100% people need to agree on a vote or it isn't valid? Unbelievable. lmao. What an absolutely insane idea.
Did you miss the entire discourse surrounding Redfall at launch Lol? There were articles for weeks about it and even had Phil damage controlling. To say people didn't give a shit about Redfall or weren't disappointed is simply not true.
What? My point is, the fact it is even divisive, and some found it to be enjoyable already means it probably shouldn't get this title. It's my opinion on the matter. I never said your disappointment and others is not valid. Some found it disappointing, while some found it enjoyable. I respect Vgchartz choices. They can pick whatever winners and losers they want. Doesn't mean I have to agree it every time.
Everyone had high expectations for starfield and they didn't deliver just like the overhyped cyberpunk and no man's sky taking years just to complete their game
Ehhhhh I dunno if Starfield deserves most disappointing. It had impossible expectations and a lot of hype, but it wasn't THHATTT BADD
After seeing the candidates, I had little doubt what the winner and the runner-up would be - and I was right!
While Starfield didn't knock it out of the park, naming it the most disappointing game is wild. I've had a lot of fun with the game myself after 85 hours. I personally found Redfall to be the most disappointing. I wasn't expecting Redfall to be as good as previous Arkane games, but at least okay considering their pedigree. I stopped playing after 4 hours because it was so janky, I couldn't keep going.
Comparing last gen releases from these studios, going from Dishonored 2, Prey, and Deathloop to Redfall is much worse than going from Fallout 76 and Fallout 4 to Starfield. You can make arguments about aspects of Starfield being better than Bethesda's last 2 games, especially Fallout 76. Redfall was simply a bad game from a talented developer.
i picked up redfall new at best buy for $7.99, no complaints
Should have been Gollum. There are plenty of gamers that were disappointed in Starfield, but there were also a lot of gamers that thought Starfield was their game of the year. It's pretty safe to say almost no one enjoyed Gollum.
Except most people knew even before it came out gollum would be bad, it had no expectations. Starfield did
I obviously can't tell you what you can and cant be disappointed in, and you obviously can't tell me what games I should be disappointed in. The people have spoken here, I just think people are a little harsh on the game. For every player that was disappointed in it, another 2 loved it, we just don't have a lot of Xbox users on this site.
I don't think people were expecting that much from Gollum. Hoping, maybe, but expecting? Nah, I don't think so.
In a year with games like Gollum, Skull Island, Redfall, Walking Dead Destinies, and Avatar Quest for Balance, the fact that people actually voted Starfield, a game with mid 80's critic reviews and a Golden Joystick Xbox GOTY award under it's belt, as most disappointing, is one of the silliest things I have ever witnessed in my 34 years of life.
A game being an 8/10 instead of a 9/10+ like you thought it would be does not make it "most dissapointing" in a year full of games with, 3, 4, 5, and 6/10 games.
I don't think a lot of people had expectations for Gollum, aside from it not sucking as much as it did. Redfall? I guess you could make a case for it, but again, the expectations probably weren't quite there. The rest? I have no idea what they even are, and I'm probably not alone, so the expectations definitely weren't there. Starfield, on the other hand, people had ridiculous expectations for, and it's clear it was a massive disappointment compared to those expectations. For the smaller number of people that had were interested in Redfall, it might have been a bigger disappointment, but I think it's very clear that Starfield was a massive disappointment and was that to a lot of people, so no surprise it won here.
I didn't care about any of those titles, so how could I be disappointed by them?
To be disappointed by something you have to actually care about it and have high expectations. The reason Starfield won is because a lot of people actually cared about it.
Most disappointing and worst are not the same thing.
Starfield is also a game with a 6.9 user score on metacritic. And a 62% mixed reviews on steam. So it seems like a pretty common sentiment that the game is disappointing.
We got exactly to what Todd sold us on
