Worst-reviewed games of 2022 revealed

Review score aggregator website Metacritic has revealed the games that received the lowest overall review scores in 2022

Review score aggregator website Metacritic, widely considered the go-to source for judging critical sentiment surrounding a video game release, has revealed its list of the ten worst-reviewed games of 2022.

The list, published on Metacritic’s news section, lists ten games, some high profile and some not so much, but all of which have been criticised for a number of reasons. Metacritic says it excluded games that had under seven reviews, since they don’t have enough data to make a proper judgment on those games.

Metacritic averages review scores from hundreds of websites, taking critics’ scores and assigning weights to them to create a singular score that can be used to judge how critics felt about the experience overall. Here’s how Metacritic describes its process, straight from the company’s own blog:

“We carefully curate a large group of the world’s most respected critics, assign scores to their reviews, and apply a weighted average to summarize the range of their opinions. The result is a single number that captures the essence of critical opinion in one Metascore. Each movie, game, television show and album featured on Metacritic gets a Metascore when we’ve collected at least four critics’ reviews.”

Metascores, as these aggregates scores are called, are presented on a 0-100 scale, with 0 being the worst a game can score, and 100 being the best. Very few games receive a 0 or a 100, and this year’s worst games list goes as low as 30.

Speaking of that list, here it is:

1. Postal 4: No Regerts (PC) – 30
2. CrossfireX (Xbox Series X) – 38
3. Babylon’s Fall (PS5) – 41
4. XEL (Switch) – 43
5. Arc of Alchemist (Switch) – 46
6. Zorro: The Chronicles (Xbox Series X) – 50
7. The Last Oricru (Xbox Series X) – 50
8. The Waylanders (PC) – 51
9. Kamiwaza: Way of the Thief (PS4) – 52
10. Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition (Switch) – 52

CrossfireX suffered from massive technical issues at launch. Picture: Remedy Entertainment

Some of the games on the list, such as CrossfireX, received low review scores because of poor visuals and performance, as well as a host of bugs and glitches. Others, like Kamiwaza: Way of the Thief, were panned because they didn’t offer all that much in the way of storytelling or gameplay, and were simply average titles.

Postal 4 is the worst-reviewed title of the year, releasing to little fanfare and heavy criticism from the press. Picture: Running With Scissors

The highest-profile title on the list, however, has to be Babylon’s Fall, an online RPG developed by Bayonetta developer PlatinumGames and published by Square Enix.

Babylon’s Fall was widely criticised at the time of release for having incredibly lacklustre gameplay, an almost non-existent story, and a host of technical issues. Square Enix eventually announced that the game would be shutting down in February 2023, less than a year after it first released.

These games aren’t the only games scoring poorly, although they are the lowest-ranked games of the year. The latest Pokemon games are currently the lowest-rated ever, although that’s not particularly saying much, given they currently sit on a still-respectable 72/100 on Metacritic.

The Pokemon games arrived “buggy and broken” last month, with fans and critics complaining about bugs, glitches, and performance issues across the board. Nintendo has promised to fix the games, but it’s not known when that will happen.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.