The 20 WORST Open World Video Games
“Superman Returns” (2006)
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Some would argue that this movie licensed game is not as bad as most make it out to be. Yes, there are some very small redeeming qualities that some might find make the game enjoyable enough. That does not forgive the abysmal controls, though. Superman controls as horrendously as he did in his infamous Nintendo 64 game. On top of that, defending Metropolis was about as demanding as babysitting a screaming child. It is constantly under threat, so much of your time will be spent averting the umpteenth crisis for the worst organized city in fiction. Unless you like watching over a continuously helpless society, “Superman Returns” is a hard pass.
“Dynasty Warriors 9” (2018)
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We know how Koei Tecmo’s “Warriors” games are supposed to be played: traverse a large map and use a small handful of characters to lead armies and fend off hordes of enemies. So, “Dynasty Warriors 9” should be fairly massive, right? Right, but not to the degree it went. Not only did it make an unnecessary jump from big maps to open world, Koei Tecmo didn’t even bother to fill the world with anything! Making the game more insufferable were the uninspired missions that all felt exactly the same and the frustratingly stupid AI. The “Warriors” games are great for the most part, but DW9 was uncalled for.
“Spider-Man 3” (2007)
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The only reason anyone would want to check out “Spider-Man 3” video game adaptation would be for that hilarious “I don’t want to die” quicktime failure. To play the game itself is borderline torment. Sure, the cutscenes and character models are laughably appalling. Does that warrant suffering through clunky webswinging and poor optimization? Given that Beenox, Vicarious Visions, and Treyarch were behind the game, someone across the three studios or even higher-up would have realized something was haywire, wouldn’t they? Apparently not.
“Driv3r” (2004)
The lack of self respect on display is evident from the dumb title alone. Look, the first two “Driver” games were pretty solid games for the PS1. But where “Driv3r” went wrong was in controls and AI. Players were really expected to meet an obscene level of difficulty while driving vehicles that handled as well as blocks of grease sliding over oil. Believe what you will about the payola scandal that occurred around launch, but regardless of what really went down, “Driv3r” still wasn’t worth the duckets.
“Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint” (2019)
If you just want to pick off the dumbest militia to ever exist, then sure, go play “Breakpoint”. But if you want an open world game that will test your FPS skills and immerse you in an exotic world, there are other places to look. “Breakpoint” was simply a complete waste of time as it forced you to traverse across scattered locations with no rhyme or reason. You go around, take out soldiers, loot for better guns and armor, rinse and repeat. It is a mindless cycle that Ubisoft had the audacity to support for nearly three years before completely abandoning it.
“Homefront: The Revolution” (2016)
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While the first “Homefront” provided a decent experience in alternate history where Korea invades and takes over the United States, its sequel had no such saving grace. Even with an interesting premise, it was not enough for anyone to overlook the incompetent AI as enemies and NPCs would run into walls, and the poor framerate made some sections nauseating to play. And do we even need to get into how clumsy and off the gunplay can get? There just wasn’t any reason to play this, not at launch and not even after the patches.
“Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon” (2008)
Some might point to “Big Willy Unleashed” as the downfall of “Destroy All Humans!”, but the real reason we stopped seeing Crypto and Pox was because of this. “Path of the Furon” was totally unacceptable given the quality we had seen in the first two games. While the transition into the 70’s made sense for the franchise, what didn’t make sense were the mundane missions structures, awful dialogue constantly reused by NPCs, and the outright disgusting number of glitches that would frequently force players to have to reload the game. Loyalists quickly abandoned the Furon empire after this travesty. We’re just glad the franchise’s future looks a lot brighter these days with those two stellar remakes.
“Conan Exiles” (2018)
Spoiler alert - “Exiles” has almost nothing to do with the barbarian and instead opts to appease the hardcore survival game fans. We’d forgive the change in genre had the combat not been so clunky. If we’re supposed to become mighty warriors, why doesn’t it feel satisfying to use a weapon? Plus, the barren world makes it seem like “Conan Exiles” was far from finished when it launched. Who knows - maybe Funcom will make a sequel now that they have that questionable Tencent money.
“Big Bobby Car: The Big Race” (2021)
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Honestly, who would expect an open world game based on the Big Bobby Car toyline let alone a good one? Perhaps little kids might not care about the game’s lifelessness. For us, though, it was a snoozefest. One would think a game centered on “the big race” would focus on a lot of racing. Alas, that is a very small fraction of the game. Most of it is spent hunting collectibles in a world filled with no NPCs outside of the small town of living Bobby Cars that talk like they’re chewing cud. And to think they wanted thirty bucks for an empty driving game that is ninety percent wandering for collectibles and ten percent story, writing, and racing!
“Metal Gear Survive” (2018)
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“Metal Gear” seems to be primed for decades of just remasters and ports, but for a second, the future seemed grim. Konami loses the MGS mastermind after Phantom Pain, and what do they do after his exit? They try to make the franchise a co-op zombie survival! Uninspired, void of personality, outright boring - there is nothing that perfectly describes how awful “Metal Gear Survive” truly was. But if you want something that summarizes it, then how about this: monetized save files. Yeah, it was that bad.
“Dead Island: Riptide” (2013)
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The first “Dead Island” was one of the biggest disappointments in gaming on account of an emotional trailer advertising a zombie survival game that had no ambition. So, maybe a sequel would improve it? Sure…in just artstyle. “Dead Island: Riptide” was practically the first game completely recycled with a slight visual touch-up. There wasn’t much different about it, and even the change in visuals weren’t enough to pretty things up. Admittedly, it wasn’t as awful as “Escape Dead Island”, but for open world games, you could do better.
“Gotham Knights” (2022)
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One would expect WB Montreal to learn from Rocksteady’s more refined “Batman: Arkham” games. To make a good superhero game of any caliber, you need good combat, good storytelling, and a good balance between investigating crimes, stealth, and fighting. “Gotham Knights” got none of that right as WB Montreal went “Destiny 2” and essentially made a looter shooter with more currencies than needed. Fight random thugs to collect evidence? Randomly scan objects for any shred of lore? Enemies that scream out the cringiest dialogue? Heroes that are totally clueless to anything and clearly have no skills? This wasn’t an open world superhero game - this may as well have been cosplayers trying to be crime fighters…which actually would have made a more interesting game.
“Infestation: Survivor Stories”, aka “The War Z” (2012)
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Oh yeah, we’re going back to the early cesspool days of Steam, back when plagiarism was running rampant as people stole code and assets just to repackage as a completely different named game or straight up built a game and copied visuals in every aspect. That basically what happened with “The War Z”; the game launched as a means to copy the more popular “Day Z”. The only difference was that “The War Z” was way more buggy, way more broken, and way more unplayable. The backlash only piled up as the game’s executive producer was caught using homophobic slurs, trying to herd customers away from Steam, and frequently dismissed complaints and criticisms over business practices. It wasn’t until 2016 when “Infestation” was taken offline.
“Redfall” (2023)
If it wasn’t for the pedigree behind Arkane, perhaps “Redfall” wouldn’t have been more than a blip on the radar. Thing is that, as we mentioned, this was made by Arkane, the studio behind the “Dishonored” series and 2017’s “Prey”. So, who in their right mind saw “Redfall” and thought, “Yeah, this empty world of dumb, clueless, glitching vampires is acceptable to ship to customers?” Xbox has already been frustrating to deal with as a customer due to the severe lack of first-party releases. For a game that served as a show closer for the platform’s E3 back in 2021 and was even delayed to “bring the game to life”, this was simply unacceptable from a AAA first-party studio, and it only put more pressure on “Starfield” in the months leading up to its launch.
“The Amazing Spider-Man 2” (2014)
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There are plenty of awful “Spider-Man” games, about three for every good Spidey game. “Spider-Man 3” will always be a bad choice, but if you want one that is absolutely unfathomably bad, this is it. “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” had some of the same problems like bad voice acting, character models, and webswinging controls. The biggest crime, on the other hand, was optimization. This game runs about as well as a Goblin glider left out in the middle of a hurricane. Inconsistent frame rates, stuttering, and bugs and glitches galore! Doesn’t matter what version you played, it was garbage all the same.
“Waifu Impact” (2022)
Behold - the creepiest anime girls you’ve ever seen, mixed together with a half-ass designed island with gold stars to collect, gunplay lacking any unique mechanics or impact, and a soundtrack that makes nails on a chalkboard sound like Beethoven’s Fifth. This so called open world experience is borderline shovelware, but somehow pushed its way to infamy thanks to the scantily clad waifus…each looking more dead inside than the last. Save yourself the trouble and go spend your five bucks on something else.
“Road Rage” (2017)
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An open world game centered on vehicular combat sounds like an awesome concept. “Road Rage” was not the proof of said concept. There is absolutely no life in this game in any way, shape, or form. Not in the level design, not in the combat, and certainly not in the controls. Vehicular combat games do have a place in modern gaming, but “Road Rage” isn’t going to sell anyone on that vision. If only a flaming clown head could do something about the mess left behind by this trash.
“Raven’s Cry”, aka “Vendetta: Curse of the Raven’s Cry” (2015)
A pirate-themed open world game? You’re better off playing “Sea of Thieves” because “Raven’s Cry” does not fit the bill. Of course, it does all the things wrong as our other entries - barren world, broken condition, obviously unfinished, the whole nine yards. But arguably the biggest offense is the utterly tasteless writing. Yes, pirates were vile and despicable beings in history, but the way “Raven’s Cry” leans into these stereotypes does more harm than it does educate, commentate, or anything of the sort. Even after the relaunch (or pathetic rebrand, whatever you want to call it), the now-called “Vendetta: Curse of the Raven’s Cry” is still abysmal.
“Crackdown 3” (2019)
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Xbox and Sumo Digital really screwed the pooch with this one. “Crackdown 3” was going to be this explosive new entry in a long dormant franchise with Terry Crews in a leading role! Then, the delays happened, and after years of constantly getting pushed back, the game came and made a big, rancid stink. “Crackdown 3” could barely handle any of the stuff it was doing between physics, destructible environments, and explosions. As for Terry Crews, you only get to see him in his role for, like, the first ten minutes and then he’s killed off. Clearly, no one learned from the innovations and mistakes of previous open world games, and “Crackdown 3” certainly suffered for it.
“Day One: Garry’s Incident” (2013)
It was the Steam trash to end all Steam trash. “Day One: Garry’s Incident” received massive backlash. Inconsistent frame rate, pop-ins, failure to load in proper save states resulting in hard locking from missions, shoddy character animations, and more. Developer Wild Games Studios would issue a copyright claim, causing the video to be taken down while also provoking various YouTubers to continuously call them out for days to weeks to months. Wild Games Studio seems to have disappeared as all of their games are no longer on Steam and their website leads to a DynaDot copyright page.
