Fans' sadness and developers' helplessness: Let's look at the worst games of 2024

The year 2024 was rich in good games. Now we will open the door to one of the saddest and ugliest places — the video game cemetery. This is where the worst projects end up, and this year five new graves have appeared.

What are these games, and why did they die shortly after birth? We will try to understand this together with you. Prepare your scalpel and cover your face with a mask — we are starting the autopsy to determine the cause of death.

Skull and Bones

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Ironically, I eagerly awaited our first patient, hoping it would become great. Skull and Bones became a black mark for Ubisoft and their first grand failure of the year. Almost half a year has passed since its release, and it has become clear that this game is unlikely to revive.

So, how did it all begin? The project was announced back in 2017, and development started even earlier, alongside the release of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. The concept of naval battles and pirate life was so well-received by players that the developers immediately decided — they need to create the online pirate dream game.

Image: store.steampowered.com

Rumors and details about Skull and Bones excited me and millions of fans worldwide. In theory, everything sounded cool, but inside the Ubisoft Singapore office, there was chaos. There were so many development problems that it would have been easier to abandon the project, but the stumbling block was the contract and significant funding from Singapore. They couldn’t give up, but after so many years, they couldn’t delay the release any longer.

And so, on August 22, 2024, the first AAAA-game was released, and we have never seen such an ironic and foolish situation. It was terrible… The graphics were hopelessly outdated, optimization left much to be desired, and the root of all problems was the gameplay, which turned out to be as bland as plain water. Skull and Bones couldn’t offer gamers ANYTHING. A dull grind, arcade-like and boring battles with bots, and… no PvP in a pirate game! All of this caused players to flee the game like a sinking ship, and now it is empty and dead.

Star Wars: Outlaws

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Oh Ubisoft… Why? You were supposed to fight evil, not join it! Shortly after Skull and Bones sank, Star Wars: Outlaws also met a loud crash. This project was eagerly awaited, especially by fans of adventures in a galaxy far, far away. Let’s be honest, Ubisoft knows how to make excellent games with beautiful open worlds filled with details and possibilities. This thought makes it even more painful because Star Wars: Outlaws is horrible.

Let’s start with the promises, and they were grand. What should be in the box? Let’s see. We were promised large open worlds on several planets, as rich in content as Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Moreover, these worlds were made not for decoration but for adventures. The main character of the game is a desperate bounty hunter and an adventurer in the spirit of Han Solo! This alone gave us chills! Add to all this the wars of bandit groups and enjoy!

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Okay, but what’s actually in the box? The worlds are empty and dull with lifeless NPCs and narrow corridors, and one of the planets is just a city with limited locations. Here you are given a speeder, not for convenience, but so you can zoom through all this dullness as quickly as possible! There is nothing to do in the game world, it’s unnecessary, and impossible to get bored. Similarly, the main heroine is not even worthy of Han Solo’s shadow, and that says it all.

The gameplay doesn’t even match a classic grind from Ubisoft. The shootouts are so tedious that even Windows Solitaire would seem endlessly fun. Stealth is something you don’t even want to look at — the enemies are dumber than stormtroopers from the original Star Wars. All mechanics are only half-ready, and it’s disappointing. Even the enmity of criminal groups was made unnecessary and broken. As a result, we already see large discounts and fewer than 1,000 players at launch on Steam.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

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Meanwhile, Rocksteady Studios gifted us the cult franchise Batman: Arkham, and when the news came out that these developers were creating a new game, but this time about villains, gamers went into a frenzy. The project was named Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and now it lies before us on the autopsy table. They wanted to kill the Justice League but ended up killing the entire DC game universe.

Development started almost immediately after the release of Batman: Arkham Knight, and we expected the same dark atmosphere and brutality, but… the first trailer appeared, and all hopes collapsed. Yes, the Suicide Squad is famous for its bright style, but this… It’s a cheap cartoon with mediocre graphics that lost all the dark atmosphere of the DC universe!

Image: store.steampowered.com

At release, fans realized that even in terms of gameplay, the game is simply disgusting and boring. However, those who connected to the game were able to experience this carnival of gloom, while others were constantly disconnected from the servers for a very long time. The "lucky ones" encountered a stupid and boring combat system and endless grinding. All the gameplay boils down to moving from point A to point B through a narrow corridor and shooting enemies. And that’s it.

The plot also lacks stars from the sky, as even the iconic characters here seem like cosplayers with very poor motivation. IT’S BORING. Seriously, even Star Wars: Outlaws is much more interesting. In the end, Warner Bros. Discovery themselves admitted their game was a failure, but… they didn’t abandon the idea of making game services. They all want to surpass Fortnite, haha.

Dustborn

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Another project on our table has a very telling name — Dustborn. Why? Because born in dust, in dust, and will perish in dust. There won’t be any harsh criticism or severe developer mistakes here, as this is not a loud failure — Dustborn simply turned out to be unwanted by anyone. At release, just over 80 people played it, and look closer at the Steam ratings: they are positive, but there are only 224… 224, Carl.

So, judging by the statistics, less than 30% of players reached the third chapter of this adventure. 3 chapters out of 11. Maybe it’s too difficult? Let’s see. The game starts by not letting you play. Seriously, there are no first hours of gameplay here: only dialogues in which the player has almost no influence. Here we are introduced to the characters, and they don’t capture attention at all. Many Steam users noted that the characters are simply unrelatable, and you don’t want to listen to all their long conversations.

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Gameplay starts later, and in the trailers, we see lively rebellious action with explosions and shooting. In reality, it’s unclear why there’s even a combat system here? It’s incredibly simple, unfinished, and… why? The only purpose of the fights here is to give the player a break from endless long conversations, which are often devoid of motivation.

The plot could have been interesting, but everything boils down to uninteresting characters. Adult women and men behave like children, and the only thing they talk about is their endless problems. The characters complain, listen to each other, and don’t make decisions, and then it all repeats. In short, the patient died quietly, and few will remember it.

Concord

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If previous projects still show signs of life, Concord has already been cremated. As Thanos would say, "This time it won’t resurrect". Yes, the Concord released this year was officially shut down, although attempts to revive it were still made. What happened? It’s simple: another attempt to surpass Overwatch and Fortnite, but the developers shot themselves in both feet, and then in the head.

So, it was the familiar "heroic" shooter where the player selects a specific character with individual skills and weapons, similar to Overwatch. Graphics like a cartoon, faster gameplay — all classic, BUT the game’s price turned out to be unforgivably high. While competitors opened the doors to their projects for free, Concord required payment, similar to a PS subscription. The position turned out to be, to put it mildly, unprofitable, as the game had almost no promotional campaign.

Image: forbes.com

Most of the community learned about Concord through scandals, and those who did buy the game encountered a second fatal problem — redundancy in everything. Why would Overwatch players switch to the paid Concord if nothing new is there? Dozens of such projects are released each year, and they all meet the same fate. Only the characters turned out to be original, and with them is also associated a scandal that I won’t cover.

In the end, players were blamed for excessive criticism, intolerance, and greed. The project was updated with patches every day, but the audience kept dwindling until the developers realized that Concord couldn’t be saved. Support for the game was discontinued, and no one was upset about it.

These are the sad stories 2024 brought us. Some projects, like Star Wars: Outlaws, still have a chance to survive, while others will go down in history, remembered only for scandals. The good news is that there are many more good games, and we will talk about them soon.

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