The 10 Most Disappointing Games of 2024

This has been a very busy year for games, with plenty of good and bad news to go around. This extends directly to video game releases as well, with a number of highly anticipated titles releasing one after another. Some of these games were smash hit success stories, while others just couldn’t quite live up to the hype. With The Game Awards 2024 right around the corner, now is as good of a time as any to look back on some of the year’s biggest headlines, even if some titles drew attention for the wrong reasons.

It’s important to remember that ‘disappointing’ doesn’t always mean downright bad. A game that performs poorly may have plenty of redeeming qualities, and games that are commercially successful aren’t always well received critically. With that in mind, there have been a few games this year that set up some pretty major expectations, only to let fans down upon release in one way or another. Presented in alphabetical order, here are the 10 most disappointing games of 2024.

Alone in the Dark

Read Game Rant’s Alone in the Dark Review

Alone in the Dark was conceived of as a revival of the 1992 game of the same name. The original Alone in the Dark was an early pioneer of survival horror, with later installments continuing to advance the genre that much further. Alone in the Dark: Illumination was released in 2015, the last entry in the series before this year, and was met with some pretty severe criticism.

Alone in the Dark (2024) was a chance to redeem the series to general audiences, while giving some major fanservice to longtime fans. The game took a similar approach to recent Resident Evil remakes, such as the changes in camera perspective. Unfortunately, this survival horror revival wasn’t nearly as successful. Alone in the Dark failed to meet financial, critical, and fan expectations, which also unfortunately led to Pieces Interactive being closed by Embracer Group, its parent company.

Concord

Read Game Rant’s Concord Review

From both a commercial and critical standpoint, Concord was one of the biggest flops of the year. While its gameplay was fun, many fans took issue with character appearances, and the biggest issue with the title was its price point. In a genre dominated by free to play titles, Concord launched with a $40 price tag that served as a barrier to entry for fans of Overwatch 2, Apex Legends, and so forth.

Which is admittedly a shame, given the genuine promise exhibited by the game. Concord was infamously shut down only two short weeks after its launch, meaning it has since been rendered literally unplayable. Unfortunately, Firewalk Studios was shut down shortly after.

Funko Fusion

Read Game Rant’s Funko Fusion Review

Funko Fusion offered a scale of crossover that is largely limited to a few ongoing titles like Fortnite, but it was the selection of titles that truly made Funko Fusion stand out. With the early announcements of franchises like Back to the Future and Invincible, it seemed like Funko Fusion could stick the landing.

However, the roster only became much more confused from then on, with very little connective tissue to be found. This ended up being the least of Funko Fusion‘s worries, as it only represented a small piece of a larger problem. Funk Fusion lacks cohesion in many aspects of its design, and it was strongly criticized for offering little in the way of varied gameplay. This lack of variation was only further compounded by a litany of technical issues, all of which came together for an experience that seems difficult to salvage.

Lego Horizon Adventures

Read Game Rant’s Lego Horizon Adventures Review

LEGO games are a giant of the industry, especially when it comes to younger audiences. Even with that demographic aside, there are plenty of players that grew up on these games and will gladly return to the series for any major release. Due to perhaps a misguided direction, LEGO Horizon Adventures seemingly failed to capture the attention of either half of its potential fanbase.

Ultimately, it turns out that a game like Horizon simply doesn’t lend itself to the LEGO format very well. The worst crime Horizon Adventures commits is being bland, with its level design in particular being far too limited to capture the appeal of Horizon Zero Dawn‘s open world.

Multiversus

To anyone who has fallen out of the loop on its development, Multiversus may seem like an odd inclusion. After all, The Game Awards officially named Multiversus as the Best Fighting Game of 2022 after it was first released in early access. Now that it has received a full launch, Multiversus was nominated again for Best Fighting Game of 2024. This decision was met by a great deal of controversy in the fighting game community, paving the way for the game to appear here.

Multiversus‘ accolades don’t do much to soften the disappointment felt after its launch, or even the updates that followed. If anything, it only made the blow hit that much harder. Multiversus showed a great deal of promise in early access, but certainly had a fair bit of problems to boot. Many hoped the game would be smoothed over, but some of these issues simply grew worse over time, especially as far as balancing and progression are concerned. Multiversus has underperformed in sales as a result of a litany of issues, but given its free-to-play nature, perhaps it can eventually be turned around.

Silent Hill: The Short Message

Silent Hill is one of the most classic horror series around, meaning excitement always peaks whenever a new game comes around. That’s especially true when considering the Silent Hill series had been on hiatus for more than a decade until the release of Silent Hill: Ascension in 2023. Most would say that 2024 was a good year for the series as well, thanks to the successful release of the Silent Hill 2 remake. However, the remake was preceded by Silent Hill: The Short Message, which didn’t capture nearly the same acclaim.

The Short Message was faced with a pretty high bar, and simply couldn’t reach high enough. Much of this is due to the game’s purposefully small scope, but this also led to a few more seemingly unintended consequences. Despite The Short Message‘s well-advertised runtime, gameplay gets repetitive fast, and it doesn’t take long for the dialogue to grow old either. For all of its shortcomings, The Short Message did finally offer a small picture of what Silent Hill could be in the modern era. Hopefully, a successor could take this concept and run with it.

Skull and Bones

Read Game Rant’s Skull and Bones Review

After the successful release of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, the demand for pirate games reached an all-time high. Skull and Bones wasn’t able to capitalize on this demand, largely because of the time spent in development hell. Skull and Bones first began development around 2013 and has reportedly changed direction a number of times since. As the dawn of its release finally arrived, Ubisoft’s CEO infamously declared it to be the company’s first-ever “quadruple-A game.”

This statement was met with a decent amount of ridicule, but it was most strongly refuted by the performance of the game itself. It also failed to live up to the pirate fantasy, instead becoming more of a ship fantasy. While there’s room for that, it missed out on all the greatest parts of Black Flag. Skull and Bones was the white whale of the gaming community for over a decade, and at this point, it will seemingly never deliver on the expectations fans had held on to for all that time.

Slitterhead

Read Game Rant’s Slitterhead Review

Slitterhead gave plenty of reasons to be excited, chief among them being the involvement of the original Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama. With such a prestigious name behind the wheel, Slitterhead appeared to be in good hands. Moreover, the game seemed to be proudly wearing its inspirations on its sleeves. Slitterhead features terrifying monster designs and fluid action lifted straight out of Silent Hill and Gravity Rush respectively.

Unfortunately, the final product ultimately met some pretty harsh reception, with only 26% of critics recommending Slitterhead on OpenCritic. This can boil down to a few reasons. The balance between action and horror resulted in neither really shining, the combat felt weak instead of exciting, and the scares felt cheap instead of enthralling. Beyond that, the mission and level design was lacking, and while it has a few cool features like Rarities, they never shined either.

South Park: Snow Day!

Read Game Rant’s South Park: Snow Day Review

Between The Stick of Truth and The Fractured but Whole, South Park has had an impeccable track record with major video game adaptations. This makes it all the more disappointing then that South Park: Snow Day! failed to capture much positive attention. There are a few different ways in which Snow Day fell short, including its lackluster story, but its feeling of disconnect from South Park as a whole is certainly a motivating factor.

For example, Snow Day‘s sense of humor seems to represent a caricature of South Park‘s crude comedy. The game’s writing lacks the witty edge of its source material, and it mostly relies on the same few cheap punchlines. South Park: Snow Day‘s gameplay wasn’t free from criticism either, with many noticing a remarkable decline in depth compared to its more innovative predecessors.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Read Game Rant’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Review

The Arkham series is one of the most beloved franchises out there, even though the original trilogy ended nearly ten years ago. The Batman: Arkham trilogy was especially praised as a pinnacle of single-player gaming, so Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League immediately turned heads upon announcing itself as a multiplayer looter-shooter. Unfortunately, the palpable excitement that filled this moment was quickly overpowered by resounding disappointment.

Fans had been waiting for a follow-up to Arkham Knight for several years, and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was anything but. Many saw the treatment of some characters as downright disrespectful, but it was certainly a strange direction to take the series in regardless. The gameplay left many players disappointed as well, with the experience requiring a massive amount of grinding and not offering much that couldn’t be found in a much more polished game like Destiny 2.