*Please note: A lot of these games are actually decent/good. That's because 2015 was an amazing year for gaming. Some of these might actually be worth playing. Don't take the ones lower on the list that serious.
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#10. Star Wars Battlefront
While not a terrible game in the least bit (actually above average), this game's potential vs what it turned out to be is extremely disappointing. Having only four planets in the game starting was extremely disappointing, especially in the Star Wars universe when we've seen games like Battlefront 2 and even the role-playing Knights of the Old Republic series have much more planets than this game. Combine that with the copy-pasted Battlefield engine, little overall content, poor balancing, no single-player mode unlike previous Battlefronts and a $50 season pass available day one makes this game hardly worth the $60 purchase. While quite possibly the best-looking game of 2015 right up there with Witcher and Metal Gear Solid, this game fails to keep players interested, so it makes number 10 on the list.
#9. Battlefield Hardline
Dice and EA make a second hit on the list with Battlefield Hardline. What was supposed to be a fun spinoff game from the regular Battlefield formula with a cops and robbers dynamic turned into a trainwreck of a game. Combine a lackluster amount of content compared to BF4 (more expensive than BF4 too during sales), a $60 season pass, and EA/DICE literally abandoning the game a week after the game came out to create more content for BF4 dropped the value of the game to nearly zero. Get it in a bargain bin if you can, I've heard some parts of the single player are actually decent.
#8. Destiny (The Taken King)
Labeling itself as a new game by releasing its Taken King revamp/expansion in September, this one snuck itself into the nominees of the Game Awards, so screw it, it's a part of 2015. And it made this list. Why? Destiny decided to screw over its fanbase by not including the Taken King content in its original 2014 season pass. Essentially, people who bought Destiny in 2014 with the season pass and purchased this Taken King DLC have dropped a total of $130 on the game, a ridiculous price, and if you currently own a base copy of Destiny with no DLC, you'll find that scrapping your current copy for a $60 full DLC Destiny: Taken King Legendary edition is actually cheaper than buying all the DLC itself, Activision essentially saying their base game is worthless. For screwing over its fanbase and trying to label itself as a 'new' game, it makes the list.
#7. Batman: Arkham Knight
Do I even need to speak about this game? A trainwreck of a launch so legendary that it had to be taken off the PC Market. Outsourced to Iron Galaxy Studios, the PC port of Arkham Knight was only developed by a whopping 12 people, which would explain its terrible optimization and a 30fps cap at launch. The game dropped off the face of Steam for months until its inevitable return, and even then it still suffers from FPS drops. Then Warner Brothers even gave up on SLI/Crossfire support because they believe the performance gain would be small compared to the new issues it would create (complete bullshit). For a disastrous launch and a company unwilling to actually fix their game, it makes the list.
#6. Guitar Hero Live/Rock Band 4
Rhythm games were supposed to make a comeback this year. Unfortunately, both Guitar Hero Live and Rock Band 4 failed to deliver an appealing new generation of rhythm games. Guitar Hero went with a much more casual approach, simplifying and redesigning their Guitar style, changing the game to a single-player experience, recycling a good amount of their old tracks from last generation with an emphasis on rock/casual rock, and an interesting take on rhythm games by using real concert footage and literally putting you in the feet of a rockstar. However, with Guitar Hero Live, you can't rock out with friends anymore, as there's no multiplayer whatsoever, no backwards compatibility with old controllers from last generation, no drums/mic/bass support, and no backwards compatibility with old DLC from the Guitar Hero Franchise.
Rock Band 4 does what Guitar Hero failed to do right and does everything wrong that Guitar Hero got right. Rock Band 4 features similar controllers to the old generation and backwards compatibility with old instruments. It also features backwards compatibility with a large amount of the old DLC from the previous generation of Rock Band games. However, its complete and utter fail to deliver online multiplayer at launch (still not available as of today), an uninteresting Band Tour campaign mode compared to Guitar Hero Live, and an expensive band-in-the-box bundle at $250, no official e-drum support, and a terrible setlist compared to Guitar Hero Live makes this game painfully average just like Guitar Hero.
Why is it number 6 on the worst list, and why are they grouped together? Because while both aimed to revive the rhythm industry, none did successfully. I at least expected one of these two to get it right. For an immediate failure of trying to revive one of my favorite series, these two games make #6 on the list. Let's hope they don't oversaturate the industry with games this time.
#5. Evolve
After an entire year of terrible games, this game tries to come out Q1 2015 defending its terrible DLC practices by saying they need to 'feed their families', essentially a pity story to get gamers to buy their game. Evolve is a game that cuts the bullshit and was a prime representation of what was wrong with the gaming industry, and after last year, gamers had enough. Within a few weeks this game literally died, and now no one will play this game or even pick it up in sales for cheap. Its pre-order incentive let gamers skip the lower tier creatures for the upper stage 3 creatures all on day one and essentially left gamers who didn't pre-order annoyed. Combine that with a fun cooperative element that's unplayable with strangers and a company keen on microtransactions, DLC, pre-order incentives, and two (yes two) season passes,this game killed itself as soon as they announced its second season pass. Evolve teaches us you can't try to get sales through pity, and that if you're not confident in the quality of your game and if you're not proud to release it, then don't. We have enough crappy games to deal with.
#4. Minecraft Story Mode
What happens when Microsoft pulls up to Telltale's drive-thru window with sacks of cash asking to make a game? Minecraft Story Mode. This uninspired game seeks to actually add a story to Minecraft but fails in doing so in every possible way. Pandering to its low-age demographic rather than making a story for all ages, Minecraft Story Mode features cringeworthy dialogue and an unepic story that feels like it was written in 10 minutes by unpaid interns. With a company like Telltale who create their game solely based around story and not gameplay, story is everything, there's never a lot of gameplay to Telltale games at all. With a terrible uninteresting story like this it falls flat on its face a foot from its starting line. While the recreation of the Minecraft feel on a different, optimized engine is superb, the rest of the game falls flat and stands as an easily spottable cash grab by Microsoft. Many people weren't keen on Telltale's Game of Thrones series, so with this game we can see a decline in the quality of Telltale Games, as they need to go back to their roots and focus on story and characters (and not taking money from Microsoft).
#3. The Order: 1886
What happens when you price a single-player 5-hour game at $60? The Order: 1886. This PS4 exclusive failed in story, gameplay, and amount of content to deliver an experience as promised. Many PS4 fans couldn't stand dropping $60 on a game they knew would only last 6 hours maximum and even with superb graphics the game failed to last. Even when you factor out the fact that the game is short, the story itself is very bland and mundane, I recommend watching Previously Recorded's The Order: 1886 Review for an analysis by film experts on the story of the game. This game easily lost gamers' interests a week after it came out, and like many others on the list, if you're going to grab it, grab it from a bargain bin.
#2. Godzilla
While this game technically came out in 2014, the American release was in June of this year. This game is actually a movie-licensed game meant to compliment the 2014 Godzilla reboot. Every single level you do the exact same thing: destroy the generator. No variation at all. There's even a point in the game where it asks you to destroy submarines as Godzilla and the game calls it a 'generator'. You do this every mission to collect 'G Energy' which does nothing at all. On top of that, the game can be completed in less than one hour, which I think is a 2015 record for shortest game ever. However, you need to replay the campaign over and over to unlock the other monsters and things along that line. Combine a mundane, short as hell campaign with no local multiplayer and a broken online multiplayer mode literally killed the game as soon as it came out everywhere else in the world. The PS3's graphics are so laughable that you shouldn't even bother if you're even going to play it and have a PS3. Stay away unless you are a die-hard fan of Godzilla.
#1. Hatred
THANK GOD this game died out immediately after launch. After stirring up controversy in 2014, getting taken off of Steam Greenlight, then Valve's Gabe Newell himself apologizing for trying to censor this piece of 'art' and putting it back on Steam, then Twitch banning Adult-Only games one day before the launch, this year we finally saw the release of Hatred. This game is exactly what many predicted: a game that stirred up controversy just for the sake of stirring up controversy (and sales). If you look at the game itself, the game is an unoptimized, uninspired, lackluster isometric shooter designed to try and be as edgy as possible. In the first five minutes of gameplay I saw the same kill animation 3 times. I don't even exactly know why its so unoptimized when running on Unreal Engine 4 but it runs like total garbage. There's nothing to this damn game: no reason behind killing innocents, no exploration into the mind of a serial killer, no creative background behind the game, no other characters, its literally just: I'm sick of the world, let's go out banging. This game falls into the category with games like Manhunt, where there's either a terrible or no story to it and its just killing people for no reason. I'm actually really glad this game died out as soon as it came out, because now it stands as an example: if you try to stir up controversy to advertise your game, and it sucks, then it'll die out immediately.
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Oh man, I need some fresh air after these. If you're one of those people who say that 'Witcher 3 is the worst game of the year because the combat sucks' or 'Metal Gear Solid 5 sucks because the AI isn't that good and Chapter 2's story sucks', well I'll let you know you don't even know sh*t until you play these games on the list. Take it from a man who's played all three current episodes of Minecraft: Story Mode, you DO NOT want to play a good amount of these games. We can see that a lot of these games stem from corporations underestimating their markets and assuming a lot of people would buy the product regardless of quality. Well, I'm glad a lot of these games died out immediately to show these groups and companies that we actually want a quality product rather than garbage from their studios. I feel as if we've gone through the worst of the industry, and from here on out it'll (hopefully) get a lot better. Despite this particular list, I believe 2015 to be one of the best years for gaming, and have high hopes that next year will be even better.
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