Redfall

2023 has been full of big name games making big splashes, from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to Baldur’s Gate 3, but it was also one full of truly eye-popping misses – in fact, IGN published more game reviews with a 4 out of 10 score or below in 2023 than any year since we switched to the 10-point scale, including our first 1 in about a decade. Here is every game that scored a four or below on IGN in 2023.

<b>Wanted: Dead - 4/10</b><br> As someone who considers themself an action game buff, Wanted: Dead let me down on just about every front. Its combat may be fun for a few hours, but eventually I realized that it was just a pool of shallow water to splash around in. The fights never evolved in any interesting or meaningful way, the minimal enemy variety never challenged me to change up my tactics, and worst of all I always felt weak, even when I fully maxed out the skill tree. Add on bland visuals, a distinct lack of personality and charm, and frequent crashes, and it all amounts to one of the first big disappointments of 2023. <i>- Mitchell Saltzman, February 14</i>

<b>Crime Boss: Rockay City - 4/10</b><br> Crime Boss: Rockay City is an overly ambitious air ball on all fronts, from its sloppy moment-to-moment gameplay to its largely abysmal voice acting – the worst of which sound like single takes spliced in with mistakes intact. There’s an earnestness with which Crime Boss has been put together that I do admire – as a kind of direct-to-VHS knockoff of Payday on a promising ’90s backdrop – and there is an inescapable novelty in seeing these de-aged Hollywood stars steering the story here. Unfortunately, the hokey charm on display is nowhere near strong enough to offset the repetitive and regularly frustrating mission design, its roguelike single-player rapidly becomes a total chore, and its co-op juice just isn’t worth the squeeze. Sadly, Crime Boss: Rockay City’s coked-up ego has been writing cheques its budget-priced body couldn’t cash. <i>- Luke Reilly, April 6</i>

<b>Redfall - 4/10</b><br> Redfall is a bafflingly bad time across the board, whether playing solo or with a friend or three suffering alongside you. That it comes in the wake of Arkane’s excellent Deathloop, the enduringly beloved Prey, and the acclaimed Dishonored series honestly beggars belief. Its performance on Xbox Series X is regularly dire, plagued with pop-in, stutters, and a long list of display bugs. It’s beleaguered with bodgy AI enemies that struggle to mount a basic defence, choose appropriate cover, or even effectively navigate the world. The one-note mission design recycles and repurposes itself all the way until the anticlimactic final encounter. Button commands break, characters vanish, and the cheap and static story scenes seem woefully unfinished by typical standards. There may be occasional glimpses of a competent co-op shooter on display but otherwise, Redfall is just like a vampire in all the wrong ways. That is, it really wasn’t ready for daylight in this state, and it sucks. <i>- Luke Reilly, May 1</i>

<b>The Lord of the Rings: Gollum - 4/10</b><br> The Lord of the Rings: Gollum fails to provide a satisfying answer to the big Why’s. Why, of all the interesting characters in The Lord of the Rings lore, would anyone want to play an entire game as Gollum? Why would one trade the solid action of prior games in this universe for busywork, uninspired and frustrating platforming, and bad stealth? It’s not clear who this is for, or what it was intended to achieve. What is clear is that it’s not fun to play, and not something to recommend to any but the most curious and dedicated Lord of the Rings fan. <i>- Justin Koreis, May 25</i>

<b>Everybody 1-2-Switch - 4/10</b><br> Everybody 1-2-Switch is a tedious and surprisingly small catalog of unoriginal and mostly poorly designed minigames that’s guaranteed to bring any party grinding to a halt. Even with a few interesting ideas, like Joy-Con hide and seek or the color scavenger-hunting modes, there are simply too few options to keep a group’s attention for one game, much less for multiple matches. Throw in the fact that many ideas are mind-numbingly boring, and others are rehashes of stuff found in the original, and you’ve got yourself a great way to rid yourself of unwanted friendships but not much more than that. <i>- Travis Northup, July 5</i>