Alright, we've already looked at the best Xbox games according to Metacritic in 2023 - and you've also given us your official Pure Xbox Game of the Year - so it's time to look at the absolute worst titles of the past twelve months as well.
This is where things get a little strange, as Metacritic only categorises games in this way if they've received at least seven professional reviews, which means the likes of The Walking Dead: Destinies and Skull: Rise of Kong don't actually make the cut, despite being incredibly low-rated titles across all platforms.
So, we'll give you the formal list first, and then we'll tell you where those games would have ranked.
- The Lord of the Rings: Gollum (34 - PS5)
- Flashback 2 (35 - PC)
- Greyhill Incident (38 - PC)
- Quantum Error (41 - PS5)
- Testament: The Order of High Human (41 - PC)
- Crime Boss: Rockay City (43 - PS5)
- Hellboy: Web of Wyrd (46 - PS5)
- Gangs of Sherwood (47 - PC)
- Loop8: Summer Of Gods (49 - Switch)
- Gargoyles Remastered (49 - Switch)
If we added TWD: Destinies, Skull: Rise of Kong and The Day Before into the mix, the list would look very different. The worst game of 2023 would be The Day Before (which originally had an average of 15 before it was recently changed to "TBD"), followed by Skull: Rise of Kong (23) and TWD: Destinies (29).
In a year that's been so rich with amazing gaming experiences, it's actually been quite a shock how many poor games we've seen as well. Unfortunately for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, that was a disaster on a major scale for Daedalic Entertainment and Nacon, with the former stepping down from game development shortly after its release. The same thing happened to the team behind The Day Before a few months later.