10 Worst PS4 Games

Prelude is a visual novel by Tango Gameworks and a prequel to Ghostwire: Tokyo. KK and his gang of supernatural detectives look into a strange disappearance and stumble onto something more sinister. It came out in March 2022, and it was made as a small side story for people who already loved the main game.

That is a lot of setup for a game that does not give you much to play. A visual novel is mostly reading and choosing, and that is a hard sell on a console built for big action games. It averages 37 out of 100. Players do not mention it at all, which may be the harshest review of the lot.

Goosebumps: The Game is WayForward's point and click adventure, set before the events of the Goosebumps film. Your sleepy neighborhood has been overrun by monsters, and the monsters are R.L. Stine's own, loose from their books. WayForward has made some lovely games, so a tie-in with this much fan appeal sounds like a safe bet.

It was not. The idea is lovely, but the game around it is thin and slow, and it averages 35 out of 100. Nobody brings it up when they talk about the PS4, so it has slipped away without a fuss. Scary stories for kids deserve better than that, and the books are still the better way to meet these monsters.

Gene Rain is a third-person shooter by Deeli Network, set in a futuristic world with a linear story. It came out in July 2018. Its own description promises "shocking visual effects" for the players' enjoyment, and shocking is one word for them. The soldiers and robots look like leftovers from a much older shooter.

A linear shooter lives or dies on how good each fight feels, and this one never finds its feet. It averages 35 out of 100. Players barely mention it, and when they do it is only as a name on a list of bad games. If you are going to play a bad shooter, there are far more entertaining ones around.

My Friend Peppa Pig is an adventure from Outright Games in which you become Peppa's new friend. You create your character first and pick the clothes, so you can be a fox in a pirate hat, then ring the doorbell at Peppa's house. It came out in October 2021. The game is clearly made for very young children, and it is easy to see why it was never going to impress critics.

It averages 30 out of 100, which is low for a game that tries so little. What makes it a favorite is the way players talk about it. Ask them what to play on the PS4 and someone will answer My Friend Peppa Pig, with a straight face. It has become the joke answer, and the joke has outlived the game.

Balan Wonderworld is a platformer by Arzest and Balan Company, published by Square Enix, and the first project of Yuji Naka's new studio. Naka co-created Sonic the Hedgehog, and this was his first game with artist Naoto Ohshima since Sonic Adventure in 1998. You collect costumes, each with its own power, and the controls are simple: two buttons switch costumes, and every other button does the same thing.

That is a fascinating way to build a platformer, and it does not work. Big names and a big publisher raised hopes, which makes the fall harder. It averages 42 out of 100, the highest score here, but players call it one of the worst games they have played. It is the one on this list that people actually want to talk about.

Left Alive is a stealth game by Ilinx, published by Square Enix and set in the world of Front Mission, with characters by Metal Gear artist Yoji Shinkawa. It started out as a strategy game and became the series' first survival game, where you mostly sneak past enemies and build weapons from scraps when sneaking fails. Fans of Front Mission were hoping for something grand.

Reviewers liked the graphics but criticized the controls and the AI, and a stealth game with bad enemy AI has very little left to offer. It averages 33 out of 100. Players call it a letdown, even the ones who really wanted to like it. That is the sad part: the world is interesting, and the game just does not do it justice.

Shadows of New York is a visual novel by Draw Distance, based on the tabletop role-playing game and released as a stand-alone expansion to its earlier Coteries of New York. You play Julia, a vampire of Clan Lasombra and an outcast in the Camarilla, sent to investigate the death of the local Anarch leader. It came out on six systems at once on September 10, 2020.

Fans of the tabletop game will know the world well, but the story reads better as a pitch than as a game. It averages 33 out of 100. Players never mention it, so it sits quietly in the store with the rest of the visual novels. This one is for a very specific fan, and the rest of us can skip it.

Alekhine's Gun is the third game in the Death to Spies series. You play Semyon Strogov, code name Alekhine, a KGB agent recruited by the CIA, mostly in the 1960s with flashbacks to World War II. You can shoot your way through or go quietly, with poison and staged "accidents". On paper it sounds like a fun spy game with plenty of choice.

In practice it does not hold together, and it averages 38 out of 100. Players name it among the worst games they have played. One went in expecting the worst: "I bought it knowing it was horrible, went in with a negative mind set, and still was disappointed". When a game cannot even beat low expectations, there is not much more to say.

The Woolies Strike Back is a side-scrolling platformer by Black Forest Games, the first new Bubsy game in 21 years, since Bubsy 3D. The Woolies, the series' old enemies, have stolen Bubsy's prized Golden Fleece. Two decades away, and they still can't leave his stuff alone. Bubsy has always been a punching bag for gamers, so a comeback was a brave move.

The game returns to the flat, 2D style of the early Bubsy games, but the old cat still has a long way to go. It averages 30 out of 100. Players barely mention it, and the few who do mostly drop the name in a list. It is a shame, because the series has never been allowed to move past its reputation.

The Quiet Man is a beat 'em up by Human Head Studios, published by Square Enix, and you can finish it in one sitting. Its story is told in long full motion video scenes, some with live actors. The hero, Dane, is deaf, so most of the cutscenes play with the sound muted and no subtitles. Critics complained about the story and about how little the game commits to its deafness idea, and a later update brought the audio back as an option.

It averages 21 out of 100, the lowest score here. That is a bold idea gone wrong: a game about being deaf where you cannot follow what is going on. Players put it at the top of their lists of the worst games on the PS4, and nothing else on the list beats it.