Video games are designed to be played, but what happens when they’re so bad or so hampered by technical issues that they’re unplayable? All games at launch have bugs, which are more often than not fixed with a “day one patch,” bringing the game closer to what it should’ve been at release. There are even some games, like Cyberpunk 2077, that are basically unplayable at launch but eventually get updates that make the title a must-play experience.
Not every game has this luxury, though. Some games have launched with so many issues or terrible gameplay elements that they’re completely unplayable. Whether it’s awful controls, technical glitches, server problems, or the game being nothing like the promotional materials, these games are virtually unplayable.
10 Ride to Hell: Retribution Had Some Bizarre Cutscenes
This Open World Game Was Basically On Rails
Ride to Hell: Retribution was released back in 2013 and was presented as a gritty open-world biker action game. However, upon release, it became known for its frankly catastrophic state. The controls were awful and felt uncomfortable, with laughable animations and gameplay systems that functioned poorly or not at all. Combat mechanics were unresponsive, driving physics lacked any realism, and the overall design felt unfinished. As a result, progression was frustratingly difficult, with critical praise virtually nonexistent due to these persistent flaws.
The story actually had a lot of potential. Players take on the role of Jake Conway as he returns from military service. He goes out to spend some time with his younger brother, who’s wearing their dad’s old motorcycle jacket. His brother is then killed outside a bar because of some bad blood between bikers. Jake goes on a revenge mission that’s unfortunately shown through terrible fight sequences and unresponsive driving sections, in an open world that is in no way open.
Ride to Hell: Retribution
9 Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing Has Been a Broken Mess for Years
There’s Nothing in This Big Rigs Game That Works
Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing hit the road in 2003 for PC audiences and has since become an iconic example of incomplete development. The concept is simple: big trucks race each other. That shouldn’t have been too hard to get right, especially considering this was the same year that Need for Speed: Underground and Midtown Madness 3 were released.
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The collision detection in Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing was never properly coded, with players phasing through buildings, other vehicles, and even bridges. AI opponents were often frozen or failed to race at all, and physics systems were effectively nonexistent. The now-infamous “You’re Winner!” victory screen became a meme and reads like bad AI writing. All of this highlighted a product released in a completely broken, unplayable state, easily making it one of, if not the worst, racing games ever.
Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
- Released
- November 20, 2003
8 Superman: The New Superman Adventures Was Awful Even for Its Time
This N64 Game Is Infamous for Its Terrible Controls
Superman: The New Superman Adventures, better known as Superman 64, was released for the N64 in 1999 and quickly became infamous for its unbearable controls and cryptic objectives, despite being a seemingly straightforward game on a relatively simple platform. Graphics were constantly broken and glitched, environments were rendered incomprehensible, and the mission design boiled down to a confusing, repetitive loop of flying through endless rings.
While Superman Returns: The Game had moments of fun with its flying mechanics, there’s not much to like about it outside of that. It’s one of the hardest N64 games of all time, but the difficulty comes from the game’s terrible controls, not because it offers players a real challenge.
7 Postal III Managed to Undermine Itself
This Postal Game Felt Like a Bad Parody of the World It Created
Postal III was released with the goal of continuing the chaotic, comedic legacy of its predecessors, but it arrived in a fundamentally broken state that the series has barely recovered from. Endless crashes were reported from day one, technical failures appeared across all systems, and certain design choices undercut the game’s satirical tone. As a result, it was nearly unplayable at launch and lacked the edge or charm that had made the franchise popular in the first place.
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This entry in the Postal series follows the Postal Dude after escaping his hometown following its destruction. The game features three branching paths: good, neutral, and evil. That would normally be fine, but Postal III‘s forced morality system clashed with the series’ traditionally sandbox-style chaos. On top of that, the controls were widely criticized for being unresponsive, and the AI was erratic.
Postal 3
Systems
- Released
- December 21, 2011
- ESRB
- m
- Engine
- Source
- Franchise
- Postal
6 Infestation: Survivor Stories Could Barely Hold One Server Together
There Were No Survivors in Infestation’s Story
Infestation: Survivor Stories, originally titled The War Z, had the potential to be one of the best zombie games of all time. It aimed to blend elements of DayZ and Days Gone, set across large open environments featuring towns, forests, and rural zones. Players were tasked with scavenging supplies, weapons, and resources to survive both zombie threats and hostile human players. Progression was meant to be persistent, with items retained after logging out.
What actually happened was a flood of server issues encountered by nearly all players. Rampant bugs disrupted Infestation: Survivor Stories ‘basic gameplay mechanics, and poor balance tuning made progression feel nearly impossible. False advertising lawsuits were filed over misleading claims, leaving the game’s reputation irreversibly damaged within the survival MMO genre.
Infestation: Survivor Stories
- Released
- December 17, 2012
5 Sonic the Hedgehog Hit a Speed Bump With Sonic ’06
This Game Was a Black Mark On the Sonic Franchise
There have been great Sonic games on every Sega console, but some of the hedgehog’s post-Dreamcast outings have been far more uneven. Sonic the Hedgehog, commonly known as Sonic ’06, launched with high expectations but was held back by an unfinished build. Loading times were unreasonably long, game-breaking bugs disrupted progression, and the controls were so poorly implemented that inputs were often ignored or delayed.
As a result, many levels were nearly unplayable without extreme patience or glitch exploitation, and the game’s reputation remains one of the low points in the franchise’s history. A bizarre romantic subplot between Sonic and Princess Elise made little sense, and even the return of fan-favorite characters like Eggman and Shadow the Hedgehog couldn’t save the title.
Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)
- Released
- November 14, 2006
- ESRB
- e
- Developer(s)
- Sonic Team
- Publisher(s)
- Sega
- Engine
- Havok
4 The Day Before Was a Huge Disappointment
This Survival MMO Isn’t Undead, It’s Just Dead
The Day Before had a ton of hype before launch, promising a next-level open-world survival MMO. But like Infestation, what players actually got had almost nothing to do with what was advertised. A zombie survival game like DayZ with the realistic setting and style of The Division sounded great, but what players got iwas so unplayable that The Day Before was pulled from stores just 45 days after release.
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From broken mechanics to misleading features, The Day Before quickly became one of the most infamous examples of overpromising and underdelivering in recent gaming history. What was hyped as an open-world survival MMO turned out to be a generic extraction shooter filled with reused assets. It even managed to tank its own development studio, which isn’t something many games can claim.
The Day Before
Systems
- Released
- December 7, 2023
- ESRB
- m
- Developer(s)
- Fntastic
- Publisher(s)
- MYTONA
3 Bubsy 3D Had Platforming With Tank Controls
The Bubsy Franchise Had a Hard Time With 3D
Bubsy 3D was an attempt to transition the franchise into 3D platforming, but the effort was met with universal condemnation. The move was clearly made to keep up with successful titles like Crash Bandicoot and Super Mario 64, both of which had already nailed the shift to 3D. The only thing Bubsy 3D really managed to do well was serve as a cautionary tale about rushed development.
The most important thing a platformer needs is smooth, responsive controls, but what players got in Bubsy 3D were clunky, tank-like controls, arguably the worst setup for a platformer. Even basic movement felt awkward. Collision detection was poorly coded, and the level design featured confusing geometry that left players disoriented. With all these problems combined, the game was nearly unplayable.
Bubsy 3D
- Released
- November 25, 1996
- ESRB
- E
- Developer(s)
- Eidetic
- Publisher(s)
- Accolade
- Multiplayer
- Local Multiplayer
2 MindsEye Is the Most Recent Disaster On This List
MindsEye Is So Bad It Was Recalled for a Rerelease
MindsEye is the newest game on this list, released in 2025 as part of the Everywhere project. It was meant to be a high-concept open-world driving shooter, but severe performance issues ruined its launch. Things were so bad that the game was pulled from multiple stores, with the developers promising to “fix” it. For years, people joked that no game could launch more broken than Cyberpunk 2077, but MindsEye might have done it.
Players reported memory leaks on PC, crashes during early missions, and major bugs that were never addressed. These issues made basic progression nearly impossible, leading to widespread criticism from early adopters and reviewers. Developer Build a Rocket Boy, led by former GTA producer Leslie Benzies, has since told most of its staff they’re at risk of redundancy, showing just how badly things have spiraled.
MindsEye
Systems
- Released
- June 10, 2025
- ESRB
- Rating Pending
- Developer(s)
- Build A Rocket Boy
- Publisher(s)
- IO Interactive Partners A/S
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
This Atari Game Nearly Killed The Industry
Widely considered to be the worst video game of all time, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was released on the Atari 2600 in 1982 after a famously rushed development cycle. Objectives lacked any clear logic, the map was laid out in a confusing and disorienting way, and glitches often trapped players indefinitely in pits. All of this “gameplay” revolved around collecting pieces of a phone so E.T. could, of course, phone home.
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In a somewhat unbelievable turn of events, the game’s unplayable state was so severe that millions of unsold cartridges were buried in a landfill in the New Mexico desert. Which, when said out loud, sounds completely insane. E.T. garnered so much attention for how bad it was that it contributed to the crash of the North American video game industry, nearly killed console gaming, and seriously damaged Atari’s reputation.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
- Released
- December, 1982
- ESRB
- t
- Developer(s)
- Atari
- Publisher(s)
- Atari
