And why? For me its definitely Warcraft 3 Reforged. They literally made a quick money grab AND you can’t even play online the old W3 without having to download 30gb of trash.

  • This is going to be a very unpopular opinion, but Elder Scrolls peaked at Morrowind. Oblivion was a pretty big step down in quality, and Skyrim was a completely washed out shell of former Elder Scrolls games. I absolutely hated Skyrim and I don’t understand why it gets such universal praise from gamers.

    • I love Skyrim as a modding platform but I really feel you. So much has been lost on quest design from even Oblivion, much less Morrowind. I think Bethesda hedged their bets on exploration being the selling point way too much and it’s becoming more and more apparent this has resulted in their quest design and stories suffering. First it was Skyrim, then Fallout 4, and then 76. I am not looking forward to the writing of quests in Starfield.

      I am sure that it will do well, because most people love the sandbox exploration of it but imo an rpg lives or dies by its quest and story and I honestly feel as if Bethesda just doesn’t have that in them any more.

    • I enjoyed all 3 even though they were all very different. I will say that I spent countless hours in Morrowind, many hours in Skyrim, and less in Oblivion (but I beat that one on purpose just not to feel addicted to it).

      • Both. It held the players hand way too much, literally quest markers leading you straight where you needed to go which I know is a modern gaming thing but I actually loved that in the older games the quest giver just kind of hinted at where you might find the quest resolution and you had to use your knowledge of the game to piece it together. The story and side-stories of Skyrim were subpar, Morrowind had a ton of side stories that were interesting. One that sticks out in my mind is that every once in awhile you’d see this Orc just racing around at super high speeds non-stop. If you managed to catch up to him, or kill him, you’d find that he has magical shoes on. If you put them on, you find out that they give you super speed, but they’re cursed so that you can never stop. Just great, interesting and/or funny stuff like that that rewards your curiosity was simply non-existent in Skyrim afaik.

  • Saying Andromeda for Mass Effect seems too easy of an answer but it’s the first one that comes to mind. I didn’t even mind the technical and graphical issues (most of them were fixed by the time I played it), but the whole story is just so… bland and soulless. Quests designed by a committee, one-note companions, the most predictable cliche alien species ever, boring and predictable villains (they literally recycled the story from the original franchise)…

  • Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth. There are other less then stellar games in the Civ franchise that I haven’t played like Starships. Beyond Earth, though, was a day 1 purchase for me, and it wasn’t -terrible-, but it left a lot to be desired.

    • I liked BOTW once I got used to it and I think TOTK improves on it a lot, but I think you’re absolutely right that they don’t play like a Zelda game. I’m really hoping they finally port WW/TP because as much as I’m enjoying TOTK it does make me miss the traditional style.

    • To me Infinite isn’t the worst in the series. I preferred the campaign to Halo 4 and 5 and the multiplayer was good, just not enough content to sustain it.

    • Yeah that was very upsetting. I’m not a hardcore Halo fan but Infinite was a game I wanted to like, during that first holiday period I convinced nearly a dozen people to play with me…

      The game was so crashy, parties didn’t work half the time, the store and battle pass thing was disgusting (they were planning to make it even more money-grubbing) and I barely got to the first BP level after several days. I had some fun during those times but after a few months I stopped holding out hope and lost interest. Forge came a year too late… I don’t even feel like going back to it anymore.

  • Borderlands 3. The writing just murders it, and the combat doesn’t carry it for me. 1, 2, TPS, Wonderlands all have better stories, so I enjoy them more.

    EDIT: aw, shit, you said favorite franchise… hm… Dragon Age: Origins then? I enjoyed DA2/DAI way more, because of the story/quests.

    EDIT 2: you know what, Half-Life: Alyx. I actively hated that game despite playing it in best possible conditions. It’s cumbersome, slow, and too much “survival-horror” instead of an FPS.

  • Half-Life Alyx, because they made me wait a lifetime for another HL game and it’s a VR game. I’m sure it’s the best VR game money can buy, but playing it as intended would cost me a fortune and all I’d get out of it is motion-sickness-induced projectile vomiting.

  • Lots of console titles in the comments here. Easy answer there is Zelda 2.

    To answer the question as posed, though, Star Control 3 was a massive disappointment after its amazing predecessor.

    • I loved Zelda 2 as a kid. I loved the lore, reading the background story over and over and imagining what it would be like to be Link, fighting to keep your blood from being back Ganon. My brother and I would cheer each other on while taking on the dungeons. Dark Link had us horrifically surprised and it was the first RPG we beat. Great memories around that one.

  • Half-Life Alyx. It doesn’t play anything like the older titles, and I mean that even in terms of VR games. Boneworks is more of a Half-Life game than Half-Life Alyx, while Alyx feels more like a Resident Evil game. It’s slow, movement is limited, there are a grand total of 4 weapons (all one-handed, no melee), and enemy variety is incredibly downgraded from prior titles. It’s not necessarily a bad title or anything, but after twelve years it’s not what I wanted and I had a lot more fun playing games like HL1 or even Resident Evil 4 on my Quest 2 because the ports of these games were trying to introduce more freedom to great games instead of taking freedom away for fear of making a lesser game.