Metacritic Reveals The Worst-Reviewed Games Of 2025

Every year, gamers, moviegoers, and TV-watchers excitedly scope out the stuff that tops Metacritic’s review charts. “Is my favourite game on here?” “Is there something here that I hadn’t heard about, but I should get around to playing?” It’s fun. It’s festive. It’s distinctly internet in the best way.

And then there are the media outings that pop up at the tail end of those lists. The games, films, shows, that stand out as dimly as the best reps shine brightly, the ill-fated installments that make most of us wince. We tend to write about video games at TheGamer, surprise, surprise, so I’ll focus on 2025’s worst achievements on that score. Will you be surprised? Honestly, probably not.

Tamagotchi Unwelcome Bore

I’ll be real. I liked Tamagotchi Plaza. For two hours. I covered it a bit here, and it had a promising beginning. Unfortunately, I soon realized that the “beginning” was, in fact, the game. Tamagotchi Plaza may be the single thinnest game I’ve played in the past few console generations. It’s repetitive beyond measure, it lacks any semblance of finesse, and it’s nowhere near as funny as it aims to be.

Seeing it take second-place for worst game of the year was still a bit of a shocker. Mainly because I’m not accustomed to playing anything quite that low! Hurrah, I did it. I guess. Tamagotchi’s latest outing scored a disastrous 43, but it’s “bested” by MindsEye, which nabbed a 37. That, as VGC’s Andy Robinson noted in a similar article, is one of the eight 2020s-era video games.

MindsEye had an… interesting development phase. Workers felt routinely dismissed – downright “laughed at,” in fact – whenever they voiced concerns to former Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies. Benzies founded Build a Rocket Boy with aims to make MindsEye its breakout story-driven hit, but suffice it to say, claims that the studio is “learning and growing” come too little, too late. Thanks as always, layoffs.

Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, the remarkably controversial paid title designed to introduce the new console’s myriad features, was lambasted from the get-go as Nintendo Direct viewers fully processed what the announcer just said. Paid? For this? What? This is pack-in material, clearly. Ten bucks for an interactive get-to-know-your-hardware manual? TheGamer’s own Stacey Henley echoed the chorus, scoring Welcome Tour an uninviting two out of five stars.

While the aforementioned trio of duds is sure to inspire the most chatter, there are, of course, seven more entries on a bottom-ten list of games. Here’s the full of it, reverse-countdown style, so that you can really feel the pressure build as your eyes scroll down to MindsEye:

Who knew pandemics are no fun at all, eh?