A new King Kong video game titled Skull Island: Rise of Kong is quickly being called one of the worst titles that has been released in the entirety of 2023. Generally speaking, 2023 has been an incredibly strong year for gaming as it has seen acclaimed releases like Baldur’s Gate 3, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Resident Evil 4, Street Fighter 6, and numerous others all arriving to huge success. Per usual, though, there have been a handful of games that have drastically failed to meet expectations and Skull Island: Rise of Kong is clearly one of them.
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As of today, Skull Island: Rise of Kong has released across PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC, but regardless of the platform, it looks like the game is somewhat of a mess. Based on footage that has been circling on social media, Rise of Kong is being compared to a game from the PlayStation 2 and GameCube era and also seems to boast cutscenes that are simply unfinished. King Kong himself is also being made fun of in droves for his bewildering facial animations.
You can get a brief look at Skull Island: Rise of Kong in one of its viral clips here:
Perhaps the thing that many gamers are struggling to wrap their minds around is that Skull Island: Rise of Kong is also retailing for $40. For publisher GameMill Entertainment to ask for so much money for a game that doesn’t seem to have received much care or attention is leading many to call Rise of Kong a “scam.” Many others are stating that Skull Island shouldn’t have released whatsoever until it was in a better state.
“The audacity and sheer disregard for customers to present this piece of garbage to audiences for money is peak AAA entitlement,” said user @ProRebornYT on X of the game. “Gameplay looks horrible. This is not AAA, but this is so bad it’s insulting. It’s pure entitlement to think customers would buy this in the current market.”
2023’s Worst Games So Far
Currently, Skull Island: Rise of Kong doesn’t have any official reviews logged on Metacritic, but that will likely change in the coming days and weeks. For now, though, many are comparing Rise of Kong to The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which launched earlier this year and came in at an abysmal 34/100 aggregate score on Metacritic. Some of the other most dismal games that have released in 2023 include Crime Boss: Rockay City, Redfall, and Everybody 1-2 Switch.
Far and away the worst game of 2023 so far though, purely based on Metacritic scores, is Postal 4: No Regerts. Released on PS5 in the first months of the year, Postal 4 has an astonishing 15/100 aggregate score on Metacritic, making it by far 2023’s worst-reviewed game. In fact, this score puts Postal 4 on a shortlist of the worst games of all-time. It remains to be seen if Skull Island: Rise of Kong will sink to these same lows on Metacritic, but either way, it’s likely a title that most will want to pass on for now.
