The Worst in Video Games 2017

Most Disappointing – Mass Effect Andromeda

Mass Effect Andromeda should have been, at the very least, a decent game.  Unfortunately, this highly anticipated title landed with a thud in early-2017. It was pretty clear from the onset that there was a lack of quality in the game when compared to the original trilogy, and in many ways it didn’t even feel like a true Mass Effect game.  Andromeda lacked in almost every facet where its predecessors were praised.  While there were quite a few disappointing games in 2017, seeing Electronic Arts take the Mass Effect series out to the woodshed and kill it off was one of the most unfortunate things to see.

Worse yet, they completely abandoned it afterwards by closing Bioware Montreal and merging it into a different studio, EA Motive.  An update from the Mass Effect Andromeda development team earlier this year revealed that there are no future patches for single player or in-game story content, leaving many threads of this already disjointed story dangling.

Worst Launch – Star Wars Battlefront 2

At the time of this writing, EA is still trying to get things right in Star Wars Battlefront 2.  The decisions that were made leading up to the launch of this highly anticipated shooter still leave us scratching our heads.  It truly sounded like Electronic Arts was going to make good on the promise of a great Battlefront game.  All the pieces are there.  The single player story mode that players of the first game were asking for was included, other single player challenge modes that broadened the scope of the game were as well, it has an incredible presentation that was carried over from their first effort, and a reworked class system in multiplayer — Battlefront 2 has all the pieces to be a good Star Wars game.

Once it was realized that the entire progression and unlocks system was tied to loot boxes and an in-game economy that slowly trickled currency to players in a fashion that felt like a free to play mobile game, EA started a backpedal that’s been rivaled in recent years only by the infamous launch of the Xbox One.  First they increased the currency that players earn in the game to help with the grindy progression system of unlocking new characters.  Then they started giving players better daily rewards.  They even raised the cap of progression linked currency you could earn in the game’s single player modes (what a revelation).

Unfortunately, the damage was really done when they structured the progression system for the game around the controversial Star Card system.  This system allows players to upgrade their characters with cards that, for the most part, are found in blind boxes.  Perhaps EA will get the game back on track in 2018.