Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water after The Lord of the Rings: Gollum and Skull Island: Rise of Kong, a new contender for ugliest game of the year has emerged: The Walking Dead: Destinies.
The Walking Dead: Destinies is another game that looks so bad that you’ve really got to see it to believe it. There’s a certain jankiness that makes the bad game sommelier in me smile with satisfaction. That’s all to say, I’m including a bunch of social media posts below, because sometimes you’ve got to see to believe, and by the end, you’ll definitely be on the side of the zombies.
Related: The Lord of the Rings: Gollum – Zero Punctuation
Let’s start with this wonderful janky death.
Apparently, all of the in-game cutscenes are actually just static, which is just sort of beautiful. It’s like looking at the world’s weirdest comic book.
Those static cutscenes lead to some pretty incredible moments, like this one in which protagonist Rick Grimes is crying, which the style does absolutely no favors for.
A choice-driven action-adventure game, The Walking Dead: Destinies allows gamers to play through and re-write the show’s first four seasons. The game released on Nov. 17 and holds an incredible 3.5 User Score on Metacritic. There don’t seem to be any critical reviews available, and honestly, that makes sense.
2023 has been a particularly odd year for games. While some all-time bangers have been released, like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Sea of Stars, a lot of really poor quality games that are tie-ins to larger franchises have released, earning critical ire and mockery from the general community.
The Walking Dead originally started as a comic book by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore, with Charlie Adlard later taking over for the latter on art. Published by Image, The Walking Dead became a multimedia sensation, with the TV show drawing a large fanbase. Over the years, though, there’s been some question about just how high quality anything The Walking Dead is anymore, and Destinies feels like another mark against the franchise.
