This Is The Worst Reviewed Game Of 2022

In the world of video games, December is always a lively month. Everyone is keen to share their opinions of which games were the best of the best from the last 12 months, with awards shows celebrating everything the industry has to offer.

However, that got me thinking about the opposite - what was the absolute worst video game to release in 2022? As it turns out, there's a very clear winner in this category, which is almost frustrating since it seems that being the worst game ever made is kind of its whole point.

So, keep reading to learn more about the worst game to release in 2022.

Hot Competition

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Taking a look at Metacritic for games released in 2022, there was actually fairly heavy competition for the worst video game of 2022. Coming in third place, there's Babylon's Fall, with a Metacritic score of 41. This lacklustre hack and slack from PlatinumGames failed to captivate an audience, to the point where there was only one person in the whole world playing it at one point.

Next up on the list is CrossfireX, boasting a score of 38. It appears that Microsoft's attempt to bring this iconic franchise to the West was a bit of a flop, with not even support from Remedy Entertainment helping its case. With the likes of Overwatch 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 also launching this year, it was always going to be a hard sell for CrossfireX.

However, the worst game by far to release in 2022 has to go to Postal 4: No Regerts. It sits at a meagre score of just 30, which as mentioned before, is rather frustrating. You see, the whole point of Postal 4 is that it's meant to be a bit rubbish.

Even on the game's Steam page, the description reads: "POSTAL 4: No Regerts is a satirical and outrageous comedic open world first-person shooter and the long-awaited true sequel to what’s been fondly dubbed as "The Worst Game Ever™". 

Does that mean that in resulting as the worst game to release in 2022, studio Running With Scissors actually completed what they set out to accomplish? Well, not exactly.

What Is Postal?

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The best way to describe the gameplay of Postal 4 is if you imagine a Garry's Mod sandbox mode with a dash of Grand Theft Auto's garish satire and violence. You play as a man aptly known as "The Postal Guy", who rocks up in a US town looking for work. From here, you're tasked with hunting out jobs to earn money and pass the time of day.

Along the way, you'll encounter other weird characters who bark unfunny voice lines that are under the guise of satire. All the while, the main draw of Postal 4 is that you can go anywhere and do anything you like at any time.

You can quite literally walk up to random NPCs and urinate on them if you have a full bladder. Mowing down the entire population, whether it be with a mobility scooter or an M4 machine gun, is met without any reprimands. 

New weapons and methods of discombobulating NPCs are unlocked by progression through the woeful excuse for a story, but after a few hours with the awful controls, you won't want to play for much longer than you have to.

Garbage On Purpose?

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What's jarring about Postal 4 is that it's difficult to derive which parts of the game are rubbish on purpose or due to negligence. Everything in the game feels like it's good enough to ship without landing a lawsuit. The game world is colourful but filled with the muddiest textures I've seen this side of 2006.

Many of the buildings are sparsely populated with furniture, with some barely resembling more than a simple grey box made in Blendr. NPCs are just as paper thin. They wander the streets aimlessly, often resembling something out of the zombie apocalypse.

Voice actors, including the main protagonist, sound as though they've been recorded on an iPhone in the back office of the studio. Many of the sound effects appear to play out as simple audio cues without any mastering to make the game sound at all realistic.

This is all without mentioning the awful PC performance that brings even an RTX 3080 to its knees. While the game is an open world, you're constantly drawn to a halt as Postal 4 pauses to load in the next chunk of the map. This was barely acceptable in Half-Life 2 back in 2004, never mind in 2022.

Postal 4 might be the least bit enjoyable if weapons were entertaining to fire. Alas, wielding weapons feels akin to waving your arms around and hoping for the best. You can be shooting an NPC directly between the eyes, only for the game to not register a single hit.

Games like High on Life have proven that you can make a satirical game with a bit of jank that still feels like an enjoyable, quality product. On the other hand, Postal 4: No Regerts feels like the product of a studio that's completely missed the point of why Postal 2 was popular in the first place.