Games Inbox: What is the worst video game of 2025?

The Wednesday letters considers the idea of making a Zelda RPG, as one reader is glad that modern gamepads have replaced old school joysticks.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email [email protected]

PLEASE NOTE: We are currently preparing articles to run over the Christmas and New Year break, so if you’ve been thinking of writing a Reader’s Feature now would be the perfect time to send it in. It can be on any subject you want, as long as it’s a minimum of 500 words long.

Easy win
Looking forward to seeing GC’s Top 20 of the year over Christmas (I assume) but I wonder what everyone would name as the worst game of 2025? The problem with that is most people don’t buy bad games, especially if they read these pages, so it’s kind of hard to say.

I’d say the worst game I’ve personally played this year is Metroid Prime 4 but I’m sure that’s not the worst overall. It does seem fairly obvious though, looking at Metacritic, that it’s probably MindsEye, at least in terms of games people have actually heard of.

If that ever goes super cheap I will be tempted to pick it up just to see it out of curiosity, which I wouldn’t do normally but it does really seem to be one of the worst video games ever made. To think that you could go from GTA straight to that is wild. I think it also shows that every game is a lot more than just the work of one person, no matter how much they might want to take credit for it.
Winston

GC: We’ll run our Top 20 over the Christmas break as usual, yes.

Left in the past
It was fun to see that Quickshot 2 joystick make a comeback, but I admit was expecting it to have built-in games. I don’t really understand why it doesn’t, given how little space they’d need and they’ve already licensed a bunch of old games for the other devices.

I have to admit though, that while seeing the joystick again (I had the Quickshot 2 Turbo with the red striping – I don’t remember what was turbo about it) was fun I really don’t miss joysticks being used for anything. I’m really not sure why that design was so common at the time, considering arcade games rarely used anything like that.

The Atari VCS joystick and Competition Pro were perfect for most games at the time, so what the joystick was meant to be doing I’m not sure. Come to that, why did they only have one button? The computers had a full keyboard so surely it wasn’t a technical problem?
Bootles

GC: We’re really not sure, we can only assume it was an attempt to ensure compatibility, since there was no default controller that came with any of those old home computers.

Back to formula
I’d almost look forward to Marathon being a flop just to see Sony finally have to admit that making more live service games is stupid, but they probably wouldn’t listen anyway. More importantly, they’re going to shut down Bungie because of it, which will be a crying shame.

If Destiny 3 is a dead end though I don’t see why they don’t get them to do a spiritual sequel to Halo. You could say maybe they don’t want to, but at this point I’m not sure they have much of a choice, it’s kind of that or nothing.

And before someone says revive Killzone, I’d much rather they just make something new that was closer to Halo. Killzone was only a ‘Halo killer’ in that it was a first person shooter, there really weren’t any other similarities at all (including it being good).
Cernel

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Christmas wish
Is anyone else getting serious FromSoftware withdrawal symptoms? I know Elden Ring: Nightreign was quite recent, and is still going, but I really have no interest in a multiplayer-only game. Which is annoying because their next game is The Duskbloods.

When are we going to find out what their next proper game is? It’s exciting to me because we know it’s not Elden Ring, so it’s got to be something new, unless it’s Bloodborne 2, which will be just as acceptable to me. But what will it be and when will they announce it?

All these rumours and we never hear anything about FromSoftware. I realise that’s probably because they’re Japanese, but I feel we do get some rumours from other developers. Oh, well, here’s hoping that 2026 will reveal all.

Merry Christmas all!
Cranston

Christmas number one
I don’t understand why I have no memory of this Super Mario Land UK remix song. I guess I was young at the time, but I would’ve thought I’d remember it. I do remember the Tetris single though, which was basically just the Game Boy theme tune but with people shouting the name ‘Tetris’ occasionally. I loved it.

Strange that while video games are so much more accepted nowadays that’s nothing you’d see nowadays. I sometimes wonder if more games had songs with lyrics whether they’d get into the charts. I don’t know if they ever released Simple and Clean but that seems like it would’ve had a really good chance to me.
Wendel

Predictable choice
I don’t get why, if Divinity is turn-based why isn’t it called Original Sin 3? I only played the previous game of theirs but if it’s set in the same universe why would you call your next game after the action role-players instead?

I’ve got to say another Divinity game is just about the most uninteresting thing that Larian could’ve done, at least at face value. After the huge success of Baldur’s Gate 3 they were big enough to say they didn’t need to do the sequel and weren’t interested in any other licensed games.

That means that had enough financial security to do whatever they want and what they went for was what they probably would’ve made anyway, even if Baldur’s Gate 3 wasn’t a mega hit.

I know they’ve got a bunch of games underway at the moment, but I hope the others are a bit more unexpected. I was looking forward to them doing a sci-fi game or a horror game or just something else other than a fantasy role-player.

If that’s what they like then it’s all up to them, but I’m always surprised when companies and people get infinite resources and do something boring and safe with it. Surely this is the one moment to go for broke and if it doesn’t work out that’s when you go back to something more predictable.
Gaston

Executive interference
I don’t think Activision should worry because their last game, Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7, was a flop, as it’s a blip. Next year they will pull it back. They have had years of hits, as long as Xbox don’t tell them what to do.

This is now where Xbox have their say in the games and the only downfall for Activision is Xbox, along with Phil Spencer and that other bloke. The best thing they can do is let Activision do their job and keep their opinions to themselves.
David

Zelda RPG
I think it’s been obvious for a while now that whatever the next Zelda game is (and probably the one after that) it’s going to be a spin-off. Although there’ll probably be some remakes in there as well, I don’t think Nintendo will want nothing but that.

Getting in Monolith Soft means either something open world related or a role-playing game, possibly both. Personally, I hope it’s not a continuation of the Breath Of The World formula, even if it is a new map, but, as I think people have suggested before, I wouldn’t mind seen a Japanese role-playing take on the world of Hyrule.

It would definitely make a lot more sense to me than more Hyrule Warriors, but it work in a similar kind of way by letting you have lots of characters meet up and fight together, when usually they’re just in the background.

The only thing that puts a hole in my theory is that that doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d want out at the same time as your new movie. So maybe I am wrong and it’s secretly Breath Of The Wild 2 or an Ocarina Of Time remake.

But the Ocarina Of Time remake… that seems like the exact sort of thing fans are dying for and Nintendo absolutely will refuse to make, for reasons. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Korbie

Inbox also-rans
Great interview with Jon Blow this week. Love his thoughtfulness and he seemed to appreciate your questions, GC. Always comes across as a passionate creative and knows what he wants to achieve. Brilliant stuff.
Pugmartin

GC: Thanks.

I am interested in this Quickshot 2 controller and would like to know when and where I can order it.
Ron

GC: There was a link in the story, but it’s here.

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The small print
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