It’s a different developer, but the publisher is the same. GameMill Entertainment, the company behind Skull Island: Rise of Kong developer IguanaBee, had its hand in yet another buggy and broken mess of a game this year. This time, it’s The Walking Dead: Destinies, an action-adventure game that lets you change the outcome of pivotal moments within the popular apocalyptic horror show. But you know what, Destinies was a horror show of its own, one absolutely riddled with glitches. Killed-off characters would remain in the hub area like their death was a YouTube prank. Enemies would get stuck in or glitch through walls. Hard crashes were a regular occurrence. There was even a game-breaking issue that blocked players from beating it. It’s bad, but maybe not surprising when folks from the Rise of Kong studio told The Verge that GameMill routinely hires small teams to make games in very little time and with little clarity or support. Publishers, give developers more time to make games.
That’s always the real takeaway with a list like this: developers just need more time to make games, period. While it’s fun to mock buggy games, laughing hysterically at the many (mostly absurd, occasionally game-breaking) glitches, no one on a development team goes in intending to make a shitty game. It’s often the byproduct of mandated deadlines and strenuous workspaces, something the industry really must change if it hopes to attract and keep talent.
That said, 2023 was the year of some godawful releases, maybe more so than last year or the year before it. Will 2024 bring us even more buggy games? Probably. And when it does, we’ll be right here to chronicle them all. Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (if you celebrate). Enjoy some games.
