XEL Is Officially The Worst Switch Game Of 2022, According To Metacritic


XEL
Image: via Nintendo.com

It’s that time once again when Metacritic spices up the ‘Game of the Year’ nominations by releasing a list of the worst games released.

On the Switch front, the worst game of the year goes to the Zelda-style sci-fi adventure title, XEL. It made its debut on the platform in July this year, and according to Metacritic’s scoring system (which requires a nominated game to have at least seven professional reviews), it’s the fourth-worst game overall of 2022. The Switch version of Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition was also in 10th place.

“Games are ranked by Metascore (as of December 12, 2022) prior to rounding, and any titles with fewer than 7 reviews from professional critics are excluded. (In other words, these bad games are all major enough to get reviews from multiple publications.) If a single title would have landed on the list multiple times due to low scores on more than one platform, we only included the lowest-scoring version.”

Metacritic – The 10 Worst Video Games of 2022:

  1. POSTAL 4 – No Regerts – 30 (PC)
  2. CrossfireX – 38 (Xbox Series X)
  3. Babylon’s Fall – 41 (PS5)
  4. XEL – 43 (Nintendo Switch)
  5. LEGO Brawls – 46 (PS5)
  6. Zorro: The Chronicles – 59 (PS5)
  7. The Last Oricru – 50 (Xbox Series X)
  8. The Waylanders – 51 (PC)
  9. Kamiwaza: Way of the Thief – 52 (PS4)
  10. Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition – 52 (Nintendo Switch)

Here’s what Metacritic had to say about both of the Nintendo Switch titles:

XEL

“A 3D, open-world platformer set in a mysterious world that blends sci-fi and fantasy elements, Xel may get a few points for visuals and its original story. But don’t mistake Xel for Zelda: The former is so unpolished and frustrating that few gamers will have much fun playing it. And the problems aren’t just on Switch: A PC version received similarly poor reviews.”

Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition

“An “enhanced” port of a fairly good 1997 point-and-click sci-fi adventure game set within the same universe as the first Blade Runner film, this remaster was not the hit that the original was. In fact, it wasn’t even as good as an unofficial port released for PC a few years ago. Critics and users complained about the new graphics and numerous glitches.”

Blade Runner
Image: via Nintendo.com