Even though it didn’t quite live up to the ridiculous first half of 2017 and its avalanche of great games, 2018 has gotten off to an impressive start nonetheless. Truth be told, we could have just gotten God of War and still been satisfied with how the year has progressed but there have been other standouts as well, including must-have titles such as Celeste, Hollow Knight, and Far Cry 5, as well as some surprises like Dragonball FighterZ and Mario Tennis Aces.
However, the first half of the year has also been marked by some pretty big disappointments, with a number of games we had high hopes for failing to live up to expectations. They weren’t all bad, mind you — in fact, a few of the games we’ve included on this list are actually pretty good — but even small issues can hold otherwise great games back in a big way. With that said, here are our biggest gaming disappointments of 2018 (so far).
12. Monster Hunter World
It took far too long but Capcom finally released its popular Monster Hunter series on current-gen consoles earlier this year, delivering one of 2018’s earliest hits in the process. Taken as a whole, Monster Hunter World is an incredibly absorbing action-RPG experience, offering a beautiful fictional world teeming with monsters to hunt, deep and varied gameplay, and an emphasis on teamwork between players. So how does the game come up short? Well, it all has to do with some seriously questionable design decisions that hinder the game’s main selling point.
For a game built around cooperative play, the actual act of teaming up with friends in Monster Hunter World is needlessly convoluted, with the game not allowing players to group up during story missions until each player has advanced to specific cutscenes (which is ironic given that what story is there is mindless drivel for the most part). That being said, when everything clicks Monster Hunter World is a blast and one of the best cooperative multiplayer experiences of the year but there’s a very good chance that the game’s archaic networking features will derail your experience before you get deep enough to become truly invested.
CAPCOM