30 January 2026

The Worst Game Ever Made According to Metacritic Is Only the Worst by Technicality

By newsgame

For the most part, asking anyone what the worst game ever made is can result in a wildly different answer than someone else’s, and there can be a variety of reasons for that. However, asking Metacritic what the worst game ever made is will produce a very straightforward answer that might even be a surprising one. The title of “Worst Game Ever Made According to Metacritic” belongs to Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade, a Wii U shovelware party game with a name just as obscure as its reputation. With a Metascore of only 11, the game currently sits at the very bottom of the site’s rankings, wearing the crown of gaming’s ultimate failure. The funny thing is, Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade is really only considered the worst game ever made by technicality.

Somehow, Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade managed to nosedive further than every broken, unfinished, or outright unplayable game ever released, but it’s actually more because of a rule change than anything else. In reality, it is officially the worst because the one title that used to sit below it, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, no longer qualifies for Metacritic’s ranking at all. When Big Rigs was first released, it had only five critic reviews and a Metascore of 8. However, Metacritic later increased the minimum number of critic reviews to seven for a game to be fully featured in its official aggregated score lists, thereby disqualifying Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. In other words, Family Party is the worst game ever made according to Metacritic, but only because the actual worst game got disqualified—and only just barely, as it has a mere eight reviews.

Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade is a party game released in 2012 for the Nintendo Wii U, developed by Art Co., Ltd., and published by D3Publisher. As its name suggests, its initial aim was to contribute to the space that games like Mario Party had already been fostering for more than a decade, but with a particular focus on obstacle-based mini-games and quick, local multiplayer sessions. In the game, players compete in a variety of cartoonish challenges using a mix of Wii Remote and Wii U GamePad controls in both casual free play and structured challenge scenarios. Furthermore, like other games in the genre, it was meant to be a family-friendly, pick-up-and-play experience built around accessibility and variety rather than depth and long-term progression.

What Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade Offers

35 OBSTACLE-BASED MINI-GAMES across worlds, despite the title mentioning only 30.
CHALLENGE MODE, where players compete through themed sets of mini-games.
FREE PLAY MODE, where players choose up to 10 mini-games to play freely with no score goals.
MULTIPLAYER SUPPORT, where up to four local players can play together.
MIXED CONTROL SCHEMES that use both Wii Remote and Wii U GamePad controls.
UNLOCKABLE CONTENT, where winning in Challenge Mode unlocks additional characters and mini-games.

Family Party 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade 3

Why Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade Ultimately Failed

Unfortunately, Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade failed miserably for a host of reasons. Reviewers repeatedly called its gameplay unresponsive and frustrating, with many of the mini-games relying on imprecise waggle-style motion controls that felt like holdovers from older consoles, making them more annoying than fun.

One of Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade‘s best and most recent user reviews on Metacritic humorously states, “I haven’t played it, but you can’t go wrong with 30 great games!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The mini-games themselves were also criticized for being too shallow, repetitive, and boring. Then there were technical and presentation issues on top of that, with critics regarding the graphics as dated for a Wii U release, and annoying voice acting and sound design that further detracted from the experience. As a mini-game collection, it was naturally and almost universally compared to better-executed party games like Mario Party and Nintendo Land, and it came up short in every way. All of this is ultimately what landed it a Metascore of 11 and drove it down to the bottom of the Metacritic pool, though it was saved from the absolute bottom at the time of its release by the racing game Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing Is Still Considered Worse

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is a third-person truck racing game where players participate in long-haul big rig competitions. After choosing from four playable semi-trucks, they race across multiple U.S.-inspired routes set in different states and environments. Each race follows a checkpoint-based structure that asks players to navigate waypoints rather than traditional lap-based courses, with the goal being to finish before an AI rival. The tracks are designed with a free-roam layout that allows players to drive off-road and stray from the intended path, while a loose career-style progression strings these routes together as players move from one race to the next.

Why Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing Ultimately Failed, Despite Seeing Recent Success on Steam

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is a weird one because, despite once being the lowest-scoring game on Metacritic, it’s currently doing quite well on Steam. Holding a Very Positive rating with over 500 reviews, its PC reception seems to contradict everything critics thought about the game when it initially launched in 2003. It may look that way on the surface, but the reality is, the majority of Big Rigs‘ Steam reviews are satirical takes on the game’s countless bugs and technical issues, citing them as part of the experience rather than negatives. Nevertheless, this is ultimately why Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing failed so miserably when it launched over 20 years ago, as the small number of critics that submitted reviews for it didn’t see its numerous problems as a positive:

NO COLLISION DETECTION, so vehicles and objects don’t block or interact with the truck at all, letting you drive through buildings, terrain, and obstacles.
INACTIVE AI OPPONENTS, meaning the computer-controlled truck doesn’t move during races, making competition meaningless.
BROKEN PHYSICS SYSTEM that fails to simulate gravity or realistic movement.
UNLIMITED REVERSE ACCELERATION, which causes the truck to gain speed endlessly when driving backward, even reaching absurd values that exceed known physical limits.
CHECKPOINT COMPLETION GLITCH, where traveling at extreme speeds triggers all checkpoints simultaneously and the game marks the race as complete.
“YOU’RE WINNER!” MESSAGE, a grammatically incorrect victory screen that always pops up regardless of actual racing performance.
VERTICAL AND OFF-ROUTE MOVEMENT, where the truck can climb steep inclines or leave the road without consequence, thanks to broken collision and physics.
MISSING OR INCOMPLETE TRACK DATA on some routes, which can lead to non-functional levels or crashes.

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing’s Metascore Is Even Lower Now

Shortly after its initial launch, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing made history by becoming the lowest-scoring game on Metacritic, with a Metascore of 8. Interestingly enough, Big Rigs‘ Metacritic page is still up, currently showing it now has an even lower score of 6, after a PC review came in from Multiplayer.it when the game launched on Steam last year. However, it still only has 6 critic reviews, and until it gets one more (which is unlikely), Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade will continue to be the official worst game ever made according to Metacritic.

This all really comes down to how Metacritic draws its lines, not some universal agreement on what the worst game ever made actually is. Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade holds that label because it qualifies under the site’s current review-count rules, not because it is uniquely more broken or disastrous than everything else that has come before it. Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is still sitting right there with an even lower score, but it falls just short of the threshold needed to officially count. So Family Party wears the crown by default, but only because it happened to be the one left standing when the rules changed.