As someone whopays for a PS Plus Subscriptionand someone who has time for just about every type of game genre out there, within reason, it’s very hard for the service to serve up something disappointing to me.
10 PS Plus Fodder Games You Should Avoid
Fodder games can be surprisingly good, but they can also be duds like these games.
I think most people are happy to try just about anything if it comes free with a subscription they’re already paying for. Plus, the surprise ofa random selection each monthhas the potential to get you playing great titles you would have perhaps never considered.
So we wanted to showcase a few of the worst PS Plus Monthly games on record. Games so underwhelming that, even though they were free, we all still felt like we got a bad deal.
We will only be considering games from the PS5 Era of PS Plus. So, anywhere from 12th November 2020, or more specifically, Bugsnax onwards.
10Alone In The Dark
A Ropey Reboot
Alone in the Dark
To demonstrate that Sony continues to do this on a regular basis, let’s start with a game that currently occupies the PS Plus Monthly lineup for this month, at the time of writing.
Alone in the Dark was, and still is, a series that holds acertain amount of respect and pedigree in horror. But, despite some great retro outings, the series has found it very hard to establish itself in the modern era.
This has led to a string of seriously underwhelming titles, and the latest in a long list is the soft reboot simply titled Alone In The Dark.
This game may be far less buggy than upon release, but the puzzles are still laughably easy, the combat is deeply unsatisfying, and not in an intentional survival horror way, and despite a star-studded line-up, the story is lukewarm at best.
It’s bargain-bin fodder and showcases what Sony feels is passable for its monthly lineup.
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League
Speaking of notoriously poorly received video games, how about the game that saw the creators of the Arkham trilogy fall from grace hard?
The PS Plus Monthly game lineup has a habit of featuring live service games, with their presence on the service often serving as the final death rattle before they fade into obscurity, and that’s what this inclusion felt like.
But, there was simply no saving this half-baked looter shooter. Despite some interesting ideas and some satisfying traversal mechanics, the game was set up to have players grind through tedious missions and generic locales.
Which is such a shame, as that quintessential RockSteady charm and quality is there. It’s just hidden behind a sea of corporate red tape. It’s just another gravestone in the cemetery of live service duds, andmaybe eventually the corporate fatcats will take the hint.
8AEW: Fight Forever
Have I Been (CM) Punked?
AEW Fight Forever
As someone who has fallen back in love with wrestling again after a long absence, you should know that I am more willing than most to jump into the squared circle in video game form, even if it isn’t a product that bears the brand of the big W.
If we’re talking non-WWE brands, the one that serves as the best alternative is easily AEW. So, logic would dictate that this would be an excellent alternative to the WWE 2K titles, especially with SmackDown Vs Raw alum working on this one.
However, this game is mediocre at best, with uninspired gameplay, a lack of variety in game modes, and shallow content that is relatively scarce.
In short, it’s just basic, and considering PS Plus has given us a relatively recent WWE 2K game in recent memory. Unless you’re really into the rival brand, there’s very little reason to switch to this one.
7Hello Neighbor 2
Baby’s First Horror Game
Hello Neighbor 2
I’m not naive to the fact that silly, irreverent horror games can gain huge popularity that doesn’t run parallel with the game’s overall quality.
If a game is fun to stream or has multiplayer aspects, it can cover up a lot of cracks. However, even if it is just meant to be stupid fun, the Hello Neighbor series has a lot of cracks.
It essentially sets its stall out as family-friendly horror, but never quite nails anything it sets out to do. The puzzles are overly simplistic, the stealth mechanics are far from refined, and there’s rarely ever any tension leading to cheap jump scares.
It’s a vague silhouette of a horror game, one that dines out on shallow mechanics and gimmicks, and it’s a game that feels like a rip-off, even as a free game.
6Hood: Outlaws and Legends
I Sentence You To Sudden, Instant, And Even Immediate Death!
Hood: Outlaws and Legends
I already mentioned how PS Plus games that also happen to be live service games popping up tend to be the last death rattle before the prompt shutdown of servers, and Hood: Outlaws and Legends is a prime example.
Having shut down its servers in February 2025, this game is no longer something that any of you merry men can hop into, but trust me, you shouldn’t feel down about that at all.
This is a typical extraction format, which is already a hard sub-genre to stand out within, but Hood: Outlaws and Legends never does anything to set itself apart from the crowd.
Thanks to game modes, characters, and a setting that do very little with the Robin Hood theme, a lack of gameplay variety, minimal difference between character classes, and a wonky PvPvE format. The game never had a chance of cutting the mustard.
A half-baked extraction game is a recipe for disaster, and this one should serve as a cautionary tale for all the other inevitable games that will attempt to cash in within this genre.
5WWE 2K Battlegrounds
An Arcade Downgrade
WWE 2K Battlegrounds
This might seem like I have it out for the wrestling industry, considering this is my second swipe at wrestling games. But, I assure you, I’m not just playing a heel. I just expect a lot from a wrestling game.
So, when one is as much of a letdown as 2K Battlegrounds, I feel it is my obligation to stick it in a headlock and suplex it off the top rope.
In theory, 2K Battlegrounds could have been a fun departure from the hyper-realism of the mainline 2K wrestling sims, allowing for cartoonish, over-the-top violence to reign supreme. But, while it has some brief moments of hilarity, it rarely plays out that way.
All the best characters were released as paid DLC, making the game a cash trap, the gameplay itself is mind-numbingly simple at best, and borderline broken at worst. Plus, everything feels shallow, from the game modes, to the wrestler AI and creation options.
It was billed as an arcade smash, but it’s essentially a glorified mobile game, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t think Sony should ever pedal that sort of thing to fill their monthly line-up
4Stranded Deep
Deeply Underwhelming
Stranded Deep
When there areso many great survival gamesof yesteryear out there to choose from that would make for superb free monthly games, it’s only natural to feel slighted when you get handed something like Stranded Deep.
Compared to titles like Subnautica, The Forest, Green Hell, and The Long Dark, Stranded Deep feels like straight-to-DVD slop that might offer some shallow co-op fun for a minute, but will soon fall flat and leave a sour taste in your mouth.
Everything about the experience feels like an attempt to construct a survival game without understanding what makes these games fun, engrossing, or rewarding. As the survival mechanics are unbalanced, the controls are awkward, and the gameplay loop is excessively grindy even for a survival game.
Essentially, it’s Raft, but significantly worse. So, do yourself a favor and avoid this one in favor of its far superior island-survivor contemporary.
3Biomutant
Temu Kung Fu Panda
Fextralife Wiki
I recently wrotea list of games that would have been better as linear gamesrather than as open worlds, and cards on the table, I considered Biomutant for that list. However, in the end, I came to the decision that, in any format, this game would have still been a flop.
Think of Biomutant like a cocktail with hundreds of ingredients. A few curated and tasty ingredients make for a truly refreshing beverage. But, anything that enters the double-digits tends to be confused, diluted, sour-tasting gloop. Biomutant, in this analogy, is the gloop.
The open world is bland and lifeless, the missions and odd jobs are repetitive, unrewarding slogs that take less than an hour to recycle ideas, and the combat is a confused hodgepodge of ideas lifted straight from the bottom branch of the hack-and-slash design tree.
The rather eye-catching visuals and anthropomorphic characters are more than enough to fool someone into thinking this game might be a zany romp, but I pray that this person isn’t you.
2Predator: Hunting Grounds
Tedium Vs. Predator
Predator: Hunting Grounds
With something as action-packed and ripe for gun-toting violence as the Predator IP to work with, you would expect that a PVP commando vs Predator format would be an absolute smash hit in waiting. However, despite having all the components of an interesting multiplayer game, this one flopped hard.
This shooter felt like a PS3-era title trying to masquerade as a modern multiplayer epic, with stiff animations, repetitive filler objectives, and shoddy enemy AI punctuating each game.
Plus, due to the game having just one game mode on launch, four uninspired maps, and dull run-and-gun gameplay when not playing as the Predator, the gameplay felt stale in record time.
The only saving grace was that playing as Predator was fun, but due to that role being vastly overpowered, even if you did make it through the obscenely long matchmaking process, you’d probably kill the rival team in minutes and be booted back out to the lobby.
I’ve seen some ’90s action licenses produce some truly naff games in my time, but this is right up there as one of the worst.
1Five Nights at Freddy’s Security Breach
A Cawthon Calamity
Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach
Before I have some sort of army of animatronic pizzeria workers hunting me down for popping this one in here, hear me out.
I understand that FNAF is a popular franchise. I understand that it’s a franchise that is more about the lore than the games produced these days. But here’s the thing,it’s a pretty closed shop at this point.
The lore is so dense that simply handing out a free game deep into the series isn’t going to get anyone new on board. But, even if you were willing to read up on things, Security Breach wouldn’t be the game that justifies doing so.
Even today, the game is a broken, confused mess of an open world with brain-dead AI, terrible navigation, and worst of all, it destroys established lore while offering next to nothing of interest to make up for it.
If you want to become a FNAF fan this late in the run, you’d be better off watching the Blumhouse movies, because the games seem to be getting worse and worse with each new release.
10 Games That Owe Their Success To PS Plus
Who would have thought that giving games away for free would be so lucrative?
