The 10 Most Divisive Games of All-Time

The most divisive games of all-time typically share one thing: they blend the brilliant and the bad. If the following games were just bad, they wouldn’t have a legion of defenders. If they were strictly brilliant, they wouldn’t inspire an army of detractors to rise up against them. Instead, a truly divisive game often blends its best and worst ideas in equal measure.

[NecrumOddBoy]

I'd put Breath of the Wild on this list and ask, would this game get a 10/10 or GOTY if "Zelda" wasn't in the title?

[Prince-Ali]

Literally no loool

[umair_s51]

I loved GTA IV. Best GTA

[-Foxtrot]

7.5 to 8.5 scores at least

They’d mention in the reviews how there’s so many open world games that have released which feature more content or includes more detail to the open world. Then most like say “if it was released in 2011, it might have changed our opinion” so on and on

[AK91]

No no it wouldn't

[goldwyncq]

Yes

[njitram2000]

@NecrumOddBoy I wasn't impressed with BotW until I actually played it. I'm not a hardcore Nintendo fan nor am I partial to Zelda games. I played it as a game completely unrelated to Zelda and found it to be absolutely brilliant in how much freedom it gives you. Is it repetitive? Hell yes! Could it be improved? Absolutely! But it made me feel like I was on an adventure of my own choosing and have memories of it in that way, which I haven't felt from a game in years. So I'd definitely give it an 8.5 or 9, regardless of it being Zelda.

[Imalwaysright]

Exactly. BoTW design was a breath of fresh air in open world design. It truly gave freedom and a sense of adventure while other open world games give an illusion of freedom and are constantly telling us where to go and what to do next and that's one of the reasons why many love it and call it a masterpiece despite having flaws.

[Petebloodyonion]

Agreed!
Good game: Yes
A masterpiece that beat all other similar Ubisoft games? Nope!
Just remember that a Ubisoft game always lose points to Generic NPC, average story, Vilain not as cool as Vaas,
Same Ubisoft formula, etc.
Yet Zelda gets praised for failing at all of these.

[Imalwaysright]

Saying that BoTW is similar to a Ubisoft open world game is the same exact thing as saying that you did not play it.

[Knushwood Butt]

Far Cry 2 had jamming weapons, BOTW had breakable weapons.

[Petebloodyonion]

I have the Wii-U version,
And played it until I defeated the Zora Ganon boss (the water elephant temple).
I loved the Red moon idea, the weather effect, and the Yiga clan.

But doing 100+ shrine to extend life, magic, stamina il pretty much like collecting feathers, poster, and other Ubisoft boring fetch quest.
Climbing tower to uncover fog is pretty much Ubisoft.
Hunting animal, fetching herbs, etc is far from new.
Now the game offers a really minimalist story and the world offer less personality compared to the average Ubisoft game.

But perhaps you can tell me what does the game do way better compared to the old Farcry 4.

[Imalwaysright]

Zelda incentivizes exploration, you're the one putting an icon in the map if you choose to go back to whatever you marked to explore. You do it on your volition. Ubisoft games put the icons in their maps for you. They tell you where to go and give you a list of the things you can do. One offers freedom, the others offer an illusion of freedom. One says go and explore and the others tell you to go to point A, start mission 1 and when you finish mission 1 the game tells you to go to point B and start mission 2. That's a huge difference in open world design and a significant difference in how you play Zelda and Ubisoft games. You talked about ubisoft towers in BoTW but what they do is just show you the layout of the map. In Ubisoft games you get something like this this https://pbs.twimg.com/media... wich is quite different that what BoTW does with its towers. This difference in open world design alone makes me question if you played Zelda. You say that you did so perhaps you didn't play Ubisoft games but the differences don't end here.

The worlds Zelda and Ubisoft games provide are completely different. In Zelda you have a simplistic simulation of the world but a simulation nonetheless. You can interact with pretty much every object in the world and it's not just the player interacting with the objects in the world. You also have elements interacting with each other, the player and with the objects in the world and these interactions are all logic based. Zelda's world feels realistic. The worlds in Ubisoft games are for the most part static. Another big difference considering that we're talking about open world games.

You say that Zelda gets praised for telling a bad story but the thing is that the story in Zelda was just an excuse for you to explore its world while the main purpose of Ubisoft games is to tell you the story.

Zelda isn't even close to following Ubisoft's open world formula. Zelda is the antithesis of the Ubisoft's formula.

[Petebloodyonion]

I'm not downplaying Zelda's strength of freedom and exploration nor the fact that the game is quite enjoyable.
Hell Farcry 4 got praised mainly due to exploration and what you can do outside of the main quest.
And in no shape or form, I'm suggesting that Farcry 4 or any similar games as perfect.

But As I said, I strongly believe that Zelda got a free pass on lots of areas that other games would have been slammed.
Would have it been acceptable for other AAA games to have no voice acting?
There was no reason for not having any. Link never talked before... then Fine add to the Story and make that the chosen warrior is born mute. It could have promoted a hero with a disability, it could explain how the Yagi clan knew I was the Hero of times, etc. But it doesn't excuse the fact that the rest of the cast could have used spoken dialogue.

the 100+ fetching Orb Shrine
Honestly, this would have been slammed real hard in any 3rd party game.
Roadblock, Batman trophies look-alike, forced grind fest, generic you name it.
Making the loot a mystery would have spice things up a bit, Having a meaning full conversation with the sage telling you a secret or simply a throwback to old Zelda 1 where the old guy gives you a random magical item via loot box and says take this...
but no! you collect your quarter hearts (stamina, magic) and proceed to redo.

And speaking loot boxes... Should we talk about exclusives costumes or power in the random loot box that you can only acquire if you have certain AMIbo THAT should have been the loot in Shrine chest?
Would this behavior been acceptable if EA would have implemented it?
https://ca.ign.com/wikis/th...

My point is: If you're making a set of general rules for rating a game then the same rules should apply when rating a game like Zelda or MGS5.

[Imalwaysright]

"My point is: If you're making a set of general rules for rating a game then the same rules should apply when rating a game like Zelda or MGS5."

I can't agree with that because to me what matters the most is the overall experience a game provides. I don't know if you played Bloodborne and The Witcher 3 but despite both being RPGs they are fundamentally different as they were designed to offer different experiences. If I was to review these 2 games I wouldn't take points from one of them because I thought the other had better storytelling just like I wouldn't take points from one of them because I thought the other had a better combat system. I would review them individually and according to the experience they provided me and both provided me stellar experiences.

[LoveSpuds]

I love this notion people have that the whole community collectively gave Breath of the Wild a free pass because it was a Zelda title,......like it's some kind of conspiracy or something.

Perhaps the game is simply brilliant and it's just not your cup of tea?

For my part, I thought Zelda was exceptional, if a little on the easy side, my 23 year old daughter and my son who is 21 soon also loved it, and it was their first exposure to a Zelda title , they had no nostalgia for Zelda like I do.

[qalpha]

Gone Home is the most controversial game in the last 10 years, but not for the reason mentioned in the article. This is the game that caused the greatest rift between gamers and journalists pre-gamergate. Journalists went gaga over this game, over-hyping and over-promoting to the point that many people, myself included, lost any trust in the games media. I bought the game thinking it must be something pretty phenomenal to garner so much praise, only to be disappointed with what I had paid $20 for. The story was pretty good, but the graphics were below average, the exploration kind of boring and there was very little actual game play. Also, it took less than 2 hours to complete, with absolutely no replay value. Even based on "artistic value", it wasn't that special. I felt ripped off.

But I knew exactly why the game was the darling of the gaming press, later winning multiple Game of the Year awards and being on many journalists' top games of 2013 lists. It was because it subverted gamers expectations with a twist ending that had a lesbian romance, back when very few games had any LGBTQ representation. The game itself was okay, but the message was what most journalist were so excited about. If this game had a traditional romance at its core, there is no way progressive rags like Polygon would have given it Game of the Year. Journalist, who felt they were gatekeepers of gaming morality, had their perfect game. And for many, many of us who didn't care, one way or the other, about promoting LGBTQ values over having a great game, this caused a huge controversy.

[KyRo]

MGS2 is amazing. I love all 4 mainline MGS games (V is not MGS). I understand why people were disappointed at the time when all the marketing was done based on snake being on the Tanker. Decades on, the atension to detail for a PS2 game is outstanding. It also has one of the best plots IMO.

[Z501]

"I love all 4 mainline MGS games"

There's 5. Peace Walker.

[P_Bomb]

Of all time? I’d say Mario 2 and Zelda 2 turned more heads than some of these. Castlevania 2 depending on who you ask. Regardless, the third games were all lauded as a return to form.

Metroid going FPS (Prime) made for some nervous message boards, but it turned out alright.

[AK91]

MGSV

[Knushwood Butt]

The Phantom Game

[P_Bomb]

Omg yes. MGSV. I caught wind of some spoilers early on and it became the first MGS I didn’t buy in...ever? Played it free via PS+ years later in tandem with a buddy and ate crow. We had a great time comparing notes. Put in 130-150hrs give or take. But yeah. Divisive if not unfinished. Had to watch the storyboards for the Liquid/Mantis island ending on YouTube.

[theshredded]

Uncharted and The

[SillyBastid]

how is No Mans Sky not here

[Warpaint]

GTA IV is a perfect game in my book. A perfect GTA, at least. V felt dumbed down.

Gone Home was a cool experience if you went in without knowing anything about it - but I guess a lot of people killed that.