Highlights
- Skull Island: Rise of Kong is receiving a negative reception on social media, with many players calling it the worst game of 2023.
- The game's lackluster graphics and seemingly incomplete presentation have been highlighted in clips shared on Twitter, leading to calls for players not to buy the game.
- Comparisons have been made to other poorly received games, such as The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, and Skull Island: Rise of Kong is being considered a strong contender for the worst video game of 2023.
It seems that not even the mighty King Kong can overcome the negative reception that Skull Island: Rise of Kong is currently getting on social media, with many players already calling it the worst game of 2023. King Kong is one of cinema’s most iconic monster properties, and the franchise has both generated its own video games and inspired countless others like Donkey Kong and Rampage. A brand-new King Kong game was announced earlier this summer by indie studio IguanaBee Studios titled Skull Island: Rise of Kong - the first starring role for the Eighth Wonder of the World since 2017’s KONG VR: Destination Skull Island.
The announcement trailer for Skull Island: Rise of Kong depicted the legendary gorilla battling dinosaur creatures called Deathrunners across colorful jungle landscapes on a mission to avenge the death of his parents. The third-person combat mechanics seemed promising, and publisher GameMill Entertainment is known for its experience with licensed video games thanks to Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. Fans likely weren’t expecting Skull Island to reach the heights of 2005’s acclaimed King Kong movie tie-in, but it seems Kong’s newest interactive adventure is getting an even worse reception than many could have guessed.
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Shortly after Skull Island: Rise of Kong launched on PC and consoles earlier this week, a Twitter user by the handle of RickDaSquirrel started sharing clips of the game in action - with many of them highlighting its lackluster graphics and seemingly incomplete presentation. The footage shown is plagued with pop-up and low-resolution textures, and the animation is even replaced with a still image of an enemy dinosaur at one point. While commenting on these clips, RickDaSquirrel has advised other players not to buy Skull Island, going as far as to call it a “complete scam” to offer such a seemingly unfinished title for $50.
Other social media users have echoed RickDaSquirell’s sentiments, calling Skull Island: Rise of Kong "low-effort shovelware" and comparing its graphics to those of the PlayStation 2 era. Some commentators have deemed it worse than The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which was heavily panned when it launched earlier this year due to similar technical issues and questionable stealth gameplay. RickDaSquirrel themselves even issued an apology to the notorious Godzilla game for the PS4, which itself was one of the lowest-rated titles of 2018.
Unfortunately for King Kong, it seems the famed king of the jungle is following in his rival’s footsteps with Skull Island: Rise of Kong, which many consider a strong contender for the worst video game of 2023 given the early reactions being shared on social media following its launch. Fans hoping for an action title worthy of the King Kong license may have to wait a while longer, as Skull Island is now trending for all the wrong reasons.
Skull Island: Rise of Kong is available on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: VGC
