Updated at: 21-04-2022 - By: Leo Hall

It’s becoming more and more usual for even the most obscure PC indie game to be converted to a console or vice versa as technology advances.

As long as the developer respects quality standards, modifying a video game for different hardware or platforms is fine.

The PC version of some games may be marginally less playable than their console counterparts, however this is not always the case.

We’ve compiled a list of the worst PC ports in gaming history, arranged by the year of release for each game’s PC port.

1.Spider-Man 2

Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3 are two examples of games with the same title that are very different from one another.

Despite being one of the best superhero video games ever on consoles, the PC version was hampered by poor design choices that eliminated the game’s trademark open world web-swinging elements.

In order to make the game more accessible to younger audiences, this was implemented. A point-and-click adventure game, in actuality, was what it became in Spider-Man 2.

2.Splinter Cell: Double Agent

PC players had to cope with a slew of issues, including low-resolution graphics and lighting that looked terrible, frequent crashes, and other visual flaws.

As a stealth series, the least they could have done was ensure that the lighting effects worked properly in the PC port of Splinter Cell..

There were also reports of audio being cut out at random, as well as poor mouse and keyboard functions.

3.Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening

SourceNext was hired to work on the conversion, and the lack of a Capcom stamp is immediately apparent when the game is booted up for the first time.

First, DMC3 begins in windowed mode by default, requiring you to manually switch to full screen each time you play. This is a major inconvenience.

Adding to the problem are the frame rate difficulties, which are linked to certain in-game music and menu sounds, requiring you to delete them manually to get the game functioning properly.

4.Resident Evil 4

Because Resident Evil 4 was a port of the PS2 version, which itself was a port of the original GCN version, it was doomed from the beginning….

Because of these limitations, the game had issues with lighting effects and audio glitching in and out.

In addition, the lack of mouse controls in RE4 on PC necessitated the usage of third-party software or the game’s wacky keyboard control scheme.

With the release of Resident Evil 4 Ultimate HD Edition by Capcom, Capcom has solved most of these flaws, including enhanced texturing and lighting.

5.Bully: Scholarship Edition

Bully: Scholarship Edition, the PC port of one of the most beloved PS2 games of the mid-2000s, was a technical disaster.

Bully’s frame rate was set at 30 frames per second, and the game’s controls were clunky and inaccurate, like with many other console ports to the PC.

Many graphic and gameplay issues were also reported by players, including the removal of HUD elements and the appearance of textures.

However, in most cases, these faults weren’t terrible enough to be gamebreaking, but they still made it difficult to enjoy one of Rockstar’s greatest products.

6.Grand Theft Auto IV

GTA IV’s PC release was staggered like Bully’s, giving console players a year’s advantage and, as we’ll see, the greatest way to experience the game.

To be honest, the long wait for GTA IV’s PC release was not worth it. The game launched with horrendous frame rate issues, frequent crashes, and various bugs related to the game’s physics engine.

Some players were able to get beyond the jank, while others were unable to play the game at all because the difficulty of these barriers differed from user to user.

A number of official post-launch patches and fan-made mods have helped GTA IV’s PC port develop over time, much to Bully: Scholarship Edition.

7.Ninja Gaiden

Aside from the fact that it’s unplayable, Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection is easily one of the worst PC conversions ever released.

The fact that Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection runs smoothly on the PC is certainly something for which Koei Tecmo should be commended. The main problem is that it appears that the studio has no other plans. There’s no pre-game launcher, and there are no resolution settings. You’ll only be able to adjust the resolution through a drop-down menu on Steam, and you’ll be limited to 1280 x 720, 1920 x 1080, and 3840 x 2160 resolution options. That’s all there is to it.

This port is only available to people using a controller, as stated on the store’s own caution page that the game would not operate with a keyboard and mouse.

The Master Collection of Ninja Gaiden is what occurs when a publisher or developer simply transfers their game to the PC and does nothing more than that.

8.Enslaved

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West was developed by Ninja Theory over the course of three years. We’ll never know how that happened. What we do know is that it should have worked out better.

The PC version of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is “Exhibit A” of sloppy PC porting: it had low-resolution assets, was capped at 30 frames per second, had no V-sync options, and could not be made to disable motion blur completely.

You would have expected the PC version of the game to be superior to the console version, despite the fact that the PC version was playable for the most part. The answer is no. By a long shot, to put it another way.

9.Saint’s Row 2

No one from Volition worked on Saint’s Row 2, however a division of CD Projekt Red had been hired to work on Saint’s Row 2’s Windows port.

Most of the problems with this port are due to the fact that the game was originally developed for the Xbox 360 to run at a very precise CPU clock speed.

Higher or lower speeds degraded performance, therefore PC owners were essentially penalized for having more powerful hardware than the average user.

10.Dark Souls

The mouse and keyboard controls were abysmal, and the game’s use of the Games for Windows Live DRM was a major problem.

Even though full HD has been the standard for gaming on a PC, Dark Souls’ PC port ran at 30 frames per second and maxed out its resolution at 720p.

Though you’d be better off playing Dark Souls Remastered, FromSoftware issued an apology and began releasing patches to fix the port’s greatest issues.

11.Deadly Premonition: Director’s Cut

Deadly Premonition’s open-world survival horror-meets-Twin Peaks design earned it cult status after its 2010 debut.

Despite the fact that the game’s fanbase is one of the most devoted in the industry, the PC version of the game was met with a barrage of complaints from enthusiasts.

Though it claimed to be a “Director’s Cut,” Deadly Premonition: Director’s Cut lacked major PC features at the time, such as new material and improved visuals and controls.

In addition to the unreliable frame rate and 720p resolution, the game was still plagued by issues from the original Deadly Premonition.

12.Forza Horizon 3

Players were drawn to the PC edition of Forza Horizon 3 since it was one of the first games to take advantage of Xbox Play Anywhere, which was limited to Windows 10 computers. However, although we had a great time with the game, some players encountered several app crashes and framerate difficulties that made it impossible to participate in any race. Monthly updates were published by Playground Games to address specific issues. There have been a number of important upgrades to the game since it was first released in February, including fixes for stability issues, greater optimization for graphical settings, and a correction for a critical framerate decrease at the start of street races.

13.Deadly Premonition

There was a lot of interest in the PC version of the Director’s Cut due to its upgraded graphics and improved gameplay. Players, on the other hand, realized right away that the game’s resolution was set to 720p. It wasn’t the studio’s fault, but a “Durante” modder came up with a solution. The mod not only made it possible to alter the resolution, but it also increased the framerate as a whole. Crashing and OS incompatibilities for Deadly Premonition were also difficulties that were addressed by the developers in a support guide posted on the game’s Steam forums.

14.Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto IV has a slew of bugs, as evidenced by a quick visit at Rockstar’s troubleshooting page. A controller was required, but many who tried it found that the game didn’t recognize the new input device and that the software mistakenly claimed that any GPU with more than 2GB of memory fell below the minimum system requirement. Rockstar Social Club sign-in errors, missing texturing, and firewall issues were among the other concerns. Microsoft’s now-defunct Games For Windows Live service, which had its own set of problems, also contributed to the game’s demise.

15.Dishonored 2

Because of the numerous issues that disturbed gameplay, the follow-up to Arkane’s 2012 game was not warmly regarded by fans. The majority of the upgrades were bug fixes, as evidenced by a perusal of the patch notes. Inconsistencies in gameplay mechanics such as a specific guard disappearing and reappearing out of thin air or adversaries acting incorrectly after being impacted by Corvo or Emily’s powers were among the problems that affected animations and graphics. Arkane has delivered four big updates in the time since its debut, which should address many of the criticisms from the fandom. With Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, we can only hope that these issues aren’t repeated.

16.Mafia 3

During the debut of Mafia III, Hangar 13’s devs stated that framerate would be an issue. The frame rate was limited to 30 in order to maintain “consistency across all platforms” for “Mafia III.” Those who already owned a copy of the game reported that it crashed on occasion. An update the following day from the studio improved keyboard mapping and introduced options for capping frames-per-second at 30, 60, and unbounded. However, in order for the update to work, players had to reconfigure their controllers. “Blurry rendering” issues in the game were fixed one week after the first patch was released.

17.Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

In Ninja Theory’s history as a developer, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is a remarkable footnote, with a gripping plot, interesting combat, and gratifying puzzles (at least on console).

When it comes to the PC version, the only thing that springs to mind is Ninja Theory’s laziness, which we should remind out was given three years to finish the port.

Because of the low-resolution materials and the 30 fps cap, you had to employ motion blur, and there was no Vsync option in the PC version.

A foul taste in PC gamers’ mouths contributed to the early demise of the Enslaved series because of its badly optimized status.

18.Dead Space 3

]When a game is ported to the PC, you may expect a visual and performance makeover to take advantage of the new variant’s superior hardware. However, this wasn’t the case in Dead Space 3. Visceral Studios chose to make the game a direct port from console to PC without any enhancements, rather than contracting an independent firm or asking its developers to do so. DirectX 11 API, which was released in 2011, could not be used because of this, preventing fans of the game from taking advantage of enhanced textures or higher resolutions. Anger at the studio and EA grew even more intense when little effort was put into the PC version.

19.Battlefield 1

One of the most successful competitive multiplayer games ever, Battlefield 1 had its share of issues. Even when you shut down the game, it kept crashing. Using an Xbox One controller also gave you an advantage because you couldn’t turn off the aim help feature. Stuttering in the single-player campaign cutscenes, a GPU hitch for DirectX 11 users, and the borderless window option not working as intended were some of the other issues. While these issues were fixed in subsequent upgrades, the early gameplay experience had a negative impact on the studio’s reputation.

20.Assassin’s Creed Unity

Critics of Ubisoft often point to this game as evidence of the company’s shortcomings. There were numerous complaints from gamers regarding low framerates and crashes during the first few days after the game was released. Even Ubisoft acknowledged that gamers with specific AMD CPU and GPU setups will face additional challenges. The scope of the damage was revealed in later releases’ patch notes: In addition to gameplay and stability issues, bugs were found in matchmaking, AI behavior, and the game’s menu. In the end, Yanni Mallat, the CEO of Ubisoft at the time, issued an apology for all of the problems. In addition, individuals who purchased a season pass would receive a free game from the company’s catalog of offerings.

21.Assassin’s Creed Unity

There should have been no surprises for a franchise like Assassin’s Creed, which has been around for so long, when it comes to dealing with diverse platforms.

Because Unity suffers from obvious pop-in and an extremely limited draw distance, the team decided to release it in 2014.

Even with high-end graphics cards, some players observed frame stuttering in extremely trafficked regions and a lack of overall performance.

Despite this, Ubisoft is still regarded as one of the worst developers/publishers when it comes to PC porting.

22.Watch Dogs

Unquestionably, Ubisoft misrepresented the game’s groundbreaking hacking gameplay mechanics and open-world setting, which was based on Chicago in the present day.

It was well-received on consoles but not so much on PC because of the poor quality of the actual game play experience.

On the PC version of Watch Dogs, the frame rate would drop, save files would become corrupt, and the graphics would be scaled down significantly from the original demo.

23.Batman: Arkham Knight

On PC, the game was a complete shambles, with game-breaking bugs, graphical glitches, and baffling control layouts.

When you consider Rocksteady’s little involvement in the PC version, the laundry list of optimization issues makes a lot more sense.

A third-party developer called Iron Galaxy Studios had been hired to supervise the port’s creation instead, with a reported staff of just 12.

24.Mortal Kombat X

Deathmatches would get increasingly laggy and out of sync as time went on in Mortal Kombat X’s first release due to the game’s shoddy netcode and unoptimized controls.

While NetherRealm was occupied with the console versions, a third-party developer handled the PC port, which is similar to what happened with Arkham Knight.

Mortal Kombat XL, a revamped version of the game with new content and improved online multiplayer, was eventually released by WB Games.

FAQS:

What does a bad PC port mean?

Because there is only one possible hardware configuration, optimizing a game for console is quicker. Game optimization for PC is more time consuming due to the wide variety of hardware configurations available. When developers are unwilling to invest the time and resources necessary to optimize their PC ports, bad ports are the inevitable result.

Why is the GTA 4 port so bad?

In addition to the fact that Grand Theft Auto IV required a very high-end hardware to play, it was also plagued with bugs and frame rate difficulties that made the game unusable to many PC gamers.