It’s common for popular games to get mobile spin-offs, offering a scaled-down experience. While some of these mobile versions are surprisingly good, others unfortunately fall flat.
It feels like a clear attempt to quickly make money. They reuse popular elements from a successful game, but deliver a noticeably lower-quality product that was clearly rushed. Often, these mobile versions aren’t even similar to the original game – sometimes they’re completely different, like a simple pinball game or something equally strange.
We’re taking a look at mobile games from popular franchises that are, frankly, terrible.
9. The Elder Scrolls: Blades
A Lie in the Palm of Your Hand
While The Elder Scrolls: Blades aimed to bring the classic Elder Scrolls experience to mobile devices, it unfortunately falls far short of that goal. Despite decent graphics and playable combat, it lacks the depth and charm that fans love about the series.
Honestly, as a big Elder Scrolls fan, I was really disappointed. It doesn’t feel like a true exploration game at all, and instead, it’s filled with frustrating microtransactions that actually stop you from playing! The quick-time events are just awful, and honestly, it’s not enjoyable. To top it all off, they have these super long animations for loot boxes, and it just completely destroys any feeling that this is a proper Elder Scrolls experience.
While it’s playable as a free game, it doesn’t compare to the quality of the main series titles. The aggressive way the game tries to get you to spend money also makes it easy to skip, especially considering how good the other games are.
8. Command and Conquer: Rivals
A Shell of Itself
Command & Conquer: Rivals aimed to bring the classic real-time strategy experience to mobile devices – a promising idea, and one that seemed achievable. However, the game ended up being a far cry from what fans remembered about the original series.
The game is loaded with frustrating small purchases, but its biggest flaw is the incredibly fast pace. This completely changes the feel of the older games, which were much more strategic and thoughtful in how they portrayed large-scale battles. While you can play without spending extra money, the game constantly asks you to, and these notifications are distracting and detract from the experience.
The game’s matchmaking system doesn’t work well, often pairing new players with experienced ones, causing a lot of frustration and players leaving mid-game. Many feel it would have been better to simply release the original game on mobile instead of this disappointing remake, which doesn’t capture the spirit of the classic RTS title.
7. Mortal Kombat Mobile
A Poor Imitation
| Developers | Netherrealm Studios |
|---|---|
| Release Date | April 7th, 2015 |
| Platforms | IOS, Android |
Having Mortal Kombat on your phone seems great in theory, but this mobile version misses what makes the games so engaging. The fighting is overly simplified – you mostly just tap the screen to win, and opponents often don’t even put up a fight. It doesn’t feel like a real Mortal Kombat game and is more reminiscent of the many similar fighting games already available.
This game truly feels like Mortal Kombat, which makes the frustrating addition of pay-to-win elements and potential security issues even more upsetting. It’s especially disappointing that iconic finishing moves, the fatalities, are locked behind a paywall. It just doesn’t make sense – the feature that defined the series is now something you have to pay extra for. It’s a misguided decision, but unfortunately, it’s how the game is designed.
To make matters worse, players can be banned for almost any reason, no matter how small. Even with frequent updates, the game’s fundamental problems remain, and ultimately, the core gameplay isn’t compelling enough to keep you playing for very long.
6. Call of Duty: Heroes
The Call of Duty For Absolutely Nobody
Call of Duty: Heroes wasn’t a game many people were hoping for, but it came out anyway. It essentially copies the gameplay of Clash of Clans, but with a Call of Duty theme – a combination that unfortunately doesn’t quite work.
Like many games, this one tries to get you to spend money to skip waiting times – in this case, to build defenses faster. On top of that, the game’s interface is designed to constantly remind you about these purchases, and it feels intentionally annoying.
Okay, so you get to play as some classic Call of Duty characters, which is cool because each one has their own special Killstreak. But honestly, the story mode felt super basic, and any cool stuff from the older games was quickly ruined by constant pop-ups trying to get me to spend money. It was a pretty embarrassing game, and thankfully, it’s been taken down now.
5. Age of Empires Mobile
Low Effort Historical Warfare
I’ve always been a big fan of the Age of Empires series, especially the second game. I was excited about Age of Empires Mobile because the newer games have been good too, but I’m disappointed – it seems developers often can’t resist making missteps.
This game doesn’t feel like a traditional Age of Empires title. It’s moved away from the series’ hallmark of deliberate strategy, detailed city-building, and gradual army development. Instead, it plays more like a MOBA, featuring hero characters with unique powers that don’t fit the historical realism Age of Empires is known for – they feel like they belong in a completely different game.
One issue players have noticed is the graphics. They don’t look as realistic as previous games in the series, opting for a more cartoonish style similar to games like Fortnite.
This game doesn’t really feel like a traditional strategy game; you simply move your troops and let them fight. While the building designs are neat, that’s about the only highlight. Honestly, they would have been much better off just releasing Age of Empires 2 on mobile. It’s a mystery why they didn’t, because this game misses the mark for what players were hoping for.
4. Gears Pop!
Disrespecting Your Audience
| Developers | Media Tonic |
|---|---|
| Release Date | August 22, 2019 |
| Platforms | PC, Android, and IOS |
Gears Pop! feels like a misstep for the franchise, created by developers who don’t seem to understand what fans enjoy. It abandons the serious, realistic tone of the past 20 years, replacing it with Funko Pop versions of the Gears characters in a remarkably poor tower defense game.
This game completely missed the mark. As a mobile Gears of War title, it offers nothing exciting for fans of the series or even tower defense games in general. It feels overly simplistic and might briefly entertain a very young child, but it’s a real letdown for anyone hoping for a worthwhile mobile experience. It’s a disappointing offering that doesn’t deliver what fans were hoping for.
Honestly, it’s best not to talk about this game. The graphics are really bad, the levels are very basic, and the sound effects are just awful. It’s not just the worst in the Gears of War series, it’s easily one of the worst games ever made and feels like it shouldn’t have been released.
3. Diablo Immortal
An Embarrassment to the Name
Diablo Immortal is widely considered one of the most disliked mobile games ever made, and many fans see it as the weakest entry in the Diablo series. While the game initially seems promising with its action-packed combat and a large amount of content – including guilds, player-versus-player battles, and numerous dungeons – it ultimately falls short for many players.
The game starts to fall apart upon closer inspection. The ability to customize your character through skill trees has been removed, meaning you lose the unique builds that defined previous games. Furthermore, a lot of the content you’d access later in the game requires additional purchases.
Diablo’s always been praised for its satisfying endgame, but now you have to pay to access it, which is a really unfair practice for a free-to-play game. Charging for cosmetic items is one thing, but locking off entire sections of the game behind a paywall doesn’t make sense. Even the player-versus-player combat is unbalanced because the game heavily favors those who spend money, and the user interface constantly pushes you towards the in-game store.
The game is passable, reminiscent of a very basic Diablo experience, but doesn’t measure up to other titles in the series. Partnering with a company known for aggressive microtransactions has unfortunately damaged Blizzard’s reputation in this instance.
2. Pokémon Quest
Gotta Buy Them All
| Developer | Gamefreak |
|---|---|
| Release Date | May 29th, 2018 |
| Platforms | Nintendo Switch, IOS, Android |
Pokémon Quest tried to recreate the traditional Pokémon experience for mobile devices. While many fans wished for a simple port of the original Pokémon Red and Blue with online multiplayer, this was the game we received instead.
It’s a really disappointing game. The Pokémon designs are overly simplified and unattractive, the graphics look incredibly rushed, and it’s filled with requests for small purchases. Most importantly, it just isn’t enjoyable to play.
In this game, Pokémon mostly act independently, and players only tap the screen when asked to choose a move. It’s incredibly basic – almost as if designed for very young children – and doesn’t live up to the marketing, which suggested a more active and engaging Pokémon experience.
1. Final Fantasy: All the Bravest
All Your Favorites Swimming in Garbage
Imagine a game featuring every beloved character from the entire history of Final Fantasy, presented with retro pixel art and traditional turn-based battles. While that sounds amazing to some, players of Final Fantasy: All the Bravest found the reality far from ideal.
As a big Final Fantasy fan, I was really hoping for more from this game. Honestly, it feels like it’s all about collecting characters and monsters – the story is pretty thin, and there’s hardly any real strategy in battles. It’s mostly just tapping and swiping, which is a shame. Seeing characters like Cloud and Tidus look great is a nice touch, but I really don’t like that they’re charging extra money for more characters and even new areas to play in. It feels a little greedy, you know?
Okay, so I really wanted to get stronger thumbs, and this game… well, it definitely lets you tap a lot. But honestly, it felt super shallow and repetitive. It was pretty frustrating too, because they kept trying to get you to spend money on things like reviving your whole team, or just making you wait forever to bring characters back. It honestly felt greedy and really didn’t do the Final Fantasy name any favors when it first came out. It was a bit of a letdown, to be honest.
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2025-11-06 16:42