The 15 Most Abandoned Games of 2025

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Ignacio Weil

Gaming - January 8th 2026, 12:00 GMT+1

15. Atomfall

The first hours feel like a promise: lonely roads, strange locals, and that constant sense that something is off in the countryside. Then the survival side starts tightening the screws – inventory limits, scarce space for “just in case” supplies, and the kind of friction that turns scavenging into triage. *Atomfall* isn’t even outrageously long (most people land in that mid-tens range), but it can be exhausting in a very specific way: you’re always managing what you can carry, what you’re willing to lose, and what you’ll regret leaving behind. When a game’s mystery is pulling you forward but its systems keep slapping your wrists, it’s easy to drift away before the answers land. | © Rebellion Developments

14. Schedule I

There’s a point where a “one more run” loop stops feeling like fun and starts feeling like chores you’re doing because you already started them. The early hustle can be weirdly satisfying – small goals, quick upgrades, the dopamine of watching your operation scale – but the longer you stay, the more the routine shows through. What makes *Schedule I* an abandon-magnet isn’t one big difficulty spike; it’s the slow realization that progress can become monotonous, time-consuming, and repetitive if you’re not genuinely in love with the grind. Plenty of players bounce right when the novelty wears off, especially in a game built around doing the same steps better, faster, and for much longer than you planned. | © TVGS

Cropped Kingdom Come Deliverance II — 13. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

Nothing about this one pretends to be breezy. Even when the combat clicks, it asks for focus – spacing, stamina, reading an opponent – while the broader experience piles on realism that can feel punishing if you came for a casual medieval power fantasy. The hours add up, too: *Kingdom Come: Deliverance II* is the kind of RPG that can swallow 40–60 hours just on the main path, and far more if you let yourself get pulled into side stories and systems. That’s catnip for devotees, but it’s also a common exit ramp: miss a key rhythm, hit a frustrating stretch, or lose momentum for a week, and “I’ll finish it later” becomes permanent. | © Warhorse Studios

Cropped Assassins Creed Shadows — 12. Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Feudal Japan is the dream setting people begged for, and the best moments deliver with stealthy approaches, clean assassinations, and combat that feels more readable than some recent entries. But the open-world gravity is real here: once the map opens up, it’s easy to get buried in objectives, upgrades, contracts, and distractions that stretch the journey far beyond a neat weekend campaign. A straightforward story run can already demand a big chunk of time, and completionist play pushes *Assassin’s Creed Shadows* into the territory where enthusiasm starts competing with real life. That’s how abandonment happens: not with anger, but with a quiet “I’ll come back after this busy week,” followed by three more games releasing. | © Ubisoft Quebec

11. South of Midnight

The art direction does so much heavy lifting that it almost convinces you the next section will introduce a new trick. Then you realize the cadence: another pretty stretch of atmosphere, another bout of combat that can feel thin, another sequence that doesn’t quite deepen what you already learned. Critics and players alike latched onto the same friction point – *South of Midnight* looks and sounds fantastic, but the fighting can turn repetitive before the story runs out of road, and that’s a dangerous combo for completion rates. It’s not a massive epic, either; it’s more the kind of game people drop halfway through because they *get* it, they respect it, and they still don’t feel like pushing through one more similar encounter. | © Compulsion Games

Most Anticipated Video Games Of 2025 Doom The Dark Ages — 10. Doom: The Dark Ages

The first time the game asks you to stand your ground instead of bunny-hopping your way out of trouble, you can almost feel longtime *DOOM* instincts arguing with your hands. That’s the hook and the hurdle: the new rhythm leans harder into melee, parries, and a weightier tempo, which is awesome when it clicks and punishing when it doesn’t. *Doom: The Dark Ages* has that familiar “just one more arena” momentum, but it can also burn players out faster than expected because every encounter demands attention – miss a timing window, get chain-hit, restart the dance. Even with generous options to tweak the experience, the core loop still asks for precision and nerve, and not everyone wants that kind of pressure after a long day. When you bounce off once, it’s the sort of game that makes it weirdly hard to come back without re-learning the beat. | © id Software

9. PEAK

Co-op can be comforting until it becomes chaos, and few 2025 games turn friendship into a physics problem quite like this one. The climb starts as a shared joke – someone slips, someone laughs, someone swears they had it – and then the mountain keeps raising the stakes until every decision feels like a negotiation with gravity. *PEAK* is famously unforgiving about tiny mistakes, and when updates or balance changes make falls feel even harsher, a run can go from “we’ve got this” to “why are we doing this to ourselves” in minutes. Skill gaps don’t help either: one confident player can drag the group upward, but one tired player can doom the whole attempt, and the vibe swings fast when the same section eats your squad three times in a row. It’s a brilliant party game right up until it stops being a party. | © Aggro Crab & Landfall

Cropped Deep Rock Galactic Survivor — 8. Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor

There’s a very specific kind of satisfaction in watching a messy run turn into a screen-clearing fireworks show, and this spin-off nails that feeling early. Then the long-term progression shows its teeth: upgrades, unlocks, and late-game goals can start to feel like you’re clocking in, especially when the best path forward is repeating familiar arenas until the numbers finally move. *Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor* is at its best when you’re improvising – dodging swarms, mining on the fly, gambling on a weird build – and at its most abandonable when you realize the grind is the point, not the side dish. Plenty of players peel off right around the moment the runs stop feeling “freshly chaotic” and start feeling “efficiently necessary.” You can love the core loop and still decide you’re done with it. | © Funday Games

7. Monster Hunter Wilds

Sometimes a game doesn’t lose you in one dramatic rage-quit – it loses you in the gap between “I’m excited to hunt tonight” and “I don’t have the energy to wrestle with this right now.” The grind is part of the appeal, but *Monster Hunter Wilds* also arrived with enough technical drama on PC to push hesitant players over the edge: stutters, crashes, and performance complaints that turned a triumphant new-gen hunt into troubleshooting. Add the occasional progress-blocking bug and the sheer time investment these games demand, and it’s easy to see how a campaign can stall out mid-story while you wait for fixes or just move on to something smoother. The hunting still shines when everything behaves – but if your first week is rough, it’s hard to keep momentum in a game built around long-term commitment. | © Capcom

6. Delta Force

Extraction modes already ask for a certain stomach: you bring in your best gear, you take a risk, and you accept the possibility of losing it all in seconds. When the penalties are that sharp, every ugly death feels personal, and that tension only works if players trust the playing field. *Delta Force* has pulled people in with its slick gunplay and big tactical ambitions, but abandonment creeps in when frustration stacks – gear loss on death, the constant paranoia of running into cheaters, and the broader discomfort some players have voiced around kernel-level anti-cheat. In this kind of shooter, one “that didn’t feel legit” encounter can undo a whole evening, and repeated bad nights turn into uninstall decisions fast. The result is a game many try enthusiastically…and plenty quietly stop queuing for. | © Team Jade

Hollow Knight Silksong — 5. Hollow Knight: Silksong

The drop-off usually happens right after the honeymoon period – when the map stops feeling like “mystery” and starts feeling like “work,” and your confidence gets checked by a boss that refuses to cooperate. The wild part is that a lot of people *adore* the moment-to-moment platforming, but still drift away because the game is simply enormous and demanding in equal measure. *Hollow Knight: Silksong* doesn’t just ask you to explore; it dares you to keep going when the stakes rise and the routes sprawl outward, and the achievement targets alone hint at how much bigger it is than the original. Add in the famously sharp difficulty spikes that metroidvania diehards celebrate (and everyone else calls “why am I doing this”), and it becomes the perfect recipe for a half-finished save file you swear you’ll return to. | © Team Cherry

The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Remastered — 4. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered

Nostalgia hits fast – stepping back into Cyrodiil, hearing the familiar music, and remembering exactly where you used to get lost for hours. But that’s also the trap: this isn’t a tidy, modern RPG that politely respects your calendar; it’s *Oblivion*, with all the sprawling, meandering “one more quest” energy intact, just prettier and smoother in a lot of places. Where players start abandoning *The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered* is usually a mix of time sink reality and technical friction – especially when updates or platform quirks introduce performance headaches in a game people expected to feel “solved” in 2025. When a game this long asks you to troubleshoot on top of committing dozens of hours, the uninstall button starts looking like self-care. | © Bethesda Game Studios

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 — 3. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

At first it feels like a stylish twist on turn-based comfort food – until you realize the game quietly expects you to play defense like you’re in an action title. The parry conversation around *Clair Obscur: Expedition 33* exists for a reason: parrying can be extremely strong, and that makes the timing pressure feel “optional” right up until a tough encounter reminds you it isn’t. Even players who lower the difficulty often describe it as a game that still demands attention and smart build decisions, with certain fights punishing sloppy execution. The result is a weird kind of abandonment: not boredom, not hatred – just a slow fade after one too many “I’ll try that boss again tomorrow” nights. | © Sandfall Interactive

2. Avowed

Expectations did this game no favors, because a lot of people went in assuming it would be a brisk fantasy adventure and instead found themselves juggling zones, side quests, and builds that can stretch the experience into a serious time commitment. That extra size is great if the world hooks you, but it’s also where abandonment creeps in: momentum breaks, you leave for a week, and suddenly you’ve forgotten what you were doing and why you cared. Some players also bounce off the way combat scales in longer sessions – when fights start feeling more like resource management than adventure, fatigue sets in quickly. When an RPG loses you mid-journey, it’s rarely dramatic – it’s just another night where you choose something easier to pick back up. | © Obsidian Entertainment

1. Blue Prince

The first few hours are intoxicating: you inherit a shifting manor, you start noticing patterns, and the house feels like it’s responding to your curiosity. Then comes the part that separates finishers from abandoners – the loop. *Blue Prince* thrives on repeated runs, note-taking, and slow accumulation of knowledge, and that’s brilliant… until it becomes mentally taxing in a way some players aren’t looking for after work. Because rooms and outcomes can vary, progress can also feel fickle, and if the randomness and repetition don’t land for you, the curiosity that carried you early can curdle into frustration. It’s the kind of game people recommend passionately – and then quietly admit they still haven’t reached the end. | © Dogubomb

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Plenty of games get dropped for the obvious reasons: a buggy launch, a dull opening hour, a story that never catches. But the ones that really stick with me are the games people wanted to love – the kind you boot up with snacks on the table and big plans for the weekend, only to find yourself quietly uninstalling a few nights later. In 2025, that happened a lot, and not always because the games were bad.

Sometimes the problem was brutality disguised as “challenge,” where every win felt like a negotiation. Other times it was sheer size: campaigns that kept expanding until finishing started to feel like a second job. And every now and then, it was a great idea buried under rough edges – good enough to start, frustrating enough to abandon. These are the 2025 releases that players began with intent… and still couldn’t bring themselves to reach the credits.