The race to be 2026’s highest-rated game of the year is almost definitely not over. There are some huge games releasing over the next two months, and then if GTA 6’s review scores match every other entry in the series, it will swoop in and take the crown on November 19. However, the unwanted prize of worst-rated game of the year may have already been clinched, and ironically, it’s by a game that was trying its darnedest to emulate a Rockstar classic.
The offending game is Agefield High: Rock the School. You might have heard of it, as there was a hope that the ambitious indie would be the spiritual successor to Bully. An excitement in the air at the mere idea of such a game, since it seems less and less likely that Rockstar ever plans to revisit the IP.
What you might not have realized is that Agefield High was released on August 12. It’s been out for weeks, and the reason it didn’t generate any hype is its review scores. They’re not good, they’re not even middling - they’re downright bad. So bad that the indie title has managed to fly past Ex Voto, which previously led the race to be the worst-rated game of the year, and outdone it by a whole 17 points.
Agefield High currently has a 33 on OpenCritic, beating the 50 that Ex Voto scored by some distance. Legacy of Kain: Ascendance is one point higher, and Tokyo Scramble has a 52. I wrote about that leading the race for worst game of the year what feels like a lifetime ago. It has been let off the hook by three different games since then.
It doesn’t make sense, but the video game industry is at a point where 7/10 is considered average, anything that scores less than that is seen as bad, and you really need to go below and beyond to have an aggregate score lower than 50. That’s why, nine months into the year, Agefield High is the only 2026 release to have pulled it off.
So, what exactly is so bad about the Bully-inspired game that it has warranted such dire scores? Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem to be anything specific. There’s not one awful thing every reviewer encountered that led them to all score the game so poorly. The reality is it seems to be almost everything about the game that has led to an average score of 33. That’s so much worse, as it means it’s going to be incredibly hard to fix.
Among the issues mentioned in multiple reviews are broken missions, mechanics that simply don’t work, awful music, and a gameplay loop that you simply won’t want to play. Kind of damning for a gameplay loop, it’s right there in the name. One review mentioned that the developer behind Agefield High, Refgium Games, is already working on patches, and that it might eventually redeem itself similar to Crime Boss: Rockay City.
That game has a Mostly Positive rating on Steam now. When did that happen?
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/agefiled-high-rock-the-school-worst-reviewed-game-2026/
