Games to skip in 2026 — and what to play instead
28 PC games we tell you not to buy — or not to buy next. 6 carry a full skip verdict; 30 are the named skip inside one of our 30 ranked “games like” guides. Every entry has the reason and the game to play instead, and none of them has a price link: we do not sell what we tell you to skip.
Two kinds of skip live here. Skip, full stop — games the Steam crowd itself rates Mixed, with the live figure next to each. Good game, wrong next step — well-rated games that are the wrong answer for the reader of that particular guide, and the note says for whom. Ratings and review counts are read from the database on every build; the reasons are written by a person.
Full skip verdicts
SKIP Is Cities: Skylines II worth buying in 2026?
Mixed — 56% positive across 91,798 Steam reviews · Released 2023
No — Cities: Skylines II is not worth buying in 2026. Years after launch its overall Steam rating is still Mixed, and the two complaints that put it there — performance and a simulation shallower than the original’s — are the two things a city-builder cannot be short of. Cities: Skylines with a couple of expansions remains the better game.
Instead: Games like Cities: Skylines
SKIP Is Monster Hunter Wilds worth buying in 2026?
Mixed — 49% positive across 328,223 Steam reviews · Released 2025
No — Monster Hunter Wilds is not worth buying in 2026, painful as that is to write about this series. The hunting underneath is real Monster Hunter, but the game’s overall Steam rating is Mixed, and the complaint behind that label is consistent: PC performance, not the monsters. Monster Hunter: World with Iceborne is the finished version of the same fantasy.
Instead: Games like Monster Hunter World
SKIP Is PAYDAY 3 worth buying in 2026?
Mixed — 45% positive across 65,227 Steam reviews · Released 2023
No — PAYDAY 3 is not worth buying in 2026. It is the rare sequel where the genre’s crowd has already held the vote: the game sits at Mixed on Steam while PAYDAY 2, a decade older, sits at Very Positive with a library of heists the sequel never approached. The heist night you want is the older game.
Instead: Games like Deep Rock Galactic
SKIP Is Civilization VII worth buying in 2026?
Mixed — 48% positive across 58,509 Steam reviews · Released 2025
No — Civilization VII is not worth buying in 2026, at least not yet. Its overall Steam rating is Mixed, and that is not review-bombing noise: the crowd reports missing features and an age-transition system that resets your momentum exactly when ‘one more turn’ should be peaking. Civilization V and VI are simply the better versions of this game today.
Instead: Games like Civilization 6
SKIP Is Starfield worth buying in 2026?
Mixed — 57% positive across 174,995 Steam reviews · Released 2023
No — Starfield is not worth buying in 2026. It is the game our guides name as the deliberate skip more often than any other: it promises Skyrim in space and delivers a menu of planets stitched together with loading screens, with reactivity nowhere near its own studio’s past or its rivals’ present.
Instead: Games like Skyrim
SKIP Is Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty worth buying in 2026?
Mixed — 50% positive across 29,316 Steam reviews · Released 2023
No — Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is not worth buying in 2026. It was marketed as the Sekiro-like, built its whole combat on a single deflect, and still sits at Mixed on Steam — sunk by a dire PC port and a difficulty curve that collapses once its systems stack up mid-game. Every promise it makes, Lies of P or The First Berserker: Khazan keeps.
Instead: Games like Sekiro
Skip, full stop — Mixed on Steam
7 games our guides name as the skip that the Steam crowd also rates Mixed. Worst-rated first.
SKIP PAYDAY 3
Mixed — 45% positive across 65,227 Steam reviews · Released 2023
Skip PAYDAY 3 — the sequel launched requiring always-online, shed its features and its players, and sits at 45% on Steam while its decade-old predecessor sits at 89% with fifty times the content. This is the rare case where the genre's crowd already held the vote. PAYDAY 2 is the heist night; 3 is the cautionary tale.
Named the skip in Games like Deep Rock Galactic
SKIP Sid Meier's Civilization VII
Mixed — 48% positive across 58,509 Steam reviews · Released 2025
Skip Civilization VII for now — 48% positive on Steam is not review-bombing noise, it is the crowd reporting missing features and an age-transition system that wipes your momentum exactly when 'one more turn' should be peaking. Civ launches historically improve with expansions; check back in a year. Today, V and VI are simply better games per euro.
Named the skip in Games like Civilization 6
SKIP Monster Hunter Wilds
Mixed — 49% positive across 328,223 Steam reviews · Released 2025
Skip Monster Hunter Wilds today, painful as that is to type — 49% positive across 328,000 Steam reviews, overwhelmingly about PC performance that Capcom has patched slowly. The hunting underneath is real Monster Hunter; the frame rate is not. World with Iceborne is the better purchase until the tech verdict changes — and when it does, this note changes first.
Named the skip in Games like Monster Hunter World
SKIP Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
Mixed — 50% positive across 29,316 Steam reviews · Released 2023
Skip the most-marketed 'Sekiro-like' — Wo Long built its whole combat on a deflect and still sits at 50% on Steam, sunk by a dire PC port and difficulty that collapses mid-game. Every promise it makes, Lies of P or Khazan keeps. If it ever gets a true fix-up, this note changes; it has not.
Named the skip in Games like Sekiro
SKIP Cities: Skylines II
Mixed — 56% positive across 91,798 Steam reviews · Released 2023
Skip the sequel, still — Cities: Skylines II sits at 56% on Steam years after launch, with performance and simulation depth both short of the original. The first game plus a couple of expansions remains the better city-builder per euro, and everything else on this list is healthier than waiting. If a true turnaround lands, this note goes first.
Named the skip in Games like Cities: Skylines
SKIP Watch Dogs: Legion
Mixed — 56% positive across 12,370 Steam reviews · Released 2023
Skip the newer one — Watch Dogs: Legion trades written characters for a 'play as anyone' gimmick, and its 56% Steam rating reflects what that costs: a city full of nobody. Watch_Dogs 2 is the same fantasy with actual people in it, usually at a lower price.
Named the skip in Games like GTA 5
SKIP Starfield
Mixed — 57% positive across 174,995 Steam reviews · Released 2023
Skip if BG3 is the reason you are here — Starfield's dialogue rarely reacts to who you are, and its checks do not compare to a single act of BG3's reactivity. If you want a big RPG where choices land, pick Rogue Trader; if you want open-world wandering, The Witcher 3 does it with better writing.
Named the skip in Games like Baldur's Gate 3
Skip if Night City's density is what you loved — Starfield spreads its content across loading screens and procedural planets, and at 57% positive on Steam the disappointment is measurable, not a meme. For handcrafted first-person RPG density, Cyberpunk's own Phantom Liberty district outdoes it; failing that, Deus Ex does more with one city block than Starfield does with a thousand planets.
Named the skip in Games like Cyberpunk 2077
Skip if what you want is Skyrim in space — Starfield is the studio's own next game and its 57% Steam rating tells the honest story: loading screens where the wandering should be. The magic of Skyrim was a continuous world; a menu of planets is the opposite of that. Elden Ring or Kingdom Come II keeps the horizon unbroken.
Named the skip in Games like Skyrim
Good game, wrong next step
21 games that are well made — most rate Very Positive or better on Steam — and still get a skip in one guide, because they are the wrong answer for someone who just finished that guide’s game. The note says who should skip and what to play instead.
SKIP A Way Out
Very Positive — 88% positive across 102,614 Steam reviews · Released 2020
Skip A Way Out until you have finished Split Fiction and It Takes Two — it is the same studio learning the craft: one strong prison-break act, then quick-time filler the later games outgrew. Hazelight's catalogue is best played in reverse release order, and this one comes third of three. It is fine; its siblings are the point.
Named the skip in Games like It Takes Two
SKIP ARK: Survival Evolved
Very Positive — 83% positive across 775,673 Steam reviews · Released 2017
Skip if Valheim's respect for your evenings is what you loved — ARK's taming timers, offline-raid anxiety and upkeep math are built for people with hundreds of hours to feed it, and the group members with jobs quit first. If dinosaurs are the draw, Palworld delivers creature-powered bases without the second job.
Named the skip in Games like Valheim
SKIP Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Very Positive — 89% positive across 187,465 Steam reviews · Released 2018
Skip if Witcher 3's writing is what you came for — Odyssey has the map and the levels but its quests are errands with dialogue attached, and the XP curve nudges you toward the store. If you want ancient-world wandering, Ghost of Tsushima does the poetry better; if you want choices, Kingdom Come II actually honours them.
Named the skip in Games like The Witcher 3
SKIP DayZ
Mostly Positive — 78% positive across 467,721 Steam reviews · Released 2018
Skip DayZ as your next step from Zomboid — it answers a different question. Zomboid is a single-player simulation you can pause and mod; DayZ is a hundred-hour multiplayer trust exercise where most deaths are a stranger's rifle, at 78% on Steam. If player-driven fear is what you want, Rust is honest about the same deal; if simulation depth is what you want, you already own the best of it.
Named the skip in Games like Project Zomboid
SKIP Dead Cells
Overwhelmingly Positive — 97% positive across 182,783 Steam reviews · Released 2018
Skip if the Hollow Knight you want back is the fixed, learnable world — Dead Cells is a roguelike wearing metroidvania clothes, its map reshuffles every death, and permanence is exactly what it does not sell. The combat is superb; buy it when you want a run game, and pick Nine Sols when you want a kingdom.
Named the skip in Games like Hollow Knight
SKIP Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!
Overwhelmingly Positive — 97% positive across 32,174 Steam reviews · Released 2021
Skip if you came for Undertale's warmth — Doki Doki Literature Club is a horror piece wearing a dating sim, and its fourth-wall tricks aim to hurt, not to befriend. It is well made (97% on Steam) and the original is free, so Plus is doubly skippable as a purchase. OneShot is the meta game that cares about you; this is the one that does not.
Named the skip in Games like Undertale
SKIP Fae Farm
Released 2023
Skip if Stardew's depth is what kept you — Fae Farm streamlines almost all of it away and year one already feels like the whole game. Pick Coral Island instead; it is the same modern-cozy pitch with an actual second act.
Named the skip in Games like Stardew Valley
SKIP Far Cry 5
Very Positive — 81% positive across 188,553 Steam reviews · Released 2018
Skip the 'it is basically RDR2 with a different coat' pitch — Far Cry 5 is an outpost checklist wearing a frontier costume, and its rhythm (clear, loot, repeat) is the exact opposite of what makes RDR2 breathe. It is a decent shooter at 81%; it is not this list's answer. Days Gone gives you rural America with an actual pulse.
Named the skip in Games like Red Dead Redemption 2
SKIP Going Medieval
Very Positive — 89% positive across 21,211 Steam reviews · Released 2026
Skip if the storyteller is why you play RimWorld — Going Medieval builds a lovely three-storey stone fort, but its settlers are labour units, not characters, and no story engine is coming to change that. If you want RimWorld-with-castles, RimWorld's Medieval mods do it deeper; for a prettier colony sim, Stranded: Alien Dawn keeps the drama.
Named the skip in Games like RimWorld
SKIP GTFO
Very Positive — 84% positive across 66,637 Steam reviews · Released 2021
Skip if your crew's charm is chaos — GTFO is a hardcore tactical expedition that expects loadout planning, stealth discipline and four people who all showed up to sweat; casual Lethal Company crews bounce off within two sessions. It is excellent at what it is (84% positive says so) — but what it is, is homework. For dread with structure, take The Outlast Trials instead.
Named the skip in Games like Lethal Company
SKIP Nioh 2
Very Positive — 87% positive across 50,482 Steam reviews · Released 2021
Skip if Elden Ring's open world and readable difficulty were your hook — Nioh 2 is a mission-select loot game with stance systems and gear menus that bury the elegance. Deep and beloved, but wrong as a first step. Pick Lies of P first; come back to Nioh 2 if you finish it wanting more systems, not fewer.
Named the skip in Games like Elden Ring
SKIP Peglin
Very Positive — 84% positive across 17,563 Steam reviews · Released 2024
Skip if Balatro's instant feedback is what hooks you — Peglin's orb-through-pegs rounds resolve slowly, runs stretch past the hour mark, and its 84% rating carries a consistent complaint of late-run tedium. The pachinko itch is real; Ballionaire scratches it at triple the tempo.
Named the skip in Games like Balatro
SKIP Persona 5 Strikers
Very Positive — 87% positive across 18,092 Steam reviews · Released 2021
Skip Persona 5 Strikers as your next Persona — it is a musou action game wearing the cast, at 87%: a good road-trip epilogue for superfans, but the calendar, social links and turn-based tension are all absent. If you want more of what Royal actually is, Metaphor or P3 Reload deliver; Strikers is dessert, not dinner.
Named the skip in Games like Persona 5
SKIP Returnal
Very Positive — 81% positive across 10,970 Steam reviews · Released 2023
Skip if what you loved in Hades was warmth and momentum — Returnal is cold, punishing, and a full-length run can take over an hour with no pause in sight. If you want story-through-death done right, pick Hades II; if you want a challenge, Curse of the Dead Gods punishes you faster and cheaper.
Named the skip in Games like Hades
SKIP Serious Sam 4
Very Positive — 83% positive across 17,622 Steam reviews · Released 2020
Skip Serious Sam 4 as your Eternal follow-up — Sam is a backpedal-and-hold-fire genre, the exact opposite doctrine of forward-pressure combat, and the 83% rating comes from fans of that older religion. If you want Sam anyway, the classic Second Encounter is the better sermon. For Eternal's dance, ULTRAKILL and DUSK are the true heirs.
Named the skip in Games like DOOM Eternal
SKIP shapez
Overwhelmingly Positive — 96% positive across 15,726 Steam reviews · Released 2020
Skip the original — shapez 2 does everything it does with a third dimension, better trains and an actual sense of place, and the first game's minimalism reads as bare after ten minutes with the sequel. Only buy shapez 1 if your laptop genuinely cannot lift the second one.
Named the skip in Games like Factorio
SKIP Soulstone Survivors
Very Positive — 91% positive across 26,756 Steam reviews · Released 2025
Skip if 'more' sounds like an upgrade — Soulstone stacks dozens of skills, thousands of passives and screen-obliterating VFX until runs decide themselves and your GPU files a complaint; it is the genre's excess with the restraint removed. If you want depth with your avalanche, Brotato has actual decisions; if you want spectacle, Megabonk earns its chaos.
Named the skip in Games like Vampire Survivors
SKIP Starbound
Very Positive — 90% positive across 123,269 Steam reviews · Released 2016
Skip if you are expecting Terraria's decade of updates in space — Starbound's last major content patch was in 2019 and its combat and boss depth never reached Terraria's. If the sci-fi skin is the draw, Core Keeper's later biomes go strange enough; if you must have Starbound, mods like Frackin' Universe are the actual game.
Named the skip in Games like Terraria
SKIP Stranded Deep
Mostly Positive — 74% positive across 47,774 Steam reviews · Released 2022
Skip the obvious ocean-survival comparison — Stranded Deep has Subnautica's setting and none of its architecture: no story pulling you deeper, no biome ladder, just islands and repetition, at 74% on Steam. If you want the sea, Raft is friendlier and better built; if you want the descent, the Forest's caves are the real thing.
Named the skip in Games like Subnautica
SKIP The Witness
Very Positive — 84% positive across 21,121 Steam reviews · Released 2016
Skip if Portal 2's warmth is half of what you loved — The Witness is a brilliant, humourless island of line puzzles that never once talks to you, and its 84% rating includes many Portal fans who bounced off exactly that silence. If you want profundity with your puzzles, The Talos Principle serves it with a voice. Come back to the island later; it rewards a different mood.
Named the skip in Games like Portal 2
SKIP Wildfrost
Very Positive — 83% positive across 8,803 Steam reviews · Released 2023
Skip if you are chasing Spire's sense of fair loss — Wildfrost's adorable exterior hides swingy counter-timing math where runs die to board states you could not reasonably see coming, and its 83% rating is that frustration made visible. If you want cute-but-deep, Balatro is the honest version.
Named the skip in Games like Slay the Spire
How a game ends up here
A skip is never “it depends”. A game gets a full verdict on Worth it? only when the case stands on something checkable — its overall Steam rating, what the reviews are about, or an alternative we already rank higher. A guide names its skip for the reader of that guide: the game may be excellent and still be the wrong follow-up. We do not track how the newest reviews lean, only the overall rating, and it is re-read on every build — when a game earns a different word, its entry changes first. This site carries no affiliate links, so nothing here is worth more to us if you buy it. How this site works.