Play Store’s Top 10 Most Hated Games (with name & link)

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We’ve all been there. You see a game with a catchy icon, promising screenshots, and a description that sounds too good to be true. You hit “Install,” and within minutes, you’re met with a crushing reality: aggressive ads, pay-to-win mechanics, or gameplay that’s a blatant copy of something else.

While “hate” is a strong word, some games earn it through a perfect storm of poor design, predatory monetization, and broken promises. This list isn’t about objectively bad games; it’s about titles that have sparked significant backlash, controversy, and negative reviews from the mobile gaming community.

Here are 10 games that, for various reasons, have become infamous on the Play Store.

1. Mobile Strike (by Epic War LLC)

The Gist: A “build your base and army” strategy game that became famous for its over-the-top Arnold Schwarzenegger commercials. While the production value was high, the game itself was criticized for being a carbon copy of other games like Game of War and for its intensely aggressive pay-to-win model, where free players stood no chance against paying ones.
Why It’s Hated: Extreme pay-to-win, deceptive advertising, and a sense that you’re playing a glorified ad.
Link: Mobile Strike on Play Store

2. Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire (by Epic Action LLC)

The Gist: This game took the beloved Final Fantasy IP and slapped it onto a generic, city-building MMO strategy template. Fans of the franchise were outraged at what they saw as a cynical cash grab that had nothing to do with the original game’s story, characters, or gameplay.
Why It’s Hated: Misuse of a beloved IP, extremely predatory monetization, and gameplay that is entirely disconnected from the Final Fantasy name.
Link: FFXV: A New Empire on Play Store

3. Raid: Shadow Legends (by Plarium Games)

The Gist: You’ve definitely seen the ads. This fantasy RPG is known for its incredibly high-budget marketing campaign that sponsors almost every YouTube creator under the sun. While the game has decent graphics, it’s lambasted for its overwhelming grind, convoluted upgrade systems, and relentless push for in-app purchases to progress at a reasonable pace.
Why It’s Hated: Inescapable, often-misleading advertising and a core gameplay loop designed to frustrate players into spending money.
Link: Raid: Shadow Legends on Play Store

4. Garena Free Fire (by Garena)

The Gist: A popular battle royale game, especially in regions where phones are less powerful. The hate here is less about the core game and more about its community and monetization. It’s frequently criticized for a high volume of cheating players, toxic community, and a focus on expensive cosmetic loot boxes.
Why It’s Hated: Rampant cheating, a toxic player base, and aggressive cosmetic monetization.
Link: Garena Free Fire on Play Store

5. Coin Master (by Moon Active)

The Gist: A viral social game where you spin a slot machine to get coins, build your village, and raid or attack your friends’ villages. Its hate stems from its incredibly aggressive and sometimes misleading Facebook ad campaigns that saturated social media feeds. Many also find its gameplay shallow and entirely luck-based.
Why It’s Hated: Spammy social media presence, gameplay reliant purely on chance, and pushing in-app purchases to continue spinning.
Link: Coin Master on Play Store

6. The Sun: Origin (by Atypical Games)

The Gist: This game was promoted as a deep, open-world, story-driven RPG. Upon release, players discovered it was essentially a glorified tech demo with barebones, repetitive quests, confusing systems, and a heavy emphasis on paywalls that blocked story progression. It’s a prime example of a game failing to live up to its own hype.
Why It’s Hated: Massive disappointment, false advertising, and locking core story content behind paywalls.
Link: The Sun: Origin on Play Store

7. The Simpsons: Tapped Out (by EA)

Gist: A town-building game featuring the iconic Simpsons characters. While initially loved, years of updates from EA have transformed it into a textbook example of “feature creep” and monetization. Events became impossible to complete without paying, and the game became bloated with timers and premium currency prompts.
Why It’s Hated: Shift from a fun builder to a stressful, time-sensitive, pay-to-participate model that alienated its long-time fanbase.
Link: The Simpsons: Tapped Out on Play Store

8. Clash of Clans (by Supercell)

Wait, hear me out! This is one of the most successful and played games of all time. However, it consistently appears on “most hated” lists due to its infamous upgrade timers. In the late game, upgrades can take weeks or even months to complete, a clear design choice to push players into buying gems to speed things up. This “wait or pay” model infuriates a segment of players.
Why It’s (Sometimes) Hated: Exorbitantly long upgrade timers that feel specifically designed to induce spending.
Link: Clash of Clans on Play Store

9. Lords Mobile (by IGG.COM)

The Gist: Another MMO strategy titan. It’s known for its hyper-aggressive monetization where players can literally spend thousands of dollars to max out a single hero. The game is designed to create constant pressure to spend, with guilds and players who don’t pay becoming easy targets for “whales” (big spenders).
Why It’s Hated: Perhaps the most predatory pay-to-win model on the market, creating a vast power gap between free and paying players.
Link: Lords Mobile on Play Store

10. Mafia City (by YottaGames)

The Gist: This game earned its place in internet history thanks to its bizarre and meme-worthy ads that often featured over-the-top stories of betrayal and rising through the criminal ranks. The actual game is a standard city-builder/strategy title with nothing in common with its ads, leading to widespread accusations of false advertising.
Why It’s Hated: Hilariously misleading ads that bear zero resemblance to the actual, generic gameplay.
Link: Mafia City on Play Store

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The Common Thread

What do most of these games have in common? They prioritize monetization over player enjoyment. They are designed not as fun experiences first, but as sophisticated systems to maximize revenue through psychological triggers, frustration, and social pressure.

Before you download, always remember to:

Read the recent reviews. Ignore the overall score and see what people are saying now.
Be skeptical of ads. If an ad looks too crazy to be true, it almost certainly is.
Set a budget. If you choose to play these games, decide beforehand if and how much you’re willing to spend.

The mobile gaming landscape is vast, and for every hated game, there’s a fantastic indie title or fair free-to-play experience waiting to be discovered. Happy (and careful) gaming