The worst storyline in games, ever. Of all time.

Two special mentions before I get started:

NieR Automata just goes off in weird directions and tangents and drama and barely makes any big-picture sense (though almost every small-picture part of the plot is beautiful).

Super Smash Bros started off with a plot of "A magical hand of a game dev decided to make some action figures fight. Those action figures fight each other, then the hand." That's not a summary, that's the entire thing.

I think Ni No Kuni 2 had a weak story. It started interestingly for the prologue/intro, then fell apart into a very color-by-number story. You start off seeing/being the president of the United States on his way to some sort of UN conference to end a war and stressing over that, before there's an attack, he almost dies, and is taken to another world. There he meets a young boy-king who is about to be usurped, chooses to work with him instead of the maybe-righteous usurper for some reason, and they go on an adventure to a few predictable other kingdoms in that world meeting predictable characters saving the world in predictable ways to unite all of the (big/powerful/important only) kingdoms in the that world to prevent it from being destroyed. Sorry if it sounds like I'm spoiling it, but you can pretty much figure all of that out about 5 hours into this 30 hour game. Still fun, and I'd like to play it with my niece eventually, but it's an under-stimulating story for a discerning mind.

 

Ayyy... Storylines are very important to me because I'm a storyteller, myself. I want something engaging and thus, I tend to chose my games for their promised premise.

Miitopia. The story is very bland. Just your generic "princess gets kidnapped, dark lord terrorizing the land, you, chosen hero are the only one who can help us."
Thanks, I hate it.

 

There are many angles at which to approach this little gem of a question – games that are intended to be story-driven experiences, and games that are not but have a story thrown in anyway for the sheer sake of it. I think it's important to make a distinction between the two, because a story that is shoehorned in and is just something you play through isn't necessarily as bad where the story is supposed to be the main point of the game...but is still bad. I mean, Devil May Cry has a diabolical narrative, but who the hell plays DMC for the story? It's just a different kind of bad. Fantastic gameplay and/or characters can make up for a bad storyline, just as poor gameplay can drag a story right down.

For those games with a narrative that is supposed to be a major selling point, there are two aspects to it that I would identify that would make it “the worst”: plot and characterisation. I have played many games with the most fantastic cast of characters stuck in the most mediocre plot circumstances imaginable, and a game with fantastic writing but without any soul whatsoever in its cast, making the whole thing like reading an abstract novel for its structure rather than its content. They're easily the worst, but for different reasons.

Games that should not have narrative that are amongst the worst, then? I'm looking squarely at the Pokémon franchise from AND INCLUDING Generation V onwards, Monster Hunter: World, pretty much every Zelda title, and to a degree Xenoblade Chronicles X. I would actually say XCX is probably the worst of the bunch because it has the most engrossing world to explore but it actively stops you from exploring it by gating off the flight module for Skells behind the requirement of doing the majority of the story, which is a tiresome, nonsensical, and thoroughly BORING experience.

Games with bad narrative but engaging characters...a lot of JRPGs fall into this category, being run-of-the-mill experiences but having a cast that makes you play them regardless...or makes me play them, anyway. Resonance of Fate is one of the worst offenders I can think of, because the plot makes practically no sense, but the interaction between the three main characters is fantastic. Then there was Hyperdimension Neptunia, where initially that was the whole point, but later titles – looking at you, VII – try and carry a proper story and fail abysmally. Also, Dragon Age II. There was a depressing experience, split into three arcs that ultimately never really went anywhere, but had some of the best character interaction available at the time...excluding Anders, anyway. Fuck DA2's Anders.

Great writing but poor characters...the dark days of Xbox360 JRPGs come to mind here. Eternal Sonata, Lost Odyssey, The Last Remnant...games where I can easily see the quality of the narrative, but cannot get engaged because it's SO DAMN BORING. Skyrim is this to an extent as well. You can build great lore, but that doesn't make a great story. These are the worst for stringing me along thinking they're going to go somewhere, but never do. Games I WANT to play, and WANT to like, but god help me I cannot. Ni No Kuni was this as well...it was the best and worst of Studio Ghibli. Construct a beautiful world but forget to fill it with any kind of soul.

For a game with bad narrative AND bad characters, the worst of the worst...I'd be looking at Final Fantasy XIII, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Persona 4, Tales of the Abyss, and Tales of Vesperia as potential candidates. Story-driven titles without either a good narrative or characterisation to make up for it...and in truth, gameplay that isn't exactly inspiring either. I would say all of the titles I listed there are a directionless mess, suffer SEVERELY from a lack of a compelling antagonist, and have very bad writing and predictable plots.

So yeah. It's not as simple a question as it seems...at least, not for me. A lot of things combine to make a story bad, and it can be bad for different reasons. Comparing a game that isn't meant to have a storyline with one that has one as a major selling point isn't really a fair comparison (at least to me) and I take different things into account when I think about what makes something good or bad.

 

To grab for low hanging fruit, Fallout 76...what story did it have? For me, the things with no story have the worst story. Hard to stay invested in something unless there is a drive to keep doing it like a story. Even if the story is terrible, there is still some value that can be taken out by observing it, like for example, learning what a bad story is. If there is no story, there's nothing to be learned and that is what makes a terrible story.

 

I see all these previous examples, yet none compare to arguably the worst plot to exist in a game. The story of Metroid Other M.
A game that tried to expand Samus Aran's character and backstory to flesh her out ended up turning her from a badass female protagonist who was willing to sacrifice her own life for the good of the mission, to a monotone crybaby who had a Heroic Blue Screen of Death upon seeing her arch-nemesis, Ridley, back from the dead. This, actually doesn't work. Not only is Other M set well after Metroid 1, 2, and Super, where she has seen and killed Ridley at least 2 other times, but the origin of this idea comes from a Japanese only manga that actually took time to set up the scenario and her PTSD, and focused on Samus overcoming her fears. And the worst part is, the scene in the game actually means next to nothing in the plot of the game, as once its over no one acts like it even happened.
Add to that a disgustingly large amount of unnecessary mother symbolism (The Baby, Other M is an anagram of Mother, Metroid Other M is an acronym of MOM), turning the likable Adam Malkovich from Metroid Fusion, Samus' Commanding Officer into a condescending jerk who goes out of his way to belittle Samus at nearly every opportunity, and makes incredibly foolish and stupid decisions, in spite of being considered a "perfect military mind".
There is a reason why both the game tanked in sales, and the director, Yoshio Sakamoto, distanced himself as far away from the story as possible, in spite of how connected to it he originally was