PS5's First Exclusive Of 2026 Flops With Critics

It looks like PlayStation 5’s first exclusive game of the year is not performing to the expectations its developer had hoped.

Sony is in for a rather exciting 2026, with the likes of Saros and Marvel’s Wolverine expected to launch, along with Phantom Blade Zero and Marathon also dropping later in the year.

And here’s hoping that each of those games performs better with critics as opposed to the one just released exclusively for PS5, which is currently getting some rather negative reviews.

The game in question is Code Violet, and if you haven’t heard of the game I wouldn’t blame you, as it’s mostly gone under the radar since being announced.

Set in the 25th century where a cataclysm has left Earth uninhabitable, you play as a time traveler known as Violet Sinclair who awakens in the Aion Bioengineering Complex, which is swarming with ferocious prehistoric dinosaurs and hostile forces.

It’s basically a modern revival of Dino Crisis, but the comparisons seem to end there. A lot of critics who have posted reviews for Code Violet are giving it negative reviews, and it doesn’t seem like the game is performing well with players either.

Over on Metacritic, the game currently has an average score of 40/100, indicating that the critic reception is “generally unfavourable”.

Code Violet Is Getting Slaughtered In Critic Reviews

IGN’s review by Jarrett Green says that Code Violet is “a bad game”, featuring “unapologetically tropey science fiction”, “muddied up” textures, and “myriad bugs” that prevent progress.

Meanwhile, Push Square calls the game “a mess,” with “crummy combat, tedious exploration, technical problems,” while Game8 says it’s “Definitely Not Worth the Price.”

Following these reviews, TeamKill Media put out a statement hitting back at critics who gave the game negative reviews. In a post on X, the developer wrote: “We make games for our fans and players who actually spend their hard earned money on our games and support us, not critics.”

We make games for our fans and players who actually spend their hard earned money on our games and support us, not critics.

Fans made us number one and fans are having fun with our “dated” old school gameplay.

You all have made Code Violet our biggest success to date and still…

— TeamKill Media (@TeamKillMedia) January 9, 2026

It added: “Fans made us number one and fans are having fun with our ‘dated’ old school gameplay. You all have made Code Violet our biggest success to date and still have 1 day to full release. We can’t thank all of you enough!”

However, these so-called “fans” also seem to be giving the game negative reviews too.

Over on the PlayStation store page, Code Violet currently has an average rating of 3 stars, with 46% of the reviews consisting of 1-star and 2-star ratings.