32 Hilariously Bad 80s Video Game Covers That Lied to Your Face and You Loved It Anyway

John Summers • Contributor

May 12, 2025 9:00 PM EDT

The 1980s were a lawless wasteland, and I'm not just talking about the fashion or the microwaved casseroles. I'm talking about video game box art. This was a time when games were made of eight pixels, three bleeps, and a prayer, but the covers? The covers were full-blown prog rock album fever dreams.

You'd walk into a store, see a heroic beefcake battling a flaming alien robot shark while riding a jet-powered dragon motorcycle, and think, this is it. This is the one.
Then you'd get home, pop the cartridge into your Atari or Commodore 64, and… it's a tiny rectangle shooting slightly different rectangles at a vaguely angry cube.

And the wildest part? Your brain filled in the rest. You connected the dots between the ripped guy on the cover and the beige pixel moving across the screen. It worked. Until it didn't.

Because some 80s game covers were just plain bad. Like, laugh-out-loud, who-approved-this, why-is-that-centaur-winking bad. Whether they were terrifying, confusing, or just full-on unrelated to the game they were supposedly advertising, these 32 covers deserve to be seen and roasted.

So scroll through these baffling relics of retro gaming history, and remember—somewhere, a kid in 1984 thought this was the greatest thing they'd ever seen. And honestly? Same.

01
A "Slightly" exaggerated version of Donkey Kong

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02
Bad Dudes - Bad cover art

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03
"How 90s do you want it?" "YES"

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04
why did they give him the buck teeth though?

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05
Not going to lie, I want to play this now

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06
2am is no time be alone in the subway!

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07
Bad Cat Bad Art

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08
What's wrong with his head?

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09
This is aggressively 80s

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10
Ummm. what?

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Just to be clear, this is a chicken simulation game. Obviously.
11
How? How is that Donkey Kong?!

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12
Nothing here makes me want to buy it

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13
Kids in the 80 will see this and say "Hell yeah!"

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14
That's a smug looking dad

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15
"Make sure you get the floor, and not their faces"

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16
More like Totally bad! Bam! Got 'em!!!

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17
"Of course I know how to draw a helicopter"

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18
Ouch

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19
As interesting as a real election broadcast

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20
Rambo's cousins - Mambo and Jambo

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21
This is what I call zero graphic design

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22
This looks like it was made by AI

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23
Legendary game, really bad cover art

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24
"You know 80s movies? - do that!"

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25
It's a picture of everyone who will ever play this game - 1 guy

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26
It's a game where you kick.

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To be fair, Literally EVERY Sega master system game was designed like this. They were all bad
27
I have never imagined Mega Man like this

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28
Ok, this is even worse

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29
I think I bought the wrong X-Men game

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30
The more I look, the worse it gets

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31
When you copy James Camron's homework

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32
Why is he standing on that cat's tail?!

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