Tired of loud releases from famous developers? Then keep a selection of the most interesting video games that have suddenly gained popularity among fans.
Every video game fan knows roughly what fresh projects are worth paying attention to. News bulletins in specialized media, advertising materials, popularity of developers and publishers often help to determine.
As a rule, AAA games with big budgets are always in the foreground. Their release is accompanied by a powerful marketing campaign that helps to attract the attention of all users more or less involved in the industry.
They are followed by the game category ” B”, you receive the attention due to the small price and interesting features, as, indeed, and indie games. The latter are most often looked at only by hardcore gamers or those who have completed all the desired projects.
However, every year there are several creations that during development almost did not interest anyone, but after the release they loudly declared themselves. Such games, of course, deserve special mention, so NV has collected the brightest of them in fresh material.
tenUntitled Goose Game
The concept of a game about a goose that ruins the lives of ordinary people sounded crazy. That is why, at the development stage, Untitled Goose Game was perceived as another fake, trying to leave at the expense of an unusual protagonist.
The project also had a faded visual style, which was also not good for the promotion. However, all the flaws turned out to be insignificant before the charm of the goose.
After the release of Untitled Goose Game, the animal spawned a bunch of memes, and the game turned into one of the biggest indie hits of the past year.
nineUndertale
When you first look at Undertale, you get the impression that you are transported twenty years ago.
Simple pixel art, strange mechanics, signs with dialogues and pop-up text – all this forced the project to be recorded among the dozens of fakes that appear on Steam every day.
But then it turned out that an interesting satirical plot and deep gameplay are hidden under the inexpressive shell. Fortunately, enthusiasts were able to taste all the charms of Undertale and trumpet them on the Internet.
8Firewatch
The first demo of Firewatch caused almost no hype, except for a small group of players who liked the visual style and the idea of becoming an observer on a fire tower.
The unknown studio Campo Santo did not inspire confidence, as did the publishing house Panic, a distributor of a wide variety of products. And when the project came out, everyone fell in love with it for the incredible atmosphere, soulful story and travels in the wilderness.
In the first month after the release, the authors sold 500 thousand copies of the game, and for such a chamber work it is an incredible success.
7World war z
Another co-op action movie about the mass destruction of zombies – this is a short and comprehensive description of the game Saber Interactive. No one understood why they should make a Left 4 Dead clone based on the not most popular film, but the authors apparently understood the audience’s mood.
The unassuming concept attracted the attention of people who missed the joint shooting of nimble zombies. And the ability of the dead to turn into almost a single living stream in order to overcome obstacles became an original feature that was used when promoting World War Z.
As a result, in the first month of sales, the game sold a little less than two million copies, although it was released almost simultaneously with Days Gone.
6Batman: Arkham Asylum
The only game in the material that can be considered as a AAA category. Before the release of the project, no one expected that the newly minted Rocksteady Studios team would be able to create an interesting work. Moreover, interactive entertainment about superheroes almost always turned out to be passable.
But when Batman: Arkham Asylum came out, all doubts of skeptics were instantly dispelled. The project was fascinating thanks to an interesting combat system, stealth mechanics, puzzles using gadgets, a plot in which famous opponents of Batman appeared and many other elements.
In 2009, Arkham Asylum was recognized as the best game by the BAFTA and entered the Guinness Book of Records as the most successful interactive superhero work.
5Minecraft
The project was created on the pure enthusiasm of Markus Persson, known by the nickname Notch, and looked at least strange. A cube sandbox where you can build a variety of objects – why play this when there are great BioShock and Mass Effect on the market?
Many users thought so until they tried to plunge into the world of Minecraft. The freedom of action and scope for creativity in the project dragged players in for hundreds of hours. Markus Persson, seeing interest from the audience, created the Mojang studio and began to develop his brainchild.
And later he sold the rights to the franchise and his own company to Microsoft for $ 2.5 billion. This amount of the deal gives a very accurate picture of the enormous popularity of Minecraft.
4Outer Wilds
Before the release, Outer Wilds was remembered only for the fact that because of the name it was constantly confused with The Outer Worlds from Obsidian Entertainment. And only after the release, everyone realized how magnificent the creation was created by the masters from Mobius Digital.
The game offers to plunge into an exciting adventure and explore the secrets of a small galaxy. Users are free to travel between planets on a shuttle, surf the surfaces of cosmic bodies and use different gadgets to learn the mysterious history of the ancient race and prevent a catastrophe.
Outer Wilds allows the player to feel like a real explorer, for which the project has won many awards.
3Demon’s Souls
In the mid-2000s, games began to become more casual and cinematic, so the announcement of FromSoftware’s difficult-to-master Demon’s Souls caused only a wry smile among the mass audience.
Moreover, even the Sony management did not believe in the idea of Hidetaki Miyazaki and his team. However, a talented Japanese found funding, agreed with by Atlus, has taken over the editorial duties, and released a draft that made fans ” hardcore” crying with happiness.
Demon’s Souls has sold well in all regions, making FromSoftware solidified in the industry to become the premier producer of challenging action RPGs.
2The sims
When game designer Will Wright explained the concept of The Sims to the directors of Maxis, they didn’t believe in the project at all. It seemed to them that no one would want to do home improvement and other household chores in the virtual world.
EA, which acquired Maxis in 1997, chose to trust Wright, but set aside only a small budget. Due to limited funding, The Sims already looked outdated at the time of release, but no one cared.
The gameplay concept captivated the audience so much that in the first two years EA sold 2 million copies, although it hoped to sell only 150 thousand.
onePapers, Please
The phrase ” simulator of a customs officer” is unable to evoke positive emotions in the player. This is the main reason why Papers, Please failed to catch the attention of the audience during the development phase.
Users strongly doubted that document checking could be an interesting process. However, the name of Lucas Pope, the famous solo developer at Naughty Dog, has motivated individual players to join Papers, Please. They did not regret their time, because the variable passage with many unusual challenges and moral dilemmas is a lot of pleasure.
Soon the broad masses learned about the magnificence of the project, and at the moment its circulation is about five million copies.
