Broforce20155 factsGame page →Broforce began as 'Rambros', a prototype Evan Greenwood built for a 48-hour game jam in April 2012, where it won first prize for fun.en.wikipedia.orgEvery playable 'Bro' parodies an 80s/90s action hero — e.g. Rambro (Rambo), Brominator (Terminator), Bro Hard (Die Hard's John McClane) and Brommando (Commando).en.wikipedia.orgFree Lives is a South African studio based in Cape Town; Broforce was one of publisher Devolver Digital's early breakout indie hits.en.wikipedia.orgThe Expendabros, a free standalone crossover with the film The Expendables 3, was released in August 2014 ahead of Broforce's full launch.en.wikipedia.orgLevels feature almost fully destructible environments, letting players trigger chain reactions of fire and explosions that reshape the terrain.store.steampowered.comRead 3 more facts
FTL: Faster Than Light20123 factsGame page →FTL was built by exactly two people — Justin Ma and Matthew Davis, both ex-2K Shanghai — in about 18 months, with the prototype already an IGF China finalist.gamedeveloper.comIts April 2012 Kickstarter asked for $10,000 and raised over $200,000 — one of the earliest breakout successes of the crowdfunding era.en.wikipedia.orgThe 2014 Advanced Edition expansion — with content designed with Chris Avellone — was released completely free to all owners.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Kingdom: Classic20155 factsGame page →You play a silent, faceless monarch who rides a horse and tosses coins to recruit wandering vagrants as subjects — builders, archers and farmers — then expand and defend the realm each night against the encroaching 'Greed'.en.wikipedia.orgKingdom began as a free browser Flash game in 2013; creator Thomas van den Berg (noio) started it simply as an exercise to learn to animate a horse, then added a rider who became the monarch.kingdomthegame.comThe commercial 2015 release recouped its entire development cost within 24 hours of launch, sold ~60,000 copies in its first month, and had been played by over 3 million people within three years before going free-to-play.rawfury.comIt was expanded into Kingdom: New Lands (2016) and Kingdom Two Crowns (2018), with the spin-off Kingdom Eighties following in 2023.en.wikipedia.orgThe chiptune/ambient score was composed by Amos Roddy, who also records as ToyTree and later scored the acclaimed Citizen Sleeper.amosroddy.bandcamp.comRead 3 more facts
Forza Horizon 4201814 factsGame page →Forza Horizon 4 was the first Forza game set in Britain — a condensed, fictionalized Great Britain blending the Scottish Highlands, the Lake District and the Cotswolds into one map.en.wikipedia.orgEdinburgh is the only real, named city recreated in the game — Playground Games photographed and rebuilt its landmarks, streets and closes in detail.redbull.comIts dynamic shared-world seasons were a series first: the entire world shifts between summer, autumn, winter and spring for every player simultaneously, rotating each real-world Thursday.en.wikipedia.orgThe game launched with roughly 460 cars — and ended support with over 750 after years of updates.forbes.comThe Best of Bond Car Pack brought ten James Bond film vehicles into the game, including the Aston Martin DB5 with its cinematic gadgets and the submarine Lotus Esprit S1.forza.fandom.comIn the Halo Experience Showcase, players drive a Warthog as Master Chief — with Cortana narrating — across a stretch of Britain reskinned as a Halo ringworld, one of the strangest crossovers in racing games.halopedia.orgThe Eliminator, a 72-player battle-royale mode where duels are settled by head-to-head sprints, was added free in December 2019 and became one of the game's most popular modes.en.wikipedia.orgWith a Metacritic score of 92 on Xbox One, Forza Horizon 4 is the highest-rated entry in the Horizon series and was among the best-reviewed racing games of its generation.metacritic.comIt won Best Sports/Racing Game at The Game Awards 2018 — beating FIFA 19, NBA 2K19 and Mario Tennis Aces — and Best British Game at the 2019 BAFTA Games Awards.playground-games.comThere is no original score: the soundtrack is entirely licensed radio music across six stations, including drum & bass label Hospital Records' own station hosted by label founders Chris Goss and London Elektricity. Hospital released a 20-track album of exclusive songs produced for the game.hospitalrecords.comTwo million players raced through Britain in the first week alone (October 2018); by November 2020 Microsoft counted more than 24 million players — a figure that includes Xbox Game Pass, as FH4 was a day-one Game Pass title.gamespace.comThe Steam version arrived only in March 2021, two and a half years after launch — and hit its all-time concurrent-player record (~71,000) as late as June 2024, driven by a farewell sale.gameworldobserver.comForza Horizon 4 was delisted from all digital storefronts on December 15, 2024 because its music, car and brand licenses expired — existing owners keep access, but new copies can no longer be bought.windowscentral.comIts two expansions took the festival beyond Britain's coast: Fortune Island (December 2018) added treasure hunts among northern cliffs and auroras, while LEGO Speed Champions (June 2019) built an entire brick-built valley.en.wikipedia.orgRead 12 more facts
Deus Ex: Human Revolution20116 factsGame page →A prequel to the original Deus Ex (2000), set in 2027 — 25 years earlier — when mechanical augmentation is transforming humanity.en.wikipedia.orgProtagonist Adam Jensen's line 'I never asked for this' became a defining meme of the game's augmentation/transhumanism themes.deusex.fandom.comArt director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête built a 'cyber-renaissance' look — a black-and-gold palette inspired by Rembrandt and Vermeer, fused with cyberpunk and the Icarus myth.en.wikipedia.orgThe mandatory boss fights were widely criticized for clashing with the game's freeform stealth design; they were outsourced to external studio GRIP Entertainment.en.wikipedia.orgMichael McCann composed the score (2008-2011), building the atmospheric soundtrack around the recurring 'Icarus' main theme.michaelmccann.ioA revised Director's Cut released in October 2013, reworking the boss fights and folding in The Missing Link DLC.en.wikipedia.orgRead 4 more facts
Sleeping Dogs20123 factsGame page →Sleeping Dogs began as Activision's True Crime: Hong Kong — canceled in February 2011 over budget concerns — before Square Enix rescued it six months later; unable to buy the True Crime name, they rebranded it under the codename-era title Sleeping Dogs.en.wikipedia.orgIts voice cast is stacked with Hollywood names: Emma Stone, Lucy Liu and Tom Wilkinson star alongside Will Yun Lee's Wei Shen.en.wikipedia.orgUnited Front's Hong Kong research ran deep — over 20,000 reference photos plus interviews with former Triad members and retired anti-Triad police.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Bayonetta20093 factsGame page →Bayonetta (2009) is directed by Hideki Kamiya — creator of the original Devil May Cry — making it a literal genre reunion: the character-action formula's inventor pushing it to its extreme at newly-founded PlatinumGames.bayonetta.fandom.comThe PlayStation 3 version was ported externally by Nex Entertainment under Sega — and its performance problems became so notorious that Kamiya publicly lamented it; the port was only redeemed years later in remasters.bayonetta.fandom.comWhen Sega passed on funding a sequel, Nintendo stepped in — turning Bayonetta into an unlikely Nintendo-exclusive franchise from 2014 onward and making the witch a Smash Bros. fighter by fan ballot.bayonetta.fandom.comRead 1 more fact
Call of Duty: Black Ops II20123 factsGame page →Oliver North — of the real Iran-Contra affair — consulted on the 1980s campaign scenes, while futurist Peter W. Singer advised on the plausibility of the 2025 tech.en.wikipedia.orgTrent Reznor wrote the main theme — an unlikely pairing of Nine Inch Nails with Call of Duty — over Jack Wall's campaign score.nin.wikiIts $500M day-one and $1B-in-15-days records made it the biggest entertainment launch in history at the time — dethroned only by GTA V a year later.gameinformer.comRead 1 more fact
Tom Clancy's The Division20164 factsGame page →Set in a snowbound, quarantined Mid-Manhattan three weeks after a genetically engineered smallpox — the 'Dollar Flu' — spreads via contaminated banknotes on Black Friday and collapses society; players are activated as sleeper agents of the Strategic Homeland Division.en.wikipedia.orgIts Dark Zone is a walled-off contaminated PvPvE area where players cooperate to loot high-end gear but can 'go rogue' and turn on each other — the game's signature feature.en.wikipedia.orgIt set the industry record for the biggest first-week launch of a new game IP, generating an estimated $330 million globally and beating Ubisoft's own record previously held by Watch Dogs.neowin.netBuilt on Ubisoft Massive's in-house Snowdrop engine, it sold over 10 million copies and spawned a sequel, Tom Clancy's The Division 2 (2019).en.wikipedia.orgRead 2 more facts
Batman: Arkham Asylum20093 factsGame page →Arkham Asylum won the BAFTA for Best Game in 2010 and entered Guinness World Records as the 'Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever' — the game that broke the licensed-game curse for good.arkhamcity.fandom.comIt reunited the Animated Series' holy trinity: writer Paul Dini with Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprising Batman and Joker — Hamill's asylum-wide Joker monologues became the performance of his gaming career.arkhamcity.fandom.comThe Scarecrow sequences fake a game crash mid-playthrough — screen glitches, restarting 'intro' and all — one of the era's most celebrated fourth-wall breaks, echoing Metal Gear's Psycho Mantis.arkhamcity.fandom.comRead 1 more fact
Assassin's Creed Syndicate20155 factsGame page →Set in London in 1868 during the Second Industrial Revolution, players control twin Assassins Jacob and Evie Frye, who lead a street gang called the Rooks to wrest the city from Templar control.en.wikipedia.orgIt was the first mainline Assassin's Creed developed by Ubisoft Quebec rather than Ubisoft Montreal, running on the AnvilNext 2.0 engine.en.wikipedia.orgSyndicate introduced a rope-launcher grappling hook for rappelling up buildings and creating ziplines, plus horse-drawn carriage and moving-train traversal.en.wikipedia.orgThe story features real Victorian historical figures including Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Alexander Graham Bell, Florence Nightingale and Queen Victoria.en.wikipedia.orgReleased a year after the bug-plagued Assassin's Creed Unity, Syndicate launched to a calmer, more positive reception.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
LEGO The Lord of the Rings20123 factsGame page →It was the first LEGO game to use the actors' actual film performances — dialogue clips pulled straight from the movie trilogy instead of newly recorded lines.en.wikipedia.orgIts open-world Middle-earth hub connected the story levels into one traversable map — a step beyond LEGO Batman 2's Gotham released just months earlier.en.wikipedia.orgThe game vanished from all digital stores on 1 January 2019 when the LEGO-Warner license lapsed — then quietly reappeared on Steam in April 2020.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Human: Fall Flat20164 factsGame page →You play as Bob, a floppy, wobbly ragdoll-physics human with no special powers, solving open-ended dream puzzles that can be beaten any way the physics allow — grabbing, climbing and flinging objects to escape.store.steampowered.comIt became one of the best-selling indie games of all time, hitting 40 million copies in March 2023 and surpassing 58 million by late 2025, buoyed by its popularity as a chaotic online co-op / party game and streamer favourite.pcgamesinsider.bizThe game was built largely by a single developer, Tomas Sakalauskas, who called it his 'last shot at gaming'; playtesting with his son revealed players cared more about messing with the physics than solving puzzles, which reshaped the whole design.en.wikipedia.orgIt is supported by extensive free level DLC and full Steam Workshop mod support, giving it thousands of community-made levels and characters.store.steampowered.comRead 2 more facts
Until Dawn20156 factsGame page →Its 'Butterfly Effect' system means any of the eight playable teens can live or die — all eight can survive, or all eight can perish — producing what the developers called hundreds of endings.en.wikipedia.orgUntil Dawn began life as a first-person, PlayStation Move-controlled horror game for PS3, then was retooled into a third-person, dual-analog PS4 exclusive.en.wikipedia.orgThe cast was performance-captured by Hollywood actors including Rami Malek (Josh), Hayden Panettiere (Sam) and Peter Stormare (Dr. Hill).en.wikipedia.orgThe writers set out to make 'the video-game equivalent of a slasher film,' drawing on Psycho, Halloween, Evil Dead II, Poltergeist and The Conjuring.en.wikipedia.orgA sleeper hit that exceeded Sony's expectations, it sold about 1.38 million copies by January 2016 and launched Supermassive's horror lineage — The Dark Pictures Anthology and The Quarry — plus a 2024 remake.bloody-disgusting.comIt won the BAFTA Games Award for Best New Intellectual Property in 2016.en.wikipedia.orgRead 4 more facts
Final Fantasy XV20165 factsGame page →Players control Prince Noctis, who road-trips across the world of Eos with his three friends — Gladiolus, Ignis and Prompto — in a convertible car called the Regalia.en.wikipedia.orgThe game endured roughly a decade of development: it was first announced in 2006 as 'Final Fantasy Versus XIII' before being rebranded Final Fantasy XV in 2013.en.wikipedia.orgIt shipped alongside two tie-in prequels: the CG feature film 'Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV' and the five-part anime 'Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV.'en.wikipedia.orgFinal Fantasy XV surpassed 10 million units sold/shipped worldwide by May 2022, one of the best-selling entries in the series.pushsquare.comThe score was composed primarily by Yoko Shimomura, who wrote roughly 80% of the soundtrack; the game runs on Square Enix's Luminous Engine.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Guns of Icarus Online20122 factsGame page →Up to four players crew a SINGLE airship in shared roles — pilot, gunner, engineer — making teamwork the entire game rather than a feature.store.steampowered.comIts December 2011 Kickstarter raised $35,237 on a $10,000 goal — and the game went on to pass a million players by 2016 before evolving into Guns of Icarus Alliance.kickstarter.com
It Takes Two20216 factsGame page →Josef Fares famously offered $1,000 to anyone who got bored of the game: 'It's impossible, and quote me on this, to get tired of this game… I can literally give 1,000 bucks to anyone who says I'm tired of this game.'pcgamer.comPublisher Take-Two Interactive opposed Hazelight's 'It Takes Two' trademark over the name's similarity to its own — Hazelight abandoned the application one day before launch, keeping the name but not the trademark.pcgamer.comThe free Friend's Pass means only one player ever needs to buy the game — the second player downloads a free pass and plays the entire adventure at no cost.en.wikipedia.orgDr. Hakim, the living Book of Love, is voiced by Joseph Balderrama (who also voices Cody) — director Josef Fares performed the character's motion capture but not the voice.gamepur.comMost of the gameplay was written in AngelScript via Hazelight's own open-source Unreal Engine integration, rather than standard C++ or Blueprints.en.wikipedia.orgIt became 2021's most-awarded game — sweeping GOTY at both The Game Awards and D.I.C.E. — and an Amazon film adaptation with Dwayne Johnson's production company followed, written by the Sonic the Hedgehog screenwriters.variety.comRead 4 more facts
Beholder20164 factsGame page →You play a state-installed landlord and spy in a totalitarian surveillance state, secretly searching tenants' apartments and choosing whether to report them, blackmail them or help them — branching to multiple endings.store.steampowered.comThe developers cited George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, plus the games Papers, Please and This War of Mine, as inspirations.en.wikipedia.orgIts distinctive black-silhouette-against-color art style renders every character as a faceless shadow, reinforcing the Orwellian mood; the game runs on the Unity engine.en.wikipedia.orgMade by the small Russian studio Warm Lamp Games and published by Alawar, it spawned a franchise — Beholder 2 (2018), Beholder 3 (2022) and Beholder: Conductor (2025).en.wikipedia.orgRead 2 more facts
Prison Architect20155 factsGame page →Prison Architect helped pioneer the paid-alpha model, grossing over $19 million before its official 1.0 launch — the game that saved Introversion Software after Uplink and Darwinia.en.wikipedia.orgLead designer Chris Delay conceived the game after a 2010 holiday visit to Alcatraz, combined with his love of Dwarf Fortress.onlysp.escapistmagazine.comIts introduction/story campaign is split into chapters (Death Row, G&G, The Clink, Palermo, Deliverance) that double as tutorials while telling darker human-interest stories.en.wikipedia.orgIt won the 2016 BAFTA Games Award for Persistent Game (and was also nominated for British Game).en.wikipedia.orgParadox Interactive acquired the Prison Architect IP from Introversion in 2019 for an undisclosed sum.techraptor.netRead 3 more facts
Starbound20165 factsGame page →Starbound is a 2D procedurally generated space sandbox where players explore an effectively infinite universe of planets to mine, build, farm and quest — widely regarded as a spiritual successor to Terraria.en.wikipedia.orgThe game spent nearly three years in Steam Early Access (launched December 2013) before its 1.0 release on 22 July 2016, which added the story-mission campaign.en.wikipedia.orgPlayers pick one of seven playable races (Human, Apex, Avian, Floran, Glitch, Hylotl, Novakid), each with its own lore and aesthetic.starbound.fandom.comIt sold over 1 million copies during Early Access and surpassed 2.5 million by December 2016, with a very large modding community on the Steam Workshop.gamedeveloper.comDeveloper/publisher Chucklefish also published Stardew Valley and Terraria's console/mobile ports.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood201011 factsGame page →Brotherhood is the first game in the main Assassin's Creed series to include a multiplayer mode.en.wikipedia.orgThe competitive multiplayer was built mainly by Ubisoft Annecy (of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory) and canonically framed as Abstergo Templars training in the Animus via the 'bleeding effect'.en.wikipedia.orgUnlike Assassin's Creed II's multiple cities, Brotherhood is set almost entirely in a single, unified Rome spread across five districts.en.wikipedia.orgDestroying the Borgia towers lets Ezio recruit initiates, train them into full Assassins, and summon them or send them on missions across Europe — the mechanic that gives the game its name.en.wikipedia.orgReal Renaissance icons appear throughout — Leonardo da Vinci builds war machines for Ezio, alongside Niccolò Machiavelli, Caterina Sforza and the Borgia family (Cesare, Rodrigo and Lucrezia).en.wikipedia.orgBrotherhood was series creative director Patrice Désilets' final Assassin's Creed; he took a 'creative break' around E3 2010 and left Ubisoft that June.en.wikipedia.orgThe game ends on an infamous cliffhanger: the Isu figure Juno seizes control of Desmond and forces him to fatally stab teammate Lucy Stillman.en.wikipedia.orgDésilets said in a 2017 interview that Lucy was written out partly because voice actress Kristen Bell had sought royalties on future games — an account widely reported by the gaming press.gamerant.comReleased just one year after Assassin's Creed II, Brotherhood was the first 'annual' AC, made possible by parallel work across five Ubisoft studios (Montreal lead, plus Annecy, Singapore, Bucharest and Québec).en.wikipedia.orgCombat was rebalanced so that striking first and chaining offensive kill-streaks became more effective than the counter-attack-heavy style of earlier games.en.wikipedia.orgIt was a critical high point for the series — Metacritic around 90 — winning a BAFTA for Best Action Game and Best Action-Adventure at the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards.metacritic.comRead 9 more facts
Sanctum 220133 factsGame page →This is the studio that became famous for Goat Simulator and Satisfactory — the Sanctum series was Coffee Stain's founding IP, years before the goat broke the internet in 2014.satisfactory.fandom.comCoffee Stain believed in Unreal Engine 3 enough to sign a five-year EXCLUSIVE licensing agreement with Epic Games around Sanctum 2's development.unrealengine.comFull completion is a different game entirely: the campaign runs ~8 hours, but clearing everything with DLC and achievements pushes past 30.trueachievements.comRead 1 more fact
Neverwinter20133 factsGame page →It launched as a genuine transmedia event — R.A. Salvatore's Neverwinter Saga novels, a Wizards of the Coast tabletop line and the MMO all built one continuity, and Salvatore returned to co-develop a module in 2022.gamerant.comIts beloved 'Foundry' let players build and publish their own quests inside the MMO — until Cryptic retired it in 2019, admitting the studio had lost the legacy engineering knowledge to maintain it.mmos.comIt remains one of the only video games ever built on D&D's divisive 4th Edition rules — the edition the tabletop community largely abandoned for 5E a year after the game launched.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Enter the Gungeon20165 factsGame page →The entire game is a gun pun: heroes descend a bullet-shaped dungeon called the Gungeon, fighting bullet-monster 'Gundead' to reach a legendary weapon — 'the Gun that can Kill the Past' — that lets each character erase a personal regret.en.wikipedia.orgIt packs over 200 wildly varied guns, from a unicorn horn that fires rainbows to a mailbox that shoots envelopes.en.wikipedia.orgIt was built by the tiny four-person studio Dodge Roll, formed in 2014 by ex-Mythic Entertainment developers led by Dave Crooks, and sold 3M+ copies by January 2020.screenrant.comThe huge free 'A Farewell to Arms' update (2019) was the final major patch, adding the Paradox and Gunslinger characters; a spin-off, Exit the Gungeon, followed the same year.en.wikipedia.orgThe frenetic soundtrack was composed by underground rapper/producer Doseone (Adam Drucker), later given a special-edition vinyl pressing.lacedrecords.comRead 3 more facts
BattleBlock Theater20133 factsGame page →There was no script: narrator Will Stamper was handed a story outline and improvised or wrote essentially all of the beloved narration himself — the performance that carries the entire game.blog.thebehemoth.comIt took The Behemoth's trademark path a year at a time: XBLA exclusive in April 2013, then Steam in May 2014 — the studio's third game after Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, before Pit People.en.wikipedia.orgComposer Patric Catani is The Behemoth's house sound — he also scored Pit People and Alien Hominid Invasion — while Stamper's absurd sung interludes became memes in their own right.patric-catani.bandcamp.comRead 1 more fact
Drawful 220163 factsGame page →During the first COVID-19 lockdowns Jackbox gave Drawful 2 away free-to-keep on Steam, Epic, Xbox One and Mac from March 27 to April 11, 2020, "to help people experience moments of connection" while stuck at home.pcgamer.comNobody needs a controller: everyone draws and answers on their own phone or tablet, and an audience of "potentially thousands" can vote along in streamed sessions.store.steampowered.comUnlike the original Drawful (locked inside The Jackbox Party Pack), Drawful 2 shipped standalone and added user-created custom prompt episodes — plus a censor tool for when your friends inevitably get inappropriate.jackboxgames.comRead 1 more fact
Deep Rock Galactic20204 factsGame page →'Rock and Stone!' is the game's iconic dwarven battle cry and community catchphrase.store.steampowered.comIt surpassed 10 million units sold worldwide by February 2025, up from 3 million in November 2021.vgchartz.comIts soundtrack is 1980s-style cinematic synthwave, influenced by John Carpenter, Blade Runner and The Terminator.devtrackers.ggIt launched in Steam Early Access on 28 February 2018 and reached its full 1.0 release on 13 May 2020.en.wikipedia.orgRead 2 more facts
Stellaris20165 factsGame page →A sci-fi grand-strategy 4X game blending exploration, diplomacy and war, built on Paradox's in-house Clausewitz engine (with added physically-based rendering).en.wikipedia.orgAt launch it set a Paradox record: 200,000+ units sold in the first 24 hours and 68,000 concurrent players, dethroning Cities: Skylines as the publisher's best day-one seller.gamewatcher.comSales passed 500,000 by June 2016 and surpassed 3 million units by May 2020.en.wikipedia.orgDirector Henrik Fåhraeus pitched the design as 'one third Star Control 2, one third Master of Orion 2 and one third Europa Universalis IV.'en.wikipedia.orgIt is sustained by an unusually large ongoing DLC/expansion model (Utopia, Apocalypse, Federations, Nemesis and more) that keeps the base game continually updated.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Oxenfree20166 factsGame page →Oxenfree was the debut game of Night School Studio, founded in 2014 by Sean Krankel and Adam Hines, veterans of Telltale Games and Disney Interactive.en.wikipedia.orgDialogue uses a naturalistic, overlapping walkie-talkie-style system: characters interrupt and talk over one another while the player picks spoken replies from real-time speech bubbles.en.wikipedia.orgThe ghostly synth score was composed by Andrew Rohrmann (aka scntfc), who mixed digital production with vintage analog gear — old cassette decks and reel-to-reel tape — to evoke the game's radio-rift horror.en.wikipedia.orgIn September 2021 Netflix acquired Night School Studio — the streamer's first video-game studio purchase.techcrunch.comA sequel, Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, launched in July 2023, set five years after the original.en.wikipedia.orgProtagonist Alex was modeled heavily on Lindsay Weir from Freaks and Geeks, whom the team called the biggest outside influence on the character.en.wikipedia.orgRead 4 more facts
Resident Evil Village20217 factsGame page →Lady Dimitrescu is officially 2.9 meters (~9'6") tall including hat and heels — confirmed by art director Tomonori Takano after she became a pre-launch internet phenomenon that Capcom leaned into for marketing.psu.comMaggie Robertson's Lady Dimitrescu swept the performance awards — winning at The Game Awards, the Golden Joysticks and the D.I.C.E. Awards — exceptionally rare for a supporting antagonist.capcom.co.jpCapcom staged the demos like an event: the PS5-only 'Maiden' showcase, then two 30-minute timed demos (Village and Castle) each playable only inside an 8-hour window, before a combined 60-minute demo at launch week.pushsquare.comThe game shipped first-person only — third-person mode arrived 17 months later in the Winters' Expansion, and a free February 2023 update made the full campaign playable in PlayStation VR2.residentevil.comDirector Morimasa Sato described Ethan Winters as deliberately faceless — 'a camera for the player' — so players could imagine themselves in the role; his face is never clearly shown even in Village.en.wikipedia.orgIt became the fastest Resident Evil game ever to sell 10 million copies (June 2024) — reaching 14.9 million by March 2026 per Capcom's official Platinum Titles list.capcom.co.jpThe whole plot is framed by 'Village of Shadows', an animated dark-fairy-tale storybook opening scored by Witcher 3 composer Marcin Przybyłowicz as a guest contributor.lacedrecords.comRead 5 more facts
F.E.A.R. 320113 factsGame page →Horror film legend John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing) served as creative consultant on the cutscenes and script, brought aboard by comic writer Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) after another Carpenter project fell through.mtv.comIt is the only F.E.A.R. game with cooperative play — and the last mainline entry in the series, dormant ever since.en.wikipedia.orgDevelopment at Day 1 Studios reportedly endured eight months of 60-80-hour weeks of crunch, with multiple staff departures.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin20093 factsGame page →The title is a rights saga: Vivendi kept the F.E.A.R. name after splitting with Monolith, so the sequel ran a fan contest ("Name Your Fear") that chose 'Project Origin' — then Warner Bros. bought the brand back, producing the awkward double-name F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.fear.fandom.comIt picks up roughly 30 minutes BEFORE the first game's nuke ending and follows Michael Becket through the blast — with Alma's obsession with Becket driving the series' most disturbing finale.fear.fandom.comMonolith answered 'corridor fatigue' criticism with Elite Powered Armor mech sequences and a school level considered one of the era's creepiest — but the ending's implications remain the thing players still argue about.fear.fandom.comRead 1 more fact
Dying Light20156 factsGame page →Dying Light began development in early 2012 right after Techland finished Dead Island, and is considered a spiritual successor rather than a direct sequel.en.wikipedia.orgIts signature day-night cycle transforms the game: infected are sluggish by day, but at night the deadly, super-agile Volatiles emerge, making the hunter become the hunted.en.wikipedia.orgIt runs on Techland's Chrome Engine 6, the studio's first title to use that engine version.en.wikipedia.orgThe asymmetric 'Be the Zombie' mode lets a player invade another's game as a powerful Night Hunter.en.wikipedia.orgThe 2016 expansion 'The Following' added a drivable buggy and a rural map roughly the size of all the base game's maps combined.en.wikipedia.orgThe original game had sold over 20 million copies by 2022, spawning the sequel Dying Light 2 Stay Human.gamespot.comRead 4 more facts
Valheim20216 factsGame page →Valheim shipped from a roughly five-person Swedish team, built on Richard Svensson's spare-time side project originally titled 'Fejd' (Swedish for 'feud').en.wikipedia.orgIt sold 1 million copies in its first week and 5 million within a month — one of the fastest-selling survival games in Steam history.gamedeveloper.comThe premise casts you as a fallen Viking sent to Valheim, a purgatorial tenth Norse world, to slay Odin's ancient rivals.en.wikipedia.orgDesign director Henrik Törnqvist says Breath of the Wild inspired the world's physicality — 'rolling, falling trees, and stuff like that' — with Skyrim and Terraria as further influences; the PS1-era look was born of solo-dev necessity.inverse.comComposer Patrik Jarlestam wrote the entire score in about four months, blending Swedish folk with metal influences like Meshuggah and Dream Theater.patrikjarlestam.bandcamp.comIts deliberate biome-by-biome Early Access roadmap — Hearth & Home (2021), Mistlands (2022), Ashlands (2024) — culminates in the Deep North at the 1.0 launch, five and a half years after Early Access began.thefpsreview.comRead 4 more facts
Assassin's Creed Revelations201112 factsGame page →The game is set in Constantinople during the rise of the Ottoman Empire (c. 1511), with an additional excursion to the underground cities of Cappadocia.en.wikipedia.orgIt is Ezio Auditore's final chapter and also closes Altaïr's story: Ezio seeks five keys to Altaïr's hidden library, and each key triggers a flashback mission of Altaïr's life spanning 1189–1257.en.wikipedia.orgThe Hookblade is the signature new tool — it enables ziplines and speeds navigation by roughly 30%, partly to accommodate the now middle-aged Ezio.assassinscreed.fandom.com'Den Defense' added a tower-defense minigame in which Ezio commands Assassins from the rooftops against waves of attacking Templars — a genre departure that divided players.assassinscreed.fandom.comTrapped in the Animus, Desmond Miles explores abstract first-person platforming levels ('Animus Island') in 'Desmond's Journey' — a rare first-person mode for the series.en.wikipedia.orgIn Constantinople Ezio meets and romances Sofia Sartor, a Venetian bookshop owner who becomes his wife.en.wikipedia.orgRevelations grew out of a canceled Nintendo 3DS project, 'Assassin's Creed: Lost Legacy,' originally about Altaïr and Masyaf, which was reworked into this console entry.en.wikipedia.orgReal historical figures appear, including a teenage Prince Suleiman (before he became 'the Magnificent'), cartographer Piri Reis, who supplies Ezio with bombs, and Byzantine heir Manuel Palaiologos.thenationalnews.comDesmond's voice actor Nolan North urged Ubisoft to adopt Naughty Dog/Uncharted-style performance-capture methods during development.en.wikipedia.orgIt was a co-development marathon led by Ubisoft Montreal with five other Ubisoft studios contributing (Annecy, Massive, Quebec, Singapore and Bucharest).en.wikipedia.orgThe score was Jesper Kyd's final Assassin's Creed work; Lorne Balfe (with Hans Zimmer producing) handled the cutscene and multiplayer music.jesperkyd.comUbisoft shut down the game's multiplayer servers on 1 October 2022; it lives on via the remastered Ezio Collection (PS4/Xbox One 2016, Switch 2022), minus multiplayer.en.wikipedia.orgRead 10 more facts
Heroes & Generals20163 factsGame page →Developer Reto-Moto is no ordinary indie: it was founded by the co-founders of IO Interactive — the name even revives the original 1997 company that predated Hitman.en.wikipedia.orgThe score is by Jesper Kyd, the Hitman and Assassin's Creed composer — a reunion with the IO Interactive founders he started his career with.en.wikipedia.orgAfter a decade of war — Greenlight beta from 2012, official 1.0 launch in September 2016 — the servers were finally shut down on May 25, 2023, ending the persistent campaign for good.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Tabletop Simulator20156 factsGame page →A physics-based sandbox where you can play virtually any board, card or tabletop game online with friends — including the freedom to flip the entire table over.store.steampowered.comThousands of community-made games and custom assets are shared through its Steam Workshop, one of the platform's biggest draws.en.wikipedia.orgBerserk Games partnered with publishers for officially-licensed DLC of real board games such as Scythe, Wingspan, Blood Rage, Zombicide and Cosmic Encounter.en.wikipedia.orgIt supports VR (HTC Vive and Oculus Rift), and VR players can share a table with non-VR players.store.steampowered.comBuilt in the Unity engine with built-in Lua scripting, letting creators add automated rules and dice-rolling to custom games.en.wikipedia.orgIt was crowdfunded on Kickstarter in February 2014, raising $37,403 from 1,822 backers, and is widely used as a virtual tabletop for Dungeons & Dragons and other RPGs.en.wikipedia.orgRead 4 more facts
Persona 520164 factsGame page →The Phantom Thieves of Hearts are high-schoolers by day who explore stylish cognitive dungeons called 'Palaces' by night, stealing corrupt adults' hearts.en.wikipedia.orgSound director Shoji Meguro composed, performed and produced the acid-jazz score, generating roughly 80% of the game's tracks over three years.en.wikipedia.orgRenowned for its striking red-and-black UI and art direction, Persona 5 won Best Role-Playing Game at The Game Awards 2017.en.wikipedia.orgPersona 5 is the best-selling title in Atlus's Megami Tensei franchise; protagonist Joker later joined Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as DLC in 2018.personacentral.comRead 2 more facts
Machinarium20093 factsGame page →Machinarium contains no dialogue and no text — every story beat, memory and puzzle hint is delivered through animated thought-bubble comics, making it playable in any language untouched.en.wikipedia.orgIt won Excellence in Visual Art at the 2009 Independent Games Festival before release — the award that put Amanita's hand-drawn robot city on the map.en.wikipedia.orgIn 2011 Amanita ran a famous "Pirate Amnesty" sale: citing piracy rates as high as 85-90%, the studio offered pirates the game plus soundtrack for $5, no questions asked — and the goodwill stunt made headlines.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Crysis20076 factsGame page →Its extreme hardware demands made "But can it run Crysis?" the defining PC benchmark catchphrase for over a decade — Crytek later canonized the meme by naming Crysis Remastered's top graphics preset "Can it Run Crysis?".pcgamer.comCryEngine 2 was one of the first engines built for DirectX 10, and the game's "Very High" graphics preset was exclusive to it — until players discovered config tweaks that unlocked most of the effects in DirectX 9 on Windows XP.gamespot.comCrytek CEO Cevat Yerli estimated in 2008 that Crysis was pirated at a ratio of 15–20 copies for every legitimate sale — a major reason the studio moved away from PC exclusivity.gamedeveloper.comDespite early reports branding it a commercial flop, Crysis passed one million copies by January 2008 and topped three million by 2010.engadget.comThe game cost roughly $22 million to make — announcing the figure, Cevat Yerli quipped that "if it wasn't profitable I wouldn't be able to stand here."en.wikipedia.orgCrysis holds a Guinness World Record — not for its graphics, but for its fastest completion: 42 minutes 14 seconds on the hardest difficulty, set in 2010.guinnessworldrecords.comRead 4 more facts
Pillars of Eternity20153 factsGame page →It began as 'Project Eternity', a 2012 Kickstarter to revive the Infinity Engine CRPG (Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale); it raised $3,986,929 (~$4.16M with PayPal), among the highest-funded video-game campaigns at the time.en.wikipedia.orgSet in the original world of Eora, chiefly the colonial Dyrwood, its story centers on souls, reincarnation and the nature of the gods, with the player character a 'Watcher' able to see past lives.en.wikipedia.orgBuilt in Unity using pre-rendered 2D backgrounds, it was expanded by the two-part The White March (2015-2016) and followed by the sequel Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire in 2018.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Mass Effect 320124 factsGame page →The original endings sparked the 'Retake Mass Effect' fan campaign — which, remarkably, channeled its protest into a Child's Play charity drive.en.wikipedia.orgBioWare answered the backlash with the free Extended Cut DLC (26 June 2012), expanding the endings and adding a defiant new 'Refuse' option — a landmark case of a studio revising a finished narrative post-release.en.wikipedia.orgFilm composer Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream) wrote the main theme 'Leaving Earth', leading a five-composer team on the ~90-minute score.gameinformer.comIt won Best RPG at the 2012 Spike VGAs and RPG of the Year at the D.I.C.E. Awards, and made Time's Top 100 video games of all time list.en.wikipedia.orgRead 2 more facts
Baldur's Gate III20238 factsGame page →It spent nearly three years in Early Access — Act 1 launched October 6, 2020 — before its full release on August 3, 2023.en.wikipedia.orgIt is an official adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition; CEO Swen Vincke said Larian ported the Player's Handbook ruleset "as faithfully as we could."newsweek.comLarian says the game has roughly 17,000 variations on its ending; a team spent over a year just on endings and their descriptors.gamesradar.comEvery line of interactive dialogue was recorded with full voiceover and body motion-capture using 248 actors — for all NPCs, not just companions — across thousands of recording hours.pcgamer.comIt became the first game ever to win Game of the Year (or its equivalent) at all five major ceremonies — The Game Awards, Golden Joystick, GDCA, D.I.C.E. and BAFTA.gamesradar.comThe druid companion Halsin can use Wild Shape to become a bear during a romance scene — a much-memed moment Larian used to highlight the game's player freedom.thegamer.comThe signature theme "Down by the River" was the first piece composer Borislav Slavov wrote — originally just guitar and his own voice — and later became the bard Alfira's in-game performance.thegamer.comIt was directed by Larian founder and CEO Swen Vincke, building on the studio's Divinity: Original Sin CRPG pedigree.pcgamer.comRead 6 more facts
Magicka 220155 factsGame page →Magicka 2 keeps the series' signature friendly-fire chaos: up to four wizards mix eight elements on the fly to cast spells, and frequently blow each other up by accident in co-op.en.wikipedia.orgIt is the direct sequel to Magicka (2011), returning to the satirical fantasy world of Midgård with its trademark parody humor.en.wikipedia.orgUnlike the original Magicka (Arrowhead Game Studios), Magicka 2 was developed by Sweden's Pieces Interactive, which had previously made several Magicka DLCs.en.wikipedia.orgMagicka 2 launched simultaneously on PC and PlayStation 4 on 26 May 2015 (Linux/macOS followed in November 2015) — the first Magicka on console.en.wikipedia.orgThe soundtrack was composed by Oskar Clase, who also scored the spin-off Magicka: Wizard Wars.cargocollective.comRead 3 more facts
Assassin's Creed Valhalla202013 factsGame page →Players choose to play Eivor as male or female — or select a third 'Animus' option that auto-switches between them at story beats. Female Eivor is voiced by Cecilie Stenspil, male Eivor by Magnus Bruun.en.wikipedia.orgIn-game, Eivor is canonically female; the male appearance is an artifact of the Animus reading the Isu DNA of Odin within Eivor, sometimes rendering Eivor as Odin.screenrant.comSettlement-building returns to the RPG-era trilogy: players grow and upgrade a home base, Ravensthorpe, in England.en.wikipedia.orgThe game spans Viking-Age Norway and England (872–878 AD) with cities like Winchester, London and York (Jorvik), plus the mythical realms of Asgard and Jotunheim.en.wikipedia.orgValhalla had the biggest launch in Assassin's Creed history, outselling every prior entry in its first week and setting Ubisoft's all-time record store sales.news.ubisoft.comIt is the first Assassin's Creed game to cross $1 billion in revenue and the franchise's highest-grossing entry.vgchartz.comValhalla received the longest post-launch support in AC history — its final content update, 'The Last Chapter,' arrived on 6 December 2022, over two years after release.pcgamesn.comA December 2021 free crossover mission, 'A Fated Encounter,' has Eivor meet Odyssey's Kassandra on the Isle of Skye — bridging two games set roughly 1,300 years apart.blog.playstation.comWardruna co-founder Einar Selvik drew on decades of Nordic ethnomusicology to write genuine Old Norse songs for the score.news.ubisoft.comThe score of the 'Dawn of Ragnarok' expansion (by Stephanie Economou) won the first-ever Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media in 2023.en.wikipedia.orgReal historical figures appear, including King Alfred the Great and the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok (Ivarr the Boneless and Ubba), grounding the story in the Great Heathen Army's invasion of England.en.wikipedia.orgReleased November 2020, Valhalla was a launch-window title for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, spanning two console generations.en.wikipedia.orgIt was a massive globally-distributed production, developed by Ubisoft Montreal with around 14 supporting Ubisoft studios.en.wikipedia.orgRead 11 more facts
Street Fighter V20165 factsGame page →A console exclusive to PlayStation 4 (never on Xbox), SFV shipped with full cross-platform play between PS4 and PC — players on the two systems could fight each other online.en.wikipedia.orgIts 2016 launch was widely criticized for thin, barebones content; Capcom rebuilt it over years of free/paid updates and re-releases — Arcade Edition (2018) and Champion Edition (2020).en.wikipedia.orgIts core new mechanic was the V-Gauge system — V-Skills, V-Reversals, V-Triggers and (later) V-Shifts — that defined SFV's competitive play.en.wikipedia.orgIt was built in Unreal Engine 4, the first mainline Street Fighter to use a third-party engine.en.wikipedia.orgIt became a cornerstone of fighting-game esports via the Capcom Pro Tour and EVO, where it drew record entrant counts (5,000+ registrations at EVO 2016).en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Ghostrunner20207 factsGame page →Ghostrunner's one-hit-kill design cuts both ways: enemies and the player both die to a single hit — a deliberate tension rooted in Hotline Miami and the studio's own God's Trigger.gamesradar.comThe May 2020 demo drew over 100,000 players who racked up more than 6 million total deaths — one player died over 1,000 times in a single run.allingames.com505 Games initially declined to buy the Ghostrunner IP before launch, then made an 'irresistible' EUR 5 million offer to All in! Games after the game's surprise success — barely five months after release.gamedeveloper.comThe game recouped its roughly EUR 2.5 million production cost on its first day on sale.gamedeveloper.comFree post-launch updates added a roguelike Wave Mode, an accessibility-focused Assist Mode, Photo Mode, Kill Run and a Hardcore mode, alongside the paid prequel expansion Project_Hel in which you play the boss Hel.gameinformer.comThe darksynth soundtrack by Daniel Deluxe (20 tracks) was released on vinyl as a 180g gatefold double LP, and the Project_Hel expansion added six more of his tracks.danieldeluxe.bandcamp.comGhostrunner 2 was announced in May 2021 — barely a month after 505 Games bought the IP — with Kraków studio One More Level returning at roughly double the original budget.pcgamer.comRead 5 more facts
Awesomenauts20123 factsGame page →Awesomenauts pioneered the 2D console MOBA — launching on XBLA/PSN in May 2012, before the genre's PC gold rush had even fully formed.en.wikipedia.orgIt runs on RoniTech, Ronimo's in-house engine originally built for Swords & Soldiers.en.wikipedia.orgRonimo went bankrupt in August 2023 and the servers died — but Atari bought the IP and resurrected the game as a paid release in November 2025.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
