Submerged20155 factsGame page →A combat-free, fail-state-free exploration game: you play Miku, a girl who navigates a flooded, post-apocalyptic city by fishing boat, scaling drowned skyscrapers and scanning with a telescope to find supplies for her wounded brother Taku.en.wikipedia.orgUppercut Games was founded by veterans of Irrational/2K Australia who worked on the BioShock series; Submerged was made by this ex-BioShock team in Canberra, Australia.pcgamer.comThe developers cite Journey, Shadow of the Colossus and a Grand Theft Auto IV mod that submerged Liberty City as key inspirations.en.wikipedia.orgThe score by BAFTA-winning composer Jeff van Dyck won Best Audio at the 2015 Freeplay Awards.kotaku.com.auIt received a full sequel, Submerged: Hidden Depths, launched on Stadia in December 2020 and other platforms in March 2022.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Visage20207 factsGame page →Visage was born from P.T.: co-founder Jonathan Vallières rebuilt Konami's P.T. hallway in Unreal Engine 4 as a portfolio piece, and when Silent Hills was cancelled the team set out to make a game to 'fill the void' it left.sadsquarestudio.comMultiple endings were a Kickstarter stretch goal the campaign never reached — the team implemented them anyway, saying Visage 'has always been about making sure that everyone gets a different experience'.gamereactor.euThe 2016 Kickstarter was funded at roughly 343%: CAD $120,129 raised against a CAD $35,000 goal from about 3,200 backers, unlocking console versions and VR support as stretch goals.kickstarter.comA tiny Québec studio spent over five years on the game: SadSquare was founded in January 2015, entered Early Access in October 2018 and only hit 1.0 on 30 October 2020.sadsquarestudio.comThe horror is structured as a non-linear anthology in one ever-changing 1980s house: chapters about victims Lucy, Dolores and Rakan can be played in any order, with a final chapter unlocked via VHS tapes and mirror-mask pieces.gamerant.comA sanity system pushes beyond P.T.'s walking-sim design: sanity drains in darkness and near paranormal events, managed with lighters, candles, light bulbs and pills from a deliberately limited five-slot inventory.en.wikipedia.orgIn an IGN reader poll in early 2022, Visage was voted the scariest horror game on PC with roughly half of all votes cast.en.wikipedia.orgRead 5 more facts
Sackboy: A Big Adventure20207 factsGame page →Sackboy: A Big Adventure was a PlayStation 5 launch title, released day-and-date with the console in November 2020 (also on PS4).en.wikipedia.orgThe PS5 version leans on the DualSense controller: haptic feedback mimics different surface textures and the adaptive triggers add resistance when grabbing textured objects.gaming-age.comIts show-stopping musical levels are choreographed to real pop tracks — including 'Uptown Funk', Madonna's 'Material Girl' (arranged by returning LBP composer Winifred Phillips) and David Bowie's 'Let's Dance' in the level Choral Reef.tunefind.comRichard E. Grant voices the jester-doll villain Vex and Dawn French plays the noble Scarlet — celebrity casting announced via the official LittleBigPlanet account.videogamer.comAt the 2021 BAFTA Games Awards it won Best British Game and Best Family Game — beating Animal Crossing: New Horizons in the Family category — from four nominations.thegamer.comAfter Sony took the LittleBigPlanet 3 servers offline for good in 2024, wiping access to hundreds of thousands of user creations, Sackboy: A Big Adventure remains the franchise's most recent living installment.gamespot.comThe October 2022 Windows port marked the LittleBigPlanet series' PC debut; online 4-player co-op had been patched into the console versions in December 2020 after a local-only launch.pcgamingwiki.comRead 5 more facts
Bless Unleashed20204 factsGame page →Bless Unleashed is a reboot of the earlier PC MMO Bless Online, originally built by Neowiz.en.wikipedia.orgIt released in staggered order: Xbox One first (12 March 2020), then PS4 (22 October 2020), then PC via Steam (6 August 2021).en.wikipedia.orgBandai Namco sunset the console version — servers closed 30 November 2022 — after its publishing agreement with developer Round8 ended; VALOFE then rebooted and continued the PC version.bandainamcoent.comBuilt on Unreal Engine 4, it is set in the world of Lumios, featuring the island of Telarion and the antagonist Gideon.en.wikipedia.orgRead 2 more facts
Legend of Keepers20205 factsGame page →The developers cite Dungeon Keeper as their main inspiration, praising its use of parody and humor; the game's tone also draws on French comedy such as Kaamelott and Le Donjon de Naheulbeuk.turnbasedlovers.comIt spent about a year in Early Access (March 2020 to its 1.0 release on 29 April 2021), with the team prioritizing a free-play mode over adding more bosses.en.wikipedia.orgIt is a 'reverse dungeon crawler': you play the dungeon boss defending against invading heroes in turn-based combat, inverting the usual roguelite formula.fingerguns.netIts 12-track original soundtrack was composed by the solo French musician T05.vgmdb.netIt was offered as a limited-time free-to-keep giveaway, which inflated its ownership statistics.cbr.comRead 3 more facts
Chernobylite20216 factsGame page →The Exclusion Zone is real: the team traveled to Chernobyl repeatedly from 2014, shooting up to ~2,000 photos per room — they believe it may be the largest use of photogrammetry in any video game.pcgamer.comIt grew directly out of The Farm 51's Chernobyl VR Project (2016) — an interactive photogrammetry documentary whose field scans were reused for the game.store.steampowered.comDespite endless S.T.A.L.K.E.R. comparisons, creative director Wojciech Pazdur said the opposite: 'designing Chernobylite, we are not taking anything from those games as reference' — the inspiration was the real disaster and its people.screenrant.comYou play Igor Khymynuk, a former Chernobyl plant physicist hunting the Zone for his missing fiancée — the whole campaign builds toward a planned heist on the power plant itself.en.wikipedia.orgScanning trips ran under radiation time limits, and the team needed special permits to fly drones in the Zone — normally banned for national-security reasons.pcgamer.comIts Kickstarter doubled the $100k goal in about nine days — ending at $206,671 from 3,350 backers in May 2019.kickstarter.comRead 4 more facts
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game20112 factsGame page →It was nominated for Best Family Game at the 8th British Academy Games Awards (2012), losing to LittleBigPlanet 2.en.wikipedia.orgThe game compresses all four Pirates films into LEGO form and launched day-and-date with On Stranger Tides' cinema release in May 2011.en.wikipedia.org
Blood Bowl 220154 factsGame page →Blood Bowl 2 is a video-game adaptation of Games Workshop's Blood Bowl, a satirical tabletop game that mashes American football together with the violence of the Warhammer Fantasy world.en.wikipedia.orgMatches are narrated by the returning commentary duo Jim Johnson — an immortal vampire play-by-play announcer — and his blood-thirsty analyst Bob Bifford, whose Cabalvision studio doubles as the game's main menu interface.pcgamer.comIt is the sequel to Cyanide's Blood Bowl (2009) and part of the studio's long-running Blood Bowl series, later followed by Blood Bowl 3 (2023).en.wikipedia.orgCombat is turn-based and resolved by dice rolls, and players can be knocked out, seriously injured or permanently killed during a match — including star players.en.wikipedia.orgRead 2 more facts
A Valley Without Wind20123 factsGame page →When A Valley Without Wind 2 shipped in 2013, Arcen gave it FREE to every owner of the first game — and bundled the original with the sequel — an almost unheard-of apology-and-thank-you for the divisive original.arcengames.comIt was Arcen Games' first big swing after AI War: Fleet Command — trading grand space strategy for a procedurally generated post-apocalyptic 2D world that stitches together an effectively infinite continent.en.wikipedia.orgThe game spent development under the working title 'Environ' before Chris Park settled on the more evocative A Valley Without Wind.arcengames.comRead 1 more fact
A Valley Without Wind 220133 factsGame page →Arcen gave A Valley Without Wind 2 FREE to every owner of the original — and vice versa: buying either game gets you both, permanently.arcengames.comStung by criticism of the first game's visuals, Arcen commissioned a complete art overhaul for the sequel — new character art, tilesets and animation replaced the original's much-mocked mismatched look.en.wikipedia.orgThe two AVWW games shipped only nine months apart (April 2012 → February 2013) — a full sequel turnaround faster than most games' DLC schedules.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Hustle Kings20093 factsGame page →Hustle Kings launched on PSN December 22, 2009 (EU) / January 28, 2010 (NA) — UK studio VooFoo's breakout, whose ball physics and visuals became the studio's calling card, later refined in Pure Pool.en.wikipedia.orgThe game grew into a small franchise: a PS Vita port, a free-to-play PS4 edition, and 2016's Hustle Kings VR — the VR remake built by Sony's XDev with EPOS Game Studios rather than VooFoo.en.wikipedia.orgTrue to its name, the career mode is about hustling: bets, trick-shot showboating and HKC currency — pool as street economy rather than tournament sport.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia201611 factsGame page →Russia is the first playable video-game appearance of Nikolai Orelov, a Russian Assassin who debuted in the 2010 comic 'Assassin's Creed: The Fall.'assassinscreed.fandom.comThe story is set chronologically between the comics 'Assassin's Creed: The Fall' and 'Assassin's Creed: The Chain,' making it the most comic-tied entry of the Chronicles trilogy.assassinscreed.fandom.comAfter Nikolai rescues Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov from execution, a Precursor Box imprints her with the genetic memories and abilities of Shao Jun (protagonist of Chronicles: China), linking the two games.en.wikipedia.orgIt is a rare dual-protagonist Chronicles game: players control both Nikolai (combat and rifle) and Anastasia (agile Assassin abilities like lockpicking and parkour).accesstheanimus.comNikolai wields a custom Berdan rifle with a fixed bayonet for both sniping and melee — a firearm-centric combat style unique to this entry among the three Chronicles games.en.wikipedia.orgInstead of a rope dart, Nikolai uses a grapple/winch that also manipulates electrical components — an in-fiction nod to Nikola Tesla, an ally of the Assassins in 'The Fall' comic.accesstheanimus.comClimax art director Glenn Brace said Russia's visual style drew on early Soviet Constructivism, propaganda 'montage' and photography — a stark black-and-white world cut by deep red.gamereactor.euThe Chronicles sub-series began as bonus content: the first game (China) was originally bundled with the Assassin's Creed Unity Season Pass before the trilogy was sold standalone.en.wikipedia.orgThe trilogy's stylised, painterly 'ink-transition' cutscenes were produced by the UK studio Engine House, which posed in-engine assets and painted over them.engine-house.co.ukCollecting 12 hidden codes across the chapters unlocks a secret modern-day scene featuring Templars Laetitia England and Otso Berg discussing the Precursor Box.accesstheanimus.comReleased February 9, 2016, Russia was the third and final Assassin's Creed Chronicles game; the sub-series was not continued.en.wikipedia.orgRead 9 more facts
60 Seconds!20154 factsGame page →Players have just 60 seconds to dash through a procedurally rearranged suburban house, grabbing family members and supplies before a nuclear blast — then must survive in the fallout shelter using whatever (and whoever) they saved.store.steampowered.comIt was made by Polish studio Robot Gentleman and spawned the space-station spin-off 60 Parsecs! (2018) and a remaster, 60 Seconds! Reatomized (2019).en.wikipedia.orgIts dark comedy leans on 1950s Atomic-Age Americana and Cold War civil-defense aesthetics, satirizing suburban nuclear-apocalypse paranoia.robotgentleman.comThe game surpassed 1 million copies sold by 2018, and the 60 Seconds! series reached 6.5 million sold by its 10th anniversary in 2026.dualshockers.comRead 2 more facts
UnderMine20204 factsGame page →It was developed over roughly five years by the two-person studio Thorium (Derek Johnson and Clint Tasker, both formerly of Relic Entertainment).en.wikipedia.orgUnderMine was Fandom's first published game — Fandom launched its game-publishing arm with the August 2019 Early Access release, after which Thorium self-published from June 2020.prnewswire.comIts NPC-rescue mechanic was inspired by the SNES classic Soul Blazer.en.wikipedia.orgIts main theme was composed by Epic Mountain, the composers behind the Kurzgesagt YouTube channel.music.apple.comRead 2 more facts
Grand Theft Auto VI202613 factsGame page →The first GTA VI trailer set a Guinness World Record as the most-viewed video-game trailer in 24 hours, with over 90 million views (December 2023).guinnessworldrecords.comLucia Caminos is the first female protagonist in a mainline Grand Theft Auto game.en.wikipedia.orgIt is the first mainline GTA with dual playable protagonists framed as a criminal couple — Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval.en.wikipedia.orgIt is set in the fictional state of Leonida (based on Florida), centered on Vice City (a fictionalized Miami) — a return to Vice City after roughly two decades.en.wikipedia.orgRockstar confirmed development in February 2022 and formally revealed the game in December 2023, releasing Trailer 1 a day early after a leak.en.wikipedia.orgIn September 2022, a hacker leaked around 90 videos of work-in-progress footage — described by journalists as one of the biggest leaks in video-game history.gta.fandom.comIt is the first main GTA game not written by Dan Houser, who left Rockstar in 2020 and has said he had no involvement.en.wikipedia.orgAfter an initial 2025 window, it was delayed to May 2026 and then to November 19, 2026, on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.variety.comThe 2022 leaker — Lapsus$ member Arion Kurtaj — was found unfit to stand trial and was handed an indefinite secure-hospital order in the UK in December 2023.bleepingcomputer.comKurtaj pulled off the hack while on bail in a hotel — using an Amazon Fire TV Stick, the hotel room's TV and a smartphone, after police had confiscated his laptop.bleepingcomputer.comTrailer 2 (May 2025) amassed roughly 475 million views across platforms in 24 hours — reported as the fastest video launch ever, beating Deadpool & Wolverine — yet still didn't top Trailer 1's YouTube-only 24-hour record.tweaktown.comThe project was long known under the codename "Project Americas"; preliminary work began around 2014, with full production from roughly 2020.en.wikipedia.orgDespite record-setting budget estimates, the standard edition is priced at $79.99 — ordinary AAA tier.en.wikipedia.orgRead 11 more facts
Dead Island Retro Revenge20163 factsGame page →Retro Revenge shipped bundled with the Dead Island Definitive Collection in June 2016 — a 16-bit palate cleanser packaged with the remasters of the open-world originals.store.steampowered.comUnlike the main series it wasn't made by Techland or Deep Silver's internal teams: side-scroller specialist Empty Clip Studios (Symphony) built it as a lane-based runner-brawler.store.steampowered.comThe entire zombie-apocalypse plot is driven by one goal: hero Max fighting across California to rescue his kidnapped cat.store.steampowered.comRead 1 more fact
Orcs Must Die! 320204 factsGame page →It was a Google Stadia timed exclusive, launching on Stadia on 14 July 2020 about a year before its PC, PS4 and Xbox release on 23 July 2021.pcgamesn.comIt is the first mainline sequel in the series since Orcs Must Die! 2 (2012) — an eight-year gap.en.wikipedia.orgIt introduced 'War Scenarios,' a mode with mountable War Machines against the largest orc armies in the series.store.steampowered.comThe PlayStation 5 version arrived later, on 9 June 2022.en.wikipedia.orgRead 2 more facts
Overcooked! All You Can Eat20206 factsGame page →All You Can Eat rebuilds the original Overcooked inside the Overcooked 2 engine so both campaigns run at 60fps in 4K with faster loading — over 200 levels with all DLC included.team17.comIt brought the series its first real accessibility suite: an Assist Mode (slower recipe timeouts, longer rounds, skip-level) plus scalable UI, dyslexia-friendly text and colourblind support with shape indicators on chefs.blog.playstation.comFull cross-platform online co-op was added across Steam, Switch, PlayStation and Xbox — every level playable cross-play.team17.comThe remaster adds 7 new kitchens and 3 new chefs on top of the combined games, totalling roughly 200 levels and about 60 chefs with 128 skins.team17.comThe beloved original Overcooked music was licensed library stock that couldn't be reused, so composer Ben Ridge wrote a brand-new score 'in a similar style' for the remastered campaign.ben-ridge.comGhost Town Games began as just two ex-Frontier developers, Phil Duncan and Oli De-Vine; Duncan's time as a barman inspired the kitchen premise — 'an occupation where teamwork, time management, spatial awareness and shouting are all vitally important'.gamedeveloper.comRead 4 more facts
AdventureQuest 3D20164 factsGame page →In August 2019 a virtual Korn played a full "Battle Concert" inside AdventureQuest 3D (and AQWorlds), debuting a song from their album The Nothing — Kotaku called the MMO metal show "surprisingly great", well before Fortnite made in-game concerts mainstream news.kotaku.comThe game was crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2015, hitting its $200,000 goal and continuing to take "over-funding" pledges until January 1, 2016.aq3d.comIts game director and writer Adam Bohn is Artix Entertainment's founder — better known to two decades of players as his paladin alter ego, Artix Krieger.kickstarter.comAQ3D was built around true cross-platform play from day one: the same character can be played on PC, Mac, Android and iOS, switching devices freely — still a rarity for MMOs when it hit Early Access in 2016.aq3d.comRead 2 more facts
Blue Estate20133 factsGame page →It launched as a Leap Motion showcase — on PC you literally aim by waving your hand over the sensor; the Xbox One version used Kinect and the PS4 version DualShock gyro.cosmocover.comIts source material has genuine comics pedigree: Viktor Kalvachev's Blue Estate was nominated for an Eisner Award — and Kalvachev himself lent the game its lurid pulp look.gamingbolt.comIt's one of the last of a dying breed — a full-priced, narrative on-rails shooter in the House of the Dead tradition, published by Focus Home Interactive in the PS4's launch year.digitallydownloaded.netRead 1 more fact
Plantera20163 factsGame page →Plantera is the breakout hit of VaragtP, a Swedish solo developer — it eventually spawned the 2019 sequel Plantera 2: Golden Acorn, the studio's first-ever sequel among its seven commercial releases.nanogamingnews.comThe Wii U, 3DS, Vita and Switch versions (as "Plantera Deluxe") were ported by Spanish studio Ratalaika Games — one of the earliest projects of the house that later became famous for porting hundreds of indies to consoles.miketendo64.comThe whole game fits in about 30 MB of disk space — built in Clickteam Fusion, it's one of the tiniest commercial releases on Steam.store.steampowered.comRead 1 more fact
Biped20205 factsGame page →The score was composed by Los Angeles-based German composer Thomas Parisch (Resident Evil 6, Iris.Fall) and was nominated for Best Main Theme at the 2021 G.A.N.G. Awards.filmindustry.networkPlayers control each robot's two legs independently with the two analog sticks, a control scheme reviewers compared to Snipperclips and Human: Fall Flat.thegamer.comIt was first shown publicly at PAX West 2019 before its 26 March 2020 launch.thegamer.comThe two robot protagonists are named Aku and Sila.store.steampowered.comA sequel, Biped 2, was later released by NExT Studios.store.steampowered.comRead 3 more facts
Mad Games Tycoon20163 factsGame page →The Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One versions arrived in early 2020 — almost four years after the PC release — published by Toplitz Productions.gaming-age.comReviewers consistently framed it as the hardcore alternative to Game Dev Tycoon: praised for its depth (custom engines, office layout down to the furniture) while criticized for its dated presentation.twistedbard.comGerman studio Eggcode followed it with the more successful sequel Mad Games Tycoon 2 in 2021, which grew a large community on Steam.steamcommunity.comRead 1 more fact
The Jackbox Party Pack 720206 factsGame page →Party Pack 7 launched mid-pandemic, right as Jackbox usage exploded: sales spiked as much as 1,000% year-over-year in spring 2020 and the playerbase doubled from ~100M to ~200M people in a year.dualshockers.comIts day-one sales were roughly five times those of Party Pack 6, per CEO Mike Bilder — traffic spikes exceeded New Year's Eve, the company's traditionally busiest day.gamesbeat.comThe five games are Quiplash 3, The Devils and the Details, Champ'd Up, Talking Points and Blather 'Round — with Quiplash 3 rebuilt in a new clay-animation art style.jackboxgames.comTalking Points is an improv public-speaking game where you present a slideshow you've never seen while a teammate feeds you slides — press dubbed it 'drunk PowerPoints'.cnn.comEveryone plays on phones or tablets with no extra controllers, and an audience of up to 10,000 can join — the design that made it a Zoom/Discord staple during lockdowns.store.steampowered.comEvery game includes family-friendly content filters, and Blather 'Round supports as few as two players — a rarity for a series that usually needs three or more.support.jackboxgames.comRead 4 more facts
Kami20133 factsGame page →The title is a double pun: in Japanese, 'kami' means both 'paper' and 'god/spirit' — fitting for a game about the zen of folding.idownloadblog.comNothing on screen is digital art: State of Play physically folded real paper and cardboard, then photographed it — the studio's handmade signature.store.steampowered.comIt reportedly began as developer Dan Fountain's 'twenty-percent time' side experiment — and the studio's handcraft pedigree later earned a BAFTA for the paper-built Lumino City.vice.comRead 1 more fact
Huntdown20204 factsGame page →Its PC version was an Epic Games Store timed exclusive for a year — announced 1 May 2020 and launched 12 May 2020 — before arriving on Steam and GOG on 12 May 2021.easytrigger.comIt is a deliberate retro homage, borrowing one-liners from Predator and Rocky IV, with a soundtrack described as 'one part Blade Runner, one part The Running Man, with a bit of John Carpenter.'pushsquare.comIts original soundtrack, by Tommy Gustafsson, was released on Retrowave Touch Records and as a standalone Steam DLC.retrowavetouchrecords.bandcamp.comA prequel, 'Huntdown: Overtime,' was announced on 29 January 2026.en.wikipedia.orgRead 2 more facts
Tidalis20106 factsGame page →Tidalis was Arcen Games' second title and its first non-strategy game — a puzzle follow-up to their debut hit AI War: Fleet Command.en.wikipedia.orgIts core 'streams' mechanic has players drag paths through colored, arrow-bearing blocks to trigger chain reactions — an original spin on falling-block puzzlers.arcengames.comThe game shipped with more than 20 game modes and a 115-level adventure mode alongside co-op and competitive online/offline multiplayer.arcengames.comIts music was composed by Pablo Vega, Arcen's composer and lead sound designer, with 29 tracks released as a standalone soundtrack.arcenmusic.bandcamp.comThe soundtrack includes a bonus 'Tidalis (AI War) Theme', nodding to Arcen's prior game.arcenmusic.bandcamp.comTidalis launched on 16 July 2010 and was ported to Windows, Mac and Linux.en.wikipedia.orgRead 4 more facts
Creaks20204 factsGame page →Creaks debuted exclusively on Apple Arcade on 10 July 2020, before its multiplatform release on 22 July 2020.en.wikipedia.orgIts hand-drawn, hand-painted art evokes 18th and 19th-century paintings; around 28 in-game paintings are collectibles, some of which animate into mini-games.en.wikipedia.orgIt spent roughly eight years in development, beginning as Radim Jurda and Jan Chlup's university diploma project before they joined Amanita Design.pushsquare.comIts score is the first video-game soundtrack by the Brighton composer Joe Acheson, who performs as Hidden Orchestra.en.wikipedia.orgRead 2 more facts
Machinika Museum20215 factsGame page →Machinika Museum is a sci-fi twist on The Room formula: instead of antique puzzle boxes, you're a far-future museum researcher repairing mysterious alien machines that arrive with no instructions.store.steampowered.comIt was built over roughly three years by a four-person indie team in Paris — Littlefield Studio — using Unity and Blender.littlefield-studio.itch.ioDespite the tiny team it shipped fully localized into 12 languages.store.steampowered.comA direct sequel, Machinika: Atlas (2024), continues the same researcher's story after her escape pod lands in an alien vessel on Saturn's moon Atlas.store.steampowered.comSteam ran a free-to-keep giveaway of the game in May 2024, boosting its audience — its Steam rating stood around 91% positive.pcgamer.comRead 3 more facts
Convoy20154 factsGame page →Convoy is a post-apocalyptic tactical roguelike widely described as 'FTL: Faster Than Light on wheels' — swapping FTL's spaceship for a Mad Max-style armored truck convoy crossing a wasteland to recover parts for your crashed spacecraft so you can leave the planet.en.wikipedia.orgIt was crowdfunded via a November 2014 Kickstarter that raised €22,408, and was the debut title of the Dutch studio behind it (Triangle Studios / Convoy Games, based in Leeuwarden).en.wikipedia.orgRadio signals picked up on the road trigger randomized encounters that branch into real-time-with-pause vehicle combat, text-based dialogue or chance-based role-play; death is permanent.store.steampowered.comThree years after the 2015 PC launch, an expanded edition titled 'Convoy: A Tactical Roguelike' arrived on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in April 2018.en.wikipedia.orgRead 2 more facts
Corridor Z20163 factsGame page →Corridor Z reverses the endless-runner camera: instead of watching your character's back, you face them — and the zombie horde — head-on, aiming your shots at what's chasing you.store.steampowered.comIt began life as a 2014 mobile runner before being upgraded for PS4, Vita, Switch and PC by Polish studio Mass Creation, later known for the hack-and-slash Shing!.corridorzthegame.comThe story riffs on classic zombie-B-movie setups: a cheerleader, a jock and a soldier flee through a quarantined high school, with narrative told through collected case files.store.steampowered.comRead 1 more fact
Big Pharma20155 factsGame page →Big Pharma was designed and built almost single-handedly by Tim Wicksteed, sole developer of the studio Twice Circled.en.wikipedia.orgIt was published by Positech Games, the one-man indie label run by Cliff Harris (Democracy, Gratuitous Space Battle).positech.co.ukThe game satirizes the pharmaceutical industry: players lay out conveyor-belt production lines that convert raw ingredients into drugs, then wrestle with pricing and ethical dilemmas to maximize profit.en.wikipedia.orgThe 2016 'Marketing and Malpractice' expansion added Executives, letting players market — and manipulate the perception of — the drugs they produce.en.wikipedia.orgThe retro-synth soundtrack by Mark Allsworth was built from vintage synthesizers, toys and FX for a deliberately warm, dated sound.markallsworth.bandcamp.comRead 3 more facts
Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights20215 factsGame page →Protagonist Lily never swings a weapon: the white-haired priestess purifies fallen knights and summons their spirits to fight for her — every 'weapon' is a rescued soul.en.wikipedia.orgThe entire ~50-track score is by Mili — the band behind Deemo and Goblin Slayer's ending themes — an unusual full-band 'get' for a small indie.vgmdb.netIt sprinted from Early Access to 1.0 in exactly five months (Jan 21 → June 22, 2021) — and was publisher Binary Haze Interactive's very first release.middleofnowheregaming.comSales kept climbing for years: 600k in 2022 became 2 million by January 2025 — announced within days of sequel Ender Magnolia's 1.0 launch.vgchartz.comThe healing 'prayer' mechanic works like Dark Souls' Estus Flask — limited charges refilled at rest points — one reason critics filed it under 'Soulsvania'.screenrant.comRead 3 more facts
Until You Fall20207 factsGame page →The game's neon-fantasy look grew out of its music, not the other way around: the team tried orchestral, guitar and ska scores before choosing synthwave, and once locked in, the visuals followed the soundtrack.developers.meta.comSchell Games coined their own micro-genre, 'Sword-wave', for the synthwave combat score, and the engine adaptively resequences the musical motifs in real time.developers.meta.comThe biggest technical challenge was making a high-intensity VR action game that didn't cause motion sickness, solved with 'adaptive combat' locomotion: vignetting, spatial anchoring and turning the dash into a full shoulder-check.developers.meta.comWhole systems were cut to protect the power fantasy: weapon durability, enemy looting, holsters and weapon-throwing were all removed for slowing combat down.en.wikipedia.orgThe credits/outro track 'Aether's Glow' was written by Chris Dudley, keyboardist of the Grammy-nominated metalcore band Underoath.theongaku.comThe game spent about 14 months in Steam Early Access (Aug 2019 to Oct 2020) before its 1.0 launched simultaneously on PC, Meta Quest and PS4/PSVR; reviewers singled out the wireless Quest version for enabling free movement.roadtovr.comDeveloper Schell Games was founded by former Disney Imagineer and Carnegie Mellon professor Jesse Schell, and is best known for VR titles like I Expect You To Die.schellgames.comRead 5 more facts
Caveman World: Mountains of Unga Boonga20163 factsGame page →Despite its $1.99 budget price, the game ships with 14 Steam achievements, trading cards and leaderboards — the full Steam meta-feature set of far bigger releases.store.steampowered.comIt is one of the few games GrabTheGames actually developed in-house (credited as GrabTheGames Studios) — the label is otherwise known primarily as a prolific budget publisher, including The Deed series.store.steampowered.comThe game came out of the Steam Greenlight era in April 2016, part of the wave of low-cost community-approved indies that preceded Steam Direct.store.steampowered.comRead 1 more fact
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker20109 factsGame page →It was directed by Hideo Kojima, who considered it the biggest game he had worked on; it was originally conceived as Metal Gear Solid 5, but overseas marketing opposed the numbered title.en.wikipedia.orgSet in 1974 Costa Rica, it stars Big Boss (Naked Snake), who founds the private army Militaires Sans Frontières (MSF) and builds its offshore headquarters, Mother Base.en.wikipedia.orgIt introduced base-building and army management (Mother Base) plus the player-built nuclear Metal Gear ZEKE — mechanics later expanded in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.en.wikipedia.orgIt features cooperative play for up to four players ('Co-Ops'), a first for the mainline Metal Gear series.en.wikipedia.orgIts story sequences use comic-style animated cutscenes illustrated by artist Ashley Wood.en.wikipedia.orgIt was the first PSP title ever to receive a perfect 40/40 score from the Japanese magazine Famitsu — the 14th game overall to do so.en.wikipedia.orgDavid Hayter reprises his role as the English voice of Big Boss/Snake.en.wikipedia.orgThe title 'Peace Walker' refers to an AI-controlled nuclear-deterrent weapon central to the plot.en.wikipedia.orgIt sold 574,957 copies in Japan within its first two weeks and reached roughly 1.99 million PSP copies worldwide by 2014.en.wikipedia.orgRead 7 more facts
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince20093 factsGame page →The game was hostage to Hollywood: when Warner Bros. delayed the film from November 2008 to July 2009, EA shelved the essentially-finished game for eight months to launch alongside the movie.harrypotter.fandom.comJames and Oliver Phelps — the films' Weasley twins — voiced Fred and George in the game, part of EA's tradition of pulling supporting film cast into the tie-ins.harrypotter.fandom.comComposer James Hannigan's Potter game scores earned genuine acclaim of their own — his EA Potter work was IFMCA-nominated, rare prestige for movie-licensed game music.harrypotter.fandom.comRead 1 more fact
Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two20123 factsGame page →It was marketed as the 'first video game musical' — characters advance the plot by breaking into original song, atop the series' first full voice acting.businesswire.comWarren Spector said over 700 people worked on it, and the team made more than 1,000 specific camera fixes to address the original's biggest complaint.en.wikipedia.orgJunction Point Studios was shut down roughly two months after release — ending Warren Spector's Disney era and the Epic Mickey console series with it.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Assassin's Creed Shadows202514 factsGame page →Shadows is the first mainline Assassin's Creed to feature two distinct playable protagonists with fully different playstyles: Naoe, a kunoichi (female shinobi) built for stealth, and Yasuke, a samurai built for open combat.news.ubisoft.comYasuke is based on a real historical figure — an African man who served warlord Oda Nobunaga as a samurai in 16th-century Japan — making him a rare real-life playable AC protagonist.assassinscreed.fandom.comBefore its reveal the game was known by the working title 'Assassin's Creed Codename Red.'en.wikipedia.orgFeudal Japan had been the franchise's most-requested setting for well over a decade — as far back as 2012 the studio acknowledged fans kept asking for it.screenrant.comThe game was delayed twice — from an original November 15, 2024 date to February 14, 2025, then to its final March 20, 2025 release.en.wikipedia.orgDynamic seasons and a reactive light-and-shadow system affect gameplay — Naoe can hide in darkness and shoot out lanterns with shuriken to create it.news.ubisoft.comA new optional 'Canon Mode' removes dialogue choices and locks players into the story's canonical path for a more cinematic experience.pcgamer.comCEO Yves Guillemot confirmed development cost more than €100 million, driven partly by investment in the Anvil engine, making it one of the priciest AC games.gamesradar.comAt launch it posted the second-highest day-one revenue in Assassin's Creed history (behind Valhalla), a franchise record for day-one PlayStation Store digital revenue, and the highest concurrent AC player count ever on Steam.pcgamer.comIt reached 1 million players on day one, 3 million in the first week, and over 5 million players by July 2025.wolfsgamingblog.comThe game drew heavy pre-launch controversy over Yasuke; historian Thomas Lockley defended his historicity, Ubisoft rebuked critics for 'feeding hatred,' and some developers were harassed.en.wikipedia.orgAfter objections from Japanese shrine officials, Ubisoft patched the game to reduce destruction of temples and shrines and toned down blood in sacred spaces.en.wikipedia.orgThe score was written by The Flight (Joe Henson & Alexis Smith), the duo behind Assassin's Creed Odyssey, with the soundtrack album released March 14, 2025 — six days before the game.kinetophone.comShadows launched March 20, 2025 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Windows and macOS, with a Nintendo Switch 2 version following on December 2, 2025.en.wikipedia.orgRead 12 more facts
Soda Dungeon 220203 factsGame page →It is a direct sequel to Soda Dungeon (2015), launching simultaneously free-to-play on Steam, iOS and Android on 9 July 2020.presskits.armorgames.comIts core loop earns loot idle/AFK with AI party scripting and cross-save across platforms.store.steampowered.comIt is monetized only via optional in-game currency, with the developers pledging no loot boxes.store.steampowered.comRead 1 more fact
Buckshot Roulette202318 factsGame page →Buckshot Roulette was made by one person — Mike Klubnika — who did the code, art and soundtrack himself.buckshot-roulette.fandom.comIt was built in the Godot engine and is featured in Godot's official showcase.godotengine.orgKlubnika switched from Unity to Godot after Unity's September 2023 runtime-fee controversy, then shipped Buckshot Roulette that December.80.lvThe game was reportedly made in about two months.gamesradar.comIt launched on itch.io on December 28, 2023, months before the paid Steam release on April 4, 2024.en.wikipedia.orgIt went viral through Twitch, TikTok and YouTube in early 2024.en.wikipedia.orgThe Steam version sold about 1 million copies in roughly two weeks.wnhub.ioIt surpassed 8 million copies sold on PC by December 2025.kitguru.netInstead of a revolver it uses a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun loaded with a mix of live and blank shells, emphasizing tactile handling.store.steampowered.comThe antagonist is a sinister AI 'Dealer' who never speaks — all of its menace is conveyed non-verbally.en.wikipedia.orgBeating the Dealer unlocks an endless 'Double or Nothing' mode.en.wikipedia.orgA free multiplayer update for up to four players arrived on October 31, 2024.en.wikipedia.orgThat multiplayer update added a second soundtrack volume composed by Alex Peipman.alexpeipman.bandcamp.comThe soundtrack ships free inside the Steam build's local files and is also available on Bandcamp and Spotify.steamcommunity.comDeveloper Mike Klubnika is Estonian, based in Tallinn, and the game is listed on GameDev Estonia.gamedevestonia.eeIt was nominated for 'Bite-Sized Game' at the 2024 Indie Game Awards, losing to Animal Well.digitaltrends.comCritics widely compare it to Inscryption; the developer confirms Inscryption inspired the camera and table presentation specifically.en.wikipedia.orgA popular fan short film, 'TASTE YOUR LUCK' (2025), adapted the game, though no official movie has been announced.boingboing.netRead 16 more facts
Counter-Strike 2202313 factsGame page →Valve announced Counter-Strike 2 on March 22, 2023, calling it "the largest technical leap forward in Counter-Strike's history" — a free upgrade to CS:GO built on the Source 2 engine.dexerto.comIts headline change is the "sub-tick" update system: the server records the exact instant a shot is fired, movement starts, or a grenade is thrown, rather than only at discrete server ticks — Valve calls sub-tick "the heart of Counter-Strike 2."pcgamesn.comSmoke grenades became dynamic volumetric objects that fill space naturally, react to lighting, and can be temporarily blown open by gunfire and HE grenades — nicknamed "responsive smokes."escorenews.comCS2 first launched as an invite-only "Limited Test" closed beta starting March 22, 2023 — initially only Deathmatch and Unranked on Dust II, with testers chosen by recent official-server playtime, Trust Factor, and account standing.liquipedia.netOn September 27, 2023, CS2 didn't ship as a separate product — it replaced CS:GO on the same Steam app, ending CS:GO's matchmaking and updates. macOS support was dropped, leaving Windows and Linux only.en.wikipedia.orgPlayers kept everything: the entire CS:GO inventory carried straight into CS2, with all skins re-rendered under Source 2 lighting and materials — no repurchase required.help.steampowered.comMaps were sorted into three tiers — "Touchstone" (lighting tweaks only), "Upgrade" (Source 2 physically-based lighting) and "Overhaul" (rebuilt from scratch) — with Overpass the first fully rebuilt Overhaul map.hltv.orgThe competitive format switched from MR15 (first to 16, up to 30 rounds) to MR12 (first to 13, up to 24 rounds) to shorten matches.hltv.orgThe game's score is by longtime Valve composer Mike Morasky, performed by the Valve Studio Orchestra; the soundtrack album was released to digital platforms by Ipecac Recordings on November 1, 2023.en.wikipedia.orgAnti-cheat gained "VAC Live": a match can be cancelled and a confirmed cheater removed mid-game, rather than waiting for a delayed signature ban.esportsinsider.comThe skin and case economy is enormous: Valve earned an estimated $980 million to $1 billion from Counter-Strike cases in 2023 alone, with more than 400 million cases opened.dexerto.comCS2 set a Steam all-time concurrent-player record of 1,862,531 players on April 12, 2025.tweaktown.comThe name "Counter-Strike 2" was first used back in 2003 for a planned sequel that became Condition Zero — Valve was reportedly "running on fumes," and Gabe Newell was said to be so happy about the deal that he hand-made a celebratory knife.pcgamer.comRead 11 more facts
Injustice: Gods Among Us20133 factsGame page →The tie-in flow ran backwards: the game spawned Tom Taylor's long-running, award-winning Injustice digital-first comic series — the comic expanded the game's universe, not the other way around.en.wikipedia.orgDC comic writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti were hired as story consultants specifically to keep the heroes sounding like themselves while NetherRealm made Superman a tyrant.dreadcentral.comIts 240 S.T.A.R. Labs missions turn a 6-hour story into a 50+ hour completionist grind — one of the deepest single-player packages any fighting game had shipped.trueachievements.comRead 1 more fact
Badland20134 factsGame page →Frogmind was just two ex-RedLynx (Trials) developers — Johannes Vuorinen programming and designing, Juhana Myllys drawing and designing — when Badland won the Apple Design Award and Apple's iPad Game of the Year 2013.en.wikipedia.orgOne free-for-a-week promotion drove 7 MILLION iOS downloads in seven days — numbers Vuorinen laid bare in an unusually transparent GDC 2014 sales talk.gamedeveloper.comClash of Clans maker Supercell bought 51% of Frogmind in 2016 for $7.8 million — a farming-club deal that kept the tiny studio independent while bankrolling the Badland franchise.venturebeat.comMyllys' art style wasn't inspired by other games but by the Hudson River School — the 19th-century American landscape painters famous for luminous wilderness scenes.jmyllys.comRead 2 more facts
Transport Fever20168 factsGame page →Transport Fever is the sequel to Urban Games' Train Fever (2014) and reuses an overhauled version of the same in-house engine, broadening the scope from rail-focused play to full multimodal transport (buses, trucks, trains, ships and aircraft).en.wikipedia.orgThe game ships with two full historical campaigns — American and European — each a series of increasingly difficult missions framed around 19th- and 20th-century transport history.store.steampowered.comA single game spans roughly 150 years of transport history, running from 1850 to around 2014, with vehicles unlocking progressively across the eras.en.wikipedia.orgPredecessor Train Fever was crowd-financed not on Kickstarter but via the Gambitious crowd-investing platform, hitting its EUR 250,000 target in March 2013 with 651 investors; that same publisher (Gambitious, later Good Shepherd) went on to publish Transport Fever.en.wikipedia.orgUrban Games built extensive Steam Workshop mod support from day one, letting players add new vehicles, stations, assets, script mods and even missions with one-click install and sharing.transportfever.comTransport Fever was made by a tiny Swiss studio: Urban Games began as brothers Urban and Basil Weber plus two artists and was still only about a dozen people, based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.transportfever.comThe soundtrack is the work of Swiss solo artist Admiral James T. (David Langhard), who scored the entire Train/Transport Fever series and released the music independently, e.g. as 'The Transport Fever Sessions'.admiraljamest.bandcamp.comTransport Fever launched to a 'generally favorable' Metacritic score of 71/100, with strong German-press reviews (GameStar 83, PC Games 8/10) praising its deeper cargo economy over Train Fever while criticising the controls and compressed in-game time.en.wikipedia.orgRead 6 more facts
Mortal Kombat20116 factsGame page →It is a series reboot that retells the events of the first three Mortal Kombat games via a time-travel story, as Raiden sends visions to his past self to avert Armageddon.en.wikipedia.orgIt was NetherRealm Studios' debut title — the studio was formed from the ex-Midway Chicago team after Midway's bankruptcy, with Warner Bros. acquiring the Mortal Kombat assets and co-creator Ed Boon staying on.en.wikipedia.orgIt returned the series to a 2D fighting plane after the 3D-era entries, introducing the X-ray move system and reinstating gory Fatalities.en.wikipedia.orgIt was Refused Classification (banned) in Australia in February 2011 and released there only in 2013, after the R18+ rating was introduced.en.wikipedia.orgIt featured a full cinematic Story Mode of 16 character-driven chapters spanning the MK1-3 timeline.en.wikipedia.orgThe PlayStation 3 version included Kratos from God of War as a platform-exclusive guest fighter.en.wikipedia.orgRead 4 more facts
The Lord of the Rings: Conquest20093 factsGame page →Conquest (January 2009) let players fight AS the villains: the Rise of Sauron campaign is a what-if where Frodo failed — storming Rivendell, the Shire and Minas Tirith as the Witch-king, Balrog and Sauron.lotr.fandom.comIt was Battlefront by blood: Pandemic reused the class-based large-battle design of its own Star Wars: Battlefront series, with Hugo Weaving narrating and the films' license, music and likenesses.lotr.fandom.comIt became a farewell twice over: Pandemic Studios was shut down by EA in November 2009, months after release — and the multiplayer servers were switched off as early as 2010, barely a year after launch.lotr.fandom.comRead 1 more fact
Death and Taxes20205 factsGame page →The game's source code was released under the MIT License on GitHub on 18 March 2020.en.wikipedia.orgIt won 'Best Estonian Game of 2020.'store.steampowered.comIt was built largely solo by Estonian artist and developer Leene Künnap under the studio Placeholder Gameworks.en.wikipedia.orgIt aligns with the 'death-positivity' movement, aiming to open light-hearted discussion of death and mortality.en.wikipedia.orgThe game spans 28 in-game 'days' as a Grim Reaper's office worker, with multiple branching endings.ladiesgamers.comRead 3 more facts
