Uncharted 4: A Thief's End20166 factsNaughty Dog · Sony Interactive EntertainmentGame page →Uncharted 4 is Nathan Drake's final adventure; retired, he is pulled back in by his presumed-dead brother Samuel to hunt the lost treasure of 17th-century pirate Henry Avery and the fabled pirate utopia Libertalia.en.wikipedia.orgNeil Druckmann and Bruce Straley took over as creative director and game director in 2014 after original director Amy Hennig left Naughty Dog; they scrapped roughly eight months of her story work.en.wikipedia.orgIt was the first Naughty Dog game built specifically for PS4, with textures about 4× the resolution of Uncharted 3, far larger explorable spaces and a new grappling hook.en.wikipedia.orgAs an Indiana Jones homage, the grappling-hook sound effect was recorded from a bullwhip made by David Morgan, the craftsman behind the whips used in the Indiana Jones films.en.wikipedia.orgIt sold 2.7 million copies in its first week, 8.7 million by December 2016, and over 15 million by May 2019.forbes.comIt won Best Game at the 2017 BAFTA Games Awards and, at The Game Awards 2016, Best Narrative and Best Performance (Nolan North as Nathan Drake), among many 2016 Game-of-the-Year honors.gamespot.comRead 4 more facts
Mass Effect 2201012 factsBioWare · Electronic ArtsGame page →Every squadmate — and Shepard — can permanently die in the climactic 'Suicide Mission', with survival determined by loyalty, upgrades and role assignments; an unusually consequential design for a AAA game of its era.en.wikipedia.orgThe plot was modeled on the 1967 war film The Dirty Dozen: a resurrected, Cerberus-backed Shepard travels the galaxy recruiting dangerous specialists for a mission they may not return from.goonhammer.comWest Wing star Martin Sheen voiced the Illusive Man; reviewers repeatedly singled out his performance as stealing the show.en.wikipedia.orgThe game used roughly 90 voice actors performing 546 characters and more than 25,000 lines of dialogue — about twice the voice-recording effort of the original Mass Effect.en.wikipedia.orgNew copies included a one-time 'Cerberus Network' code for free bonus content while used-copy buyers had to pay separately — an early 'online pass' anti-used-game model.en.wikipedia.orgPlayers could import a completed Mass Effect save so earlier choices — including which characters lived or died — carried into the sequel and granted starting bonuses.en.wikipedia.orgBecause the first game never released on PlayStation 3, the PS3 version arrived a year later (Jan 2011) bundled with 'Mass Effect: Genesis', a Dark Horse-produced interactive backstory comic.masseffect.fandom.comTwo squadmates, Zaeed Massani and Kasumi Goto, were cut from the main roster during development and reintroduced as downloadable characters.thegamer.comJack Wall's score drew on Blade Runner, Tangerine Dream and Wendy Carlos's Tron soundtrack, producing roughly 180 minutes of music across 700+ audio assets.en.wikipedia.orgDevelopment overlapped the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, which sickened team members in the final months, yet the game shipped on time and was later described by developers as the trilogy's least crunch-heavy project.gamesradar.comMass Effect 2 was one of the most-awarded titles of its year, winning Game of the Year at the D.I.C.E. (Interactive Achievement) Awards and Best Game at the BAFTA Games Awards.en.wikipedia.orgIt was conceived as the middle chapter of a planned trilogy from the outset; work on it began shortly before the first Mass Effect even released.en.wikipedia.orgRead 10 more facts
Just Cause 320155 factsAvalanche Studios · Square EnixGame page →Players control mercenary Rico Rodriguez, who returns to his Mediterranean homeland — the 400-plus-square-mile island nation of Medici — to topple the brutal dictator General Sebastiano Di Ravello.en.wikipedia.orgRico's signature toolkit combines an upgradeable grappling hook, an infinitely reusable parachute and a new wingsuit; the grappling hook can tether multiple objects together to rig chain-reaction, physics-driven explosions.en.wikipedia.orgThe game runs on Avalanche Studios' proprietary Apex (Avalanche Open World) Engine, built for large-scale open worlds and advanced destruction/physics simulation.pcgamingwiki.comDespite praise for its chaotic sandbox, Just Cause 3 was widely criticized for performance problems and long loading times, particularly on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions.en.wikipedia.orgBy 2019 the wider Just Cause franchise had shipped over 26 million copies worldwide.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
NieR: Automata201718 factsPlatinumGames · Square EnixGame page →Ending E turns the closing credits into a shoot-'em-up you can lose — and when you keep failing, messages of support from real players around the world appear and their ships join yours. Afterwards the game asks you to permanently delete your own save data so that you become one of those helpers for a stranger.siliconera.comThat save-sacrifice mechanic was inspired by a Coca-Cola advertisement in which vending machines in India were livestream-linked to machines in Pakistan to encourage the two peoples past their political rivalry.venturebeat.comThere are 26 endings, labelled A through Z. A to E are the canonical route endings; F through Z are joke or failure endings triggered by specific actions — and in those the staff roll scrolls past too fast to read.rpgsite.netYoko Taro's public mask is the head of Emil, a character from NieR (2010). He wears it so people focus on his games rather than on him — then lost it at Anime Expo 2023 when a TV producer misplaced it during a night out in Los Angeles. The $120 replacement was a 30-year-old leprechaun mask that he suspects may be cursed.kotaku.comSquare Enix approached PlatinumGames, not the other way round. Platinum's condition was that Yoko Taro direct the game AND be physically present, which forced him to relocate from Tokyo to Osaka.polygon.comIt nearly wasn't a console game at all: Yoko Taro's initial plan was a FarmVille-style mobile or PS Vita game before the team moved it to PS4.eurogamer.netIt was almost called NieR: Android. Yoko Taro: 'Because it's a story about androids, I wanted to call it Nier: Android. Obviously Google's got the trademark and we were worried about it.'playstationlifestyle.netThe philosopher machine called Sartre in Japanese had to be renamed Jean-Paul in the West after Square Enix warned that the Sartre estate's copyright stance was 'probably dangerous'. Yoko Taro's backup name was 'The Copyright Pig'.web.archive.orgThe marketing deliberately lied about 2B. To hide her fate and A2's takeover of the story, trailers used A2's early-game short-haired model in footage that implied it was 2B.gameinformer.comYou can buy trophies and achievements with in-game money at a secret shop — a mechanic essentially unique to this game — and the DLC lets you fight bosses modelled on the actual CEOs of PlatinumGames and Square Enix.blog.playstation.comYoko Taro delivered the script nearly five months late, and PlatinumGames titled its own GDC post-mortem of the project 'It Felt More Like Hell Than Success'.polygon.comThe PC port went unfixed for more than four years. It launched in March 2017 with resolution, framerate and fullscreen bugs that fans patched within days via the unofficial FAR mod; Square Enix's own fix did not arrive until July 2021 — and the 2019 Game of the YoRHa Edition shipped with none of the fixes.polygon.comNieR:Automata is indirectly why the Steam Deck works. In 2017 Philip Rebohle started a Vulkan translation layer purely to run this game on Linux; his success led to a Valve contract and the project became DXVK, now a core part of Proton.digitaltrends.comThe 2022 'hidden church' was an elaborate hoax — and the developers played along. A Reddit user posted about an inaccessible church area; producer Yosuke Saito called it an 'eternal mystery' and Yoko Taro refused to confirm or deny it, until a Twitch stream revealed three modders had built it. Their tools were then released publicly, opening up the NieR modding scene. The episode has its own Wikipedia article.en.wikipedia.orgThe YoRHa stage play came first: Yoko Taro wrote it during the game's six-month pre-production and it was performed in 2014, years before the game existed. It is the backstory for A2 and Anemone, and spawned an all-male spin-off, a musical version and a manga.famitsu.comThe English localisation rewrote 2B's personality: 8-4 made her come across as 'droll' rather than emotionless, aged up a character's high-pitched child voice to avoid annoying players, and researched the philosophy themselves to avoid errors.pcgamer.com2B became a guest fighter in Soulcalibur VI in December 2018, complete with a white '2P' variant — Yoko Taro joked the P stands for Panasonic — and the YoRHa cast headline Final Fantasy XIV's raid series YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse, whose story Yoko outlined himself.polygon.comIt was review-bombed on Steam by Chinese players in April 2017 demanding a Chinese translation — one of the incidents that made review bombing a recognised phenomenon.pcgamer.comRead 16 more facts
Minecraft200930 factsMojang Studios · Microsoft StudiosGame page →In October 2023 Minecraft became the first video game in history to pass 300 million copies sold — Guinness lists it as the best-selling video game ever, and Mojang has since confirmed over 350 million.gamingbible.comMinecraft began as the "Cave Game" tech test: Notch took his Dwarf Fortress-influenced prototype RubyDung and rebuilt it around Infiniminer's first-person block mining after discovering that game in 2009.minecraft.wikiMicrosoft bought Mojang for $2.5 billion in 2014 — and creator Markus "Notch" Persson left the company the very day the deal closed.forbes.comThe Official Minecraft Trailer wasn't made by Mojang at all — community YouTuber Vareide, famous for fan-made promos, was commissioned to create it for Java Edition's launch.minecraft.wikiThe first playable build took only two to three days to write. Notch began around 10 May 2009 and had recorded and uploaded his first video by 13 May, in which he hadn't named the game yet and simply called it "Cave Game".minecraft.wikiThe Creeper exists because of a coding accident. Building mobs by hand-typing dimensions rather than using 3D software, Notch swapped the pig's height and length values in August 2009 and got a tall, thin standing creature — so he kept it and made it hostile.minecraft.netVillagers were originally called "TESTIFICATE", with the word floating above their heads like a player nametag. When version 1.0 removed it, Mojang added "Testificate!" to the game's splash-text pool as a memorial.minecraft.wikiComposer C418 (Daniel Rosenfeld) met Notch on the TIGSource indie forums; before Minecraft's success he was working an assembly line in Stollberg, Germany. He self-released Minecraft — Volume Alpha on Bandcamp on 4 March 2011 and still owns the music he wrote for the game.en.wikipedia.orgNotch kept his programming job at jAlbum until June 2010, funding development from paid alpha sales at €9.95 before going full-time and co-founding Mojang later that year.minecraft.wikiMinecraft left beta on stage at MineCon 2011 in Las Vegas, where Notch physically pulled a giant lever to release version 1.0 in front of roughly 4,500 attendees from 24 countries.minecraft.wikiJava Edition 1.0.0 was the last version Notch personally developed; creative direction passed to Jens "Jeb" Bergensten immediately afterwards.minecraft.wikiThe End Poem that scrolls after the Ender Dragon dies was written by novelist Julian Gough, who twice refused to sign Mojang's rights-transfer contract. In December 2022 he released the text into the public domain under CC0.minecraft.wikiHerobrine has never existed in any unmodified copy of the game. The creepypasta spread after a streamer photoshopped the figure onto a wall mid-broadcast, and Mojang turned it into a running joke by writing "Removed Herobrine" into changelogs for over a decade.minecraft.wikiMojang's 1 April 2013 "Minecraft 2.0" hoax was a genuinely playable fork of 1.5.1 sent to YouTubers, complete with a TNT slab, ponies, friendly withers and diamond chickens with a 5% chance of exploding instead of laying. It is the only April Fools' version never distributed through the launcher.minecraft.wikiNotch was deliberately not invited to Minecraft's 10th anniversary celebration in 2019; Microsoft said his comments and opinions did not reflect those of the company, and an update removed references to him from the loading-screen splash texts, though his name remains in the credits.variety.comIn December 2021 Minecraft became the first video game to pass one trillion views on YouTube. It took eight years to reach the first 500 billion and only two more to double that.gamesradar.comA separate free-to-play Minecraft: China Edition, published by NetEase, dwarfs the paid game in raw accounts — it reported 800 million registered users by April 2025.minecraft.wikiA Minecraft Movie (2025) grossed $955 million worldwide and took the largest opening weekend ever recorded for a video-game adaptation.the-numbers.comReporters Without Borders built "The Uncensored Library" inside Minecraft in 2020 to smuggle banned journalism past national censors in Mexico, Russia, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Twenty-four builders from 16 countries spent over 250 hours placing 12.5 million blocks.rsf.orgThe Danish Geodata Agency recreated the entire country of Denmark at 1:1 scale in Minecraft in 2014 — roughly four trillion blocks. TNT was disabled, but players smuggled in dynamite-carrying minecarts, levelled several towns and planted American flags in the rubble; the agency refused to reset the map, calling destruction part of the game's nature.theregister.comBefore the world border was enforced at 30 million blocks, floating-point precision errors produced the legendary "Far Lands" at exactly 12,550,824 blocks from spawn — a wall of sky-high glitched terrain riddled with endless caves.minecraft.wikiPlayers have built a computer inside Minecraft that runs Minecraft. Sammyuri's redstone CPU "CHUNGUS 2" — 8-bit, 1 Hz, 256 bytes of RAM — executes a voxel game with 16 block types, running on a server that accelerates redstone simulation by a factor of 10,000 or more.minecraft.net2b2t, founded in December 2010, is Minecraft's oldest anarchy server — no rules and no permanent bans. More than a million players have passed through it and its world file has grown past 80 terabytes.en.wikipedia.orgMojang has explicitly ruled out a sequel. Vanilla executive producer Ingela Garneij compared the idea to getting "an Earth 2", saying the studio wants the existing game to stay relevant at least 15 more years.gamesradar.comMojang retired the annual Mob Vote in September 2024 after years of escalating backlash, including a petition with hundreds of thousands of signatures following the 2023 armadillo-crab-penguin vote.pcgamesn.comThe game hides a long list of easter eggs: a 0.01% chance the title screen reads "Minceraft", mobs named "Dinnerbone" or "Grumm" rendering upside-down, a sheep named "jeb_" cycling through every dye colour, and enchanting-table glyphs written in the Standard Galactic Alphabet borrowed from Commander Keen.minecraft.wikiThe Better Together Update of September 2017 unified the console, mobile and Windows 10 versions under one engine and, in the same stroke, renamed the original PC game "Minecraft: Java Edition" — the moment the two-edition split became permanent.minecraft.wikiLegacy Mojang accounts stopped working on 19 September 2023 when the mandatory migration to Microsoft accounts closed; accounts that were never migrated are permanently unrecoverable.minecraft.wikiWhile HowLongToBeat puts a typical playthrough at about 90 hours, the speedrun world record for reaching the credits stands at 6 minutes 50 seconds.speedrun.comMinecraft Education is used by more than 40,000 school systems across 140 countries, with roughly 100,000 teachers trained to run it.education.minecraft.netRead 28 more facts
Mortal Kombat X20155 factsNetherRealm Studios · WB GamesGame page →Set 25 years after Mortal Kombat (2011), the story introduces a new generation of fighters, including Cassie Cage — daughter of Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade — while spanning multiple eras.en.wikipedia.orgMKX debuted a character 'variation' system giving each fighter three distinct combat styles, and revived brutal finishers with gruesome slow-motion X-ray attacks and the return of Brutalities.en.wikipedia.orgHorror-cinema icons joined the roster as guest DLC fighters: Jason Voorhees, the Predator, the Xenomorph (Alien) and Leatherface.en.wikipedia.orgBuilt on Unreal Engine 3, MKX became the fastest-selling game in the franchise, surpassing 12 million copies sold worldwide by March 2019.en.wikipedia.orgA free-to-play mobile companion (a fighting/card-battler hybrid) launched alongside the console game and surpassed 50 million downloads.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Just Cause 220108 factsAvalanche Studios · Eidos InteractiveGame page →Players control agent Rico Rodriguez, whose signature grappling hook and infinite parachute can be chained together to traverse the world and trigger chaos.en.wikipedia.orgIt is set on the fictional Southeast-Asian island nation of Panau, roughly 1,000 km² (390 sq mi) with over three hundred settlements — one of the largest open worlds of its generation.en.wikipedia.orgIt was built on Avalanche Studios' proprietary Avalanche Engine 2.0, with the PC version requiring DirectX 10 hardware.en.wikipedia.orgThe demo, released 4 March 2010, attracted more than two million players.en.wikipedia.orgThe fan-made 'Just Cause 2: Multiplayer Mod' (JC2-MP), begun by modders Jaxm and Trix, launched free on Steam on 17 December 2013 and revived the game's player base.store.steampowered.comIt sold more than 6 million copies by February 2014 against an original 2.2M projection, and was the UK's best-selling retail game at launch.en.wikipedia.orgThe 'Mile High Club' is an iconic airborne nightclub built atop an airship, a fan-favourite location and stunt spot.justcause.fandom.comIt was nominated for Best Action Game at the 28th Golden Joystick Awards (2010), losing to Assassin's Creed II.en.wikipedia.orgRead 6 more facts
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard201711 factsCapcom Development Division 1 · CapcomGame page →Capcom secretly tested the game's technology in public: the 2015 E3 VR demo KITCHEN ran on the same new engine, but Capcom never released gameplay footage of it — only videos of players' terrified reactions — keeping the Resident Evil connection hidden.uploadvr.comThe free "Beginning Hour" teaser (June 2016) hid a puzzle the community could not solve for months: a mannequin's dummy finger had no apparent use until a later update let players combine it with a celluloid hand to unlock a secret door.psu.comIt is the first Resident Evil built on Capcom's proprietary RE Engine, which has since powered the RE2, RE3 and RE4 remakes, Resident Evil Village, Monster Hunter World, Devil May Cry 5 and Street Fighter 6.en.wikipedia.orgIt is the first mainline numbered Resident Evil played entirely in first person, breaking with the third-person camera the series had used since 1996.en.wikipedia.orgThe entire game — not a cut-down mode — was playable in PlayStation VR at launch, an unusually complete VR implementation for a big-budget release in 2017.en.wikipedia.orgThe direction was a direct answer to Resident Evil 6's reception: executive producer Jun Takeuchi said the team decided to "take a step back and re-evaluate what survival horror means to us", and an already-started RE6-style sequel was scrapped.pcgamer.comBefore building it in-engine, the developers physically re-enacted the Baker family dinner scene with paper props and a handheld camera to test whether its pacing and tension would survive being playable in first person.gamedeveloper.comThe end-credits rendition of the traditional folk song "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" was written and arranged by Michael A. Levine and sung by New Zealand vocalist Jordan Reyne — the melody doubles as a plot clue about Eveline.wshu.orgIts two story expansions launched the same day with opposite price tags: "Not a Hero", starring Chris Redfield, was given away free to every owner on 12 December 2017, while "End of Zoe" was sold separately for $14.99.gamespot.comCapcom confirmed the game had recouped its entire development budget by mid-February 2017 — roughly three weeks after release, at around 2.5 to 3 million copies shipped.playstationlifestyle.netThe Japanese release inverts the title: it ships as "BIOHAZARD 7 resident evil", the mirror image of the Western "RESIDENT EVIL 7 biohazard", so each region carries the other's franchise name as its subtitle.en.wikipedia.orgRead 9 more facts
Middle-earth: Shadow of War201711 factsMonolith Productions · WB GamesGame page →It launched with a real-money Market selling Loot Chests, War Chests and Spoils of War Chests — gear, followers and training orders that let players skip the Nemesis System's own progression. The backlash was immediate and sustained.en.wikipedia.orgMonolith eventually agreed with the criticism. In April 2018 the studio announced it would remove all microtransactions, saying they "compromise" the game by letting players shortcut the Nemesis System; the entire marketplace was gone by July 2018.en.wikipedia.orgA Definitive Edition followed in August 2018, folding every season-pass expansion into the base game with no marketplace at all.en.wikipedia.orgShelob appears as a shapeshifting human woman rather than a giant spider — among the boldest liberties any licensed Tolkien game has taken, and one lore purists objected to loudly.en.wikipedia.orgThe Forthog Orc-Slayer DLC was created as a memorial to Monolith executive producer Michael Forgey, who died of cancer in March 2016. Charging $5 for a tribute drew criticism, and Warner Bros. refunded buyers and directed proceeds to Forgey's family.en.wikipedia.orgTroy Baker returned as Talion and also served as motion-capture and performance director, drawing on what he had learned working with Naughty Dog on The Last of Us and Uncharted 4.en.wikipedia.orgThe engine changed between games — Shadow of Mordor ran on LithTech Jupiter EX, Shadow of War on LithTech Firebird.en.wikipedia.orgNemesis Forge, the cross-save feature linking the two games, went offline on 31 December 2020. Both games still work offline.en.wikipedia.orgIts awards haul was far smaller than its predecessor's — a single D.I.C.E. nomination for Role-Playing Game of the Year, lost to NieR: Automata, and no Game Awards nomination at all, against Shadow of Mordor's eight DICE wins.en.wikipedia.orgReviews were good but noticeably cooler than the first game — Metacritic 81 on Xbox One, 80 on PS4 and 75 on PC, with Game Informer at 9.5/10 but GameSpot and Destructoid both at 7/10.en.wikipedia.orgIt was Monolith Productions' last released game. Warner Bros. shut the studio down on 25 February 2025.en.wikipedia.orgRead 9 more facts
Bastion20116 factsSupergiant Games · WB GamesGame page →Bastion was the debut game from Supergiant Games, built in about two years by a seven-person team of ex-Electronic Arts developers who self-funded the project.en.wikipedia.orgThe game is narrated by Rucks, an old survivor voiced by Logan Cunningham, whose reactive commentary describes the player's actions in real time; Cunningham recorded more than 3,000 lines.en.wikipedia.orgIts world is hand-painted in an isometric style and dramatically rebuilds itself beneath the player's feet as floating landmass fragments snap into place while you walk.en.wikipedia.orgThe story is set after 'the Calamity', an apocalyptic event that shattered the city of Caelondia into floating pieces and reduced most of its people to ash.en.wikipedia.orgDarren Korb wrote the acclaimed score — which he called 'acoustic frontier trip-hop' — recording it and all narration in the closet of his New York City apartment.en.wikipedia.orgBastion sold over 500,000 copies in its 2011 launch year and surpassed 3 million units by January 2015.gamespot.comRead 4 more facts
Titanfall 220164 factsRespawn Entertainment · Electronic ArtsGame page →It was acclaimed for a single-player campaign added late in development to widen the audience — following rookie pilot Jack Cooper and his Titan BT-7274, and famous for the 'Effect and Cause' level where players time-travel between past and present.en.wikipedia.orgIt was built on a heavily modified version of Valve's Source engine (the same lineage as Portal 2), carried over and extended from the first Titanfall.developer.valvesoftware.comIt launched on 28 October 2016 in a crowded window sandwiched between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, which hurt sales despite strong reviews.en.wikipedia.orgMade by Respawn Entertainment (founded by former Call of Duty / Infinity Ward developers), its fast wall-running movement drew a devoted cult following and a notable player resurgence years after launch.en.wikipedia.orgRead 2 more facts
Bloodborne20156 factsFromSoftware · Sony Computer EntertainmentGame page →Bloodborne began under the working title 'Project Beast' and was directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki as a brand-new IP rather than a Souls sequel, trading medieval fantasy for a Gothic-Victorian, Lovecraftian city called Yharnam.en.wikipedia.orgIts combat rewards aggression through the 'Rally' (regain) system, letting players recover recently lost health by striking back, paired with transforming 'trick weapons' that shift between two forms mid-combo.en.wikipedia.orgThe optional, procedurally generated Chalice Dungeons offer randomized, replayable underground labyrinths — a first for a FromSoftware Souls-style game.en.wikipedia.orgThe orchestral score was performed by a 65-piece orchestra and 32-member choir recorded at London's AIR Studios, deliberately dissonant to evoke cosmic dread.blog.playstation.comBloodborne remains a PlayStation 4 exclusive that has never received a PC port; it sold over 1 million units within 12 days of launch.en.wikipedia.orgIts sole expansion, The Old Hunters (November 2015), adds a nightmare realm imprisoning hunters of the past, along with new trick weapons, attire and bosses.en.wikipedia.orgRead 4 more facts
Cities: Skylines20155 factsColossal Order · Paradox InteractiveGame page →It was built by Colossal Order, a thirteen-person Finnish studio; the project was originally pitched with just nine people.en.wikipedia.orgIt filled the void left by the poorly received, always-online SimCity (2013); its trailer's emphasis on offline play was read as a jab at EA.en.wikipedia.orgDeep Steam Workshop modding is core to its success — over 20,000 assets were created within a month of release, and 200,000+ user items by February 2020.en.wikipedia.orgIt became the best-selling Finnish game ever, selling 250,000 copies in 24 hours (a Paradox record) and topping 12 million by June 2022.paradoxinteractive.comBuilt on the Unity engine, it simulates every citizen and vehicle as an individual agent, which drives its district and traffic systems.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Journey20123 factsThatGameCompany · Annapurna InteractiveGame page →Austin Wintory's score earned the first Grammy nomination ever given to a video game soundtrack — and charted higher on Billboard than any game score before it.forbes.comMultiplayer is anonymous by design: no names, no chat — strangers can only communicate through musical chimes, and companions' identities are revealed only after the credits.en.wikipedia.orgJenova Chen later revealed the game bankrupted thatgamecompany in its final months, with some developers going unpaid — before it swept 8 D.I.C.E. Awards including Game of the Year and 5 BAFTAs.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Undertale20155 factstobyfox · Toby FoxGame page →Undertale was created almost entirely by one person, Toby Fox, over roughly 32 months using GameMaker Studio; artist Temmie Chang was the main additional collaborator.en.wikipedia.orgIt was crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2013, raising $51,124 from 2,398 backers against a $5,000 goal — over ten times its target.en.wikipedia.orgEvery enemy encounter can be resolved without killing, enabling a full 'Pacifist' route; deliberately killing everyone triggers the 'Genocide' route, which permanently alters the game.en.wikipedia.orgCombat mixes turn-based RPG menus with real-time bullet-hell dodging, where the player controls a heart-shaped SOUL to evade attack patterns.en.wikipedia.orgThe Sans boss theme 'Megalovania' predates the game — Toby Fox first wrote versions for an EarthBound ROM hack and the webcomic Homestuck before reusing it in Undertale, and it became one of gaming's most recognizable memes.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Mafia II20107 facts2K Czech · 2K GamesGame page →It is set in fictional Empire Bay (modeled on New York City) across the 1940s-50s, following Sicilian immigrant Vito Scaletta's rise in the Falcone crime family.en.wikipedia.orgIt was developed by 2K Czech (formerly Illusion Softworks) in the Czech Republic, on the proprietary Illusion Engine.en.wikipedia.orgIt features a licensed period soundtrack across three in-game radio stations, with artists such as Chuck Berry, Dean Martin and Buddy Holly.en.wikipedia.orgThree single-player DLC episodes were released: The Betrayal of Jimmy, Jimmy's Vendetta and Joe's Adventures.en.wikipedia.orgIt sold roughly 5 million copies; the Mafia series has since surpassed 34 million lifetime sales.en.wikipedia.orgLead writer/designer Daniel Vávra (later founder of Warhorse Studios) left the studio in early 2009, before completion, amid friction after 2K's acquisition.en.wikipedia.orgIt was scored by Matúš Široký and Adam Kuruc.en.wikipedia.orgRead 5 more facts
Heavy Rain201011 factsQuantic DreamGame page →Director David Cage wrote a script exceeding 2,000 pages and directed the game over roughly four years.en.wikipedia.orgProduction used about 170 days of motion-capture shooting with more than 70 actors and stunt performers.en.wikipedia.orgThe 'Press X to Jason' internet meme comes from the opening mall scene, where pressing X only makes Ethan shout his son's name and changes nothing.knowyourmeme.comThe lost-child mall scene was inspired by a real incident in which David Cage briefly lost his own son in a shopping mall.en.wikipedia.orgQuantic Dream first showed the technology behind the game as the 2006 tech demo 'Heavy Rain: The Casting', built in under three months.heavyrain.fandom.comNormand Corbeil's score was recorded at Abbey Road Studios (~300 cues), giving each protagonist a distinct instrument — piano for Ethan, chamber orchestra for Madison, symphony for Jayden, brass and flutes for Scott.en.wikipedia.orgNorman Jayden investigates crime scenes using the 'ARI' (Added Reality Interface), an augmented-reality glasses-and-glove forensics system.en.wikipedia.orgCage researched real serial killers to build the 'Origami Killer', whose victims are found with a small origami figure.en.wikipedia.orgHeavy Rain cost about €16.7 million to produce (~€40 million with marketing) and had sold 5.3 million copies by January 2018, earning Sony over €100 million.en.wikipedia.orgIt won three BAFTA Games Awards in 2011 — Best Original Music, Best Story and Technical Innovation.en.wikipedia.orgThe interactive drama was designed so that main characters can permanently die partway through, and the story continues to one of multiple endings without a 'game over'.en.wikipedia.orgRead 9 more facts
Inside20165 factsPlaydeadGame page →A spiritual successor to Limbo, Danish studio Playdead began Inside shortly after Limbo's 2010 release, reusing some Limbo-era assets.en.wikipedia.orgIts wordless, cryptic story has a famous secret 'blob' alternate ending, unlocked only after deactivating all 14 hidden glowing orbs and solving a tone-sequence puzzle in a bunker.inside.fandom.comIts unsettling audio was literally recorded through a real human skull for a bone-conducted timbre — the vibrations eventually shook the skull's teeth loose.gamedeveloper.comIt won four BAFTAs in 2017 (Artistic Achievement, Game Design, Narrative, Original Property) plus The Game Awards 2016 Best Independent Game and Best Art Direction.dfi.dkIt was built in the Unity engine; Playdead later open-sourced its custom rendering technique.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Firewatch20166 factsCampo Santo · PanicGame page →Set in the Wyoming wilderness in 1989, the player controls Henry, a fire lookout whose only human contact is his supervisor Delilah, reached solely over a handheld walkie-talkie.en.wikipedia.orgThe two leads are voiced by Mad Men actor Rich Sommer (Henry) and Cissy Jones (Delilah), whose performance as Delilah won a BAFTA Games Award.en.wikipedia.orgCampo Santo was founded by ex-Telltale creative leads Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin (The Walking Dead), designer Nels Anderson and illustrator Olly Moss, whose poster-art style defines the game's look.en.wikipedia.orgThe entire score was composed and performed by Campo Santo's Chris Remo, using guitars, bass and a Fender Rhodes electric piano.en.wikipedia.orgCo-published by Mac/utility developer Panic, Firewatch sold 500,000 copies in its first month and passed 1 million within its first year.gamedeveloper.comIn April 2018 Valve acquired Campo Santo, and a feature-film adaptation was later announced.en.wikipedia.orgRead 4 more facts
No Man's Sky20165 factsHello GamesGame page →The universe is procedurally generated and contains 18 quintillion (18,446,744,073,709,551,616) unique planets — the ceiling of a 64-bit integer seed — so virtually every planet a player visits has never been seen before.en.wikipedia.orgThe 2016 launch is one of gaming's most infamous — missing promised features versus Sean Murray's pre-release hype triggered fierce backlash (and an ASA advertising inquiry) — yet the game became a landmark redemption story through years of free updates (Foundation, NEXT, Beyond and more).en.wikipedia.orgIt was built by a tiny team at Hello Games led by co-founder Sean Murray; on Christmas Eve 2013 the studio's Guildford offices were flooded, nearly wiping out the project.en.wikipedia.orgThe score is by Sheffield post-rock band 65daysofstatic, whose material also powers the game's generative/adaptive music engine (with audio director Paul Weir).en.wikipedia.orgA decade on it is still actively supported with major free updates, winning The Game Awards 'Best Ongoing Game' in both 2020 and 2025.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Rainbow Six Siege20156 factsUbisoft Montreal · Ubisoft EntertainmentGame page →Rainbow Six Siege was rebooted from the cancelled, narrative-driven Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6: Patriots; Ubisoft scrapped the single-player campaign to build a multiplayer tactical game from scratch.en.wikipedia.orgCore play is 5v5 attackers-vs-defenders with no respawns, where each round is decided by unique Operators and fully destructible walls, floors and ceilings.en.wikipedia.orgIt has no traditional single-player campaign — only offline Situations and Training Grounds modes — and is built almost entirely around competitive multiplayer.en.wikipedia.orgAfter a modest launch it became a live-service juggernaut, surpassing 70 million registered players by December 2020 and 85 million by 2022.en.wikipedia.orgIts premier esports event, the Six Invitational, carried a $3 million prize pool by 2020, alongside the Rainbow Six Pro League.en.wikipedia.orgIt runs on Ubisoft's AnvilNext 2.0 engine with RealBlast technology for real-time procedural destruction.en.wikipedia.orgRead 4 more facts
Assassin's Creed II200913 factsUbisoft Montreal · Ubisoft EntertainmentGame page →Assassin's Creed II introduced Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a young Florentine nobleman who becomes an Assassin after his father and brothers are executed; the game even opens with his birth.en.wikipedia.orgJesper Kyd's track 'Ezio's Family' became the de-facto anthem of the entire Assassin's Creed franchise, later re-arranged in more than ten subsequent entries.assassinscreed.fandom.comIt was the first game tied to Ubisoft's Uplay rewards platform, letting players spend points on bonus costumes and extra content.en.wikipedia.orgLeonardo da Vinci appears as a young inventor who decodes Assassin Codex pages to build Ezio's gear, including a working flying machine used in one mission.en.wikipedia.orgReal Renaissance figures feature throughout — Niccolò Machiavelli, Caterina Sforza, the Medici and Pazzi families, and Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia), whom Ezio confronts inside the Vatican.en.wikipedia.orgHidden 'Truth' glyph puzzles on landmarks unlock a secret video showing Adam and Eve fleeing with an Apple of Eden — a major reveal about the series' precursor civilization.en.wikipedia.orgTwo sequences, 'Battle of Forlì' and 'Bonfire of the Vanities,' were cut from the main game and later sold as DLC, which is why the base game's sequence numbering skips those slots.en.wikipedia.orgThe PC version launched with always-online DRM; server outages locked out paying players, and Ubisoft later patched it to one-time activation.en.wikipedia.orgThe game sold about 1.6 million copies in its first week — roughly 32% more than the original's opening week.gamedeveloper.comWith Metacritic scores of 91 (PS3) and 90 (Xbox 360), it is often cited as the highest-rated game in the main Assassin's Creed series.metacritic.comThe development team grew to roughly 450 people by mid-2009, about triple the size of the first game's team.en.wikipedia.orgThe score was recorded with a live string ensemble, a 13-person choir and vocalist Melissa Kaplan at Capitol Studios — a more melodic, acoustic direction than the electronic first game.jesperkyd.comIt won Best Action-Adventure Game at the 2009 Spike Video Game Awards and was later featured in the book '1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die'.en.wikipedia.orgRead 11 more facts
Elden Ring20228 factsFromSoftware · Bandai Namco EntertainmentGame page →George R. R. Martin wrote the game's founding mythos — the history of the demigods and the Shattering, set roughly 5,000 years before the game — though not the in-game narrative itself.forbes.comIt was FromSoftware's first open-world game, set in the seamless world of "The Lands Between," directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki.gamingbible.comIt has six possible endings, including the Age of the Stars ending tied to the questline of the witch Ranni.eldenring.fandom.comMalenia, Blade of Miquella is widely called the hardest FromSoftware boss ever; her second phase inflicts Scarlet Rot and her "Waterfowl Dance" is her signature attack.eldenring.wiki.fextralife.comYou explore on Torrent, a spectral steed with a double-jump used at Spiritsprings to reach otherwise inaccessible heights.eldenring.wiki.fextralife.comIt won a record 324 Game of the Year awards — the most of any game tracked — and was the first FromSoftware game to top mainstream GOTY lists.forbes.comIts expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree (June 21, 2024), was FromSoftware's largest-ever DLC, with a world Miyazaki compared in size to the opening Limgrave region.en.wikipedia.orgThe main theme, by Tsukasa Saitoh, deliberately opens with sad piano notes reminiscent of Dark Souls' Gwyn theme before swelling into a heroic choral arrangement.filmmusictheory.comRead 6 more facts
Assassin's Creed Origins201713 factsUbisoft Montreal · Ubisoft EntertainmentGame page →Origins was the first Assassin's Creed to break the series' near-annual release cycle: Ubisoft skipped 2016 to give the team an extra year to evolve the game's mechanics.en.wikipedia.orgIt is the RPG reboot of the franchise — introducing leveling, loot and hitbox-based combat — setting the template later continued by Odyssey and Valhalla.en.wikipedia.org'Origins' is literal: the game depicts the birth of the Assassin Brotherhood, as Bayek of Siwa and his wife Aya found the 'Hidden Ones' after avenging their murdered son.en.wikipedia.orgThe Brotherhood's iconic logo gets an in-game origin — when Bayek discards his eagle-skull charm, the impression it leaves in the sand becomes the symbol of the new order.en.wikipedia.orgInstead of 'Eagle Vision', players scout by controlling Bayek's companion eagle, Senu — the in-universe origin of the series' long-running eagle motif.assassinscreed.fandom.comReal historical figures are central to the plot, including Cleopatra, her brother-rival Ptolemy XIII (who drowns in the Nile) and Julius Caesar.en.wikipedia.orgThe free Discovery Tour: Ancient Egypt (Feb 2018) strips out all combat and offers around 75 guided, historian-curated tours designed for classroom use.en.wikipedia.orgUbisoft consulted Egyptologists, ran research trips to Egypt and used photogrammetry to scan real structures for accuracy, with franchise historian Maxime Durand advising.cbc.caEgyptologist Chris Naunton praised the game as 'the best visualization of Ancient Egypt' he had seen.en.wikipedia.orgNearly 1,000 developers across multiple Ubisoft studios worked on Origins over roughly a four-year cycle (only about 300 were from Ubisoft Montreal).en.wikipedia.orgA Final Fantasy XV crossover quest, 'A Gift From the Gods,' added FFXV gear — the Ziedrich shield and Ultima Blade — plus a chocobo mount.kotaku.comThe modern-day framing introduces Layla Hassan, an Abstergo researcher who reads Bayek's memories from his mummified remains — a new recurring protagonist for the franchise.en.wikipedia.orgOrigins leaked under the working title 'Assassin's Creed Empire' in January 2017, months before its official E3 2017 reveal.en.wikipedia.orgRead 11 more facts
Doom Eternal20205 factsid Software · Bethesda SoftworksGame page →Although Doom Eternal was scored by Mick Gordon, a dispute over the mixing and assembly of the official soundtrack led to executive producer Marty Stratton's June 2020 open letter; Gordon did not return, and The Ancient Gods DLC was instead scored by Andrew Hulshult and David Levy.gamerant.comThe Meat Hook mechanic was reversed in development: it originally pulled enemies toward the player, but was flipped to pull the player toward enemies to maximize mobility.en.wikipedia.orgDirector Hugo Martin described the divisive Marauder enemy as a 'black belt' demon meant to demand skilled play, pitched as a corrupted fallen Night Sentinel.pcgamer.comDoom Eternal is the best-selling game in the Doom franchise; SuperData estimated around 3 million digital copies in its first two weeks, roughly triple Doom (2016)'s launch.en.wikipedia.orgIt was the debut title for id Software's id Tech 7 engine, succeeding id Tech 6.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Crusader Kings II20123 factsParadox Development Studio · Paradox InteractiveGame page →Director Henrik Fåhraeus — at Paradox since 2001 — went on to direct Stellaris after CK2 transformed the studio's fortunes.mobygames.comCK2 broke Paradox out of its hardcore niche — Kotaku even nominated the famously spreadsheet-y grand strategy for Game of the Year.en.wikipedia.orgThere is no way to 'win' — campaigns simply end at the fixed 1453 cutoff, which helps explain the ~99-hour average playtime Paradox reported.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Battlefield 120166 factsEA Digital Illusions CE · Electronic ArtsGame page →A bold return to World War I after years of modern/near-future shooters; DICE chose the WWI era because its varied weapons and gadgets suited many playstyles, all rendered in the Frostbite 3 engine.en.wikipedia.orgThe single-player is an anthology of self-contained 'War Stories', each following a different soldier across separate WWI theaters rather than one continuous plot.en.wikipedia.orgSignature 64-player multiplayer battles feature map-turning 'Behemoth' vehicles — a Zeppelin airship, an armored train and a naval Dreadnought.en.wikipedia.orgIts reveal trailer became the most-liked trailer in YouTube history (over 2 million likes by May 2016) — while rival Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare's trailer simultaneously became the most-disliked.forbes.comA major commercial success, it sold over 15 million copies worldwide as of April 2018.en.wikipedia.orgThe score was composed by Johan Söderqvist and Patrik Andrén; the 25-track Original Soundtrack released in October 2016.eagames.bandcamp.comRead 4 more facts
Grid 220133 factsCodemasters Southam · CodemastersGame page →Its 'Mono Edition' holds the Guinness World Record for the most expensive commercially available game edition ever: £125,000 for a single PS3 copy bundled with an actual 170mph BAC Mono supercar, factory tour and racing gear.guinnessworldrecords.comCodemasters cut the cockpit camera that the original GRID had — a cost/focus decision that became the game's defining controversy among sim racers.en.wikipedia.orgComposer Ian Livingstone is the OTHER Ian Livingstone — the prolific Codemasters/F1 game composer, routinely confused with the Fighting Fantasy co-creator of the same name.linkedin.comRead 1 more fact
Resident Evil 520093 factsCapcomGame page →RE5 (March 2009) was Capcom's best-selling individual game for nearly a DECADE — holding the company record until Monster Hunter: World finally overtook it in 2018.capcom.co.jpIt was the first mainline RE designed entirely around co-op: partner AI Sheva exists so a second player always can — a structural pivot that split the fanbase and defined the series' action era.residentevil.fandom.comWesker's plan is literally called 'complete global saturation' — and the volcano fistfight finale became the series' most meme-quoted sequence, boulder-punching included.residentevil.fandom.comRead 1 more fact
XCOM 220166 factsFiraxis Games · 2K GamesGame page →XCOM 2 flips the premise of its predecessor: the aliens won the war of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and 20 years later the world is ruled by the alien-run ADVENT regime while XCOM survives as an underground guerrilla resistance.en.wikipedia.orgUnlike earlier games in the series, its tactical maps are procedurally generated via a 'plot and parcel' system that assembles randomized map pieces so missions rarely repeat.en.wikipedia.orgThe optional Ironman mode enforces permadeath by using a single autosave overwritten on every action, so lost soldiers and bad outcomes cannot be undone by reloading.en.wikipedia.orgThe 2017 expansion War of the Chosen — adding the rival 'Chosen' enemies and new resistance factions — was widely acclaimed and is often cited as the definitive way to play XCOM 2.en.wikipedia.orgIt launched PC-first with full Steam Workshop mod support and a shipped development kit; community mods such as Long War 2 heavily overhaul the campaign.en.wikipedia.orgComposer Tim Wynn, who also scored XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, wrote battle cues in two parallel styles that cross-fade depending on whose turn it is.pcgamesn.comRead 4 more facts
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 220093 factsInfinity Ward · ActivisionGame page →MW2 (November 10, 2009) grossed roughly $550 million in its first five days and passed $1 billion by January 2010 — at the time the biggest entertainment launch in history, ahead of any film.en.wikipedia.orgThe 'No Russian' airport mission — skippable via an unprecedented content warning — became gaming's most-debated scene, banned outright from the Russian console versions.en.wikipedia.orgHollywood's Hans Zimmer scored the game — and months after launch, Activision's firing of studio heads Vince Zampella and Jason West blew Infinity Ward apart, birthing Respawn Entertainment and ultimately Titanfall.en.wikipedia.orgRead 1 more fact
Black Desert Online201414 factsPearl Abyss · GameOnGame page →The character creator was released as a free standalone download in January 2016, a month before the Western launch — letting anyone build a character without owning the game at all.polygon.comKorea's ratings board classified it as youth-restricted, effectively adults-only, in April 2014 — months before the open beta even began. The cited reasons were violence, sexual content and gambling-like elements in item trading.kr.playblackdesert.comThe engine was always proprietary, but it did not have a public name for a decade. Pearl Abyss only branded it the BlackSpace Engine when an upgraded version was unveiled for Crimson Desert at GDC 2025.crimsondesert.pearlabyss.comThe game has had three publishing arrangements in the West: Daum Games at the 2016 launch, then Kakao Games after Daum rebranded, then Pearl Abyss taking over direct self-publishing in February 2021 — which forced a global account migration.en.wikipedia.orgFounder Kim Dae-il had already won Korea's Game Awards grand prize once, for the action MMORPG C9 in 2009, before founding Pearl Abyss.gameple.co.krThe franchise passed 2 billion euros in cumulative revenue and 55 million registered players by February 2024 — a figure that combines the PC game, the mobile version and the console releases.gamedeveloper.comPearl Abyss depended on this one game for most of its public life — until Crimson Desert launched in March 2026 and produced a 30,200% quarter-on-quarter jump in operating profit, abruptly shifting the company's centre of gravity to a different title.koreajoongangdaily.comFrom late 2024 Pearl Abyss stopped reporting Black Desert's revenue as its own line, combining it with EVE Online — which makes each title's individual performance impossible to read from the filings.massivelyop.comBlack Desert Remastered, a free graphics and audio overhaul for existing owners, shipped in August 2018 — four years into the game's life.en.wikipedia.orgThe class roster has grown from a handful at the 2014 launch to roughly thirty by 2026, each with its own distinct kit rather than shared archetypes.en.wikipedia.orgPearl Abyss bought CCP Games, the studio behind EVE Online, for around $425 million in September 2018 — a separate franchise entirely, but for years the company's other major live-service pillar.en.wikipedia.orgCrimson Desert began development in 2018 as a prequel to this game and was deliberately separated into its own standalone IP during production — it shares the engine, not the lore.en.wikipedia.orgThe business model splits by region: buy-to-play with an optional cash shop in North America, Europe and Southeast Asia, but free-to-play in Korea, Japan and Russia.en.wikipedia.orgOnly English carries full voice acting; the other ten supported languages are interface and subtitles only.store.steampowered.comRead 12 more facts
Ori and the Blind Forest20155 factsMoon Studios · Microsoft StudiosGame page →Ori and the Blind Forest was developed by Moon Studios, a fully-remote studio whose team members collaborated across multiple countries without a central office.en.wikipedia.orgIts fully-orchestrated score was composed by Gareth Coker and won Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition at the 2016 D.I.C.E. Awards.interactive.orgIts hand-painted, emotionally-driven art earned Artistic Achievement at the 2016 BAFTA Games Awards and Best Art Direction at The Game Awards 2015.en.wikipedia.orgAn expanded Definitive Edition arrived in 2016 with new areas, abilities and story content, followed by the sequel Ori and the Will of the Wisps in 2020.en.wikipedia.orgThe success of Ori and the Blind Forest reportedly saved Moon Studios from bankruptcy, turning a profit for Microsoft within a week of launch.gameworldobserver.comRead 3 more facts
Red Dead Redemption20107 factsRockstar North · Rockstar GamesGame page →Development spanned roughly five years and reportedly cost $80–100M, making it one of the most expensive games of its generation; it was built by Rockstar San Diego through a famously troubled, crunch-heavy production.en.wikipedia.orgIt runs on Rockstar's RAGE engine combined with NaturalMotion's Euphoria for procedural character animation and physics-driven reactions.en.wikipedia.orgYou play outlaw-turned-farmer John Marston (voiced by Rob Wiethoff), coerced by federal agents into hunting his old gang; the story is a meditation on the decline of the Old West.en.wikipedia.orgThe Halloween DLC 'Undead Nightmare' turned the open world into a zombie survival scenario and won Best DLC at the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards.en.wikipedia.orgIt swept 2010–2011 Game of the Year honors, winning GOTY at the Spike VGAs, the D.I.C.E. Awards and the Game Developers Choice Awards.en.wikipedia.orgThe score by Bill Elm and Woody Jackson deliberately evokes Ennio Morricone's Spaghetti Western soundtracks; José González's 'Far Away' won Best Song in a Game at the 2010 Spike VGAs.en.wikipedia.orgRed Dead Redemption is a follow-up to 2004's Red Dead Revolver and has shipped over 25 million copies as of December 2024.en.wikipedia.orgRead 5 more facts
Total War: Shogun 220117 factsThe Creative Assembly · SegaGame page →Shogun 2 marks a return to the Sengoku-era (Warring States) feudal-Japan setting of the very first Total War game, Shogun: Total War (2000).en.wikipedia.orgIt runs on Creative Assembly's Warscape engine, pairing a turn-based campaign map with real-time battles.en.wikipedia.orgIts standalone expansion, Total War: Shogun 2 – Fall of the Samurai (2012), jumps forward to the 19th-century Boshin War.en.wikipedia.orgIt won the 2012 BAFTA Games Award for Best Strategy Game.jeffvandyck.comIt was the best-selling game on Steam in Q1 2011, with 600,000 copies sold in Europe and North America by 31 March 2011.gamewatcher.comFor the score, composer Jeff van Dyck used live musicians rather than samples, recording the Australian Taiko-drum ensemble TaikOz at Studios 301 in Sydney.jeffvandyck.comIt holds a Metacritic score of 90/100 ('universal acclaim').en.wikipedia.orgRead 5 more facts
The Last of Us Part II202015 factsNaughty Dog · Sony Interactive EntertainmentGame page →The Last of Us Part II is one of the most awarded games in history, winning 300+ Game of the Year awards and briefly holding the record for most GOTY wins before Elden Ring surpassed it in 2022.screenrant.comAt The Game Awards 2020 it won seven trophies — including Game of the Year — from eleven nominations, the most wins for a single game in the show's history.thegamer.comThe game shipped with more than 60 accessibility options, including customizable presets for blind, low-vision, deaf and hard-of-hearing, and motor-disabled players — a landmark for accessibility in AAA games.blog.playstation.comIts accessibility work earned the first-ever "Innovation in Accessibility" award at The Game Awards 2020.thegamer.comBlind accessibility advocate Steve Saylor said the game's text-to-speech menus made him cry for a solid 10 minutes.edition.cnn.comActress Laura Bailey received violent online death threats — some targeting her newborn son — because her character Abby kills the beloved Joel.kotaku.comNeil Druckmann initially wanted to avoid casting the already-prolific Laura Bailey, but changed his mind after an audition that emphasized Abby's vulnerability rather than her anger.gamerant.comEllie's acoustic cover of a-ha's "Take On Me" was sung by voice actress Ashley Johnson herself, performed live in the motion-capture studio.thumbsticks.comComposer Gustavo Santaolalla appears as an in-game character and later became a playable guitar-mode character in the Remastered edition.psu.comDevelopment was marked by a widely reported crunch controversy, with Kotaku documenting 12-hour-plus workdays and at least one developer hospitalized from stress.kotaku.comRoughly two months before launch, nearly every major cutscene leaked online after a Dutch hacker breached Naughty Dog's servers via an exploit in an older game; Sony confirmed the leaker was not an employee.gamesradar.comThe game was review-bombed to a user score as low as 3.4 against its 93 critic average — an episode that led Metacritic to introduce a mandatory 36-hour waiting period before user reviews can be posted.thegamer.comAt nearly 100 GB, it had the largest install size of any PlayStation 4 exclusive at the time — roughly double that of Marvel's Spider-Man.forbes.comEllie's moth-and-fern arm tattoo — which conceals her infection bite scar — was designed by real professional tattoo artist Natalie Hall after Naughty Dog struggled to design it internally.playstationlifestyle.netLev, a transgender character, is voiced by transgender actor Ian Alexander in what is widely regarded as a first for a major big-budget video game.nbcnews.comRead 13 more facts
Soma20155 factsFrictional GamesGame page →SOMA was made by Frictional Games, creators of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and runs on their in-house HPL Engine.en.wikipedia.orgThe game is set aboard PATHOS-II, a remote underwater research station on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.en.wikipedia.orgIts horror is philosophical, exploring consciousness, identity and what happens when a human mind is copied into a machine.britannica.comIn 2017, two years after launch, Frictional added a 'Safe Mode' that keeps the monsters present but stops them killing the player, letting people focus on the story.en.wikipedia.orgAudio director Samuel Justice recorded real environments and over 2,000 individual footstep sounds for authenticity rather than processing sounds digitally.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Watch Dogs 220166 factsUbisoft Montreal · Ubisoft EntertainmentGame page →You play hacker Marcus Holloway, who joins the hacktivist collective DedSec to take down the invasive ctOS 2.0 surveillance system across a recreated San Francisco Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland, Marin and Silicon Valley).en.wikipedia.orgUbisoft deliberately gave the sequel a brighter, more colorful and comedic tone than the grim original Watch Dogs, with a younger, more diverse cast.en.wikipedia.orgMarcus hacks with his smartphone plus gadgets including a 'Jumper' RC car, a Quadcopter drone and a 3D-printed stun gun.en.wikipedia.orgIt runs on an upgraded version of Ubisoft's proprietary Disrupt engine.en.wikipedia.orgIt features seamless online multiplayer — co-op and bounty-hunter modes let other players drop into your world without loading screens.en.wikipedia.orgDespite strong critical reception, it sold below Ubisoft's expectations at launch, which the company publicly attributed partly to franchise fatigue.en.wikipedia.orgRead 4 more facts
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger20133 factsTechland · Ubisoft EntertainmentGame page →The whole game is an unreliable narrator device: old Silas Greaves spins tall tales to saloon patrons in 1910, and the level literally rewrites itself mid-firefight whenever a listener corrects him.en.wikipedia.orgIt vanished from sale on 30 March 2018 when Ubisoft's publishing deal expired — then came back the same year with Techland itself as publisher, a rare rights-reversion happy ending.pcgamer.com'Nuggets of Truth' collectibles fact-check the fiction — each one contrasts Silas's embellished version of Billy the Kid or the Daltons with what actually happened.escapistmagazine.comRead 1 more fact
Papers, Please20134 factsLucas Pope · 3909Game page →Lucas Pope quit Naughty Dog (Uncharted) and self-funded the game from savings, expecting a few weeks of work — it became a triple IGF winner and a BAFTA winner.gamedeveloper.comIt got an official live-action short film in 2018 — directed by Nikita Ordynskiy with Pope co-writing — an 11-minute adaptation of a border inspector's day.imdb.comTen years on, Pope announced 5 million copies sold with a two-word press release energy: 'Glory to Arstotzka.'gamedeveloper.comIn 2023 Pope quietly rebuilt the whole game from Haxe/OpenFL to Haxe/Unity (v1.4.9) for long-term stability — a solo dev re-engineering a decade-old classic.dukope.comRead 2 more facts
Call of Duty: Black Ops III20155 factsTreyarch · ActivisionGame page →It is set in a near-future 2065 where cybernetically augmented Black Ops soldiers linked to a Direct Neural Interface blur the line between humanity and machine.en.wikipedia.orgIt was the first Call of Duty with a fully co-operative 4-player campaign playable start to finish.en.wikipedia.orgIt adds 'Nightmares,' a mode that replays the campaign with zombies swapped in for human enemies and new narration.en.wikipedia.orgIts Zombies map 'Shadows of Evil' features a Hollywood voice cast: Jeff Goldblum, Ron Perlman, Neal McDonough and Heather Graham.en.wikipedia.orgIt grossed over $550 million in worldwide sell-through in its first three days — Activision's biggest Call of Duty launch and the biggest entertainment launch of 2015.investor.activision.comRead 3 more facts
Dead Island20115 factsTechland · Deep SilverGame page →Its reverse-chronological 2011 announcement trailer became a cultural phenomenon — it won a Gold Lion at Cannes and entered Guinness World Records as the most-viewed open-world-horror game trailer.en.wikipedia.orgDeep Silver expected around 100,000 views for the reveal trailer; it exploded past 3 million on YouTube within days.en.wikipedia.orgAt launch an accidental developer build shipped on Steam, exposing debug features like noclip and a third-person camera toggle.en.wikipedia.orgA skill was found to carry an offensive internal name in the dev code ('Feminist Whore', shipped renamed as 'Gender Wars'); Deep Silver apologized, calling it a developer's 'private joke'.en.wikipedia.orgIt runs on Techland's in-house Chrome Engine 5 — the same engine generation as Call of Juarez: The Cartel.en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
A Plague Tale: Innocence201910 factsAsobo Studio · Focus EntertainmentGame page →The rat swarms are not smoke and mirrors: the game can put up to 5,000 rats on screen at once, using a four-tier level-of-detail system where distant rats are non-animated meshes and only the nearby ones are fully animated.blog.us.playstation.comIt was Asobo Studio's first original narrative game after years of mostly work-for-hire contracts — their previous original title was the 2009 racing game Fuel.en.wikipedia.orgFocus Home Interactive announced it had passed a million copies in July 2020, more than a year after release — a slow-burn success that is widely credited with greenlighting the sequel.gamesindustry.bizCharlotte McBurney and Logan Hannan played Amicia and Hugo, and both returned for Requiem three years later.en.wikipedia.orgIt swept France's national awards, winning six Pégases in 2020: Best Game, Best Artistic Design, Best Sound Design, Best Game Design, Best Game Setting and Best Character.jeuxvideo.comIt also took four NAVGTR Awards for 2019: Art Direction (Period Influence), Game (Original Adventure), Lead Performance in a Drama for Charlotte McBurney, and Writing in a Drama.navgtr.orgPlayers voted it "Outstanding Story-Rich Game" at the Steam Awards 2019.gamespot.comIt runs on Asobo's proprietary Zouna engine — the same engine family the studio uses across its projects, including its Microsoft Flight Simulator work.en.wikipedia.orgA cloud-streamed Nintendo Switch version arrived in July 2021, alongside free upgrades for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.en.wikipedia.orgOlivier Deriviere's score was pressed on vinyl by Black Screen Records, the same label that later released the Requiem and Resonance soundtracks.blackscreenrecords.comRead 8 more facts
Fallout Shelter20156 factsBethesda Game Studios · Bethesda SoftworksGame page →Fallout Shelter puts the player in the role of an Overseer, building and managing an underground Vault-Tec Vault and its Dwellers in the Fallout universe.en.wikipedia.orgIt was surprise-announced and released the same night during Bethesda's first-ever E3 showcase on 14 June 2015 — shadow-dropped for iOS immediately after the conference.en.wikipedia.orgIt was co-developed by Bethesda Game Studios with Canadian studio Behaviour Interactive.en.wikipedia.orgThe free-to-play title uses a single microtransaction — Vault-Tec lunchboxes containing gear, resources and rare Dwellers — rather than pay-to-skip timers.forbes.comIt grossed about $5.1 million in its first two weeks and surpassed ~$100 million in lifetime revenue by June 2019.gamespot.comOriginally iOS-only, it was later ported to Android (2015), PC (2016), Xbox One (2017) and PS4 & Nintendo Switch (2018).en.wikipedia.orgRead 4 more facts
Assassin's Creed Unity201416 factsUbisoft Montreal · Ubisoft EntertainmentGame page →At launch the game was infamous for its "no-face" glitch — NPCs rendering with only floating eyes, teeth and hair — alongside widespread animation, physics and frame-rate bugs.cbsnews.comUbisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat publicly apologized for the buggy launch; Ubisoft gave all owners the Dead Kings DLC free, cancelled the season pass outright and offered season-pass holders a free game.kitguru.netLevel artist Caroline Miousse spent roughly two years (~5,000 hours) modeling Notre-Dame cathedral — about 80% of her work on the game — consulting a historian on its Revolution-era appearance, without ever having visited it in person.destructoid.comAfter the April 2019 Notre-Dame fire, Ubisoft donated €500,000 to the cathedral's restoration and gave the game away free on PC for a week.pcgamer.comThat Notre-Dame giveaway was claimed by more than 3 million players in a single week.pcgamesn.comThe gesture triggered a rare positive review bomb: grateful players flooded Steam with positive reviews, flipping the recent rating to "Very Positive" — Valve noted it came with a genuine surge in players, unlike typical review bombs.gamesradar.comDespite popular belief, the game's Notre-Dame model was not used in the real cathedral's reconstruction — Ubisoft clarified it is "an artistic vision," not a scientific reconstruction; laser scans guided the actual restoration.theartnewspaper.comUnity was the first Assassin's Creed with four-player co-op: shared "Brotherhood" missions in which every player sees themselves as their own customized Arno.en.wikipedia.orgIts crowd technology can render up to ~30,000 NPCs on screen, with as many as ~1,000 individually acting AI characters — distant civilians use simplified animation rigs that gain "bones" and richer behavior as Arno approaches.en.wikipedia.orgThe 900p/30fps lock on both PS4 and Xbox One sparked the infamous "parity" controversy — senior producer Vincent Pontbriand said the game was CPU-bound by its AI crowds and that parity was chosen "to avoid all the debates," while creative director Alexandre Amancio defended 30fps as "more cinematic."psu.comIts review embargo lifted only at noon EST on release day — roughly 12 hours after the game went on sale — a then-unprecedented move that meant no reviews existed when players started buying it.forbes.comIt was the first Assassin's Creed built exclusively for eighth-generation hardware (PS4, Xbox One, PC), skipping PS3 and Xbox 360 entirely.en.wikipedia.orgFrench left-wing politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon denounced the game as "propaganda against the people," objecting to its sympathetic Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette and its monstrous Robespierre, saying it "discredits the Republic."france24.comReal-money "Helix Credits" microtransactions (up to $100 packs) could unlock weapons, outfits and boosts in the single-player campaign — one of the loudest criticisms at launch.kotaku.comArno Dorian was brought to life through full performance capture — voice, movement and face — by Canadian actor Dan Jeannotte.gameinformer.comProduction spanned about four years across ten Ubisoft teams in six countries and 13 time zones, led by Ubisoft Montreal; the codebase reportedly ran to ~15.5 million lines of C++.fastcompany.comRead 14 more facts
Darkest Dungeon20165 factsRed Hook StudiosGame page →The game's Stress and Affliction system — heroes accumulate psychological stress and can crack into Paranoia, Masochism or other afflictions (or, rarely, become Virtuous) — made mental strain a core mechanic, a rare treatment of mental health in games.en.wikipedia.orgWayne June's grim, gravelly narration ('Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer') became one of the most beloved elements of the game and a signature of its identity.en.wikipedia.orgIt was Kickstarter-funded in February 2014, hitting its goal within 24 hours and finishing at over 400% funding.en.wikipedia.orgComposer Stuart Chatwood — bassist/keyboardist of Canadian rock band The Tea Party — also scored Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.stuartchatwood.bandcamp.comIts Lovecraftian gothic-horror art, drawn from Mike Mignola's Hellboy and medieval woodcuts, is by co-founder and creative director Chris Bourassa; the game features permadeath and spawned Darkest Dungeon II (2023).en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Dirt Rally20155 factsCodemastersGame page →DiRT Rally was a deliberate hardcore-simulation pivot for the series — after the arcade-leaning DiRT: Showdown, a small team rebuilt the handling physics from scratch to chase authentic, unforgiving rally driving.en.wikipedia.orgIt launched by surprise into Steam Early Access on 27 April 2015 with no prior marketing, reaching full v1.0 on PC in December 2015 and consoles in April 2016.en.wikipedia.orgStages recreate real rally regions — Monte Carlo, Wales, Greece, Finland, Germany and Sweden — plus the Pikes Peak hill climb and FIA World Rallycross circuits.en.wikipedia.orgGame director Paul Coleman said DiRT Rally's steady Early Access revenue helped keep a cash-strapped Codemasters afloat during a period when the company's bills were going unpaid.traxion.ggFor authenticity Codemasters recorded roughly 50 real rally cars on-track with up to ten microphones each; the game later gained PlayStation VR and Oculus Rift support and was followed by DiRT Rally 2.0 (2019).en.wikipedia.orgRead 3 more facts
Call of Duty: Black Ops20107 factsTreyarch · ActivisionGame page →Black Ops is the first Call of Duty set during the Cold War (1960s), spanning Vietnam, the Soviet Union and Cuba, following brainwashed CIA operative Alex Mason as he recovers memories tied to a numbers-station broadcast and the Nova 6 chemical-weapon plot.en.wikipedia.orgIts launch broke entertainment records: about 5.6 million copies in 24 hours and US$650 million worldwide in five days, beating the $550M record set by Modern Warfare 2.gamespot.comIt surpassed US$1 billion in worldwide sales within about six weeks of release (by 22 December 2010).investor.activision.comPer NPD, it was the best-selling game of 2010 in the U.S. (over 12 million units), with the biggest opening month in U.S. history at the time.shacknews.comIt featured a star voice cast: Sam Worthington as Alex Mason, Ed Harris as Jason Hudson, Gary Oldman as Viktor Reznov, Ice Cube as Joseph Bowman and Emmanuelle Chriqui.en.wikipedia.orgZombies returned as a series staple; the map 'Five' is set in the Pentagon and lets players control John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Robert McNamara and Fidel Castro fighting off zombies.en.wikipedia.orgIt uses a licensed 1960s-70s soundtrack, including The Rolling Stones' 'Sympathy for the Devil' and CCR's 'Fortunate Son', plus an original Avenged Sevenfold song.en.wikipedia.orgRead 5 more facts
