Not many games are critical and commercial successes that also sit well with fans.
Many more games fall prey to unfavorable opinions despite their values. Sometimes some poorly executed aspect overshadows actual brilliance, other times the game has bad luck of being released at the same time as some long-awaited mega-production. Sometimes the game is perfectly FINE, perhaps even has a solid release, but becomes more or less obscure instead of becoming a classic for the ages.
Regardless of the reason, the end result is the same: a game is underrated, underappreciated, and, in the end, potentially forgotten, recalled years later with a vague sense ‘oh yeah, that was a thing’ before fading again.
The list below features a number of such overlooked games, with a brief explanation of what makes them worth more attention and praise than they have been receiving so far.
We’ve also updated the list since its original release, to spotlight a few more of the most underappreciated games of all time.
| Game | Release | Theme | Developer | Trailer | |
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 | Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut | 2014-09-18 | Mercenaries in a cyberfantasy Germany vs. a nefarious plot | Harebrained Schemes | |
 | Marvel's Midnight Suns | Legendary Edition | 2022-12-02 | Half superhero team-building, half stopping a mystic threat | Nine Dots Studio Inc. | |
 | Outward Definitive Edition | 2022-05-17 | High fantasy RPG survival | Nine Dots Studio Inc. | |
 | Quantum Break | 2016-09-29 | Time-travel shenanigans caused by a experiment gone very wrong | Remedy Entertainment | |
 | Alpha Protocol | 2010-05-27 | A spy against a deep conspiracy | Obsidian Entertainment | |
 | Dragon Age II | Ultimate Edition | 2011-03-08 | A city becoming a powderkeg and a hero trying to protect their family | BioWare Edmonton | |
 | RAGE 2 | Deluxe Edition | 2019-05-14 | Postapocalyptic mayhem | id Software | |
 | Assassin's Creed: Syndicate | 2015-11-19 | Gang of 19th century London x Assassins | Ubisoft Québec | |
 | The Surge | 2017-05-15 | People in exoskeletons fight for survival and spare parts | Deck13 Interactive | |
 | Brutal Legend | 2013-02-26 | Heavy metal adventure with Jack Black | Double Fine Productions | |
 | Evil Genius | 2004-09-28 | Building a base for your supervillain operations | Elixir Studios | |
 | Ghost Master | 2003-08-23 | Assemble a team of ghosts and make mortals tremble | Sick Puppies | |
 | Mad Max | 2015-09-01 | The best Mad Max game anyone could have hoped for | Avalanche Studios | |
 | Overlord | 2007-06-26 | An ominous overlord and his army of minions vs decadent heroes | Triumph Studios | |
 | Prototype | 2009-06-10 | Mutants, mercenaries, and really Venom-like superpowers | Radical Entertainment | |
 | STAR WARS: Knights of the Old Republic | 2003-11-19 | A blend of a BioWare RPG and traditional MMO | BioWare | |
 | The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing | 2013-05-22 | Van Helsing vs. steampunk horrors of Europe | NEOCORE GAMES | |
 | The Temple of Elemental Evil | 2003-09-16 | The best video game adaptation of the D&D 3/3.5 ruleset | Troika Games | |
 | Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine | 2011-09-05 | Intense slaughter approved by the Emperor and the Inquisition | Relic Entertainment |
Asura’s Wrath
| Release date | 2012-02-12 |
| Theme | An angry god on a journey to save his daughter |
| Developer | CyberConnect2 |
Do you remember Asura’s Wrath?
Few people do, it was a quick conversation during the PlayStation3/Xbox 360 era, but the memory of it has since mostly fizzled out. Which is a damn shame, because, once complete with the actual ending and all the episodes, it was a really fun game, with a ton of impressive action sequences and ridiculous feats of power rivalling the likes of Dragon Ball.
Admittedly, nowadays we’re a bit less enthusiastic about Quick-Time Events than we were in 2012, and the game is quite linear. However, AW was excellent in terms of sheer spectacle, and the Big Fights felt like a playable episode of a shonen anime people would be nostalgic towards nowadays. Heck, the game even has an episode-driven structure. It was a weird title, but it was a ton of fun.
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Shadowrun: Dragonfall
| Release date | 2014-09-18 |
| Theme | Mercenaries in a cyberfantasy Germany vs. a nefarious plot |
| Developer | Harebrained Schemes |
Harebrained Schemes’ cRPGs based on the Shadowrun tabletop role-playing game had three installments Returns, Dragonfall, and Hong Kong.
Despite being well reviewed, none of them seem to have remained firmly in memory and are often overlooked, which is a shame, because they are awesome, and Dragonfall is probably the most interesting of them, as far as the story goes.
It revolves around a group of mercenaries in a cyberpunk/fantasy version of Berlin. After a disastrous job they are left not only with a new leader (your character), but also with a grudge and a mysterious digital presence to investigate. If that wasn’t enough, your crewmates have their own troubles and ambitions, and money is always sparse. It’s a great premise for a cyberpunk RPG, isn’t it?
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Midnight Suns
| Release date | 2022-12-02 |
| Theme | Half superhero team-building, half stopping a mystic threat |
| Developer | Nine Dots Studio Inc. |
Midnight Suns is a game whose popularity got a long, long, long tail.
It was only after a series of deep discounts that it finally got a sliver of appreciation it deserved, and even now is nowhere near the popularity it deserved from the get-go. It mixes explosive, nominally card-driven turn-based combat with story- and character-driven interludes between missions, and it works great.
As it’s using a Marvel license, we get to hand out and fight alongside the likes of Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man, alongside lesser known heroes like Nico Minoru and Robbie Reyes. Combat is turn-based, and while it comes with rigid rules, heroes’ decks can play around with them a bit. A good hand and a good plan might even clear an encounter on Turn 1, which always feels cool.
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Outward
| Release date | 2022-05-17 |
| Theme | High fantasy RPG survival |
| Developer | Nine Dots Studio Inc. |
It’s very weird that in a hobby that gladly adopts survival games and loves action RPG Outward remains relatively unknown, expect in very focused circles.
Weirder still, for all the ambition this game exhibits and realizes, it’s not reviewed all that highly. From immersive dungeon and cave exploration, to ritualistic magic system and a dynamic world, Outward has a lot of fun stuff to offer.
There’s also the fact that losing a fight doesn’t necessarily mean a game over. It’s likely that you’ll be taken prisoner and will need to fight for your freedom and then hope you can reclaim some of your lost stuff. There are also factions to throw your lot with, plot that can go a few different ways, and even settlement building, if you also get the expansions or the Definitive Edition.
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Quantum Break
| Release date | 2016-09-29 |
| Theme | Time-travel shenanigans caused by a experiment gone very wrong |
| Developer | Remedy Entertainment |
Have you even broken your quantum? Probably not, if you had, most people would forget you exist.
Quantum Break, by studio Remedy, has descended into obscurity not too long after a rather successful launch. Thanks to Control and Alan Wake 2 it has a small blip on the radar, but one could say this action-adventure game was… lost to time. Untimely jokes aside, Quantum Break was very interesting.
Itshe plot revolves around a disastrous experiment, which gave protagonist Jack Joyce the ability to interact with the flow of time so solve environmental puzzles and help you in combat. We get two stories: we follow the protagonists in video game format, and the antagonists through live-action cutscenes which come with a few plot-relevant choices to make.
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Alpha Protocol
| Release date | 2010-05-27 |
| Theme | A spy against a deep conspiracy |
| Developer | Obsidian Entertainment |
Alpha Protocol didn’t make a huge splash when it came out, and to this day, over a decade later, is mentioned rarely, but usually in positive tones.
What makes AP special? Aside from being probably the first espionage RPG, it has a great story, well-defined characters, and a conversation system which was simple to navigate and created tense, dynamic dialogues with truly meaningful choices.
You build reputation with every NPC you interact with, and the rep level opens and closes different paths. You also get to develop the main character by investing in skills, which unlock useful abilities, and stealth is as viable as open combat. Unfortunately, Alpha Protocol has some gameplay issues, which can make it harder to focus on the story, but they are well worth powering through.
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Dragon Age 2
| Release date | 2011-03-08 |
| Theme | A city becoming a powderkeg and a hero trying to protect their family |
| Developer | BioWare |
Dragon Age 2 had a rough start, but over the years the negativity shifted to a degree of genuine appreciation.
But it could use more, because in a world full of a world-saving, epic RPGs a personal story of the Hawke family and their friends is surprisingly well done, regardless of issues resulting from short development time and a change of aesthetic from the down-to-earth style of DA: Origins.
Really, despite very often recycled locations and a rushed ending… Dragon Age 2 is a really good, engaging game and the protagonist, a warrior, rogue or mage named Hawke (customisable sex and appearance) is very likeable, especially when you go for their Sarcastic lines. It’s also more action-oriented than its immediate predecessor, but it’s not really a flaw, just a different direction. It has flaws, but it’s also one of the most underrated games in the genre.
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RAGE 2
| Release date | 2019-05-14 |
| Theme | Postapocalyptic mayhem |
| Developer | id Software, Avalanche Studios Group |
Rage 2 came and went, didn’t make much of an impact on anything, because the same year were already got Far Cry: New Dawn and one postapocalyptic mayhem game was probably enough.
Which is just too bad, because Rage 2 is actually pretty fun and shouldn’t be left hanging in oblivion. You’re playing as a ranger named Walker (not that one), who tried to bring some order by killing chaos.
In addition to various more or less postapocalyptic guns you also have some useful powers, such as the Overdrive, which turns Walker into an engine of destruction. There’s even vehicular combat, if you’re into that. While the story might not be your cup of postapocalyp-tea, the gameplay is still solid, exciting, and varied enough to keep being engaging. Rage 2 deserved better
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Assassin's Creed: Syndicate
| Release date | 2015-11-19 |
| Theme | Gang of 19th century London x Assassins |
| Developer | Ubisoft Québec |
AC: Syndicate came after six year of annual Assassin’s Creed releases, and at that point there might have been some series fatigue.
No wonder the next entry, Origins, came after a gap year. Either way, AC Syndicate is a really fun story led by two great characters, the Frye siblings. True, Victorian London has been done to bits in media…but how often can you climb Big Ben and help Charles Darwin?
Evie and Jacob Frye are very different from each other, with Jacob being more of a thug than an assassin, the way his sister is. Syndicate is a really good game overall, and you get to rub elbows with many, many historical figures, and even chase Jack the Ripper in an expansion. It’s like a “greatest hits” compilation of Victoria England story tropes…and it’s hard to hold that against it.
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The Surge
| Release date | 2017-05-15 |
| Theme | People in exoskeletons fight for survival and spare parts |
| Developer | Deck13 Interactive |
True, The Surge 2 is better, but that doesn’t mean the original The Surge is bad, or that it deserves being forgotten.
In fact, it’s pretty good and has cool ideas. First things first, The Surge is a science fiction-themed Souls-like game. The player character, Warren, has the worst first day at work: just as he arrives he gets an exoskeleton grafted onto him without a sedative, and then things get dark.
Long story short: nanites have the run of the place, AI runs rampant, people are dead, and Warren, now has to forcefully disassemble other exoskeleton users and various drones. The combat is hard-hitting, and you can make Warren target specific parts of the enemies to get some specific piece of gear by slicing that bit clean off your enemy with a finishing blow. It’s quite good, really, a perfect 7/10.
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Brutal Legend
| Release date | 2013-02-26 |
| Theme | Heavy metal adventure with Jack Black |
| Developer | Double Fine Productions |
Why isn’t Brutal Legend a classic that’s always talked about? The cast of Brutal Legend alone should be enough for any fan of heavy music.
After Jack Black signed up for dubbing the main character, Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Halford, and Lemmy Kilmister also joined the cast. The game *almost* had Dio, but in the end he was replaced with Tim Curry, who is too cool for anyone to be angry about the change.
If you like heavy metal do yourself a favour and get this game. It’s weird, but it’s Tim Schafer-weird. It’s an action game with a guitar-axe, but it’s also vehicle racing and RTS elements. It’s a weird, and weirdly compelling mix of genres, and it’s criminal that there’s no sequel yet. Brutal Legend is a ton of fun, the soundtrack is mind-blowingly good, and Jack Black pours a ton of energy into everything.
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Evil Genius
| Release date | 2004-09-28 |
| Theme | Building a base for your supervillain operations |
| Developer | Elixir Studios |
It’s like Dungeon Keeper, except instead of being an ancient devil you’re a leader of an evil organisation.
You have goons instead of goblins, and you have to deal with James Bond-alikes instead of dimple-chinned noble knights. You can design your evil lair under a volcano, embody a Bond-villain persona and throw disposable minions at any threat not worth bothering your goons over.
If you want to feel like Dr. Doofenschmirtz who has more money and space to work with, go ahead. Not an all-time classic, but a fun twist on a familiar formula. It’s honestly surprising that it took almost two decades for Evil Genius to get a proper (or even an improper) sequel, but it’s there and if you absolutely can’t deal with 2004 graphics, Evil Genius 2 is a very good substitute.
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Ghost Master
| Release date | 2003-08-23 |
| Theme | Assemble a team of ghosts and make mortal tremble |
| Developer | Sick Puppies |
Ghost Master is the reverse Ghostbusters in a Sims-like world. You’re in control of a band of bizarre, horror-inducing ghosts with names that are sure to make you smile.
Your job is to scare mortals away from a location, free other ghosts, and do all of it as quickly as possible. Each ghost has a ladder of powers they can use, and they affect the mortal world in many different ways.
There are ghosts controlling the weather, and making the ground tremble. There are ghosts which can possess mortals and exploit their phobias. Maps also have restless spirits, which you can free of you can figure out how, and your HQ allows you to upgrade your frighteners, unlocking new powers. It’s fun, funny, engaging and has a very cool premise. It’s silly that nobody’s remastered or remade it.
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Mad Max
| Release date | 2015-09-01 |
| Theme | The best Mad Max game anyone could have hoped for |
| Developer | Avalanche Studios |
Fury Road made Mad Max cool again, and on the same year launched a game which managed to be a breath of fresh air among the open world games of the time.
Mad Max has the bottom of a dried sea for a map, complete with wrecked ships, ruined lighthouses etc. Not only does it make for interesting locations, but also reinforces the setting’s postapocalyptic nature in an organic way.
The combat system makes the world more grounded. While it is similar (some would say: identical) to Batman Arkham Freeflow, Max isn’t a nimble, acrobatic Batman, indeed, he’s slow, his leg injury is acting up, and much more brutal and eager to kill crazed bandits who attack him. Even the vehicular combat is amazing, with ramming, explosions, and targeting different car parts. It’s a blast.
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Overlord
| Release date | 2007-06-26 |
| Theme | An ominous overlord and his army of minions vs decadent heroes |
| Developer | Triumph Studios |
Overlord is an unmistakably comedic game.
It mocks familiar fantasy tropes, and your main method of interaction with the world are delightfully dastardly and mischievous goblin-like minions, who eagerly chase innocent sheep and turn pumpkins into helmets. You can also cast spells and make attacks yourself, but where’s the fun in that, that’s why you have these goblins, after all.
The minions have their own abilities, and many maps are designed around you utilising them effectively. Sometimes you need to burn something with a red minion, while blue minions can revive their dead comrades. Between puzzles and bosses, Overlord has quite a few interesting challenges to offer. Check it out if you thought Fable was too serious and not cheerfully villainous enough.
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Prototype
| Release date | 2009-06-10 |
| Theme | Mutants, mercenaries, and really Venom-like superpowers |
| Developer | Radical Entertainment |
Despite having received a sequel and all, both Prototypes are kind of forgotten.
Which is sad, because Prototype was the best superhuman simulator until Saints Row IV rolled along. Surprisingly even the plot of Prototype is quite interesting and engaging: uncovering the full picture requires hunting down and absorbing targets to access snippets of their memories. But it’s not the game’s focus.
Being a monster is. The protagonist Alex Mercer can throw tanks, outrun anyone in the world, take rockets to the chest and barely flinch. He can also form claws, blades, impenetrable armour or a swarm of tentacles out of biomass he consumed (read: people), all of which makes him absolutely terrifying. And if you liked the Venom movie, you’re not getting a better symbiote experience anywhere else.
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Star Wars The Old Republic
| Release date | 2011-12-20 |
| Theme | A blend of a BioWare RPG and traditional MMO |
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Could BioWare transplant its storytelling skills onto an MMO framework? The answer is: yes, mostly.
The Old Republic has something that would make it an outstanding single-player game. There are two sides of the conflict (it is a Star Wars game, after all), and each side has four classes, representing roughly the Soldier, Scoundrel, Knight, and Caster types.
The best thing is that each class has its own storyline with unique, dedicated voice acting, and some choices to be made along the way, influencing the personal endings. That’s eight unique plotlines, alongside the overarching war stories of individual planets and factions. SWTOR may well be the most narratively diverse MMO out there and for that alone it really deserves a better rep than it has.
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The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing
| Release date | 2015-11-06 |
| Theme | Van Helsing vs. steampunk horrors of Europe |
| Developer | NEOCORE GAMES |
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing trilogy wasn’t widely promoted, which is a shame, because they are quite competent and entertaining hack’n’slash/action-RPG games.
The ability trees are robust, with auras, passive and active abilities, and there are loads of loot to collect. The game is also quite eager to poke fun at itself and popculture, lending this steampunk adventure an air of levity.
It also has a decent co-op mode, and somewhat engaging endgame content used to boost the character’s abilities beyond regular skill trees. There are three games in the series, as well as a “Final Cut” version: a collection of all three games in one package. Either way, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is a great hack and slash game that deserves to be saved from oblivion.
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The Temple of Elemental Evil
| Release date | 2003-10-16 |
| Theme | The best video game adaptation of the D&D 3/3.5 ruleset |
| Developer | Troika Games |
While the Baldur’s Gates, Icewind Dales and Planescape: Torment are still the talk of the genre decades later, Troika Games’ The Temple of Elemental Evil remains oddly forgotten.
ToEE is an adaptation of a classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure converted to the quite complex 3.5 ruleset. The best part is that Troika chose to incorporate a hefty chunk of the D&D mechanics into the game.
There’s the turn-based combat, robust character building, and plenty more. It was great. If you want as authentic a D&D experience as you can get without playing with other people, The Temple of Elemental Evil is a good choice. Until the arrival of Baldur’s Gate 3 and Solasta: Crown of the Magister ToEE was the only game in a long time that truly tried to be a faithful recreation of the D&D rules.
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Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
| Release date | 2011-09-05 |
| Theme | Intense slaughter approved by the Emperor and the Inquisition |
| Developer | Relic Entertainment |
One of the final games before the original THQ collapsed, and it really should be more popular than it is.
In addition to being a satisfying third-person action game Space Marine also presented a rarely explored perspective of the WH40k setting. Usually, we see it from high above in a strategy game, but here we could see the architecture from down on the ground.
It let us see the iconography up close, and we can go fighting alongside the regular humans of the Imperial Guard, much shorter than our Space Marine in a heavy ceramite armour. Although the game ends on something of cliff-hanger, it remains a stunning adventure in the grim darkness of the far future where there is only war. It’s criminal that there’s no sequel.
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Closing statements
This concludes our top picks from a long list of video games which were underrated and ended up being undeservedly unpopular.
Each of these games, in addition to being really quite good, had something making it worthwhile, which held up against the tide of time. Some of them had their initial bugs squashed mercilessly by developers and fans alike. Others still simply need a signal boost to enter people’s awareness again.
Hopefully our list brings to your attention something that sounds like it may be of interest to you despite low profile or mediocre ratings. None of these games deserve to become unknown due to the passage of time, and thankfully, years later you can try them out without paying a ton of money, especially if you find a deal on our marketplace.