Some games just don’t click at first. Maybe it’s clunky controls, a slow opening, or mechanics that feel downright frustrating. We’ve all had those moments where we bounce off a title quickly, convinced it’s just not for us. And yet, every so often, a second chance reveals something entirely different.
In this piece, we’re looking back at the games we initially dismissed, but eventually couldn’t put down. Whether it took a retry months later or a push from friends, these titles proved that first impressions aren’t always the final word. Here are the games that went from “hard pass” to absolute favorites. Or at least something we ultimately liked very much.
Crow Fitzroy:
It’s almost an ancient history now, but while now I’m a proud defender of Piranha Bytes games in general, it took me several attempts to figure out the original Gothic back in the day. Admittedly, I was fresh to the genre at the time, but Gothic was unlike anything I’d experienced up to that point, and the weird control scheme was an…acquired taste at best, even with mouse enabled. When it clicked, it really clicked, and years later I can say that if PB games have no fans, then I am dead.
I don’t remember WHY it clicked, it’s been over twenty years, but I’ve been forever grateful it had, because nobody does open worlds to my liking the way PB did, and Gothic was my entry point.
A much more recent example would be Monster Hunter. When it came to slashy games, I was much more of a DMC kind of guy, but I saw a cool video of Monster Hunter: World and decided to give it a shot. Oh boy, was it a pain. The opening hours were dreadfully tedious, everything was slow, and I was pestered by a jumble of menus and pop-up tutorials. Even after most tuts were gone, I just couldn’t align my brain with the game. I played a BIG chunk of World mostly out of spite.
But then I committed a sin that made me a fan: I tried the Defender Armor. It’s a powerful, highly defensive set, meant to help veterans on second save make it to the expansion content faster. I used it like training wheels to figure out the pacing, the skills, the movement. When I finally got Iceborne, I was ready to rumble properly, because the community’s most hated set helped me over the hill.
Now I’m sitting on a couple hundred hours each in World/Iceborne, Rise/Sunbreak, and Wilds, a healthy 80 in Stories 2, and I’m ready to dive into Stories 3 as soon as it launches. I’m so glad I pushed through the initial weirdness.
Gothic 1
Release Date: March 15, 2001
Genres: Role-playing (RPG)
Monster Hunter World
Release Date: August 09, 2018
Genres: Role-playing (RPG), Adventure
Bartosz “Resurrect” Wiktor:
It’s hard to count all the games I bounced off, but it’s much easier to name the ones I tried to like and only managed to appreciate after the X-th attempt.
Take the walking simulator — Death Stranding. It took me five attempts before it finally pulled me in. I could practically play the prologue with my eyes closed because I had experienced it so many times already. But every time I reached the crematorium and the first encounter with the BTs appeared… I just couldn’t do it anymore. Maybe it’s a matter of growing up and realizing that the things on the screen can’t actually hurt me…right? Although I’d probably blame stubborn curiosity more — the desire to understand why people loved this game so much. And now I’m one of them. It’s a fantastic journey that skillfully mixes excitement with fear, uncertainty, and constant questions like: “Can I actually make it through here?”
Riding that momentum, I soon reached for another Kojima production: Metal Gear Solid V, along with Ground Zeroes. I started with GZ, just like other players recommended. The thing is, I hate stealth games. I’ve always been the kind of player who charges in with everything the game gives me and causes absolute chaos.
Metal Gear actually allowed that approach to some degree, but I still couldn’t feel that sense of “epicness,” that absolute cinema everyone talked about — at least not until the moment I was escaping the hospital and being chased by a burning skeleton on a white horse, while the most powerful storm I had ever seen was raging around me. Sometimes all it takes is fire, a horse, and a good chase scene to make someone appreciate a game. To the point where I spent an entire month playing nothing else, just refining my stealth skills and developing my base. Good times.
God of War was exactly the same case as Death Stranding. Tons of people praising it, saying how incredible the experience is, how amazing it is, and so on. So I tried. And tried again. And then tried once more. But the fight with Baldur was the moment where I would put the Santa Monica Studios game down every single time. That changed when Ragnarök was added to PlayStation Plus. I figured I’d force myself to finish the first game so I could check out the sequel.
The moment I truly got hooked was when Brok and Sindri appeared. Somehow those two dwarves added so much atmosphere and color to the game that I suddenly started noticing how beautifully the world was built, how many genuinely interesting activities were waiting around every corner, and how the story itself was the cherry on top.
And the final fight? For me, that’s peak gaming. Seriously. Pure action cinema. Just interactive.
Death Stranding
Release Date: March 30, 2022
Genres: Shooter, Role-playing (RPG), Adventure
METAL GEAR SOLID V: The Phantom Pain
Release Date: September 1, 2015
Genres: Shooter, Tactical, Adventure
God of War
Release Date: January 14, 2022
Genres: Role-playing (RPG), Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Adventure
Luke Kyle:
Back in the day I got my hands on Tom Clancy’s HAWX.
Didn’t like it.
I thought: “Man, I got sim lites for this, don’t need no action game.”
Project Wingman came out, I played it for a bit, didn’t really dig it, either.
And then I beat Ace Combat 7. And I started enjoying arcade jetfighting for real. And returned to Project Wingman and HAWX.
Out of these three, HAWX is actually my favorite. More no-nonsense, better mission design, very solid gameplay through and through. My only gripe is that the final mission is a letdown after all the preceding scenarios, but I definitely had a lot of fun.
Turns out these days I don’t really have much patience for even sim lites to re-learn the ropes, so games like this are perfect to scratch this “I just want to jump in the cockpit of my jet for a bit, shoot down some bogeys, blast some tanks, and head back home” itch.
Anyway, a much bigger game I originally disliked for some reason is Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. I loved its expansion, Mysteries of the Sith, and loved the sequels (though Jedi Outcast is more solid as a Star Wars experience than Jedi Academy, even if the latter offers more variety and fun stuff). The first JK? Not so much.
But then it got re-released on GOG, coupled with working music and all, and I finally understood that this is a genius piece of gaming. Excellent gameplay through and through. Fantastic level designs. Terrific gunplay. No cheap cinematic moments (except for live-action cutscenes, hahah). Its interface is a bit too robust and lightsaber combat entails just a couple basic slashes, but other than that, this is a wonderful first-person shooter that still feels fresh despite its obviously dated visuals.
Recently, I got into Apex Legends out of sudden. I mean, I always enjoyed battle royales – though I prefer extraction shooters – but in case of this one I was like “Nah, hard pass.” Recently picked it up and while I still don’t dig its weird aesthetic and goofy characters, it’s a great BR and one of the best in the genre. Really enjoyed it.
There’s probably more games that I learned to love as time went on, but these are the biggest standouts in my memory.
Final remarks
As you can see, sometimes all it takes is a little patience—or the right mindset—for a game to truly shine. If anything, these experiences remind us that hidden gems can be easy to overlook, and that giving a game another shot might just lead to your next obsession.