What are your most pleasant surprises of this "gen"?

PC - Stardew Valley. This game is better than it has any right to be and I have put more time into this game than 99% of the games this gen. If you haven't played this game you really should, It even has the blessing of HM's creator.

PS4 - Bloodborne. This was one of the games that sold me on PS4 but I didn't know that when I got that I would be doing many, many playthroughs of it. Damn, the combat is so good, and nothing feels better than taking out a gank-squad solo with the Rakuyo.

Xbox - Forza Horizon 3/4. Was always a fan of the Forza MS series but I didn't know what I was missing, these became my favorite racers of all time, so damn good, better than they have any right to be.

3ds - None that I can think of sadly, mainly due to the fact I knew i would love any Etrian Odyssey entry.

Forgot to mention Tomb Raider 2014. I had no idea how good this series was and how iconic Lara would become for me, another huge surprise was Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Broforce for sure. A blast of unmitigated fun. Simple to play, but never the less challenging.

Couch COOP at it's pinnacle.

Mighty X1X 4K GP BC MonsterBox. :D

Thank you MS, for the gamers... Jazz. :P

Independent gaming. It's been around longer than this gen, but I feel it's really taken off in the past few years and come into it's own.

Really a breath of fresh air in a game market populated by otherwise stagnant, flashy, substance-less AAA games.

I still enjoy the big-budget games, but the amount of time I've spent and enjoyed on independent games dwarfs that spent on the former.

- Monster Hunter World (Had no idea what Monster Hunterwas really about so I picked it up. It quickly became my favorite game from 2018 right alongside Red Dead Redemption 2)

- Hue

- World of Final Fantasy

The fact that MS was never able to catch up to Sony after the debacle of E3 2013 and that the Switch quickly zoomed past them.

Horizon: Zero Dawn being a great game. Was not expecting it to be as good as it was.

GoW being better than all of the previous God of War games (except for maybe GoW 2).

BoTW being a great game.

Bulletstorm full clip edition.

Completely missed it last generation picked it up recently and really enjoyed my play through.

Hollow Knight - Purely word of mouth got me to buy this game. The reviews of this game came way too late.

Titanfall 2. was expecting it to be trash, turn out to be great SP FPS.

Resident Evil 7 and 2 ... the resurgence of the series was nice to see. Going completely off the rails and trying something new in 7, and still making a great game was a good surprise.

Also Monster Hunter going mainstream... never thought Id see the day. Pulled off to perfection too, while it is more accessible its not some dumbed down spin-off.

Zelda Breath of The Wild.

Nier Automata. Never would have imagined it would be as good as it was.

HZD, Uncharted 4 and Fallout 4. Expected them to be poo, but they were great.

Breath of the Wild: I never expected Nintendo at that time to blow the hinges off of open world game design. That game is a Marvel.

Celeste: It came out of nowhere and I'd consider it one of the best games of all time.

God of War: I was expecting the developers to struggle with overhauling this franchise. The combat didn't look that great in the reveal. In the end it turned out incredible.

Horizon zero dawn. Even after getting the platinum trophy I still don't understand how good that game was. The sequel is a day 1 for me.

Hellblade imediately came to mind. Played it recently and never thought it would be as good as it was. I havent played an immersive game such as this in quite a while, the artstyle, the setting and the amazing soundtrack just fits perfectly into the theme of the game. Even the gameplay was better then I was anticipating. I was thinking it would be barebones swordplay but I was very wrong, quite enjoyable and very underrated combat system imo that had the potential to be expanded into something even greater.

I've seen some people claiming its a walking simulator but I think they're wrong. Its an amazing experience, one I'm glad I played. Some games arent just made for everyone, and this one just cattered to my personal tastes. MS did good in aquiring NT cause they are one talented and underrated studio imo

Rocket League, Nier Automata, battle royale games, Respawn in general

Astrobot - knew it got great reviews before playing but still didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did

Doom 2016 - the game kinda snuck up on me. I'm decently informed about upcoming stuff but this just flew under my radar. I saw a commercial for it on tv and was like hey this looks kinda cool and got it from redbox and it's one of my favorite games of the gen

Horizon Zero Dawn was a complete shock. I had so much fun with that game. Spider-man was infinitely better than I expected it to be. That game was pure joy to play from beginning to end.

I've also enjoyed experiences like Life is Strange, Gone Home, Oxenfree, and Firewatch. They've opened me up to the "walking simulator" genre and I kind of love them.

Horizon Zero Dawn, Shenmue 3 and seeing Yakuza getting more popular!

Sonic Mania - Literally my dream game in every way. I still cant believe that it exists.

Rodea the Sky Soldier (Wii ver.) - Spiritual sequel to NiGHTS and made by the king himself, Yuji Naka.

Streets of Rage 4 & Shenmue III- That they're actually happening

And then amazing games in general that came out of nowhere for me: Persona 5, Nioh, Nier: Automata, Azure Striker Gunvolt 1 & 2, and Freedom Planet.

Xbox One. I loved the OG Xbox, wasn’t too crazy with the 360 (I was trapped in WoW), and the Xbox One brought me back into console gaming and I’m thrilled with the services and features. The console has become my main entertainment hub and is used daily. As for games, my highlights are Titanfall 1, Halo MCC, and Forza Horizon 3/4. They’re games I play regularly.

Yoku's Island Express kinda blew my mind. Pinball and platforming... who'd have thought it!

Around it office all a worker still like to play Pokémon Go.

@fedor: Yeah, same. Nier Automata was never on my radar until they announced the XB1 version. And I adored it.

Also, I expected to really enjoy Super Mario Odyssey, but not this much. Could be my game of the gen. It's soooo good. Others that came out of nowhere for me were Inside, Hellblade, Ori & the Blind Forest, The Missing: JJ Macfield and the Island of Memories, Child of Light and Valiant Hearts.

Layers of Fear, Divinity: Original Sin, Skyrim VR (PSVR--mostly the announcement itself, which was totally unexpected), Borderlands 2 VR (PSVR), RE7 (PSVR), Resi Evil Revelations 2 to name a few.

Another surprise was that the XB1 flopped so hard, and got totally dominated by the PS4. Didn't see that coming, at least not as savagely as it did.

Child of Light, Velocity 2X, The Witness, Life Is Strange, Resogun, Nex Machina, Helldivers, Tearaway

Horizon Zero Dawn being a huge success and one of the best games this gen. Much better than trash Zelda.

Link in The Wild. This was something nobody expect. Nintendo have conference about how it different, but when game come out it still surprise everyone.

Subnautica

Bloodborne - Best Souls game ever

Monster Hunter World - Doubt series could work on pc/home console... it works!

Stardew Valley - the best harvest moon game since GBA/PS1 Back to Nature

Life is Strange - story is really good no lie

Also news regarding Mass Effect Andromeda, Battlefront 2, Fallout 76. All expected will garner massive success but damn the misstep they make so deep it felt till today. Bioware and Bethesda loses their reputation as highly regarded studios that make good games. For Battlefront 2 its EA but I doubt anyone could predict just how much EA fked up the game. I enjoyed all cause I don't really like the path all those games headed so its a pleasant surprise for me.

Yeah the Tomb Raider game reboot caught me by surprise in a pleasant way.

Stardew Valley hands down. I had never enjoyed any game with the same gameplay style growing up but goddammit, Stardew just hit everything I loved.

hzd

frostpunk

aragami

alien isolation

soma

I agree. I didn't care about the first Titanfall at all and when Respawn decided to make singleplayer for Titanfall 2, I didn't have faith in them at first because I thought that they would make it like Call Of Duty but thankfully I was wrong. The singleplayer is really amazing and I would say that both Doom and Titanfall 2 were the only good shooters with the best singleplayer of 2016. I only main complain is that I wished that the singleplayer was much longer but it is still a great game. But of course EA still fucked up by releasing it between Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare and Battlefield 1.

Divinity OS2

The Witcher 3

Bloodborne

PS4 dominating so hard

PS4 exclusives being almost all high quality

Tales of Vesperia port

Shenmue 1/2 port

A new Dragon Quest

Good gen

The Witcher 3 being the greatest game ever

GoW reinventing itself

Halo 5 MP overtaking 3's MP as greatest ever

Alienation being awesome enough to be my favorite game of 2016

Cuphead being amazing

Crackdown 3 SP being fun

Seeing cows getting butthurt all the time, it never gets old :)

As for games well Child of Light and Max the Curse of Brotherhood.

Horizon Zero Dawn being an amazing game with an enjoyable and interesting story.

BOTW blew me away. I never really liked a Zelda game except for OOT which I thought was pretty good. BOTW was everything I expect a game to be and more. It is the best game in decades IMO.

Wonderboy III: The Dragons Trap remake. Amazing art and animation added to an already fantastic Sega master system game.

Sonic Mania, FINALLY a great sonic game again!!!!

Slain Back From Hell, really enjoyed this game, from the retro look to the great metal music it was a blast to play.

Broforce, just insanely fun.

Hollow Knight - this game caught me by surprise - Amazing game.

Punch Club - My first management sim game and its soooo good! i love the 80's and 90's movie references/Homage's too

Nothing really comes to mind. I would say one of the random PS+ games from over the past couple of years, but cannot think of which one specifically.

nier automata

nioh

octopath

hollow knight

the messenger

Titanfall 2

I decided to try a Yakuza game and bought Yakuza 0 recently. Now I'm a fan. I love how politically incorrect the game is. In a time where everything is censored for being offensive to someone is nice to play a game that just doesnt give a f*ck

- Indies bringing 8 and 16bit gaming back to relevance

- VR being even better than my most optimistic predictions

- motion gaming (outside vr), which everyone predicted to be standard in 8th gen, didn't deliver over 'normal gaming'

For me it was Octopath Traveler. I was really starting the think that Square Enix forgot how to make Final Fantasy games until Octopath. Octopath is so much more of a Final Fantasy game than any Final Fantasy game has been in years. Thank god.

@dalger21: "GoW being better than all of the previous God of War games "

No way.

Definitely the quality of single player games out there. It's refreshing to see how in a world full of loot shooters, and battle royale, that games such as "God of War", "The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt", "Marvel's Spider-Man", and "Divinity: Original Sin 2 ", are able to tell such immersive and captivating tales.