Top 5 Games That Surprised Us All in 2016

Oxenfree

Telling the story of a young group of friends who head to a rather creepy island and accidentally open a ghostly rift during their evening festivities, Oxenfree garnered a fair amount of critical attention when it released back in January.

Merging the best parts of late 80’s teenage horror films and a beautiful hand-drawn art style with atmospheric undertones and Oxenfree is one of the best thriller titles to release this year. Its greatness doesn’t just lie in its overarching storyline, but in the emphasis it places on maintaining friendships with a variety of dialog options that feel authentic and realistic things to say. Say the wrong things to the wrong people and Oxenfree’s story will change, providing a unique experience for every player.

With little commercial buzz about it prior to release, Oxenfree wowed critics and is currently sitting on an 80 on Metacritic. It’s also now available on PS4 and Xbox One as well as PC, so you have no reason for not picking it up. You won’t regret it.

Watch Dogs 2

Watch Dogs 2 may not have been scarce of exposure prior to its release, with it showing up at numerous industry events and receiving countless trailers, but it was still somewhat of a surprise hit having come off the back of its very underwhelming predecessor.

Yet, Watch Dogs 2 did just about everything it could to ensure that the wrongs of the first game were more than corrected in this one. Rather than the gloomy and never happy Aiden Pearce from the first game, Watch Dogs 2 introduced us to the eccentric and fun Marcus Holloway and the rest of the DedSec group as we hacked our way into ctOS 2.0.

Ubisoft also took considerable time crafting a virtual rendition of San Francisco and a more versatile hacking system that provided plenty more options for tackling a mission than the first game allowed for. In fact, San Francisco is so well done that it’s easy to simply just go exploring the world and see what there is to find and do.

If the first game had put you off picking up the sequel, cast your doubts aside and give Watch Dogs 2 a try. Sitting with a metascore of 83 at the time of writing, it’s one of the most enjoyable and off-the-wall titles to release this year.

Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley doesn’t go for flashy graphics or an in-depth leveling up system, it just manages to perfectly encapsulate the magic and compelling nature of the early Harvest Moon games in a way that’s been lost in recent years. If you’ve been looking for a way to sink hundreds of hours in a rewarding, though grinding experience, Stardew Valley is exactly what you’ve been looking for.

Inheriting your grandfather’s old plot of land in the valley, you’ll plant and harvest crops, tend to your livestock, and turn the abandoned plot into a thriving agricultural powerhouse.

Hype surrounding Stardew Valley prior to its release had been fairly quiet. It was only really when it released and word of mouth got around that the title finally started to see gargantuan success. Releasing on both PS4 and Xbox One this week, Stardew Valley is certainly one of the surprise hits of the year. Especially when you consider this content-stuffed game is developed by one person alone.

Firewatch

Firewatch started to garner quite a bit of hype a few months before its February release, Yet, while many players were excited to see what kind of mysteries they were going to uncover in the buildup, it was only when people jumped into the experience that they realized this was far more than was eluded to in the trailers.

Coming from indie studio, Campo Santo, nobody expected Firewatch to tell such a dark and mysterious tale in a world teeming with life and some of the most stunning panoramic views we’ve seen in games this year. With its shocker of an ending bringing the whole experience together, Campo Santo managed to make Firewatch one of the standout story-driven successes of 2016.

Sitting at an 81 on Metacritic, Firewatch is another title which is now available on all major platforms following its initial success on PS4 and PC earlier this year. You’ve got no reason to pass on it now.

Hitman

Hitman wasn’t received all too well when the sudden announcement that the game would release in an episodic format emerged. Players had been looking forward to jumping into a complete experience with Agent 47, only to find out that they’d get it in bitesize chunks. With fears rising that the game’s mechanics and foundations just didn’t suit an episodic format, fans were apprehensive as episode one released back in March.

Since the initial release, Hitman has gone from strength to strength with its story really coming to the forefront of the experience in the latter episodes. The episodic nature actually helped to embolden one of Hitman’s replayable game mechanics. Upon releasing each new episode, IO Interactive  further populated each existing locations with new challenges, escalation events, and VIP targets for players to get creative with. The perfect content drops to tide players over until the next chapter of the story was released.

It also helped to highlight just how genius some of Hitman’s level design truly is, forcing players to explore every nook and cranny so they could eliminate a target in a particular way.

IO Interactive’s episodic efforts with Hitman prove that unfamiliar change can sometimes help to accentuate the features you truly love about a game. If you’re looking for a more tactical and challenging game with endless replayability, you owe it to yourself to pick up Hitman.