2014 was a weird year for video games. Lotta ups, lotta downs, lotta what-have-yous. But while the year had its share of bummers and disappointments, it was not without some lovely surprises, too.
Last week, we chronicled
the biggest disappointments of 2014. Today, like we do every year, weâre offsetting that postâs bitter sadness with a post celebrating the best surprises of the year. (here are 2012âs best surprises, and hereâs 2013.)
https://lastchance.cc/the-biggest-disappointments-of-2014-1672860181%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Nintendo At E3
Ever since the announcement of the Wii U, weâve been wondering what it would look like when Nintendo got their feet under them and started to find their stride. Turns out, it looked a lot like their presence at this yearâs E3. Nintendo showed up cool and confident. They debuted a bunch of interesting new games, from the multiplayer shooting/painting game
Splatoon to the tactical steampunk comic-book game Code Name S.T.E.A.M. Meanwhile, the Nintendo Treehouse maintained an enjoyable, ongoing stream throughout the show, with Smash Bros. tournaments and all kinds of fun interviews and fan events. We were glad to see all of it: When Nintendo steps up their game, everyone wins.
Kojima Is Making Silent Hill(s)
No one was expecting Hideo Kojima to team up with Guillermo Del Toro to make a new
Silent Hill game called Silent Hills. Nor was anyone expecting that theyâd announce it in a weird-ass playable trailer thing that would wind up being one of the more interesting video game phenomena of the year. I mean⊠come on, right? The whole thing sounds like some sort of outlandish joke one of us would make up a few drinks into a Kotaku meetup. âYeah, like⊠now Kojima will announce heâs teaming up with⊠like⊠Guillermo Del Toro⊠and theyâre making a Silent Hill game.â
âYeah, and itâll be called SILENT HILLS!â [everyone laughs]
Microsoftâs Entire 2014 Plan Leaks
Leaks happen. Sometimes people send them to
Kotaku, and other times, they post them in forums around the Internet. In January (!), a NeoGAF poster going by ntkrnl shared a bunch of what he claimed were Microsoftâs plans for the Xbox One in 2014 and beyond. The surprise here was that many of the things he reportedâSunset Overdrive and a remastered Halo 2 for fall, Halo 5 for 2015, Forza Horizon 2, a new Crackdown, a white Xbox Oneâturned out to be legit. (He was wrong about a disc-free Xbox One⊠or is that coming next year?)
Xbox One Gets On Track
Microsoft may have had a lot of their 2014 surprises spoiled by a leak, but that didnât stop them from having an outstanding year. Last fall, the Xbox One lagged behind the PS4, and not just in terms of sales. Over the next 12 months, Microsoft refocused their message and removed the bundled Kinect camera. The latter move allowed them to cut the consoleâs price by $100. With a new, lower price, they slowly and steadily built their box into
a formidable competitor, and thanks to a series of good software updates, a strong fall games lineup and some software screwups and delays from Sony, managed to oustell the PS4 for a spell. Competition is good for everyone, and itâs nice to see Microsoft get back in the game.
Final Fantasy XV Is Actually Happening
Sometimes when a game is âin developmentâ itâs kind of⊠not really. Like, some people somewhere are talking about it? And maybe there are some design documents somewhere? But thatâs it. So when Square Enix announced that
Final Fantasy Versus XIII had become Final Fantasy XV proper, we were excited, but wary. Thus, it warmed our jaded hearts this year to see actual footage of the game, which not only appears to be deep in development, but also looks pretty darn great.
The Underdogs Win
When it comes to competitive gaming, people generally expect to see wins from the usual suspects: The best players, controlling the best characters, using the best gear. 2014 had some terrific surprises in this regard, as underdogs won a few notable competitions. No one was expecting Se Jun Park to whip out the relatively underpowered Pachirisu in the
PokĂ©mon World Championships, let alone win. And no one expected to see Meltdownâs Olivier âLuffyâ Hay win EVO 2014âs Ultra Street Fighter IV tournament playing as Rose while using a PS1 controller. Everyone loves an underdog, and we all had a lot to love in 2014.
Steam In-Home Streaming
Sure, Valve. Whatever. We totally believe that weâll be able to stream our Steam games to devices all around our house even if the game isnât installed. Wait⊠it works? It works kind of like⊠like some form of technological cyber-magic? Wow! We actually werenât expecting that at all.
A Magical Cave Conquers Destiny
If you booted up Destiny any time during the first month or so it was out, chances are you could visit this one cave in Russia and find a handful of high-level players standing out front, blindly shooting aliens for hours on end. While exploits (or, âexploitsâ) like The Loot Cave have been around for years, there was still something special and unexpected about the one in Destiny. It was a distinct chance to finally get a leg up (or at least feel like we were getting a leg up) on a game that brazenly, coldly undermined our every attempt to feel rewarded. We were sad when Bungie closed the cave for business and while there have been other Loot Caves since then, itâs never really been the same. RIP, Loot Cave. Weâll never forget you.
Shadow of Mordor
âOkay, so itâs
Assassinâs Creed with orcs, right?â Thatâs pretty much what we thought Shadow of Mordor was going to be. Then we started hearing some whispers about the gameâs ânemesis system,â and how it was this neat idea (short version: enemies all have names and distinct personalities, and if they kill you they become more powerful). We try not to count too many chickens until theyâve hatched, so we waited for the full game. Turns out, good news! The nemesis system is a fascinating, extremely enjoyable bit of game design that elevates a fairly standard sneak-and-stab-em-up to a new level. Itâs one of those brilliant new ideas that seems destined to be copied and iterated upon until itâs as commonplace as âpress Y to counter.â Fine by us.
The Return of Kingâs Quest
The
Kingâs Quest series holds a special place in the heart of many gamers, and so news that the series was being resurrected, along with the Sierra brand, made us all very happy. Sure, they could screw up the whole thing and ruin our fond memories of the series, but honestly⊠I mean, Kingâs Quest: Mask of Eternity already happened, and weâre all still here. This is probably a good thing.
Flappy Bird
Could anyone have predicted that one of the defining games of 2014 would be something like
Flappy Bird? Doubtful. A game so brutally difficult that people either loved, hated, or hate-loved it. A controversial game, and one that Kotaku didnât handle all that well at first. Flappy Bird returned on Amazonâs Kindle Fire, of all things, but it remains absent from other app stores. If youâre lucky enough to still have Dong Nguyenâs oddity installed on your iPhone (or if youâve found a version to install on a different device), itâs a good feeling, you know? Like youâve preserved something worth preserving. Thereâs a weird majesty to Flappy Bird, something beguiling about its stark difficulty. As Ian Bogost put it, âIt is a game that is indifferent, like an iron gate rusted shut, like the ice that shuts down a city. Itâs not hard for the sake of your experience; itâs just hard because thatâs the way it is.â We wouldnât have it any other way.
Blizzard Somehow Outdoes Itself
Itâs not as though Blizzard
needed to go and have their best year ever. But they went ahead and did so anyway. Not only did they continue to kick ass on their home turf with the PC releases of Hearthstone and the much-lauded Warlords of Draenor expansion for World of Warcraft, they brought Hearthstone to the iPad, where it immediately became one of the very best games for the system. Add to that the excellent console version of Diablo III, a port so good it often eclipses the original PC version of the game, as well as new Android and soon-to-follow iPhone versions of Hearthstone, and youâve got Blizzard cranking home runs on consoles, mobile, and PC. All that, and they managed to effectively repurpose their cancelled âTitanâ MMO into a peppy new competitive shooter called Overwatch, which looks like a great bit of fun. What a year for Blizzard.
Suikoden II Comes to PSN
After years of petitions, emails, and outright pleading from the press and fans alike, Sony and Konami finally announced that the beloved JRPG
Suikoden II would be joining its predecessor in the PSN store. Thanks to the cruelty of fate and timing, I was the one to write up that news post, and not Jason, despite the fact that the announcement was the culmination of his lifeâs work up to this point. Donât worry, Jason. Iâll make it up to you by finally playing Suikoden II
Grand Theft Auto Goes First-Person
I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect with the new-gen versions of
GTA V. Better graphics, maybe a couple new little features, but generally the same game. I remember pouring some coffee on the morning the first-person mode was announced, watching the video, and thinking, âWelp. Uh. This looks pretty⊠um, amazing.â Cut to the new versionâs release: I tried the first-person mode out, and yep. Itâs pretty great, alright. In fact, it transforms the experience of playing a GTA game, and moves the series in an entirely new direction. We were expecting a higher-res GTA game, and what we got was a new identity for the series.
The Last of Us Gets A Love Story
2013âs
The Last of Us was a lot of things: a tragedy, a coming-of-age journey, a grim tale of survival. But it most decidedly was not a love story. Imagine our surprise, then, when 2014âs downloadable chapter Left Behind functioned not only as a bit of bonus backstory for Ellie, but also as an unusually touching tale of video-game romance. With a deft touch, writer Neil Druckmann used video-game mechanicsâthrow the brick, hide with the gun, win the fighting gameâto illluminate the quiet corners of the relationship between Ellie and her friend Riley. That the romance itself was between two young women was welcome, too. Given the high quality of the original game, we were expecting Left Behind to be good. But we werenât expecting it to be quite this good, in quite this way.
The Return Of Grim Fandango
Every year, we dream of the return of
Grim Fandango. Itâs one of the great lost PC games, widely held to be one of the finest adventure games ever made, yet it has been bafflingly unavailable on modern machines. No longer. At Sonyâs E3 press conference this year, development studio Double Fine revealed that theyâve been working on a redone version of Grim, with updated graphics and controls, and that itâs coming not just to PS4 and Vita, but also to PC, Mac and Linux. That means that a whole new generation of gamers is going to experience a bona fide classic for the first time, and the rest of us can join them. We canât wait to see Manny again.
BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea
The further we got from it, the more critical consensus around 2013âs
BioShock Infinite seemed to find focus and reform itself, as a variety of well-argued critiques pointed out a number of flaws in the ambitious, divisive game. Our expectations for the DLC expansion, which Irrational announced would let gamers play as Infinite co-star Elizabeth, werenât particularly high. The first episode was disappointing, a slight chunk of a game thatbit off more than it could chew. So what a pleasant surprise that the second episode, in which we were finally allowed to play as Elizabeth, was a rousing success, and much more interesting than everything that had led up to it. It tied the Irrational BioShock games together and made Infinite a more satisfying enterprise in the process.
The Assassinâs Creed Game We Wanted Stars⊠A Templar
This fall told the tale of two
Assassinâs Creed games. One, a much-hyped, beautiful-looking, new-gen-only game set in Paris. The other, an underhyped, last-gen-only game set in North America. The first one, Assassinâs Creed Unity, was a real bummer, and something of a low point for the series. The second one, Assassinâs Creed Rogue, was an unexpected delight. It introduced radical twists to the seriesâ formula, bringing in aspects of previous gamesâ competitive multiplayer modes to give Rogueâs solo players the experience of playing as a character who huntsâand is hunted byâassassins. Plus, they brought back sailing, but this time with enemies who will raid and board your boat. For whatever reason, Ubisoft decided to pretend like Rogue didnât exist. They shouldnât have.
PC Gaming Parties Like Itâs 1998
2014 was a hell of a good year for PC gamers who grew up with the likes of
Fallout, TIE Fighter, Ultima VII and Baldurâs Gate. Thanks largely to a series of successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns, the CRPG had a banner year, with games like Divinity: Original Sin and Wasteland 2 actually getting a commercial release, and others like Torment: Tides of Numeria and Pillars of Eternity not far behind.
Meanwhile, we saw great progress on not one but two hardcore PC space sims: Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen. After a series of increasingly polished betas, Elite got a polished â1.0â release just last week. Meanwhile Star Citizen continues to sprawl in all sorts of neat-sounding directions, and while our inner skeptics may wonder how all of that stuff will fit into a single game, itâs pretty cool that anyoneâs even trying. Add some fine PC strategy games like This War of Mine and Endless Legend, as well as a revitalized Counter-Strike GO settling into a groove as one of the most popular games on Steam, and the picture becomes clearer: 2014 was a standout year for the kinds of games that made the PC great to begin with.
Those were our favorite surprises, but weâre sure you had your own. Let us know what your favorite surprises of the year were in the comments below, and if one of your favorite things was âKotaku gets even better,â well, thanks! Weâll take it.
To contact the author of this post, write to [email protected] or find him on Twitter @kirkhamilton
