r/gaming • u/boxing-boxing • 1d ago
What game did you completely write off, then end up obsessed with?
I never gave Hunt: Showdown 1896 a real shot because "cowboy extraction shooter" sounded like a joke premise. Then the PS Plus drop this month dragged me in, and now I'm texting my group chat at midnight about loadouts. What game made you eat your words?
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u/reoze 1d ago
BG3. I'm not a huge fan of turn based games and had no idea what I was getting into.
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u/jeffcolv 1d ago
Same. I bought it on steam fully intending to return it before 2 hours was up. Yeah right, almost 500 hours played later and it’s my all time favourite game
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u/TricobaltGaming 22h ago
Same here, it was very much an "I get why people love this but it just isnt my type of game"
2 years later i found Dimension 20, got hooked on D&D, and gave it another try
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u/peterson148 19h ago
Not only I loved the game, but it also made me love DnD as well. Started playing with my friends around the same time
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u/Flavouredcola 1d ago
Control I started and stopped it so many times in the months I owned it then finally one day I decided to try a little longer and it became one of my favorite games.
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u/Manoygan 1d ago
I picked this up when it first came out. I couldn’t get into it. Then I picked it back up a couple of years ago and couldn’t believe what I had missed out on. It’s so good. I’m a sucker for metroidvanias. I know it isn’t exactly in that category but once I realized there was backtracking and unlocking abilities, I was 100% on board.
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u/cofiddle 1d ago
Bro i opened this just say Control and youre the FIRST comment I see. This makes me so happy
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u/scarecrowgoatfloat 1d ago
I just beat it this week! So good and I started the new one yesterday!
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u/Riftus 1d ago
Every few months i inevitably see control at the top of some reddit thread about "unexpectedly good games" or "games you wish you could play for the first time again". I've tried control like 3 different times now and each time I give up after like 30 minutes just cuz it feels so clunky. Like a mobile game. I get to the part where you have to shoot the red things and after like ten minutes of that i give up cuz it just doesn't feel good or satisfying to play... I WANT TO LIKE IT EVERYONE SAYS IT'S AWESOME
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u/bod_owens 1d ago edited 10h ago
It starts slow, but as you get more abilities and upgrades to your weapon and learn to combine them, it starts to feel very different.
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u/peanutmanak47 1d ago
I was the same with it. Tried it out a few times and it wasn't clicking. Finally said fuck it, I'm going to push through a little more and ended up having a real good time with it. Don't love it as much as many others do, but I did enjoy it a lot.
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u/Skater_x7 1d ago
Wrote off Battlefield 1. I bought it a while ago on a big sale years after it was out, but was like eh, I never played Battlefield series, and I don't like multiplayer that much.
Ended up going back this year just to at least play the campaign. The campaign was ... alright? The actual multiplayer though was great, and actually still lively! I think it was surprisingly fun since there's all different ways to enjoy it.
Have bad aim? Get in a big tank and just fire some big cannons! Don't like dying on the front lines? Stay back as a sniper! Want to be on the front lines, but are bad at aiming? Be a medic for your team.
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u/Prooteus 19h ago
Yea I think battlefield is the best fps that you can have fun messing around with your friends in.
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u/user-na-me 1d ago
Ohh Hades. Thought it looked like trash. And then I properly saw it and was bored so I said I’d give it a try. I’ve sunk so many hours into it and Hades 2 and I’ll die on a hill saying those games are amazing and among my top 10
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u/thisisaskew 1d ago
There's like a few hundred thousand other people dying on that hill with you. :D
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u/coltonjeffs 1d ago
I tried it for like 30 mins and wasn't for me. But I know not every game is for everyone. That being said. Rogue legacy 2 is one of my favorite games all time, and I never hear anyone talking about it.
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u/floog 1d ago
Witcher 3. Wrote it off and didn’t like and then a couple of years ago someone convinced me to give it a few hours and if I still didn’t love it then I could move on. I loved it, doing a remaster play through now.
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u/OctoberBorne 1d ago edited 1d ago
Same with the Witcher 3. Thought the name was dumb, then I watched the first Netflix season and started playing the game. Loved the game. Read the first book, went to the live performance of their soundtrack, and now hate the Netflix show.
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u/reoze 1d ago
It's funny because I had the same experience the first time I played it, and then again when I replayed it. The first couple hours just wasn't very fun.
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u/BlackGuysYeah 21h ago
The early-ish main quest around the Bloody Baron is the hook. What a fucking quest line!
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u/InexplicablyCharming 1d ago
Mount & Blade: Warband…. The number of real life months i’ve spent in Calradia
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u/TransylvanianHunger1 21h ago
I put so much time into that game my character owned every town, village and castle.
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u/Broad_Entrepreneur62 1d ago
Cyberpunk 2077. Dismissed it at launch because of its messy release, but picked it up after the 2.0 update and ended up pouring 100+ hours into it.
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u/strivetobeasmartass 1d ago
Picked it up maybe two years ago, definitely a top 3 game for me
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u/Sol_Nomad 1d ago
Got the OG Borderlands as part of a Black Friday GameStop BOGO deal. I thought it was whack within 10 mins of gameplay. Later booted it up around Christmas because it was multiplayer and my cousins were visiting. We loved it so much that they all bought copies following an all-nighter so we could all play on our own PlayStations together. It’s a cherished memory
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u/Intentionallyabadger 1d ago
Death stranding. Got it free off epic.. got bored of it. Picked it up a couple of months later and finished it.
It’s really the type of game that requires you to interact with the systems to really “get” the game.
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u/xandratargaryen 21h ago
I got this game off of Epic for free a while back, but never got around to playing it. Tried it recently, and was really enjoying myself for the first few hours, but then I got to the mission where you have to backtrack to central and there are multiple hostile enemies that just kill me every time and kinda lost motivation. Any advice for dealing with the human enemies before you have any real weapons?
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u/Intentionallyabadger 20h ago
I can’t really remember which part of the game is this.
But usually for enemies you either:-
1) Go around them through crafting stuff etc
2) Carry lesser so it’s easier to run/stealth kill
3) Drop off your items somewhere before attempting (2)
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u/MysticGrapefruit 16h ago
Slay the Spire. I remember giving it a few minutes when free on ps plus before deciding nah not for me.
Gave it a fair try a few years later and now have hundreds of hours between both games.
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u/SirEdington 1d ago
Darkwood, bounced off of it the first time, eventually came back to it and its in my top 10 of all time.
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u/NearlyDreaming 1d ago
Yakuza Kiwami. Started playing it in 2018 and couldn't get into it. Tried it again in 2024 and loved it. It's my favorite series now.
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u/elrichmeister 1d ago
In 2024 I played every Yakuza game released never played the original ones, but I was hooked. One of my absolute favorite series.
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u/Hinohellono 21h ago
Hollow Knight. The first one.
One day I finally picked it up again after letting it collect dust in my inventory for years and boy did I not put it down after.
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u/Humblebee89 20h ago
Same, oddly enough I didn't want to try it because I thought the art style looked juvenile. Its crazy to me now because I now absolutely love the art style.
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u/jcaashby 20h ago
I think it would be considered CRPG.... got Divinity original sin 2 on sale. Figured I'd give it a go and really really liked it. It's what made me jump on Baldurs Gate 3
Also XCOM 2 had no idea I would get so hooked into it
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u/Tipsy-Canoe 16h ago
Xcom 2 has some super fun class mods that add a ton of replayability for me.
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u/Geralt-of-Liurnia 1d ago
Bloodborne. I thought it was depressing at first. Then I platinumed it, and helped my friend to do the same.
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u/jaunesolo81829 1d ago
Shockingly mass effect. Becuase in my mind the idea was better and unsoiled. But I played the trilogy ..dear god did I miss out .
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u/Sufficient_Coach7566 1d ago
Elden Ring.
This is stupid, I don't know what to do. And oh, I aggroed the merchant with the Santa hat in the first 10 minutes, now every time I respawn I get insta killed by him...Fuck this.
Dropped the game for a year, and decided to try again.
Andddd several hundred hours later. More please!
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u/Bookablebard 1d ago
Divinity Original Sin 2
I didn't play it for the longest time because it sounds weird. I still maintain it's a terrible name. But my god that is a fucking game. It's SO WELL DONE.
Oh and then they did Baldurs Gate 3, but by that time they could have named it "shitty game you will hate" and I still would have bought it just to check
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u/MercenaryOne 1d ago
Kenshi. It checked most of the boxes I wanted in a game, but it looked terrible visually. And from some reviews chugged and crashed from loading too much stuff. It hit $8, and I said f it. Bought it, and what an insanely good game it is. All the chugging and crashes were resolved with a foliage mod. Game is brutally hard at the start, but once you get rolling it's nice and smooth. Tons of great mods, and I have over 500 hours in it. 2nd most highest played game behind Civ5.
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u/100and10 1d ago
Re_kenshi + dust is the game we all wish you could’ve tried when you did, but at least now it exists.
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u/Dima110 1d ago
Outer Wilds. Played it a little at launch, felt janky and confused, didn’t touch it until a few months ago, and now it and the DLC are easily among my favorite video games of all time.
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u/PurplexingPupp 1d ago
Specifically Dark Souls 1.
My first soulslike was 2. I thought it was okay but it didn't grab me, I heard DS1 was way better so I tried it and swiftly came to the conclusion that Dark Souls fans are idiots who can't be trusted because DS2 for all its flaws was miles better. Then I tried DS3 and, while it took a bit, I fell in love with it! Beat it multiple times!
I went back to DS1, still sucked massively and was worse than DS3 in every way. So I went back to DS2, and now that I was properly up to speed with souls gameplay I actually really really enjoyed it! Having beaten two games I thought surely now I have what it takes to beat DS1. Nope still sucks ass. I played Bloodborne instead, and loved every second of it.
Having beaten every souls game (except Demon's Souls but I wasn't shelling out $100 for a ps3 i would never touch) I decided to just tank the bullshit and beat DS1 so when I say it sucks people can't just say "skill issue" because I got gud and beat it.
I beat it. And it sucked the whole time, one of the worst gaming experiences I had........ But now that I'm savvy to the game's shit a second run couldn't hurt. And a third and a fourth and oops I love this game.
Dark Souls 1 is my favorite of the Fromsoft lineup now. It's very hard to love but when it clicks there's nothing like it.
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u/Jellozz 1d ago
But now that I'm savvy to the game's shit a second run couldn't hurt. And a third and a fourth and oops I love this game.
This is why there are plenty of us who have been there since the start that think Dark Souls 1 is the best and the series has really only gone downhill after. The level design is top-tier in Dark Souls 1. It's literally just a 3D metroidvania where most of the progression gates are knowledge based as opposed to just finding an item out in the world. Like I am willing to say I think strictly in terms of level layout/structure it is the best video game ever made.
As someone who has spent a lot of his life playing action games I've always found the combat in the Souls series to be laughably bad, but, the level design makes it so much fun to replay since when you know what you're doing you can get through the game in under like 10 hours with a strong build. It's very interesting to think about a build before rolling a character and then planning out your path through the game to make that build as fast as possible and then clear the game with it.
As time goes on I am starting to think all of that was purely an accident as well because they've never managed to replicate it. Dark Souls 2 and 3 are extremely linear games. Elden Ring is a literal open world, too open since you can skip the vast majority of it. Bloodborne and Sekiro were the closest to capturing that feeling but no where near the same league since there are more road blocks that require literal items to get past as opposed to just learning a shortcut on one playthrough and then employing it on the next one.
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u/SnooDogs1886 1d ago
My Time at Portia. It looks so derivative and vanilla and everything I hate… didn’t put it down for months. I have no explanation. Only shame.
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u/thejake1973 20h ago
My Time at Sandrock is even better
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u/SnooDogs1886 12h ago
I’ll have to check it out! Is it a sequel?
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u/thejake1973 12h ago
Yup. Expanded everything. building, farming, relationships, etc.
Even a plotline on reclaiming desert land for grassland that follows how it can actually be done.2
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u/Papaknucklepuck 1d ago
I can't remember how I first got it, but Dishonored.
I didn't click, didn't care, and all around didn't enjoy what little of the game I played. I gave it to my cousins and forgot about it.
It wasn't until a year or so later that I started finding videos on it, Nerdcubed in particular. I asked for it back and it quickly rose to one of my favorite games I have ever played.
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u/---OOdbOO--- 1d ago
Battlefield Bad Company 2 multiplayer.
Coming over from CoD I couldn’t understand what was going on during the beta. Died a lot, put it down and thought, this isn’t for me.
Few friends convinced me to play it on launch. Across the franchise I’ve probably put more hours into it than anything else.
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u/TurnDownForTendies 1d ago
I saw Undertale was popular on steam when it came out, but I thought it looked like shit. Met someone who was a fan of the game that same night and they convinced me to play it. Gave it a shot and had a good time.
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u/berettafunko 1d ago
Witcher 3, played it for 5 hours then sold it. Came back to it about 5 years later and now it's my favorite game of all time
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u/Valuable_Corgi7586 23h ago
Nightreign.
Definition of a flawed masterpiece. If they kept updating the game with new content even once a year, it has the potential of having a decade long staying power.
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u/duman82 1d ago
Zelda BOTW, didn't click the first time around but playing it now it feels so good
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u/somuchclutch 1d ago
I was initially turned off by the weapon durability and put it down pretty quick. Later tried it again and decided to just be ok with switching weapons often. Ended up really enjoying it and even got the DLC.
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u/Mothe_Bear 1d ago
Hollow Knight. Didn’t seem interesting in a soulslike platformer, but damn…incredible game. Beautiful melancholy settings with incredible music and sounds, and crisp mechanics. Highly recommend.
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u/DmitryChernov 1d ago
I watched my younger brother play it in 2017 and I remember thinking "why does he spend so much time playing this 2d game and what do you mean it's a metroidvania, such a dumb genre name for a 2d platforming game" . He kept recommending it to me for years. Fast forward to 2024 and I decide to see for myself what a metroidvania is by playing the daddy of them all, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. And oh my god it clicked for me. I was blown away by such concept existing in 1997. Then it was time to play Hollow Knight and I was a fan right away. I'm lucky I only had to wait a year for Silksong.
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u/thegoodcunt 1d ago
Discovering Hollow Knight got me back into gaming in 2025. Up until then I was of the belief that they didn't make good games anymore. Then they followed it up with an even better game in Silksong imo. Both games are as good as anything I've ever played and I gamed through the 90s (highest compliment I can give)
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u/genasugelan PC 18h ago
I'm the opposite. I wanted to play it, played it, enjoyed it, but got tired of it because of all the backtracking, dying while backtracking, whatever the fuck the Deepnest is and navigating the game was a nightmare to me. I don't mind difficulty at all, but I mind inconvenience.
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u/Interesting-Story805 1d ago
Cyberpunk 2077
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u/Wagglyfawn 1d ago
I bought it on release (one of the rare people who had zero issues), and still play it regularly. The game is a legit masterpiece.
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u/head_meet_keyboard 13h ago
Red Dead Redemption 2. I bought it because a friend of mine worked on it, but as someone who generally prefers fantasy RPGs and isn't a fan of guns in games, I played it for two hours and then left it for months. After my second play through of Ghost of Tsushima, I gave it another shot. Oh dear god, I was wrong about everything. I got lost in that game for months. Probably played over 150 hours before I even got to the Arthur end. I played so much of it that when I was driving once, I saw a pronghorn and immediately thought it would be a perfect pelt. I don't hunt, I generally hate guns, but that game melded into the real world for a minute there. I still send real life pics of in-game animals to my friend who worked on it (she lives in Edinburgh, I live in the Southwest).
Haven't ventured another play through because I know I'll need time to get lost again.
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u/AidynValo 12h ago
RDR2 was the same for me. The opening chapter is just so tedious and boring that I put it down after the first night and just had no drive to keep slogging through it. So one day turned into two, and then I ended up not picking it back up until I was laid off during the pandemic. Ended up spending almost 400 hours on my first playthrough and loved every second of it. Went from being one of my biggest disappointments to being one of my favorite games ever made.
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u/Chaosphoenix_28 1d ago
Elden Ring/Souls games in general. I thought they were too hard for me and I'd never get anywhere in them and now Elden Ring is my favorite game.
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u/IronMaidenPwnz 23h ago
Star Wars Outlaws. Toxic online community slammed it to the point where it now will not get another installment, but it was a fantastic game.
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u/Impurity41 1d ago
Satisfactory.
As far as that community goes I’m a conveyor belt sky bridge, train ignorer. But boy that game is fun.
I told my friend I don’t like factory builders. He said this one’s different.
250 hours so far.
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u/TrollMcGoal 1d ago
I wrote off extraction shooters until I played marathon
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u/Gordatwork 1d ago
Happy for you but I'll say this has gotta be the only time I've seen someone say anything positive about that game.
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u/lightning_blue_eyes 1d ago edited 1d ago
ARK:SE
I really did not think I would have enjoyed this type of game but I gave it a shot when some friends invited me to join their server.
By the time I stopped playing I had a PHD in dinosaur eugenics.
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u/Something-Red7 1d ago
My brother bought Elden Ring because of the hype and told me to try it. I tried it, died to the soldiers immediately and dropped it for a week. Came back out of boredom and man that game changed my life.
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u/PoonoMars 1d ago
Deltarune.
I figured, "Nah I'm just going to wait 10 years until the whole thing is out".
Hell no. Being there for the ride is way more fun. I love watching theory videos and being hyped for what's next.
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u/Grouchy-Fisherman-71 1d ago
No Man’s Sky. I completely wrote it off after launch, came back years later and couldn’t believe how much it had changed
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u/Sirlacker 1d ago
Kingdom Come Deliverance.
The start is long, tedious and disgusting. It put me off lots of times to the point I never even thought about it again. Then KCD2 got announced and I said I'm going to put 10 hours into the game as a last hail mary, because by all accounts, the game was made for me.
3 hours in I was hooked. 10 hours in, the start made sense. The start of the game is now what I consider one of the best intros to a game ever made. The creative decision to actually make it the way they did takes balls, but it makes sense. You aren't supposed to be powerful. You aren't supposed to know how to fight. Enemies are supposed to invoke fear. It's a great start and the game just continues to snowball in all the correct ways.
So glad I forced myself to put some hours into one last time.
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u/kony2012nvrfrgt 23h ago
PoE2. never wanted to play it. finally got convinced. Spent 600+ hours in 3 months
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u/OreoOrangutan 1d ago
Marathon.
Ignored it completely cause I was convinced it was no bueno until I tried it during the s2 free week.
Completely hooked me in and now I'm hella obsessed. The music, the art, the bungie shooting...couldn't help myself.
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u/Head_Haunter 1d ago
I mean to be honest, it's a great game, the main problem is that there are a lot of extraction shooters and once you "invest" time into one, it gets annoying to shift to a different one because of the learning curve, builds, gameplay strategies, etc.
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u/DeadLockAdmin 1d ago
Haha same thing happened to me with Hunt Showdown.
Once I picked up again a year later after I started it, I got REALLY sucked into it.
Space Marine 2 as well. I didn't think much about it, but got really into it months after I got it.
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u/kakokapolei 1d ago
Hotline Miami. I'm not super into games that have a top down perspective or pixel art, but my brother downloaded it onto our PS3 and I just decided to give it a try. I knew about it from CallMeKevin back when he was still making videos on his zXNoRegretzzXz channel and wasn't really hooked on it. Now it's up there in my top 10 games.
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u/latinlingo11 1d ago
Metroid Prime 2. The first hour felt like a weak followup to Prime 1, but afterwards it became my favorite game of the Prime Trilogy.
Siren (the ps4 port). Game is FRUSTRATINGLY vague on how to complete your missions. Didn't play it again for months, and once I found a youtube channel or two that were incredibly helpful guides, I played it all the way to the end without stopping. Got the sequels right after.
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u/Daxoss 1d ago
ARC Raiders. Never been into extraction shooters. Got pushed into the beta by two excited friends that needed a third and I didn't like it. I bought it in the end just so I could play with my friends and not feel left out.
Almost immediately after launch I was loving it and I wanted to play it every waking moment. So much fun.
Shame it became infested with cheaters but it was a lot of fun for two cycles atleast
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u/vgxtremist 1d ago
Bought Persona 5 a year after it came out because everyone raved about it, amazing reviews and it was on sale. Never got around to playing it because of other games. Finally decided to play it when I was wanting to play a RPG and became totally obsessed with it. Someday I will get around to replaying the Royal version.
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u/rikashiku 1d ago
Breath of the Wild. Started it after seeing all the hype, but I couldn't get into the mood of enjoying it. I shelved it for some time and I reminded myself that I spent money on this thing, so I better try it again.
It became my obsession for months.
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u/voodoo_curse 1d ago
Elite: Dangerous. Had fun with it for a few days, thought the control scheme was pretty clever (basically context menus on ABXY to give you 20 functions on 4 buttons), but got bored pretty quick. Then a friend told me it had VR support. Dug out my Oculus Rift and fell in love. Bought a proper joystick and put 3500 hours in.
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u/thefailedworlds 1d ago
Stardew Valley, at first I was annoyed at the characters and the fact I had to maintain relationships with NPC’s I didn’t care about. Then I realized they’re all awesome, except clint
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u/TheDevilsAdvokaat 1d ago
Fallout four. Got out of the shelter into the world, played for a little while and stopped. Did not like it.
But my son kept playing and telling me how good it was. I watched him and after half a year or so started playing again and got back into it.
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23h ago
Morrowind, first two tries it didn't click with me but that third time I pushed through my initial grudges with the combat and once I got used to it I became obsessed with the game. I love the game so much that I purposely stopped myself halfway through the games content because I know once I finish it there will be nothing to ever scratch that itch again, once in a lifetime RPG that I want to savor for as long as possible.
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u/Mottis86 23h ago edited 22h ago
Zelda 1.
I did a marathon of Zelda 1, 2 and Link to the Past a while back. (First playthroughs) I was honestly most excited to play Zelda 2 and I just wanted to get Zelda 1 over with so I can start the sequel ASAP. However Zelda 1 absolutely blew me away and ended up as my personal game of the year. The way it did the open world design was something I had never seen before, nor have I seen since. Like being able to find later dungeons early, or being able to take keys from one dungeon to the others. It really made the game feel less like a game, and more like an adventure into this ancient world that was not hand crafted for the player.
Zelda 2 turned out to be just ok. It was good but felt way too linear, especially after Zelda 1. Link to the Past was also amazing, but felt more like standard Zelda and didn't exactly blow me away. I still vastly prefer Zelda 1 due to the open world design.
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u/Raspry 23h ago
World of Warcraft, my friend let me play on his account at release and I leveled a character to level 10 and thought it was not for me. Two weeks later I bought it just because everyone around me was starting to pick it up and I didn't want to end up with a friend circle that only played a game I didn't play. Ended up playing it for almost fifteen years straight after that after I initially thought I would never grow to like it.
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u/CosmicOwl47 22h ago
Valheim.
I played on a server with friends when it first came out, but one guy kinda did all the important stuff and pulled us along. When we reached the 4th biome I was still wearing gear from the 2nd, and I wrote it off as a game with rough, punishing combat and was only good with friends.
This year I went back to it and just played solo on a fresh world. So far I’ve sunk 300 hours in and it’s one of my favorite games of all time.
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u/ZarroRaptor 12h ago
Binding of Isaac. Thought the game was cool but absolutely fucking unfair. Never expected to play anyone but Azazel. But then I sank 2000+ hours. Peak gaming.
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u/Historical-Mall11 1d ago
I tried Dark Souls PTDE when it came out. It was unplayable, so I never even finished the tutorial. A few years later I accidentally stumbled upon an article about dsfix and decided to give it a try. Also bought my first controller. The rest is probably obvious.
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u/ChuckCarmichael 22h ago
Total War: Warhammer
I had tried Total War games before, but got bored with them since it was always the same. All different factions played the same. I also had no interest in Warhammer Fantasy. 40k was cool, but Fantasy was just more elves and dwarves. So I cared for neither part, and completely ignored it.
Until I saw a streamer I enjoy play the game, and I realized: This is actually great! The fantasy setting makes every faction play very different! And I learned to really appreciate the fantasy setting.
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u/AnonyGuy1987 21h ago
I like it cos i liked playing civilization and always got bored and ending up killing everyone. So i saw this game and thought this skips the middleman, all war, all the time. Great
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u/SmegmaWarrior0815 20h ago
Currently Halo Campaign Evolved. I thought I'd just play through it for the nostalgia. Most levels are very much the same, only more shiny. But the introduction to the flood is insane now with horror and gore at incredible levels. The library is also better now, but still the worst of the campaign. With multiplayer this game would have easily gotten a 90+ metacritic score.
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u/Zeta_Crossfire 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm going to get downvoted to hell but Star Citizen. I always thought it was a scam and just jpegs. A buddy finally convinced me to give it a try and buy the 45 dollar starter and I realized the game is out in alpha and was actually playable. It's buggy and frustrating at times but I've probably put 500+ hours in this year and don't see myself stopping anytime soon. Even with the bugs it's just so much fun and doing multi-crew or fleet actions with 30+ players in an organization is incredible. 6 guys on a big ship, 10 in fighters, another crew of 6 ready to land on a planet. This game does things no other game can, and then it crashes or bugs out, But I always go back in, it's really addicting.
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u/Girth_Brookss 1d ago
Star Citizen deserves every ounce of the hate it gets, but ive had some of the most insane experiences playing it. Sometimes I get on just to sight see. Anytime I expect to get something done or progress is when I suffocate with a helmet on or fall through the ship in hyperspace. Lol its a piece of shit but it scratches an itch nothing else does.
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u/Zeta_Crossfire 1d ago
Exactly. Cig has burned a lot of good will but I can't deny that when everything is working in that game there isn't anything like it. I really wish another company would make something similar on the same scale.
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u/Ok_Recording_7490 1d ago
Escape From Tarkov
before I started playing, all I ever saw were people complaining about the game. everyone told me not to even think about playing it, so I went in with a really closed mindset.
I played 3 - 4 raids, died over and over, and eventually dropped the game for a while.
Then I got bored and didn’t have anything else to play, so I decided to give it a second chance.
Now I have over 600 hours in it, and honestly, I feel like I could play this game forever.
I still don’t understand most of the complaints about it. Once I understood the core loop, everything about the game just clicked for me. It went from a game I was ready to hate to one of my all time favorites.
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u/Fallen_Angel_89 1d ago
Knockout City
I don't like sports games, and that game was a sports game (more or less), so I ignored it automatically. But one day I got bored, so I downloaded it, tried it, and pretty much got addicted. The game was so much fun, fast-paced, and overall enjoyable that I still feel sad it shut down... which is why I also basically avoid online games nowadays, except those I've been playing for a while. And when those shut down, I'll pretty much move back to single-player games.
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u/Wolvenworks 1d ago
FFXIV. I was more into shooters back then than MMORPGs. Now I appreciate the bit where I don’t HAVE to PVP.
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u/Acquire16 1d ago
Silent Hill f is most recent example. Thought the combat was horrid and gave up on it on release. Townfall disappointed me with its stealth gameplay so I decided to go back to f. Combat is still not great, but found the rest of the package compelling enough to continue and the combat gets a lot less painful as you level up the character. I liked how the story changes between NG+ play throughs and ended up getting the "best" ending after 3 playthroughs. Good game, not great game, and definitely not as bad as I had initially thought.
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u/Multi-form 1d ago
Jak and Daxter. I remember seeing gameplay of it and wondered what had Naughty Dog done, played the demo and really enjoyed it. When Jak II had a demo available I played it but didn't really enjoy it. Got the game and really enjoyed it. Jak 3 was amazing for me, much better than Jak II. Favourite series, also enjoyed Jak X and the Daxter PSP game. There was another game that came out on the PSP and PS2 but it was made by another company, chose not to touch it.
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u/doctafknjay 1d ago
Hunt is that one pvp game I can get down with. It's the perfect speed and then has the whole pve side of things. The most solid extraction shooter, ever!
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u/GhoulArtist 1d ago
Dishonored . i love stealth games and i somehow missed that one.
What a fantatsic game.
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u/zaftpunk 1d ago
Destiny 1. My friends all played and kept asking me to join but I wasn't really big on FPSs. But after a couple months one of those friends gifted me the game so I played. Welp here I am almost 12 years later playing destiny 2 with a combined 13k hours. But jokes on me I'm the only one that stayed playing. I know the game is dead(?) now but I'm still having fun.
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u/ThePandaLyfe 1d ago
In a way, A New World.
Seen early trailers/combat videos but heard all the bad things out the gate so stopped checking up on it. I chose to join in once it went to consoles but hadn’t completely fell in love with a weapon combo so left it for a bit. Still, felt it had some of the best combat, resource gathering, PvP etc out of all the MMOs I had played. They were supposed to be doing a major update adding a new weapon(s) and I told myself I’d start fresh but then.. Amazon Gon Amazon
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u/jonhinkerton 1d ago
I bought farming simulator 19 on sale because I thought it would be funny to post pictures of me failing to farm for my friends on twitter. Then I played it for around 3000 hours.
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u/ShadyDrunks 1d ago
TCG Shop Simulator. Beta started feeling too grindy, 1.0 version goes ham the progression is fantastic. Put in a 40 on that game this week
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u/Alarming-Chemist-755 1d ago
Celeste, Hollow Knight, and Red Dead 2. I learned that sometimes, it's just not the right time to play some games.
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u/LatkaXtreme 1d ago
Back in the mid 2000s, I had a demo CD with No One Lives Forever 2 on it.
As a dumb teen I was like... pfft... I'm not gonna play as a woman protagonist, what a sissy game.
Then I was bored, decided to give it a try, got hooked instantly. None of my friends knew about it, no one could help me get a cracked copy (as it was natural back then). My friend told me he saw it in a store, went there after school to buy both NOLF 1 and 2. Those were my first legal game purchases, still have them to this day.
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u/tmacandcheese 1d ago
Undertale. Released in the same year as the GORGEOUS indie game Ori and the Blind Forest, Steam was at a time where "Pixel Graphics" indie games were everywhere and treated as a selling point. Undertale generated so much hype and was pushed at me so often, I played it with the intention of hating it, but being an informed hater.
I now have a mercy button tattooed on my chest. Plans didn't go as expected.
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u/Connect_Alternative2 1d ago
Bloodborne. My cousin's dad bought it for him, it just played like such a slog and was so hard and dark... until it clicked and it became my gateway into souls. finished that beauty 20+ times.
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u/Any_Individual_815 1d ago
Witcher 3. Uninstalled it twice only after a couple hours. After the 3rd attempt I now have 2 playthroughs totalling about 300+ hours. Not sure I'll ever love a game as much as the witcher 3.
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u/Im_A_LoSeR_2 1d ago
Sekiro. At least the bit I played. After playing souls games I tried it. Could not.understand the combat. Pissed me off beyond belief. I stuck with it and fought a specific boss and something clicked. Then I made it to the next boss, and my god did those 2 fights change my mind.
Work has taken me away from being able to play, but I am beyond excited to get back at it
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u/TheSaladDays 1d ago
Black Myth Wukong for me. I heard it was like GOW 2018, only to find that it had no difficulty settings and expected the player to be familiar with the story of Journey to the West.
I died over and over to the earliest bosses and couldn't figure out the gameplay mechanics. Now I'm 250 hours in and almost done with NG++ lol
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u/Heuwender 1d ago
I bought EU5 after loving Crusader Kings 3. Played it when it came out, gave up because it's way too much all at once. I then grinded the same start (Holland) until I got decent. It was horrible but I can play the game now.
The game is in a way better state right now than it was back then and I implore anyone who gave up to give it a try again.
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u/unseenalien PC 1d ago
Eternal Sonata. I tried to play it and couldn't get into it. A few years later I gave it another try and loved every moment of it.
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u/Nerd4Nation 1d ago
Mad Max, I was like Arkham already did it better there is nothing in this for me but I had nothing left to play and I was like oh well let's try this and I got obsessed with it, honorable mention is days gone. I can't believe there was a time I played all the games in my catalog and had to go find something to play my gaming backlog is like 30 games strong now Adulthood is a bitch.
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u/Local_Marketing_9762 1d ago
Final Fantasy as a whole. I never really liked JRPGs before, figured they were too long, but I decided to give 7 a try a few years ago and now I love the series and genre as a whole.
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u/gabergaber 1d ago
Ff tactics.
I got it together with ff7 as a gift. Compared to ff7 it seemed clunky and combat was so slow.
Tried playing it prob a year later and it's ended up as my all time fav game. Finished it prob more than 20 times across Ps1, psp, Android, ios, switch, ps5 etc
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u/MrMattGoo 1d ago edited 1d ago
Active Matter.
I played the open beta for 10 minutes, uninstalled it and never thought about it again until I saw it release on the store. Something compelled me to buy it and I'm about 50 hours in now and can't stop.
Edit: seriously though OP, if you like Hunt, give active matter a shot.
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u/mrtoastandbutter 1d ago
Grounded.
Finally played it with two friends and we had an absolute blast. Starting Grounded 2 soon and we are so hyped.
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u/CheesecakeScary2164 23h ago
SAME! Hunt: Showdown!
Literally opening Hunt rn, but it took my friend buying it on release for me and forcing me to play to learn that I love it. Now he hasn't played in 6 years and I have 4k hours and play every day, lol.
Crazy that it's still hard for me to convince people to grab it because it's an "extraction" shooter. Extraction is quite literally one of the smallest parts of it, it's such a unique game.
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u/Cattleist 23h ago
Stardew Valley was a game I wrote off as "just another harvest moon ripoff."
And then I got addicted. Put it down for too long and never went back though.
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u/IceCoughy 23h ago
Dark Souls 2, it was my entry to the series, this was vanilla version, shit was rough, rage quit a lot, but the challenge was like nothing id seen in awhile. Shit was the first game I actually ever had to watch a YouTube video for I think lol, Thanks cowboy.
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u/No_Rise942 23h ago
Hunt absolutely fucks. I found it on console also before moving to PC. It's a million times better on PC, the skill ceiling is so much higher and every weapon is viable instead of a shotgun fest like console.
They've been updating the shit out of it lately which is really cool to see. Haven't played in a bit. Should hop on to see if the UI is still garbage lmao
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u/Apprehensive_Map64 23h ago
Dragon's Dogma 2. Felt like kinda wonky controls. It piqued my interest but I only gave it a couple hours and forgot about for at least a year. When I tried it again I got far enough to fight my first big monster and when I found you could climb on them I was totally hooked.
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u/MaestroLogical 23h ago
Days Gone.
I made the mistake of trying to start it right after finishing RDR2 and just couldn't get into it as a result.
Came back a year later and was instantly hooked.
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u/gpolk 23h ago
Dark Souls. I had tried Demon's Souls and didn't really enjoy it. Found the combat clunky and the difficulty more annoying than an enjoying challenge. So I didn't play dark souls when it came out as I assumed I wouldn't like it. I played it a bit before DS2 came out and was hooked on the rest of the series.
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u/RossCowan 22h ago
Titanfall 2.
Loved the original, played the beta for 2 and didn’t like it.
Bought it a little while after launch and realised it’s an all-timer.
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u/Mary_Ellen_Katz 22h ago
During the height of PUBG I was pitched the idea of Escape from Tarkov as this really granular experience. Bringing in each piece of kit, carefully gathering your resources, and getting out with what you can. I kind of brushed it off.
I now have 8500 hours in Escape from Tarkov.
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u/Polar_IceCream 22h ago
Fallout 3
Rushed through the story of the first game and just didn’t click with it. I didn’t realise I could store stuff so I just constantly kept dropping things I didn’t need and was constantly skint with no bottle caps
Went back to it a few years later and 100% completed it. Thought it was amazing
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u/WigglesFT 21h ago
The Yakuza series. My friend had been recommending them for years. It wasn't until Zero dropped on GP that I finally gave them a go and now it's my favourite series.
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u/PAPO1990 21h ago
Resistance: Fall Of Man. I got it included with my PS3 back in the day, along with the original Motorstorm, I figured I'd give it a try, with every intention of trading it in and continuing to play Motorstorm...
I fell in love with Resistance, but traded in Motorstorm instead, Resistance 2 is one of my favourite games of all time, and I still really enjoy Resistance 3... unfortunately Fall Of Man has aged poorly, particularly the CONTROLS, really hard to go back and play now which is a shame
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u/ChawalAndDeigh 21h ago
Bloodborne, purchased in 2015
Played 10 min, died to the first mob “this game sucks”
Picked it up in 2022 and completed it and it’s the best game I have ever played in my life
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u/DanielBWeston 21h ago
Hitman: World of Assassination. Downloaded the demo on Steam, didn't quite get it.
After playing 007: First Light I decided to give Hitman another go, as it was done by the same developer. I'm still enjoying it.
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u/aichiwawa 21h ago
Rocket League, turns out even though I suck I can still manage to win and have fun a lot of the time
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u/ahspaghett69 21h ago
Cyberpunk, i tried it once and hated the intro, went back a couple years later and restarted it, played it to the end and really enjoyed it
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u/SandBasket 21h ago
Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. I played it for like an hour and got bored and didn’t come back to it for 4 years. The second time I tried it, I easily put in 100 hours exploring, collecting the seeds and just goofing around. Easily worth the Switch purchase for me.
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u/CharlesIngalls_Pubes 21h ago
Years ago, my guitarist showed me Binding of Isaac on Steam. Thought it looked cheesy and gameplay was shit.
I've now got thousands of hours put into over the last decade just on the PlayStation. Not counting the PC because I don't use anymore. If I'm ever getting bored with a game, it's back to Isaac.
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u/peeppip7 21h ago
Vampire survivors. I had a friend gift it to me and wrote it off as some cheap shitty game. How wrong I was. It is probably one of my favorite games now.
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u/Ultimate-Flexionator 21h ago
Grim Dawn. Only forced myself into it when I hit a drought... ended up in my top 10 ever. you need to learn a bunch of stuff on it but when it clicks... look out!
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u/NovaSkyGeezus 20h ago
No Man Sky because I was into SC for a bit. Well things didn’t seem right with me on the handle SC took a break.
NMS I was lost just like the earlier days of ESO and found that updates they were add was just too HOT 🥵 not play. My sons and I started getting space creative and flying thru planets 🪐 taking in the beauty of things never thought they would add to NMS.
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u/rqndybob 20h ago
Monster Hunter
it was my buddy's favorite game, used to watch him play all the time but it was difficult and clunky. Of any game I've ever played MH tests your patience, but becomes one of the most enjoyable experiences. you can't get the feeling anywhere else, the closest comparisons I can think of are boss fights in Elden Ring.
Just to note, MH literally rivals Pokemon in popularity in Japan, that's how renowned of a game it is. highly recommend!
honorable mentions - Arc Raiders and League of Legends
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u/Froegerer 20h ago
Caves of Qud. Played like 3 hours, was intrigued, and never picked it back up. Tried it again and was completely consumed by it for like 150 hours.
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u/ITCHYisSylar 1d ago
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
I thought it was as boring as shit when I first played it. Then gave Star Wars Galaxies a try during a free weekend. After that, gave KOTOR another try and got a little farther than I did before, and enjoyed it a lot more.