Just thought it might be interesting to have a thread to talk about and plug our favorite lesser-known and underrated games, past and present. Some months back I had noticed and commented on social media how that, in recent years, almost everything I’ve been really enjoying and promoting has been smaller indie stuff – enjoying and talking about a few AAAs as well of course but it is definitely weighted the other way. And frankly, I WANT to plug indies, might be good to have a place where we can put stuff on each other’s radars, even if just a few of us are in here in OT.
On the hidden gems, the one I always bring up first when this topic comes up is from a decade ago – The Saboteur. I still get itchings to go back to this game sometimes. Think GTA in Occupied France, with the most badass and hilarious lead you can imagine, and an incredible detailed (though not overly huge) map that does an amazing job with color usage. This video, the hilarity and the music, is a good intro to it – 
Currently, one really hidden but wonderful one I’m enjoying is Farm Together. It is the most relaxing, chill experience, between the gameplay and music. I’ve played a ton of farming games, only knocks you could really make on it are that if you are looking for challenge there isn’t any, can’t kill off anything, just delay it, and it isn’t too deep – no NPCs and shallow quests.
On the underrated stuff, my opinion sways towards a type of game I have a real soft spot for: Eurojank. The big one on this is Arcania: Gothic 4, I just don’t get some of the horrible reviews, truly. The game has great atmosphere, is IMO quite fun, played through it several times, interesting and funny lines at times. Also love the Risen series and the Two Worlds games – even the first, the exploration was quite good and the crafting was as well. More recently, Elex was enjoyable though I didn’t finish – even on the easiest setting, extremely punishing at the outset, but so rewarding when you did progress, and just loved the hand-crafted map with all the little goodies to find.
One I keeping my eye on for the future is Peace Island: as the creator describes it, Fallout with cats!
Great possibilities for creation on all the neat planets, towns and dungeons to explore, very useful and cool blueprinting and pasting feature, items and NPCs and creatures in the world can be saved and spawned at will once unlocked.