Sonic Heroes is a 2003 platform game developed by Sonic Team USA and published by Sega as part of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. The player races a team of series characters through levels to amass rings, defeat robots, and collect the seven Chaos Emeralds needed to defeat Doctor Eggman. Within each level, the player switches between the team's three characters, who each have unique abilities, to overcome obstacles. Sonic Heroes downplays the action-adventure and exploration-based gameplay of its predecessors Sonic Adventure (1998) and Sonic Adventure 2 (2001) in favor of returning to the linear style of Sega Genesis-era Sonic games.
Sonic Adventure 2 is a 2001 platform game developed by Sonic Team USA and published by Sega for the Dreamcast. It features two good-vs-evil stories: Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower, and Knuckles the Echidna attempt to save the world, while Shadow the Hedgehog, Doctor Eggman, and Rouge the Bat attempt to conquer it. The stories are divided into three gameplay styles: fast-paced platforming for Sonic and Shadow, third-person shooting for Tails and Eggman, and action-adventure exploration for Knuckles and Rouge. Like previous Sonic the Hedgehog games, the player completes levels while collecting rings and defeating enemies. Outside the main gameplay, they can interact with Chao, a virtual pet, and compete in multiplayer battles.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is a 2002 action-adventure video game developed by Silicon Knights and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. It was produced and directed by Denis Dyack. The game follows the story of several characters across a period of two millennia and four different locations on Earth, as they contend with an ancient evil who seeks to enslave humanity. The gameplay distinguishes itself with unique "sanity effects", visual and audial effects that confuse the player and often break the fourth wall.
Half-Life 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It was published for Windows on Valve's digital distribution service, Steam. Like the original Half-Life (1998), Half-Life 2 is played entirely from a first-person viewpoint, combining shooting, puzzles, and storytelling. It adds features such as vehicles and physics-based gameplay. The player controls Gordon Freeman, who joins a resistance to liberate Earth from the Combine, a multidimensional alien empire.
Shadow the Hedgehog is a 2005 platform game developed by Sega Studios USA and published by Sega. It is a spin-off from the Sonic the Hedgehog series starring the character Shadow. It follows the amnesiac Shadow's attempts to learn about his past during an alien invasion. Gameplay is similar to previous Sonic games, featuring fast-paced platforming and ring collecting, but introduces third-person shooter and nonlinear elements. Shadow uses a variety of weapons to defeat enemies and complete missions that determine the plot and playable levels.
Frostbite is a game engine developed by DICE, designed for cross-platform use on Microsoft Windows, seventh generation game consoles PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, eighth generation game consoles PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch and ninth generation game consoles PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, in addition to usage in the now defunct cloud streaming service Google Stadia.
FlatOut is a series of action demolition derby/racing video games created by Finnish independent video game developer Bugbear Entertainment. The FlatOut series has sold a total of almost 3 million units worldwide. After Bugbear developed FlatOut: Head On, Dutch video game developer Team6 Game Studios developed the next three games in the series, which are the Windows-exclusive FlatOut 3 and two spin-offs on Wii and Android. Kylotonn developed the series' fourth installment, FlatOut 4: Total Insanity, which was released on March 17, 2017 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in Europe and May 2 in the United States. In 2024, Flat2VR Studios announced a remake of FlatOut (2004) for Meta Quest, PSVR2, and SteamVR.
Ronimo Games was a Dutch video game developer founded in 2007 by former students of the Utrecht School of the Arts.
A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through the eyes of the main character. This genre shares multiple common traits with other shooter games, and in turn falls under the action games category. Since the genre's inception, advanced 3D and pseudo-3D graphics have proven fundamental to allow a reasonable level of immersion in the game world, and this type of game helped pushing technology progressively further, challenging hardware developers worldwide to introduce numerous innovations in the field of graphics processing units. Multiplayer gaming has been an integral part of the experience, and became even more prominent with the diffusion of internet connectivity in recent years.
Just Add Water (Development) Limited is an independent video game developer based in Leeds, England. Founded by Stewart Gilray in 2006, Just Add Water has worked on titles for the PlayStation 3 and Windows, notably the Oddworld series. They have teamed up with Oddworld Inhabitants to recreate the series in high definition as well as working on new installments in the series.
Batman: Arkham is a superhero action-adventure video game series based on the DC Comics character Batman, developed by Rocksteady Studios, WB Games Montréal and Camouflaj, and published originally by Eidos Interactive and currently by Warner Bros. Games. The franchise consists of four main installments and a spin-off, along with four smaller titles for mobile devices, two virtual reality games, tie-in comic books, and an animated film. The continuity established by the games is often referred to as the Arkhamverse.
Night Dive Studios, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Vancouver, Washington and a subsidiary of Atari SA. The company is known for obtaining rights to abandonware video games, updating them for compatibility with modern platforms, and re-releasing them via digital distribution services, supporting preservation of older games. Many of the company's releases use the internally developed KEX Engine.
CastleStorm is a 2013 game developed by Zen Studios for Xbox 360, Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and Wii U. A remastered version titled CastleStorm: Definitive Edition was released in 2014 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A free-to-play mobile version titled CastleStorm: Free to Siege was released in 2014 for Amazon, Android, and iOS. The game also received a virtual reality adaptation for Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, and PlayStation VR. A sequel titled CastleStorm 2 was released on July 31, 2020.
Ark: Survival Evolved is a 2017 action-adventure survival video game developed by Studio Wildcard. In the game, players must survive being stranded on one of several maps filled with roaming dinosaurs, fictional fantasy monsters, and other prehistoric animals, natural hazards, and potentially hostile human players.
Jumanji is an American media franchise, based on the children's book Jumanji (1981) and its sequel Zathura (2002), written by Chris Van Allsburg. The first film was produced by TriStar Pictures, and subsequent films by Columbia Pictures, both subsidiaries of Sony Pictures. The franchise follows the adventures of various people who find themselves imperiled when playing an enchanted game that comes with a variety of dangerous jungle elements that the players must survive as they play. Ultimately, the only way to end the disruptions is to finish the game while enduring its dangers.
Ittle Dew 2 is an action-adventure game developed by Swedish indie studio Ludosity and originally published by Nicalis, and the sequel to the 2013 title Ittle Dew. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 15, 2016. An updated version of the game titled Ittle Dew 2+ was released for the Nintendo Switch on November 14, 2017; the updated content was eventually released on the Windows version on May 26, 2019. The Switch is the only platform that received a physical release of the game.
Islanders is a casual city-building game developed and published by German indie game studio Grizzly Games. It was initially released on Steam for Microsoft Windows on 4 April 2019, and support for macOS and Linux was added in June that year. A version for consoles was released for Nintendo Switch on 11 August 2021 and PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on 26 August 2021. This version was published by Coatsink, which announced it had acquired the franchise from Grizzly Games in May 2022. A version for the Meta Quest line of virtual reality headsets was released on 28 September 2023.
Kona is a 2017 adventure video game developed by the Canadian studio Parabole and published by Ravenscourt. Set in October 1970, the game centers on Carl Faubert, a private investigator, who arrives at a snowy town in Nord-du-Québec, only to find the place deserted with something that is lurking around. A sequel, Kona II: Brume, was released in 2023.
The ninth generation of video game consoles began in November 2020 with the releases of Microsoft's Xbox Series X and Series S console family and Sony's PlayStation 5.
