8 Action Games From Popular Developers That Go Under the Radar

Every video game developer has to start somewhere. It’s just a fact of life.

For example, long before Elden Ring, FromSoftware was making games like Lost Kingdoms. There are also random games by iconic developers that you may have forgotten. Did you know that BioWare made a Sonic the Hedgehog RPG for the Nintendo DS?

It’s a perfect microcosm of the video game industry: even the biggest developers have tons of games under their belt that most people probably don’t know about. In the world of action games, these are lesser-known games from some of the biggest studios in the industry.

8

The King’s Garden

From the First Software Game

As I said from Software, this seems like a good place to start.

Their first title was King’s Field, an action RPG that looks a lot like what you’d expect from The Elder Scrolls franchise. It was only released in Japan despite good reviews.

In FromSoftware fashion, one of the game’s hallmarks is its difficulty. Oh, if only we knew what the future would hold.

7

MDK2

Back then Bioware didn’t make an RPG

Everyone knows BioWare as one of the best developers in video game history when it comes to delivering great RPGs. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, these are all iconic and popular games.

MDK2 isn’t one of those things, but it’s still part of BioWare’s past. It was actually a great game, but it had the bad luck of being a Dreamcast timed only.

The PS2 version was released in 2001, and the Nintendo Wii was also released in 2011.

6

You

Developed by Bungie, Published by Rockstar Games

While working at GameStop in the mid-2000s, there was a PlayStation 2 game that caught my attention.

Oni is a third-person action game that fails to come close to something like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden. However, it wasn’t the game that caught my eye.

Rather, it was a name on a box. Given their history, you’d expect a game developed by Bungie and published by Rockstar to be the biggest thing in the world. This was before the two became industry giants, however.

5

Heroes

Rockstar’s Cult Classic Game based on the Cult Classic Movie

The 1979 film The Warriors is a stylish, cool, and slightly over the top cult classic. When word got around that Rockstar was developing an action beat ’em up based on the movie, there was a lot of buzz.

Going back to my GameStop days again, I remember a trailer playing on our in-store VHS featuring Cyrus’ iconic monologue. Throw in that Rockstar presentation, and you have the makings of a bona fide cult classic.

The Warriors’ PS4 version is backwards compatible with the PS5, but for some reason, the same cannot be said for the Xbox.

4

Blackthorn

Blizzard’s Long-Lost Platformer

Although Blackthorne was not Blizzard’s first game, it is undoubtedly the first game that looks like a Blizzard game.

The action platformer is undeniably cool and full of style, helping to give it an edge over similar games. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always translate to success, which is one reason why Blackthorne isn’t heralded as something like The Lost Vikings.

That said, it’s still worth checking out to take a trip down memory lane and take a look at Blizzard’s past.

3

Boktai: The sun is in your hand

Produced by Hideo Kojima

Although not an official Hideo Kojima game, Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand is still produced by the man himself.

An action-adventure RPG for the Game Boy Advance, Boktai makes full use of the cartridge’s light sensor as a gameplay element. It makes sense, since the game is about fighting vampires.

Add in a dash of stealth action, and you have one of the most unique games you’ll ever play.

2

Shellshock: Nam ’67

Classic Guerrilla Shooter

There was something in the water in the 2000s that helped usher in seemingly countless generic shooters.

It’s not just WWII shooters, either. Vietnam had a chance to “shine” for a while. In 2004 Battlefield Vietnam was released at the beginning of the year, a game I really enjoyed. The same cannot be said for Shellshock: Nam ’67, which was as vague as possible.

That same year, however, Guerrilla would release another shooter that saw even more success: Killzone.

1

Song of the Deep

Action-adventure for Insomniac Published by…GameStop?

Insomniac’s history between the conclusion of the Resistance franchise and the first Marvel’s Spider-Man game is, to put it mildly, strange.

Yes, there are a handful of Ratchet & Clank games in there, as well as the Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive, but there are a lot of random games that everyone either forgot about or never realized were a thing.

One of them is 2016’s Song of the Deep, released for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Metroidvania came and went without much fanfare. Heck, the most notable part of the game is that it was published by GameStop.