For video gamers, 2015 was a very good year. Not only did the year bring some of the most anticipated titles of the decade, but many of those games were from independent developers.
Take The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. CD Projekt Red isn't a AAA studio, but it somehow managed to create a game that surpassed what many larger studios have released recently. Add to that Techland's Dying Light, and you've got a year full of big releases from independent developers.
However, there were other independent studios releasing great games this year, too. And here are some of the best releases of games you may or may not have played yet.
SOMA
Developer: Frictional Games
Release Date: Sept. 22, 2015
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
SOMA comes from the minds that brought Amnesia: Dark Descent and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, so no one was too surprised that Frictional delivered another great game. Although it doesn't have the same kind of scares familiar to Amnesia players, SOMA creates a creepy environment and storyline that stays with players long after the first playthrough.
In SOMA, players control Simon Jarrett, a man who inexplicably finds himself trapped in an underwater laboratory called PATHOS-II. He must make his way through the laboratory by exploring and solving puzzles to uncover the truth of what's happened to him. That truth comes early in the story, which makes the game all that more eerie.
Ultimately, SOMA is a game about what being human means, and through the journey of the game, players will ask that question of themselves, especially after the game's surreal ending.
What's most fascinating about SOMA is that the game's big surprise comes early in the story, but it only drives Simon forward, forcing him to question his moral compass.
Missing: Episode One
Developer: Zandel Media
Release Date: May 25, 2015
Platforms: PC, iOS
This year marked the beginning of the "interactive movie as video game" trend. Games like Her Story and Missing took players through live-action scenarios and forced players to make decisions that affected how the next scenes played out. Even AAA title Until Dawn created its games around choices, heading up the trend. Missing hails back to the 1990s full-motion adventure games (such as Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within), using live actors and live sets. Players must solve puzzles and find items, all the while making choices that progress each character through the story.
The first episode of Missing, which released in October, is a 45-minute 100 percent live-action game that has players solving puzzles, finding hidden objects, reacting appropriately during action scenes and eluding capture, with every choice made affecting the outcome of the next scene. Although it's a standard point-and-click adventure, it presents itself in a way that makes it unique.
Everybody's Gone To The Rapture
Developer: The Chinese Room
Release Date: Aug. 11, 2015
Platforms: PlayStation 4
What would you do if someone tasked you with exploring a small English town where everyone disappeared? That's the question asked in Everybody's Gone to the Rapture by The Chinese Room, the developer behind the critically praised Dear Esther. Although some critics didn't consider Everybody's Gone to the Rapture a video game because it lacks traditional gameplay elements, many praised the title for its original concept that has players interacting with floating lights that reveal important story elements.
Ultimately, the player must wander through this town, randomly clicking on those lights, as well as objects, to discover what happened to the people who once lived there.
"Immerse yourself in a rich, deep adventure from award-winning developer The Chinese Room and investigate the last days of Yaughton Valley," reads the game's official website. "Uncover the traces of the vanished community; discover fragments of events and memories to piece together the mystery of the apocalypse."
Tales From The Borderlands
Developer: Telltale Games
Release Date: Nov. 25, 2014 (first episode)
Platforms: Android, iOS, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
Technically, the first episode of Tales from the Borderlands released in late November 2014, but the other four episodes came out this year, including the fifth and last in October. It's a sure bet that when Telltale takes on a story, players will get a compelling game, but its partnership with Gearbox Software to tackle a story set in the Borderlands universe makes this one a sure win right out of the gate.
Tales from the Borderlands takes place on the planet Pandora, a familiar setting to Borderlands fans. The story follows two characters: Rhys, a Hyperion company man, and Fiona, a con artist from Pandora. The two come together thanks to a vault key (said vault supposedly contains massive treasure).
Most importantly, though, Tales from the Borderlands allows players to craft the story by making specific choices throughout gameplay. Those choices affect the outcome of later scenarios in the game, as well as determine the ending. However, unlike the usual grim stories from Telltale (The Walking Dead, for example), this title also has a lot of the kind of humor associated with the Borderlands games by Gearbox.
Three Fourths Home
Developer: Bracket Games
Release Date: March 20, 2015
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One
Set in the farmlands of Nebraska, Three Fourths Home follows a 20-year-old young woman, Kelly, as she drives home during a thunderstorm. However, what makes this game so unique is that the narrative gameplay focuses on conversations that Kelly has with her family while driving through rural Nebraska.
"Three Fourths Home is a look into a specific moment of these characters' lives and their relationships with one another," writes Bracket Games on its website. "The narrative touches on a variety of issues affecting Kelly and her family, including disability, adulthood, familial obligation, nostalgia, and loss."
Gamespresso wrote that Three Fourths Home challenges the very concept of what a video game really is.
"It requires the most basic button presses to operate, but the game itself goes so much deeper than that," wrote the site in its review. "Completely abandoning the context of what people may think a game should be, Three Fourths Home goes off on its own and tells the story it wants to tell."
