What are your favorite "gotta go in blind" games?
What are your favorite "gotta go in blind" games?
Which games blow your mind, but only if you know nothing about them in advance?
Best examples I can think of are:
- Outer Wilds
- Doki Doki Literature Club
- The Stanley Parable
What are yours?
(please no spoilers)
You should go into Nier: Automata thinking it's a game about a hot chick fighting a bunch of robots. The only spoiler you should know is that the end isn't the end, and you need to play it again.
You should go into Spec Ops: the Line thinking it's a game about a cool special forces team fighting a bunch of terrorists or something. The only spoiler you should know is that it's supposed to feel like a generic third person shooter.
Journey. You can get it on PlayStation, iOS, steam (on sale for $5 atm) and epic. It is 2-3 hours short and not very challenging, but it does look absolutely stunning and has a very beautiful gameplay mechanic that you better find out for yourself. IMO it is one of the best games of all time and one that really demonstrates what the medium is capable of.
I'm surprised no one mentioned Spec Ops: The Line yet
Sauna2000 (it's not out yet, but there are some demos floating around).
Squirrel stapler
Cruelty Squad - depends on the kinda person you are. If you're super open-minded about game presentation then I'd tell you to go into it blind. If not, then I'll happily try to sell you on it. If it helps, the game looks the way that it does because of how fucking confident it is in itself; and that confidence is fully justified. Give it time, even if the first level doesn't hook you, give it time because in my experience it will eventually hook you and reel you in and leave you thinking it's one of the best games of all time.
Undertale
Hypnospace Outlaw
Jet Set Radio, Jet Set Radio Future, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Give the first two a try, and if you don't like either one, skip BRC; it's a spiritual successor to JSRF and if you didn't like JSRF then you probably won't like BRC.
Hylics. If you liked that and wanted more, Hylics 2. Hylics 2 actually does something throughout the game that I've only ever seen as a gimmick in other games. It's really cool and it'll probably catch you off-guard every time it does it.
Katamari Damacy. If you liked that, there's also We <3 Katamari.
Myst. The newest version has VR support. If you liked that, the recent Riven remaster also has VR support.
S C O R N (if you like Myst, give it a try. It feels very myst-like)
Hrot (boomer shooter, but if you like boomer shooters then you should give it a go).
If you're at a place in your life where you're trying to still find yourself: Night in the Woods. Especially if you're a furry. This game is really fucking good. It'll make you laugh. It'll make you cry. It'll make you miss home but also be glad you aren't there anymore. It'll make you question your place in life and who you are. Also, you can interact with things multiple times, make sure you don't miss out on dialogue, you'll regret it.
STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl - This is hard to go into blind because it's buggy as fuck and most people recommend some form of community patch even for your first playthrough. That said, play it on the highest difficulty. It's unironically more fun once you get used to it. If it's too hard though, don't be fooled into thinking that dropping the difficulty will make it easier, the hardest difficulty is special (you can only take a few hits, but the same is true for most enemies), and dropping it down will result in enemy difficulty scaling becoming more traditional (buffing health and damage).
Portal (and Portal 2).
Bugsnax.
If I can throw in a movie too:
Willy's Wonderland. It's a Nicolas Cage movie and that's all I'll tell you. DO NOT LOOK UP THE TRAILER. I wouldn't have watched it if I hadn't seen the trailer, but the trailer also has huge spoilers. I'm not a huge movie person and I had to watch it after seeing the trailer, but again the trailer has spoilers. It is on my top-10 movies list now.
I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone mention one of my favorites:
Spec Ops: The Line.
The risk with going in blind is that it seems like a generic cover-shooter that doesn't do everything quite as well as its competitors but it actually works to its advantage once you get into it.
If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it, you can usually find it for really cheap.
Death Stranding
Hollow knight. The exploration of that game is absolutely the pinnacle of world layouts
Prey 2017 can be incredible blind and Dredge might be worse if you’ve had the ending spoiled
Someone already mentioned Disco Elysium, system shock 2 and BioShock are also very good
Detroit: Become Human
Gris
Stray
Not as good as the examples you listed but subnautica imo
Surprised I haven’t seen Undertale yet. The online fanbase is hilariously toxic, (seriously, don’t go looking for any extra details about the game after you finish it) but it’s a solid game that should be experienced 100% blind. All I’ll say is that it’s a game that is written to subvert expectations; If you go into it expecting to play it like a traditional RPG, you’ll be in for a big surprise.
Morrowind.
I mean, it's a 22 year old game, but since you asked nicely... 🤷♂️
Seeing that silt strider just outside Seyda Neen after the intro to what looked like your run of the mill D&D style fantasy RPG was a surprise, to say the least...
... and it was just the beginning.
It's a real shame later Elder Scrolls games mostly lost that otherworldly feel.
Will second Doki Doki Literature Club. Undertale should also be on this list I feel.
- Snatcher
- Policenauts
- King's Field (any of them, even Pilot Style)
- Halo 1-3 + ODST and Reach
- Yakuza 0
- Silent Hill 2 (the original, Enhanced Edition for PC is still the best way to experience SH2)
- Life is Strange (only the original game, completely ignore the fanbase, theyre all toxic)
- Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic (too bad BioWare doesnt have a single good or competent writer anymore)
- NieR, both Gestalt and Automata
- Rule of Rose
- Dark Souls 1-3
- Elden Ring
- Kuon
- Armored Core (all of them, but the controls are hard to deal with before Nexus)
- Steel Battalion (only if you can find and afford the controller, otherwise dont bother)
Silent Hill 2 and SOMA
BioShock. It really depends on playing it blind in order to have an impact.
Undertale
God of War 2018. I played all the original games but I was still just a casual fan. I heard about the new game coming out but didn't really pay much attention to it. I eventually play it and holy crap I didn't know it was going to be what it was. Before playing it, I had RDR2 as my game of the year but GOW really stole it in the end.
Bioshock.
What Remains of Edith Finch, I think it has a fantastic narrative. Not so much twists, just best experienced yourself.
Journey
Paradise Killer
+1 for Outer Wilds
Factorio and Dyson Sphere Program. At least don't watch people like Nilaus and Dosh Doshington play the game until you've tried to make your own solutions first.
Dishonored
TBH though, most if not all games are better blind.
I had this kind of moment with Prey.
I feel like the obvious answer would be something like Fallout New Vegas, DLCs as well (especially the DLCs) or any visual novel games like Song of Data or the Danganronpa series.
Though for non-obvious answers, gonna say Brok the Investigator. Story driven with changing how you play affecting the ending you get. Non-obvious because I don't see a ton of hype around it, even though there's a cool looking DLC being developed.
Edit:
Forgot to add just about any puzzle game to the list. I watched someone play a puzzle game (Baba Is You) roughly 4-5 years ago and picked it up last spring. Just long enough for me to remember almost none of the solutions. Definitely much more fun that way. Same reason I loved Portal 2 back when I got it on xbox. Didn't have a clue what would happen or what the puzzle solutions were.
Cultist Simulator is most fun when you really know nothing about the game and you stumble into things.
- Katana ZERO
- Undertale
- Kitsune Tails
Pony island, 0,75 cent on sale right now on steam.
Rez and Fez. Similar names, very different games.
Pin the tail on the donkey.
Outer Wilds.
Dark souls
Another opportunity to shout out my 2024 GOTY, Dread Delusion! I have so much love to gush for it. I wouldn’t say it “blows the mind” per se, but it knows what it is and executes it soundly. Give it a shot if you enjoy the sonder-type experience from a well-crafted storyline
Arco.
A recent and lesser known game - unique turn-based tactical combat, and a heart-wrenching story.
Nethack / Cdda / coq...
Because going blind Is the game
dishonoured 1 and 2.
That Dragon, Cancer turned me into a blubbering sobbing mess.
There's are so many spots in the game that could hit someone the hardest, and I know what mine was.
I'll also add The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC. I know there's a remake coming out next year, but there's a bunch of shady stuff surrounding how they're gonna localize it. (Supposedly, they're gonna use AI to try to do most of it and then have real people brush it up.)
So I'd recommend playing the original instead. It's a 2.5D game with a mostly 360° camera. It uses turn-based combat, but not traditional turn-based combat. And it has a great story.
It's also on sale for only US$9.99 on GOG (which is DRM-free) and Steam.
Helltaker
Free, short, puzzles, cute, and banger ost
Ahh, I'd love to tell you, but it would spoil the surprise.
Way to make me feel old, I don't know any of those games.
Where's my late 90s early 2000s gamers at?
I'm going to nominate:
- Fallout (1997) for plot twists and introducing (to me at least) open world role playing.
- Fallout 2 (1998) for further plot twists
- Max Payne (2001) for stealing bullet time from the matrix and putting it in a game
- Mafia (2002) for being a kick ass game that would blow your mind, by making 6 hours of your night disappear, and not lifting the lid on that plot twist before you heard the birds start singing, and realize that you should probably hit the shower and get to school.
Nobody said Firewatch yet?
I'll also add To The Moon as well. I could list more, but almost any game where narrative is the main focus and gameplay is secondary.
The Walking Dead by Telltale.
Gods Will Be Watching and The Red Strings Club
Spec Ops: The Line
Sorry if these have been said already. Note I suck at gaming and couldn't finish either but I enjoyed my time with them:
Animal Well and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
Subnautica I guess
If you're referring to being blind to the plot specifically (but not what style of game it is), then my list is:
- outer wilds
- hades
- disco elysium
Dark Souls and Return of the Obra Dinn have already been mentioned, but I'll also recommend Universal Paperclips. These also happen to be my favorite 3 games.
In Stars and Time
Saved this for sure.