Video game history is littered with great games that never received a follow-up, no matter how well-received they were or how much fans wanted more. Some had great ideas but needed further entries to work out some kinks and refine those ideas — entries that never came. This weekend, Polygon is all about the one-and-done: ideas that were only executed once, failures that were precursors to others’ successes, an alternate reality interview with a one-hit-wonder director.
This week’s Xbox Game Pass recommendations put a spotlight on games and studios that we wish we got more of. (Maybe in alternate reality, we did.)
Sunset Overdrive
Before Insomniac Games moved over to Sony and became its de facto Marvel studio, it left Xbox behind with a bang. Sunset Overdrive is a ballsy open-world game that’s all about causing chaos in a zombie-infested city poisoned by a corporation’s contaminated energy drinks. It’s completely over-the-top, letting players parkour around to their heart’s content and obliterate enemies in some glorious cartoon hyperviolence. Beyond just being a fun way to let off steam, Sunset Overdrive is an earnest game about learning to thrive in spite of the world around you falling apart. It’s a search for self discovery amid the rubble. Though it never got a sequel, Sunset Overdrive already does more than enough to say its piece. —Giovanni Colantonio
Immortals of Aveum
I’m never shy about my love for underappreciated shooters, and Immortals of Aveum is as underappreciated as they come. Sure, the quippy dialogue’s one-liners and game’s story that doesn’t dive deep enough into its themes aren’t the game’s strengths, but the FPS gameplay is top-notch. Swapping guns for magic spells works tremendously well in Immortals of Aveum, offering you three different types of magic shooty shoots for whatever a scrum calls for. You also get a variety of other powers, like a magic shield and blast waves of magic, turning protagonist Jak into an unstoppable force. In a perfect world, studios could take what works from a game — in Aveum‘s case, its magic gunplay and interesting setting — and build atop it, even if a debut title wasn’t an instant success. This is not a perfect world, but at least it’s one where you can still check out Immortals of Aveum on Game Pass. —Austin Manchester
Quantum Break
Remedy Entertainment is in its franchise era — its two most recent games have been an Alan Wake sequel and a Control spinoff, and its next game is a proper Control sequel — but the studio’s best game was a one-and-done entry: Quantum Break. The sci-fi action game mixed traditional third-person gameplay segments with live-action TV episodic breaks. And the choices you made in-game changed the narrative of each episode. An all-star cast, including Aiden Gillen (Game of Thrones), Shawn Ashmore (X-Men), and the late Lance Reddick (John Wick), gave Quantum Break some serious Hollywood heft, too. A truly special game that was well before its time. —Ari Notis
