10 Video Games With Zero Expectations (That Blew EVERYONE Away)

10. Telltale's The Walking Dead

Telltale Games certainly wasn't an obscure company in 2012, having amassed a cult fanbase for their episodic adventure games based on Sam & Max, Monkey Island, Back to the Future, and Jurassic Park.

Yet cult is the key word here - their titles, though generally well-received, didn't quite reach that upper echelon of quality or success, and so when their new game based on The Walking Dead was announced, the mainstream didn't pay it much attention.

But by the time the first season's five episodes had been released, that all changed, with rave reviews from critics and players alike turning Telltale's The Walking Dead into a pop-culture phenom in its own right.

As a result, it sold more than 8.5 million episodes in its launch year alone alongside numerous Game of the Year awards.

With that, Telltale were elevated to Big Deal status, allowing them to make several additional seasons of The Walking Dead and acquire the rights to numerous other high-profile IP like Borderlands, Game of Thrones, Minecraft, Batman, and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Though they ultimately ended up oversaturating their brand with too many titles of varying quality, there's no denying The Walking Dead's role in revitalising the stagnant adventure game genre totally out of nowhere.