10 Awesome Video Games Where The Gameplay Is The Worst Part

The case of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is pretty similar to A Plague Tale: Innocence: it's also a lower-budget title that became a surprise success, more off the back of its incredible atmosphere and narrative than its by-the-numbers gameplay.

Superficially, Hellblade has everything a game needs to succeed: a jaw-dropping art style, an interesting story, and an awesome title character.

But the three main pillars of gameplay - stealth, puzzles, and combat - all feel like perfunctory afterthoughts here, as though developer Ninja Theory didn't really want to include them at all.

In addition to offering little sense of challenge, these aspects are presented with no variation on the norm. Ultimately they're bitter pills that players need to swallow to keep chugging through the infinitely more gratifying story and style.

A fair effort is made to make the overall package look more sophisticated, veiling the simple gameplay beneath those incredible visuals - an illusion which sustains well enough thanks to the game's relatively short play-time.

But make no mistake, the elementary combat in particular couldn't feel like much more of an imposition upon everything else the game does so, so well.