10 Incredible Video Games That Came Out Of NOWHERE

It goes without saying that an enormous amount of work goes into marketing any video game, because there's a sure strategy to figuring out how to present a game and also when to release it.

So many amazing games have been failed by terrible marketing, and similarly many awful games have sold by the bucket-load because they were superbly sold to gamers.

And then there are those times where publishers decide to buck conventional ways of introducing a game, sacking off the year-long hype cycle and just... releasing it without any warning whatsoever.

The "shadow drop," as it's popularly called, can be enormously exciting for players, to see a new game announced and then find out that it's immediately available with no waiting whatsoever.

But it's also a majorly risky strategy for publishers and developers, given the benefits of spending at least a few months hyping a game, and how easily shadow-dropped games can just release without making a dent.

At least in the case of these 10 shadow-dropped games, regardless of how well they sold, they all turned out awesome quality-wise, giving gamers an experience that was both immediate and outstandingly well-crafted from top to bottom...

Though it remains in many ways a monument to unfulfilled potential, P.T. is also one of the most iconic and important video game experiences of the last decade.

At Gamescom 2014, a new horror game called P.T. was announced to be in development from unknown outfit 7780s Studio, and better yet, a "demo" was immediately made available to download.

But those who played through the demo and eventually made it to the end discovered that it was actually a Playable Teaser for a new Silent Hill game, Silent Hills, directed by Hideo Kojima in collaboration with filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and starring actor Norman Reedus.

P.T. was widely lauded by critics and players alike for its unnerving atmosphere and photorealistic visuals, and when Silent Hills was cancelled the next year, P.T. took on a life of its own as a fascinating piece of gaming history.

This was only exacerbated by Konami's bone-headed decision to later remove P.T. from the PlayStation Store, meaning those who still had it installed on their PS4 consoles had a highly valuable piece of digital gaming ephemera in their possession.

With Konami still refusing to restore P.T. to PSN to this very day, fans are either forced to seek out illicit methods to play the game, or play one of the many remake projects that have been developed over the years.