20 Beloved Video Games No One Admits They Hated

Over the years, certain special video games have entered the pantheon of beloved all-time greats. Critics and fans alike agree that these titles are worthy of huge amounts of praise, usually singling out elements like gameplay, storytelling, or technical quality. These games will regularly pop up on 'best of' lists, and often have a broader cultural impact than your average video game.

That being said, there are also plenty of people who, for a variety of different reasons, just didn't see what all the fuss was about at first. 

These people may have found Elden Ring's lauded gameplay mechanics to be initially obtuse, or The Last of Us' storytelling forced before the wider context was understood. However, such is the popularity of the twenty games on this list, that many people won't want to admit they didn't immediately click with them.....

There can be no denying that Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the most impressive video games ever made. 2018's open-world western epic lets players loose in an absolutely massive world as Arthur Morgan, as he and his gang embark on a crime-ridden spree across a fictionalized version of America at the turn of the 20th century.

Players are free to explore the painstakingly realistic world as they see fit, engaging in a vast amount of missions and side activities, with hundreds of hours' worth of content to engage with. For some, though, initially it just didn't make a great first impression. The narrative is slowly paced, and for those who just wanted to push on with the game's story, there's a good chance they may have found themselves losing interest. The open world is so big that it can feel almost too daunting to explore at times, and the game throws loads of side activities like fishing and hunting at you so early on that it can easily overwhelm. Movement mechanics can feel awkward at first too, with Arthur himself moving pretty slowly compared to some of his open world game counterparts. Some of the game's more realistic elements, like having to clean the mud off your horse to make it go faster, initially come across as uninteresting at best, and tedious at worst.

There's a balance to be found between video game immersion and realism, for sure, but some players struggled to understand that balance when they first played Red Dead Redemption 2. Its reputation has only grown stronger as years have passed, though, and initial first impressions have been long forgotten by most.