10 Video Games That Became Famous For Things Completely Outside Their Actual Gameplay

Typically, a game becomes famous because it offers a unique or very exciting gameplay experience that leads to strong reviews and people praising the game online. Yet, that isn't the only way for a video game to achieve fame.

Some have increased in notoriety for other reasons. For example, several titles have become well-known because of certain controversies that have ended up with them being in the news. Also, these days, social media has a habit of putting attention on games for reasons beyond their gameplay. Here are some titles that became famous in highly unconventional ways.

Mixtape

No Interactivity

Mixtape is a narrative adventure game that follows the exploits of a few teenagers on their last day together. When it was released, there was a lot of online talk about the game, with people criticizing its perceived lack of interactivity. This is because the title focuses more on story and character than it does on traditional gameplay.

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It created a huge debate about how interactive a game should be. In fairness to Mixtape, there is more interactivity than it's often given credit for. Yet, the conversation surrounding the game didn't go away for a while. In the process, Mixtape rose significantly in fame, even if the reaction to the title wasn't universally positive.

Mass Effect

Sex Scenes

When the original Mass Effect game was released in 2007, it instantly became controversial due to its inclusion of sex scenes. A neoconservative blogger named Kevin McCullough and psychology specialist Cooper Lawrence were some of the people critical of the game because of its sexual content.

The controversy was quite silly, as people described the game as far more pornographic than it actually was. In fact, Cooper Lawrence even admitted that she was wrong about the game after she actually saw it. Regardless, the controversy made Mass Effect more famous, and it eventually became a full series.

Crackdown

Halo 3 Beta

Crackdown is a really fun third-person open-world game that launched a series. Yet, it's fair to say that the excitement surrounding the game at launch didn't come solely from pre-release footage. Instead, people knew about the game because some copies held the code for the Halo 3 beta.

Since Halo 3 was one of the most anticipated games of its generation due to the greatness of the first two titles, its beta put a lot of attention on Crackdown and made it famous. And Crackdown is a good game in its own right, so the fame was deserved.

Resident Evil Village

Lady Dimitrescu

Every Resident Evil game is well-known because it's a popular horror series. Yet, extra eyes were on Village once Capcom released a trailer featuring Lady Dimitrescu.

The very tall, vampire-like mutant lady certainly captured the imagination of people on the internet due to her large stature, domineering attitude, and certain 'assets' she has. So, she made an already anticipated game, even more anticipated, while also attracting people who have no interest in Resident Evil. It was certainly an effective trailer.

Among Us

Streamers Played It In Lockdown

Plenty of games have benefited from streamers playing them for their large audiences. Few have benefited as much as Among Us, though. After all, the game was released in 2018, and people barely knew about it until the 2020 lockdown, when the social deduction title became a favorite in the streaming world.

Pretty much all the biggest streamers, from Pokimane to xQc, played it. In fact, even famous politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (aka AOC) played the game on stream. All of this significantly increased the game's fame, and now it's arguably one of the most well-known titles of its generation.

Stranger Than Heaven

Includes Tupac

Stranger Than Heaven is an action-adventure game by RGG Studio set to release in 2027. In one of its pre-release trailers, the familiar face of Tupac appears. When this happened, it naturally created a lot of talk.

After all, Tupac has been dead for many years, so seeing him in anything is a big surprise. Yet, it also prompted moral questions about using a dead person to promote your game. In the process, Stranger Than Heaven became much more famous, so it succeeded as a promotional stunt, though the situation remains a bit morally questionable.

Manhunt

Ultra Violence

Violence in video games has often been controversial, as games like Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat, and Call of Duty have at times been criticized by the mainstream media for the acts they depict. However, those were already pretty famous games before the controversy really picked up. The same can't be said for Manhunt. This is a game mainly known for its controversy.

It's easy to see why, as it's a stealth game where you eliminate people in very graphic ways. Most famously, you can suffocate enemies with a plastic bag. That is easy to imitate in real life, which is part of what made the game so controversial.

Stellar Blade

Eve's Look

The attractiveness of female characters in games is regularly brought up these days for some reason. Typically, a game releases a trailer featuring a main character who people don't find hot enough, sparking a debate about her looks. In Stellar Blade's case, though, things were different. The main protagonist, Eve, is conventionally attractive with large curves that she often shows off.

So, people used her as an example of what female characters 'are supposed to look like.' On the other side of the debate, people believed she was overly sexualized and that the developers didn't take as much time on her personality as they did on her looks. All this discussion increased the fame of the game.

Crysis

Can It Run Crysis?

When Crysis originally released in 2007, it was incredibly technically advanced compared to everything we'd seen before. The graphics were beautiful for the time, and the environment was incredibly detailed. The downside of this is that most PCs couldn't run the game due to its high hardware requirements.

This then became a running joke in the gaming community, with people questioning whether different machines were powerful enough to run the game. The talk around the title's graphics grew so much that it became what the game was best known for.

Assassin's Creed Unity

Rebuilding The Notre Dame

Sadly, in 2019, the beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris caught on fire. As a result, large sections of it needed to be rebuilt. This led to Assassin's Creed Unity trending.

This is because the game contains a great recreation of Paris, including the Notre Dame Cathedral. So, some thought the developers' research could help with the rebuild. Ubisoft even offered to hand it over. It seems like it wasn't needed and wouldn't have really helped. However, this situation did make Unity more famous, despite its having been released many years before this incident.

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