The best debut games from first-time developers

Going into 2025, you’d never have expected the gaming breakout of the year to be a turn-based RPG about French Instagram models grappling with the existential terror of turning 33. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sold more than 5 million copies, shattered records for Game Awards nominations and awards (including Game of the Year), and flooded every nerd convention with a sea of berets and striped shirts. Talk about one hell of a debut for developer Sandfall Interactive.

Of course, debut games can be transcendent — Balatro, Blue Prince, Dredge, Gris, Neon White, Stray, and Viewfinder are stellar examples from the past few years alone. But few ascend to the same level as Clair Obscur, attaining instant success and notably altering the gaming landscape. Often, the games that define a studio to such a degree aren’t its freshman effort. Halo wasn’t Bungie’s first game. FromSoftware worked for years before converting everyone to the church of Soulslikes.

Here are five debut games whose influence is still being felt across the industry, and will continue to be felt for years to come.

Half-Life (Valve, 1998)

The studio behind Left 4 Dead, Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter Strike had to start somewhere. And “somewhere,” in this case, is arguably that studio’s best-known game: Half-Life. Valve’s debut game was one of the most influential first-person shooters ever. Half-Life and its follow-ups left such a mark that fans are still clamoring for a potential Half-Life 3, scrutinizing unrelated announcements for evidence about the long-overdue threequel. Which will come any day now. Right? Please say yes.

Call of Duty (Infinity Ward, 2003)

It’s hard to imagine Call of Duty as anything other than its current status as a well-oiled, corporatized annual release. But once upon a time, it was little more than a World War II first-person shooter from a then-nascent studio. Infinity Ward’s first-ever game kicked off a series that, two decades later, remains one of the biggest in the world (even if its older, grounded entries are barely recognizable compared to the more modern ones). Even on the back foot, Call of Duty is an unstoppable machine. According to data from Circana, the critically panned Black Ops 7 was the best-selling game of its release month, and was one of the most-played games of 2025.

Limbo (Playdead, 2010)

The 2010s indie game renaissance produced a ton of totemic debuts. But few, if any, had as broad of an impact as Limbo, the first game from developer Playdead. Limbo bottled the essence of the era into a single game — a moody platformer that leaned on striking visuals and clever puzzles to tell a minimalistic, open-ended story. Its sales and sheer breadth of accolades proved that indies could go up against AAAs, and Limbo didn’t just spawn a string of imitators (of admittedly varying quality). It effectively marked the beginning of a new subgenre.

Bastion (Supergiant Games, 2011)

Fact: Supergiant Games never misses. Hades is hailed as one of best games of all time, and has spawned no shortage of copycats since its full release in 2020. But Supergiant’s magic touch was first seen in 2011’s Bastion. Though Bastion is visually distinct from games like Pyre and Transistor, you can see the studio’s trademark brilliance right from its first game: the tight isometric action, the innovative arsenal, the fantastical environments, the dreamlike comic artwork, and the folkloric approach to storytelling, all set to Darren Korb’s irresistible soundscapes. Supergiant has refined the recipe over 15 years, but the ingredients haven’t changed. They’ve never needed to.

Vampire Survivors (Poncle, 2022)

Poncle certainly didn’t invent the “number go up” microgenre, but its 2022 debut Vampire Survivors sure helped popularize it. A few years on, and we’re already starting to see the downstream effects of its influence, and not just in the form of shameless clones. Games like the excellent Ball x Pit and marginally more-excellent Megabonk (at least going by Polygon’s ranking of 2025’s best games) were bona fide hits last year. In the coming years, expect to see even more, as developers across the industry chase the real number-go-up metrics: profits, acclaim, Steam reviews, Metacritic scores, and choice placement on obscure internet lists.