5 Best Supermassive Games of All Time, Ranked

Supermassive Games is arguably one of the best big-budget developers on the planet, and one that not only has the potential to dethrone most, if not every other QTE-loving video game on the market, but the power to spin a slew of best-selling yarns, too. With The Dark Pictures being a staple on the genre in itself, as well as Until Dawn and The Quarry also having a stake in the food chain, it’s safe to say that Supermassive Games already has quite the following, which leads us to wonder — how will it look to one-up itself in the future?

Seeing as we’re still waiting to get ahold of the second season of The Dark Pictures, we thought we’d take a look back at some of its creator’s past works. Specifically, the five games that made the biggest impact on the world of survival horror. Care to join us? Here are the five best Supermassive video games in 2023, ranked.

5. Man of Medan

To say our expectations for the first chapter in The Dark Pictures Anthology were monumentally high would be an understatement. Matter of fact, after watching Until Dawn find the groundbreaking success that it did, we believed that the newly created choice-centric series would be the spiritual equivalent, both mechanically and structurally. And it was, for the most part, at least. Unfortunately for Man of Medan, though, its cast just wasn’t as strong as it could’ve been, which made the overall bonding experience with each of the playable characters a little less enjoyable.

Don’t get me wrong, Man of Medan is still an excellent game, and one that hits all the right notes in all the right places as far as cinematic horror games go. Is it the best game Supermassive has ever conceived? No. That said, it’s definitely in the top five.

4. Little Hope

Mechanically speaking, Little Hope wound up becoming one of the best in the series, with thanks to its efforts to abandon all those confined spaces and atrocious camera angles that hogged the limelight in Man of Medan. It also made use of some fresh faces who, in all honesty, were far more relatable than those featured in the previous roster. Add the fact that it also created a genuinely interesting, albeit incredibly unsettling world with plenty of underlying Witch Trial tones, Little Hope soon came to set the benchmark that its predecessor simply failed to reach.

What made Little Hope the bastion of success that it was all boils down to its originality. Unlike Man of Medan, a game that was highly predictable even at the best of times, Little Hope often left little to no clues or explanations to ponder over. As a result, the six-hour campaign wound up producing one of the most intriguing storylines on the Supermassive chalkboard — one that we’d happily return to several times over and still find something to write home about.

3. House of Ashes

The Dark Pictures truly reached its prime when it hit the third installment, in the House of Ashes, a chapter that went on to wrangle a star-studded cast and an absolutely terrifying backdrop to boot. Mechanically, it wasn’t all that different from the first two in the series, which meant it all boiled down to the story and the plot points that it chose to build on. To this end, House of Ashes was the GOAT, as it more or less squeezed every living fear into one goblet — and made experiencing each and every one of them an absolute blast.

Houses of Ashes did well to secure Ashley Tisdale for its leading role. It also helped that the chemistry between the soldiers and their enemies was pure, and not to mention laced with real-world intricacies. For the first time I, for one, felt the need to keep every character alive and kicking, whereas in entries like Little Hope I couldn’t ever shake the urge to have Angela killed by whatever it was that stood before her. When all’s said and done, a strong cast is vital to its success — and House of Ashes has one of the best in the catalog to date.

2. The Quarry

While Supermassive Games’ Dark Pictures series did knuckle in on all the familiar components that made Until Dawn the powerhouse hit that it was, the fact that the studio pretty much aimed to release a new entry in the spin-off saga every year made everything feel a little, I don’t know, rushed. And that’s why The Quarry was a real breath of fresh air: it had more heart, and it had enough time at the drawing board for it to be able to make good use of the studio’s assets. Add the fact that it also featured one of the most relatable group of friends to date, and you can sort of see why The Quarry was the wild card that everyone needed.

Until Dawn hasn’t really met its match just yet, though The Quarry is about as close to being on par as anything else on the chopping block. There’s a gripping storyline that’s equally as drawn out as Until Dawn, and there’s plenty of choices, pathways, and endings — three of Supermassive Games’ go-to ingredients that only seem to get riper with age. If only The Dark Pictures could receive the same tender loving care as the aforementioned favorites.

1. Until Dawn

There’s no doubt about it — Until Dawn still, to this very day, remains Supermassive Games’ iconic poster child, and rightfully so. Sure The Dark Pictures are fantastic in their own ways, but when all’s said and done, nothing hits all the right notes quite like Until Dawn does. Thanks to its convicting cast of characters and their on-screen chemistry, ongoing feuds, and underlying issues, it’s never been all that difficult to submerge into the world around them.

The fact is, we’ve been a fly on that wall for just shy of a decade or so now — and yet each and every time we make a return it’s just the same as it was before. It’s timeless, and it’s definitely one of the best choice-based survival games out there — even by today’s standards. Its choices and pathways are plentiful, and it somehow manages to make a six-hour story mode feel like one of the longest nights in existence. Not that that’s ever stopped up from wanting to relive it from scratch, mind you.

So, what’s your take? Which of Supermassive Games’ many creations would you say is the best? Let us know your thoughts over on our socials here.