Now Loading: Biggest Gaming Surprise of 2017?

2017 has been a crazy year for video games. While many thought it’d be a solid year for gaming, nobody expected it to be filled with game of the year contenders in nearly every month. A lot of games have been shockingly good, and series like Yakuza and NieR were able to find an audience in North America.

That’s why the question we posed in this week’s Now Loading was “What has been the biggest gaming surprise of 2017 so far?”

Check out the gallery below to find out what the staff thought of the year’s biggest surprises:

Now that you’ve seen our answers, we’d love to see hear your answer. Feel free to chime in below with your answer to the question. We’d love to know what you thought were the biggest gaming surprises, and if you were impressed by any games that came out of left field!

We’re always looking for suggestions for our next Now Loading. If you’ve got a good one then let us know via email (or leave a comment below), and we might feature it next week. If we do, we’ll make sure to include a special thank you to the sender!

Now Loading is a weekly recurring feature where the PlayStation LifeStyle staff discusses anything video game-related ranging from hot topics to more whimsical subjects. Past editions can be found here.

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Now Loading: Biggest Surprise

Now Loading: Biggest Surprise of 2017
Blake Grundman

My biggest surprise would have to be how first party support the PS4 has received in 2017. This could have been Sony’s chance to put a nail in the coffin of Microsoft’s console, but instead they have been surpassed in console power by the Xbox One X and offered up very little exclusive content to set the platform apart. Additionally, I was hoping to see far more first party support for the PS VR. Come on Sony! Where is the love?
Cameron Teague

I didn't really have a huge surprise on the positive side, though NieR definitely caught my attention more than I expected. No, my surprise was on the negative side with a few games I was sure would keep my attention for a long time and really excite me but never did. Two musou games in Berserk and Dragon Quest Heroes II were games I thought I would be playing over and over again, yet I got tired of both fairly quickly. The other game was Uncharted: Lost Legacy, which I just didn't feel had that "it" factor to really have me amazed. It was good, and the female leads were good, but I just didn't fall in love with it the way I expected.
Chandler Wood

This is a tough question. I'm going to take it a slightly different direction and say the interest and proof that Xbox One and PS4 cross play can work. It's something I've never openly considered as a possibility before now, but with developers voicing how easy it would be, and Epic accidentally turning it on with Fortnite, we're inching ever closer to a day I never thought I would see. Hopefully Sony makes 2018's biggest surprise that they are opening up online play to other consoles.
Elizabeth Henges

I have to go with NieR: Automata. Being a fan of the original I knew I was going to like it, but I never expected the game to get the praise that it did from the general gaming public... and it's praise that's fully deserved. It seems all Yoko Taro needed was a great development team behind his incredible stories.
Michael Briers

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Ninja Theory's latest caught my eye pretty early on for its handling of mental illness and that fantastical, Viking-era backdrop, but the end product far exceeded my expectations. It now sits alongside Horizon and Resident Evil 7 as one of my favorite games of 2017.
Tyler Treese

For me, it's definitely NieR: Automata. I knew the action game had style and would most likely be good fun coming from PlatinumGames, but I had no clue that it'd rocket up my all-time gaming lists. There's no way I could've predicted the incredible twists and turns of the story, and that the credits sequence would wind up making me cry. One of gaming's greatest achievements came from the game creator that wears a mask at all public events. Truly, what a time to be alive.
Zarmena Khan

Horizon Zero Dawn. I'm not going to lie, I wasn't expecting something from Guerrilla Games to blow me away. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed Killzone games, but I wouldn't call any of them a masterpiece like Aloy's post-apocalyptic adventure. I absolutely loved bringing down those robotic machines!