Dead Island 2

Dead Island made an impression back in the day with its 2006 E3 trailer. The game itself, released in 2011, wasn't as well received. It nor its 2013 standalone continuation, Dead Island: Riptide, never piqued my interest. Especially after having played 2015's Dying Light, going to a more co-op focused zombie whacker without parkour didn't seem all that exciting. All these mentioned games were developed by Techland, though I think the Dead Island IP was always Deep Silver's.

Lichdom: Battlemage

Every now and then, some company makes one of these spell shooters. I reckon they were more common back in the simpler days, someone taking one of the shooter game engines and going: "What if instead of guns, you'd have magic?" The Wheel of Time (1999) coming up eventually on my backlog is perhaps one of such, although it used an existing IP. A more recent example would be Immortals of Aveum (2023). This post's topic, Lichdom: Battlemage by Xaviant Games, is from 2014.

Elderborn

Elderborn (stylized in caps as ELDERBORN) is a first person action game by a Polish studio Hyperstrange. The developer advertises the game as a metal AF (action fantasy) slasher -- a good analogue would be Doom (2016) but instead of guns, you get blades and hammers. Elderborn is very much an indie title in scope; a playthrough shouldn't take more than 5 hours. But it is a fun 5 hours; Hyperstrange did absolutely nail the gameplay.

Dying Light

I had chosen to ignore Dying Light for the longest time. It had seemed merely a continuation to Techland's earlier game Dead Island -- just another dull zombie smacker with craftable and constantly breaking weapons. But I kept hearing about how great the game's movement system was and eventually I ended up buying it. With hindsight, I should've continued to ignore it instead.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

Dark Messiah is one of the many spin-offs from the Might and Magic series. It is more action-oriented in nature and was developed by Arkane Studios. The developer is the reason I bought the game as people recommended it for having similarities to Dishonored.