I’ve always enjoyed titles by developers from Eastern Europe, there’s a way in which they embrace darkness and struggle with a twist of idiosyncratic humour that appeals to me.
From the well-meaning but overreaching Boiling Point: Road to Hell, White Gold: War in Paradise and Precursors to the...well, also well-meaning but over-reaching Hard Truck Apocalypse – which has a gorgeous acoustic guitar-led soundtrack that yearns to be released on vinyl.
The games were janky and tough to run on PCs of the day but they had such flair and character that I always got excited when I picked one up.
Of course, a game from that area of the world that was one of the most influential – and is currently coming back with a sequel – was S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, which remains one of the most intense gaming experiences I’ve ever had - alongside Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth - and Chernobylite continues in that vein – a vein that very much scratches an itch that I didn’t even know I had in modern gaming. Good.