However, the Australian gaming industry is robust and growing, with a surprising number of hits under its belt, among which some of the most well-known and widely played games in history are included. Read on to find out some of the most iconic games that were invented by Aussies.
Bioshock
Stepping into the Art Deco, libertarian, and Darwinian underwater hellscape of Rapture for the first time is a gaming experience unlike any other. This is an iconic game series with politics, power, and absolutely terrifying deep-sea robots at its heart. The Bioshock series continues to be one of the most critically acclaimed to ever be released, and it was produced almost entirely by Canberra-based 2K Games.
Fruit Ninja
Probably the most famous mobile game ever released that prompted scores of us to go out and invest in our first touchscreen phones back in the day. Fruit Ninja, in which you simply slice and dice pieces of flying fruit with your katana, distils the essence of the simple yet endlessly entertaining game. In fact, it was so popular that it even inspired many similar games, including in the online casino world. Fans of Fruit Ninja who enjoyed the original can enjoy similar aesthetics and gameplay, all for real cash prizes with the Juicy Ninja slot, available at this popular online bingo platform. This seems to be a theme, as there are even takes on classic games like Space Invaders for retro gamers.
The Hobbit
The Hobbit is one of the world’s most beloved tales, one that follows the plucky hairy-footed adventurer Bilbo Baggins as he embarks on his epic quest to the Lonely Mountain. While there have been many attempts to recreate the story in the medium of video games, none were more successful than the 1982 text-based adventure game of the same name, produced by the now-defunct Melbourne-based studio Beam. The game, which was later re-released for Commodore 64, was estimated to have sold a whopping 200,000 copies by 1985.
LA Noire
One of Rockstar’s most unusual releases, because it takes place in a sprawling open-world recreation of 1940s Los Angeles in which it is impossible for your character to commit a crime, LA Noire was one of the top critical darlings of the last decade. This gripping detective game, in which you must solve a series of increasingly grisly murders in the heart of Tinseltown, was co-produced by Bondi Games at their sleek studios in Sydney.
The Legend of Spiro
There are many Spiro games that have entered the canon as all-time classics of gaming history, but it is the 2006-2008 Legend of Spiro Trilogy, released for PS2, DS, and GameCube, that most of us remember. This is our favourite purple dragon at his absolute best, flying, shooting, and burning his way through a dazzling mythical world. It was also produced by Brisbane-based Krome Studios, one of the top game developers in Australia today.
These are our favourite games created by Australian developers. Did yours make the cut?