If you find yourself wondering just what could possibly our list of best Focus Home Interactive games be, then you might not have been keeping track of them as of late. See, Focus is one of those game publishing houses that basically teeter on going full AAA. It's just that their marketing isn't quite as pushy as some other houses may have insisted on.

Instead, Focus Home Interactive works in the background, investing in awesome game studios that would probably never have gotten the time of day with most other publishers. They're neat like that!

Today, we aim to tell you a little bit about Focus Home Interactive, and prepare a shortlist of the very best games they've published over the years. Some of them new, some of them old - all of them completely awesome. The catch - of course - is that many Focus releases are straight-up niche offerings. Then again, we are big suckers for niche titles here at 2Game, and we reckon you've got an interest in them, too.

Check out the full Focus Home Interactive repertoire - right here at 2Game.

A Short History of Focus Home Interactive

While we had oodles of information to work with when we talked about, say, Paradox Interactive, there's simply not that much material out there on Focus Home Interactive. Curious, to be sure, because the company's been operating for decades at this point.

This French video game development and publishing house was originally founded way back in 1996, giving them quite the pedigree by 2021. What's particularly interesting about its history, though, is that much like Capcom, they didn't begin their adventure in video gaming per se. According to Le Monde's article from a few years back, FHI has had experience with quite a few industries - most notably with music and music-adjacent software. They only jumped into gaming afterwards, due to excessive competition in the music niche.

Thankfully for Focus, this ended up being a good call. Following a number of more recent acquisitions (Deck13, Streum On, Dotemu...), they've built up a genuinely amazing portfolio of IPs and development teams. For example, FHI now controls The Surge, Necromunda: Hired Gun, and Greedfall properties. All of them are considerably well-regarded even among the more casual of gamers.

How Does Focus Stand Out?

For a good long while, Focus Home Interactive focused primarily on smaller-scale titles that had little to no mainstream appeal. Mainly, these were manager games featuring rugby, cycling, and skipping. To be sure, there is an audience for these games, but it goes without saying that a high-profile Warhammer 40K shooter will get way more attention than a Cycling Manager retread. So, FHI eventually managed to nail down a number of reasonably high-end developers and IPs to expand with.

A success story that's particularly emblematic of Focus Home Interactive - we believe - is that of Spiders. This small RPG-centric game studio's most recent release - Greedfall - took the world by storm. It's a large, substantial, and innovative ARPG that is, in fact, made by the same people who made Mars: War Logs back in the day. Indeed, what FHI seems to be doing is that they work with smaller, less accomplished developers and help them grow to a point where they're almost AAA.

New World Interactive's Insurgency: Sandstorm had a similar success story, and Asobo Studio's Plague Tale was a seminal release that few other publishers would've greenlit, all things considered. Note that Focus also published Othercide and Snowrunner, as well as Vampyr, and we think it's pretty easy to paint a reasonably clear picture about Focus Home Interactive at this point. Basically, they're not afraid to take chances.

Strange, out-there concepts are allowed to grow and evolve into genuinely unique games. As our list of best Focus Home Interactive games featured below will show, there's a bunch of these examples on the market already. Though a number of other publishing houses have attempted to compete in a similar manner, they are yet to grow as prominent as FHI has become. Generally, you'll be hard-pressed to find such an eclectic, yet awesome list of games as the ones published by Focus.

Best Focus Home Interactive Games on PC - Top Picks

Greedfall

What could be said about Greedfall that hasn't already been said a thousand times before? Spiders' first genuinely amazing RPG, Greedfall offers players a chance to play through a fantasy version of the colonization of America. No, really, that's pretty much right on the nose. Even with the art style, which meshes traditional colonial-era garments with some very fantasy-tier ornaments and stuff. A must-play, really, even though it is a tad bit janky, in true Spiders fashion.

• Play Greedfall

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2

We're not going to beat around the bush - as of right now, there's nothing else on the market to compete with Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2. Nothing, nada, zilch. This is a real-time strategy game where you micromanage starships the size of reasonably large cities, and quite possibly the single best use of the Warhammer 40K license ever. That's not a joke, mind. One of the best features - in our book - is that you can literally ram these massive space hulks into one another. Physics-enabled debris everywhere.

• Play Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2

Necromunda: Hired Gun

Another Warhammer 40K entry, Necromunda is also the newest game on this list. This is a slice-of-life sort of experience, where players take control over a customizable mercenary trying to eke out a living in one of humanity's incomprehensibly large Hive cities - Necromunda. Now, without any beating around the bush, this is basically Doom if it were a 40K game. Huge, impractical guns. Ridiculously fast mobility skills. Icky and gory finishing moves. Yes - Hired Gun has it all, and it's badass.

• Play Necromunda: Hired Gun

Insurgency: Sandstorm

Sandstorm is basically the other end of the FPS spectrum compared to Necromunda. This is - without any doubt - one of the best multiplayer tactical shooters on the market. Coincidentally, it's also what we imagine the love-child of ARMA and Call of Duty would look like. One-shot kills reign supreme as small squads of operatives comb and crawl through the maps. It's stressful, trust us. Thankfully, there's also an amazing cooperative PvE mode to enjoy with friends, and it's a real hoot.

• Play Insurgency: Sandstorm

Othercide

If it's weird you're looking for, Othercide fits the bill rather nicely. Quite possibly the coolest, most stylized rendition of a hypothetical battle against incomprehensible cosmic horrors, Othercide is XCOM on steroids. You get to control a small squad of genetic clones of what might be a literal god as they slaughter... things. There's an amazing story here for those who love reading between the lines, but even at face value, Othercide is way too good to pass up on.

• Play Othercide

A Plague Tale: Innocence

Imagine being an unarmed woman tasked with leading a small child through the war-ridden marshlands, where everything and everyone wants to straight-up murder you. On top of that, a potentially magical plague that possesses billions upon billions of man-eating rats is on the prowl, and that small child you're keeping safe is oddly connected to them. That's pretty much what A Plague Tale: Innocence is, and it's an experience like no other. There's a sequel in the making, too!

• Play A Plague Tale: Innocence

The Council

The Council is technically just a narrative adventure game, but boy does it go into some weird directions as the narrative progresses. Players essentially take control over a well and truly confused nobleman as he's invited to a party like no other. Along the way, said nobleman may or may not get embroiled in world-ending conspiracies and apocalyptic delusions. Clashes with late 18th century world leaders might also come into play. You know - as they always tend to do. All jokes aside, though, The Council is creepy, and we can't recommend it enough.

• Play The Council

Snowrunner

If you're a 2Game regular, you may already know that Snowrunner is legitimately one of our favorite vehicle-centric games on the market, and that's no joke. It was only natural, then, to expect it to appear on our list of best Focus Home Interactive games, too! In simplest terms possible, Snowrunner is a game about driving through mud. Doesn't sound all that fun, does it? Except it is! Because Snowrunner features incredible terrain deformation and material physics. A must-have for gearheads, we think!

• Play Snowrunner

Curse of the Dead Gods

Curse of the Dead Gods is easily one of the best roguelikes of the year. It's not entirely unlike Hades, though with a different twist. Players are put into the shoes of a greedy treasure hunter as he descends ever-deeper into an Aztec-looking underworld. Quite the premise, right? CDG puts its emphasis on skillful gameplay first and foremost. Expect lots of evasive maneuvers and dashing, interspersed with high-octane combat at key junctions. More badass gear than you could shake a stick at, too, but that's a given.

• Play Curse of the Dead Gods

The Surge 2

While virtually everyone has played a Soulslike of this or that kind, few ever evolve the niche into a new direction. The Surge 2 does, however! This game features a granular limb damage system like no other. Find an enemy that has a cool helmet? Cut their head off and take it! Come across an awesome kill-bot whose tail could easily be repurposed as a scythe? Cut it off and take it! You see a pattern there, we're sure. This is a pretty hard game, to be sure, but boy is it a satisfying one, too. Just... so much cutting and slashing and blasting. Not to mention the aesthetics!

• Play The Surge 2

Aliens: Fireteam Elite

Aliens: Fireteam Elite is genuinely the most exciting Aliens-themed shooter we've seen in years. Intense, hectic, and incredibly prospective, Fireteam Elite will put players into the shoes of a rugged marine tasked with dealing with an ever-growing number of Xenomorph infestations in a region of space.

Perhaps more importantly, though, Fireteam Elite continues the plot of the movies, kicking off a few decades following Aliens 3. It's just a heck of a lot of fun, and a way better game than anyone thought it would be.

• Aliens: Fireteam Elite

Final Thoughts

We hope you learned a little something about Focus in this article. Naturally, it's the games that matter the most, but publishers are a key component in financing these releases. While Focus Home Interactive hasn't historically been a particularly exciting publishing house to the general public - EAs and Ubisofts get all the attention from mainstream media - we've come to appreciate them quite a bit.

With amazing Warhammer games, out-of-the-box RPGs, and cutting-edge FPS titles, Focus is deserving of our attention in 2021 more than ever before. What have they got planned next? Well, we might not know, but we sure are thrilled to find out - when the time is right.

• Focus Home Interactive PC Deals - Sales & Discounts available now!

Did you enjoy this article? Would you care to check out a few similar pieces talking about other keystone publishers on PC? Look no further! We've serialized this article format and already have a bunch of similar stuff available for your consideration. Here are a few examples:

• Capcom Overview & Highlights
• THQ Nordic Overview & Highlights
• Paradox Interactive Overview & Highlights

If you find yourself enjoying this format as much as we are - stay tuned! We've built up quite the list so far, and we'll go through all of our partnered publishers in due time. See you next week!