5 Best Blizzard Games Everyone Forgot

Blizzard is one of the most beloved developers in PC history, thanks to its long history of great games in fan-favorite series. Sure, that love has dropped off slightly over the last few years, given all the things happening behind the scenes, but it’s impossible to deny that players haven’t spent the last few decades falling over themselves to learn about the next games in the Diablo, Starcraft, and Warcraft franchises and spending ungodly amounts of money on skins in Overwatch. Even a developer as visible as Blizzard has a few games that have gone under the radar, especially in its early days.

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Here are the five best Blizzard games that many fans have either completely forgotten about or never even played.

5) The Death and Return of Superman

The Death and Return of Superman is the first game the company developed under the Blizzard name. For several of the other games on this list, the studio was known as Silicon & Synapse. With the name change, Blizzard decided to take on the popular “The Death of Superman” comic book storyline for publisher Sunsoft.

It’s a relatively standard beat ’em up that scored middling review scores. Still, it looked great at the time, especially on the Super Nintendo version. Plus, you get to play as five different versions of Superman. What could be better? Blizzard’s Justice League Task Force fighting game came soon after, and that was the end of the developer’s run working on DC properties.

4) Rock n’ Roll Racing

Blizzard’s (then called Silicon & Synapse) first game was an SNES racer called RPM Racing. It’s fine, but Rock n’ Roll Racing takes the cake for the team’s best racing effort. RnR Racing is notable for its use of licensed rock music.

In fact, RnR was originally supposed to be a straight sequel to RPM Racing before publisher Interplay added all the licensed tracks and changed the name. You’ll blaze around the track while listening to songs from bands like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.

Best of all, you can still play Rock n’ Roll Racing (and a few other games on this list) via the Blizzard Arcade Collection, which launched in 2021. It includes re-recorded voice lines and new songs from bands like Judas Priest and Rush.

3) The Lost Vikings

The Lost Vikings is also on the Blizzard Arcade Collection, making it relatively easy to play in 2025 if you missed your chance back in 1993. The puzzle-platformer originally launched on the SNES (Blizzard’s platform of choice in its early days), before being ported to several other systems.

Blizzard’s puzzler boasts a distinct visual style and solid humor. The developer has become known for that throughout its history, but this is one of the best early examples of Blizzard injecting levity into its games.

Don’t get it twisted, The Lost Vikings is still a devilishly tough puzzle game that will put your brain to the test. And Blizzard made them its quasi-mascot for several years. The Vikings have appeared in everything from Rock n’ Roll Racing to World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, the actual sequel, The Lost Vikings 2, was a clear step back from the original. Still solid, but lacking some charm.

2) Blackthorne

I mean, look at that cover. Have you ever seen a more ’90s game than Blackthorne? Of course, it’s not too surprising, considering the cover was created by Jim Lee, whose run on The Uncanny X-Men in the late ’80s and early ’90s is legendary.

Cover aside, Blackthorne is a moody platformer that includes sections of cover shooting. Kyle “Blackthorne” Vlaros uses a pump-action shotgun to fight through hordes of aliens across 17 levels.

Compared to other platformers at the time, Blackthorne is much darker and puts a larger focus on action and puzzle-solving. The latter makes sense when you consider Blizzard was just coming off of The Lost Vikings when Blackthorne launched. Like the puzzler, Blackthorne is available via the Blizzard Arcade Collection, if you want to check it out.

1) Heroes of the Storm

Before diving into HOTS, it’s important to note that Blizzard really missed the mark with the MOBA genre. Before League of Legends, Dota 2, and whatever your MOBA of choice, there was a map in Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos called Defense of the Ancients. It was a gigantic hit, and Blizzard could’ve hired the creators to build a dedicated MOBA internally.

Instead, Riot’s League of Legends came along and quickly took over the genre’s mindshare. Valve’s Dota 2 also became immensely popular when it launched, making it even harder for Blizzard to break into the genre that had been created in its backyard.

When it released Heroes of the Storm in 2015, Blizzard joined a crowded marketplace. The team tried to differentiate itself from League and Dota by having rotating maps and focusing more on team-fighting as opposed to creep killing. In some ways, it worked wonders, building a dedicated pro scene and even televising a collegiate tournament on ESPN.

Unfortunately, the good times ended in 2018. Blizzard President J. Allen Brack announced that developers were moving to other projects, and the major esports events were all canceled. That was made even worse when reports quickly emerged that Blizzard had told pros the league was continuing just weeks before. It was a sad end for a great game. HOTS still exists and has a decent playerbase, but it’s a shame that Blizzard was both too late to get started and left the space too soon.

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