Which game or games is/are your game of the year?

Starfield: Best sci fi game I've played since the Mass Effect series another game that comes close is Hi Fi Rush: What an imaginative and unique game that was and of course, how could I forget Hogwarts' Legacy?

 You beat me to it.  I was going to make this exact thread today, even down to the ‘doesn’t have to be new this year, just new to you’ point.  Repeat behaviour of this nature will result in a ban 

My new games this year;

Steam
Forspoken
Middle Earth: Shadow of War
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
Vampire - The Masquerade: Swansong

EA App
Jedi: Survivor

GoG
Baldurs Gate 3

Ubisoft Connect
Far Cry 6

Other than Shadow of War, which I struggled through 4 dire hours of, I really enjoyed all the games above. The only one I haven’t completed at least once is Far Cry, which is mostly due to those games being so freakin’ big and BG3 coming out and consuming my gaming life.


Has Potential, Must Try Harder

Awarded to Forspoken. I really liked this, but it was still a bit of a disappointment. I loved Frey and her dynamic with Cuff. The fake reviews were easy to spot. The “cringe dialogue” from reviewers who had less than 3 hours in the game, and of course, once you filter out those complaining about ‘woke garbage’ because a game dared to have a brown skinned girl as the main character, things became a bit more balanced. The traversal was insanely fun and the world was really interesting, although the ‘open world’ parts needed some work. It made sense narratively for Athia’s countryside to be devoid of pretty much everything except monsters, but it doesn’t make for a great game world. The sheer number of useful and appealing abilities was mind boggling and I loved the visual effects of pretty much all of them.

That said, the game was terribly optimised and didn’t look anywhere near good enough for its system requirements. Combat was a chaotic mess. Enjoyable to a point, but not what I’d hoped for.

Best Action Game, Best Visuals, Best Digital Acting

Jedi: Survivor. It was a hungry beast on launch, and finding your way around the map is still way harder than it should be, but this was an improvement over the very good Fallen Order in almost every way possible. Would still like to have a Walk key on keyboard/mouse, but other than that - no notes.

Best Game, Best Narrative, Best Voice Acting

Far Cry 6.



Obviously BG3. The sheer volume of choices to make, that also get recognised at various points. The number of viable builds. The music. The gentle weaving in of references and links to earlier BG games. Karlach. The numerous ways to complete multiple quests or obstacles. Karlach. The story - just enough twists and turns and impending doom to keep you engaged. Karlach.

Still don’t love turn based, but hey - it’s D&D. Deal with it.

Do not care for a subsection of the community around the game. The ones that believe because one developer with a landslide of advantages propelling it forward was able to achieve something like this, that every developer should be able to with every game they release, regardless of whether or not they also have those advantages at their backs. Those people are why we can’t have nice things.

Other than that, BG3 has been one of the very great gaming experiences of my life. I suspect it is one I will come back to again and again.

Lost Ark

Genshin

BG3 for me. One of those games where I want to take my time and explore every little bit of it, walk away, think about it, then come back. I can't remember the last time this happened. Honorable mention to Zelda for continuing to help take open world games away from the Ubisoft formula (I know some people love that thing, but I love the open world gameplay in Genshin and Zelda much more).

Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty was a blast, and incredibly immersive. The depth in the open world isn't there for me though. Same with Starfield, a blast to play, I can understand why people like it but I want more from open worlds now. Interested to see how GTA6 takes open world gameplay after their stellar RDR2. How much did GTA6 cost to make? 1-2 billion? They have a lot to live up to.

For smaller games there were so many hits. Rogue Trader looks great, Vampire Survivor, Hi Fi Rush, Stray Gods. So many.

I forgot about Swansong! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who enjoyed it. Was it better than Bloodlines? No, but I had a good time with it.



I want to play this game since I enjoyed the first one, but I have heard about the performance issues on PC.




This is why although I love it I only completed it once. I keep coming up with too many character ideas. But right now I am trying too finish act 2. I just have chronic restartitis.

Hogwarts was min ebut BG3 is definitel ym ynumbe r2

Baldur`s Gate 3 it`s my game of the year but i`ve also enjoyed Hogwarts Legacy.

The ‘Pied Piper’ of BSN plays a bard. Very on-brand, Hrungr.

BG3
No contest. One of the best games ever released. Waiting to replay when the game is finally patched up and stable again. (A friend has several stuck characters due to patches borking something.)

Runner-up: Cyberpunk.
Currently playing for the first time and loving the hell out of the story. Super immersive game. Impressive city design. Faith in CDPR restored.

I played 14 games this year, I think. Most of them indie and AA. Good games but far from GOTY.

Starfield and it wasn’t even close. Haven’t felt that engaged with a new game since Ender Lillies in 21 and didn’t realise how much I had missed the Bethesda formula. Can’t wait for mods and expansions to really draw out more of that magic.

And yes, I have played most of the big releases this year. Alan Wake 2 is a skip until it gets a physical edition, but that is the only one I have not played. None of them came close to Starfield for me.

Resident Evil 4

There are some similarities to Mass Effect, but it's a lot more wide in term of content/features and follow The Elder Scroll/Fallout formula (and there seems to be a lot people tired of it) moving backward to Daggerall at some levels. It's one of the best written and voice acted BSG game thought, for the main storylines (main and factions) at least.

And it actually focus on exploration, unlike Mass Effect.

If you expect ME level of inter-personal relationship no the game doesn't have it at that level. There is banter between the main companions on the ship thought.

And lots of people burned themselves out on the game.