Community GOTY 2019 Winners

Still surprised how many people loved Control but didn't care for Quantum Break. That game was so fun, with combat design that got you to make the most of each of your powers. And a fun, twisty time travel story. I feel like it's worth revisiting since we've had some distance from the initial release where people complained about cheesy TV stuff.

Anyway, enough complaining, Control rules!

@csl316: I'm one of the rare creatures that liked Quantum Break and Control too. We exist! But I definitely think Control is much better.

Pretty good list even though my favorites are not near the top.

Also Judgment at 18. and Judgement at 98.?

I don't think I ever gave it a whirl but if it's Control-esque maybe I'll check it out!

There are dozens of us!

@csl316: I don't think the problem was it being too cheesy, I think the problem was that it shoved it front-and-center. In all other Remedy games, the live-action cheese was off to the side, usually playing on a TV, but in Quantum Break, it was not just unskippable cutscenes, but it was tied to the gameplay as well.

I also don't think they did themselves any favors with the branching paths because, unless done VERY carefully, your choices either don't matter, or there can be no core characterizations because they have to allow for the choices to be made. Whereas in Control, Jesse Faden is a strongly written, developed character as is everyone she interacts with. Even Jeff, after his first look at Control, was bowled over by how strongly Jesse came through as a character

I would assume some people didn't know which one to search for. There's going to be some weirdness further down on these lists!

I wonder if this is the first time a Fire Emblem has breached the top ten. #FearTheDeer

Daemon Ex Machina snubbed.

It's such a shame that From has been torn down into making nothing but souls games.

Congratulations to all AC7, Three Kingdoms, and Life is Strange 2 voters.

Hell yeah! Glad to see Death Stranding get it's GB recognition. Though I can only imagine what it would feel like forcing myself to beat it in that tiny pre-release window like the team did. I think that game is best when it has time to breathe.

I absolutely love that game but thinking about playing all 60 hours condensed down into a handful of days sounds truly miserable.

No games of 2019 grabbed me all that much, but this must be the first year in like ... 6 or 7 years where almost every game I voted for ended up somewhere on the community GOTY list.

The only ones that didn't make the cut seem to have been Civilization VI: Gathering Storm, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, Warsaw and Unity of Command II, but Gathering Storm was the only one of those I really felt strongly about (and was my #1 pick), all the other ones were pretty deeply flawed but did stuff I really appreciated.

Shout out to my 31 fellow MLB The Show fans. I did think this year was really great.

@undeadpool: The thing is.. I really liked the TV show stuff. So I had no problem with the breaks in between chapters since they were enjoyable.

I only played it once so I don't know the extent of changes between choices, but my playthrough and my interaction with those choices was satisfying.

And in case anyone else was curious, here's a list showing ( Weighted Votes / Pure Votes ) with games not in both lists removed.

I was intending to see which games were rated highest only amongst people who included it in their list... I guess this means a lot of people probably submitted a list containing only Shadowbringers.

cool to see Age of empires make the list. That truly looks like a labor of love and a celebration of a PC classic. Only makes Blizzard effort look that much worse in comparison.

Someone should let Dan know that Death Stranding is now canonically and objectively better than Bloodstained.

bloodstained is way too low guys!

@csl316: I absolutely love Remedy's weird, off-beat stuff, but you're asking why people like Control so much more, and...there we go. Imagine if Alan Wake had an entire concert of that nordic metal band's music, if you like that music, that'd be great! But if you don't...well...

Control, to my mind, struck a perfect balance of what I personally love about Remedy games, but it also gave the player a lot of freedom to get as in-depth, or gloss over, whatever they felt like.

That is a very solid top 10. Sad to see Bloodstained barely missed out, though.

Really wish the crew would do more with these results, it makes this whole thing feel a bit underwhelming. Maybe a stream where they play games on this list that no one on the crew has played yet. Or something like that.

Anyway, I'm glad Disco got the appreciation it deserves!

Look at Devotion! One of the top 100 games of the year.

Sekiro gettin' its due!

Glad to see Death Stranding in the top 10, since y'all shit on it so hard! haha Though I totally understand why the circumstances didn't culminate to an enjoyable experience.

Nice list! Thanks Rorie. Happy to see Fire Emblem in the top 5, Baba is You, SMM2 and that Goose Game within the top 20 and Ace Combat 7 and A Short Hike making surprise appearances in the top 50!

Seriously? Am I blind or is Greedfall is not even on here? It was definitely in my top 10.

A Plague Tale is wayyyyyy too low. It was my game of the year. Man I loved that game.

y'all motherfuckers better be playing Hades this year if you didn't in 2019........ gotta punch those numbers up

@asmo917:Totally agreed! Worthy of a spot on my GOTY list!

Fuck you Sekiro.

Disco Elysium rules.

@avioto: that's not a bad idea! I'll see if I can work something up in my free time.

No Streets of Rogue on the list. No Descenders. No Fantasy Strike. Not surprising, considering GB covered them poorly or barely covered them, but you folks are missing out on lots of great games that GB staff didn't care for.

Thanks for this Rorie!

The two missing from my list are Dangerous Driving and Wilmot's Warehouse. Not surprised by the former but a wee bit surprised the latter didn't sneak in. It seems like a lot of people liked it but maybe just not enough to make their top 10, I'd guess.

I am delighted that 51 other people valued Shenmue III - hopefully, like me, unironically! Nice to see Kind Words sneak in as well as Neo Cab in the pure vote list. Also Outer Wilds and The Outer Worlds almost had the same amount of votes as each other which is perhaps the most fitting thing across these lists.

It sounds like this has been a bit of a tough one for Rorie to compile this year but I'm wondering if it would be possible to get the Top 500 list on a blog like last year? Only if it's not a lot of extra work, of course!

Bummed to see Remnant From The Ashes so far down the list and below Borderlands 3!!! Loved that game!

No complaints with Control winning though. A real return to form for Remedy. Great work Rorie.

I'm so glad Devil May Cry 5 at least cracked the top 20. Everyone on the podcasts kept saying "it was kind of a weak year for games," and sorta dismissing it, when it's the best action game in years. Control taking #1 is awesome as well.

Absolutely on-the-mark suggestion, avioto! Producers take note.

Luigi's Mansion 3 was robbed you monsters!

@xkkzz: My takeaway from this weighted list is that Shadowbringers was the true Game of the Year, but not enough people played it.

Remant: from the ashes going strong at 30, happy to see Ace combat so high too.

Finally some Sekiro on GiantBomb lists

@xkkzz: Makes sense, FFXIV requires a massive time commitment before you get to the Shadowbringers content. Control was the only game that released after Shadowbringers that I was able to fit in.

I even went looking for the vote this year, and don't remember finding it :(

I've played Diamond Dynasty pretty religiously the past four years and this was the first year I felt like they found the perfect balance between all their different systems. It was the first year I completed a live series collection. It was also the first year I set the game down not because I bundled up too many other games to play over the year or got bored, but because I felt done.

For something ostensibly designed around being a live service and incentivizing the expense of real world money, San Diego Studios have always seemed to acknowledge they don't have to prey on people to get what they want out of that system. That alone was enough for me to justify putting this year's The Show somewhere in my Top 5, I can't remember where. A lot of it was obviously the same as previous years, in some cases even worse, but they got that one mode so damn right from a purely consumer perspective that it deserves huge applause IMO.

Fire emblem in the top 5? I’ll take that any day. Good job everyone!

@csl316: 100% this.

Wowza that Top 10 is verrrry similiar to mine.

Damn, I guess I'm getting really burnt out on gaming, the only game I finished (and really played) on that list is Sekiro. Finished few from my backlog and played a decent amount of Overwatch, but to be honest, not really interested in most of those games.

CTR, nice.