GOTY 2019: Community Voting Begins!

Get those Sekiro votes in!

Pretty good year. Picture Tetris 99 at #11

Control is the only game worth playing if you just woke up from a 20 year nAp and you're at gun point and someone's like play a game ... or go back to sleep. You would play Control and if you didn't you would wake up from your dream because not playing Control makes you live in a weird dream world of not having played the best game of 210z

Today I learned I only played 5 games from 2019 and 2 of them were remasters.

1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses
2. FFXIV: Shadowbringers
3. Borderlands 3
4. Code Vein
5. Resident Evil 2
6. The Outer Worlds
7. Death Stranding
8. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
9. The Division 2
10. Remnant: From The Ashes

I missed a ton of releases this year, but these are the ten I had some good times with. Fire Emblem was my crack cocaine equivalent for the year. Hoo boy. Shoutout to the FFVIII Remaster as well. Hard nostalgia for that sucker. Solid year for games all told, though looking at the release calendar, some rather big omissions on my part. Need to try out Sekiro and Control. To the backlog they go!

Friendly reminder that Hypnospace Outlaw and Slay the Spire came out this year.

The number one spot is easy for me, thats Disco Elysium. But the rest are gonna be hard to figure out, I have over 20 games that I liked a lot. Good thing we get a lot of time to decide. It wasn't a great year for amazing games like the last couple of years, but still a pretty solid year overall!

(also, a short podcast/video of the crew reacting to the winners would be cool!)

tentative list

1 for me and I didn't like it enough to vote for it.

Any good ones from previous years?

Yeah it's been a weird year. There are only a few games I feel super strongly about.

Honestly don't even have a favorite game this year. There were games I liked but can't think of one I would put ahead of everything else.

Coz F U Sekiro!

1. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - This to me, was the perfect distillation of the Souls-Borne formula. Incredibly difficult but patience pays off. The way the world changes as you progress through the story is both beautiful and somberly designed. Overall a stellar achievement by the team that does this best and that's saying a lot.

2. Apex Legends - I easily put 500 hours into this game. Before this I only ever really watched a lot of hours of streamers doing their thing in previous Battle Royales. This time I jumped in head first and loved every minute. Bloodhound is the G.O.A.T. Fight me.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening - Link's Awakening has a special place in my heart. Against my parents wishes, I traded a discman for a Game Boy and this cart with a friend in the neighborhood. It was my secret and because of that, I could only play it under my sheets at night so my parents didn't see me with the Game Boy. And wow what a game it was. A fully realized Hyrule in my hands with the quriky inclusion of Mario staples. I loved this game and the remake did it full justice. For better or worst in some ways but stilll, the game I loved was all there.

4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - I haven't enjoyed a Call of Duty this much since the OG Modern Warfare. Not much more to say really.

5. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - Uncharted x Souls x Tomb Raider x Star Wars? Say no more. I'm in. And the story paid off too. If you are into the lore of Star Wars then play this game. (Hint: Put it on the easiest mode and walk through it and have fun, lol).

6. The Outer Worlds - After the complete disappointment that was Fallout 4 (I'm from Boston and so wanted to explore that setting, so it was a complete bummer for me), this game gave me the most basics of that experience and I wanted to breath that world for my journey. The streamlined gameplay was a delight and characters and setting were engaging which was all I asked for.

7. Super Mario Maker 2 - A follow-up that wasn't entirely needed but at least the franchise saw more people engaging with it after the catastrophe that was the WiiU (I still love that console though). This game brought a lot of fun advances and once again, if given a desert island game with no online limitations to that, this game wcould last a lifetime. That's quite a hefty thing. For that alone, it deserves inclusion on this list.

8. Wargroove - Advance Wars is my second favorite series next to Zelda and I'm hurting for a new one. This game filled the void nicely. Though it's difficulty was merciless I still had a blast playing it and hopefully Nintendo sees Chucklefish's effort and just gives them the Advance Wars IP. Please Nintendo. Please. Pretty Please. Please. Thanks.

9. Cribbage With Grandpas - I never played cribbage before this game came out and I have to thank Abby for bringing it up in a Beastcast. It's my go-to iPhone game. The only other game on. my iPhone I've put this much time into is Carcassonne. On a side note, I've unfortunately killed off a lot of Grandpas I've made but fuck them for beating me all the time.

10. Death Stranding - This game had so much hype it was bound to fail. And it wasn't something I really enjoyed. Which kind of sucks for a video game if you think about it. But, and that's a big but, it had a vision and stuck to it and I can respect that. I'm still amazed it came out on time too. Hoepfully this tech demo inspires something better from Kojima but regardless, because of it's bold ideas it just makes this list for me.

All around a pretty good year if I do say so.

Lets get it

Banner year if you ask me. Any of my top 5 could be a potential GOTY itself. Sekiro barely misses because it just didn't stick with me as much as other From games.

Pretty sure that The Division 2 of the Tom Clancy variety is the only game I played from this year; everything else was older. Which is fairly normal for me - in 2017 I don't think I even played a single game from that year.

Now, if we're talking any game played this year - I'd for sure give it to Deus Ex (the original). It was the first time I played it, so I have no nostalgia for it, but that game doesn't need it - it absolutely holds up. Shadow of War was also really fun.

EDIT: I have now played at least some of Jedi Fallen Order after receiving it as a Christmas present. Probably won't finish it by the end of the calendar year, but it still makes two 2019 games for me.

Happy to see a couple of you giving Remnant some love. It’s my GOTY by far, and I loved every minute of my multiple playthroughs. Such a surprise too, since there was virtually zero pre-release hype, and I only gave it shot through some peripheral coverage on this site and a couple others. It’s not a perfect game, but it really goes places other games aren’t willing to go.

Top three are Remnant, Apex, and Wreckfest (console).

Why can't I vote for Destiny 2: Shadowkeep? I can vote for FFXIV: Shadowbringers, which would be my no. 2, but there's no use voting if I can't vote for my no. 1 game....

we'll just remove anything that wasn't released in 2018

Well that is an odd choice

@manicmonkey: How so? It's GOTY 2019.

I haven't gotten around to finishing a lot of the games that will prob be on most people's lists, so this is mostly just what I've played. Cheating(?) and putting Slay the Spire no.1 because early-access is confusing and lists are hard. Although, tbh, I've spent most of this year still playing Tetris Effect.

1. Slay the Spire

2. The Outer Worlds

3. Control

4. Borderlands 3

5. SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech

6. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

7. Super Mario Maker 2

8. Yoshi's Crafted World

9. Tetris 99

10. Luigi's Mansion 3

Some good stuff came out this year

I no longer play in a world of the current. My back log is too long, and I've gotten too deep into retro games and arcade cabinets. I'm looking forward to playing God of War soon. It's been sitting on my PS4 for almost a year. And Spider-man. And Hitman 2. And Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. And Bloodstained. And MK11. And No Man's Sky VR. And Skyrim VR. And... I just can't buy games anymore until I get through at least half of my back log. And that list isn't even the tip of the iceberg...

So, that being said, I feel I'm not qualified to make a GOTY list. I don't think I've played a game this year, besides an expansion, that came out this year. Is Dead Cells officially this year? Or was that last year? If it was this year, it'd better get its due!

This! If you agree, please re-post.

1 [PC] Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order

2 [NSW] Cadence of Hyrule

3 [NSW] Fire Enblem: Three Houses

4 [NSW] Tetris 99

5 [NSW] Zelda Links Awakening

6 [PC] Void Bastards

7 [PC] The Outer Worlds

8 [PC] Call of Duty Modern Warfare

9 [PC] Ace Combat 7

10 [NSW] Mario Maker 2

1

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

2

Control

3

Resident Evil 2

4

The Outer Worlds

5

Metro Exodus

6

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

7

Mortal Kombat 11

8

Outer Wilds

9

Children of Morta

10

Sayonara Wild Hearts

1. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
2. Resident Evil 2

For me, Fire Emblem is out in front by a mile with Resident Evil 2 a distant second.

This is my preliminary, not an amazing year for games but a couple real gems with a bunch of well made, unexceptional stuff.

Weird year indeed. Had to get some games I didn't enjoy that much just to complete the list.

Also, honorary votes for Kiwami 1 and 2. I played them on PC, so they are 2019 games for me, but including them felt like cheating.

@csl316: No other place for it...

I don't know what the rules are on Life Strange 2. Four of the five parts were released in 2019 so it's on my list.

Here my top 10. I only played 10 games that came out in 2019, in the year 2019, so they all got on it by default (looking at you Anthem and SteamWorld Quest).

feeling pretty good about this list

Honestly pretty meh on this year, which was mostly spent chipping away at my backlog. I only actually finished Control out of all these and half the games are "well, I played it so I guess I should include it." I do wish I had been able to get to Disco Elysium and Death Stranding.

Miiiight change a little but:

1. Re2

2. Control

3. Death Stranding

4. A Plague Tale : Innocence

5. Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Liar

The only games I felt strongly for . Kinda a weak year for me . Actually , back to back meh years , imo .

I love this community GOTY stuff! I wish the staff would judge our list on UPF or Bombcast or something though. Give the community GOTY a plug for all the people who didn't know it existed.

Didn't even change 2018 to 2019. lul

Yakuza 0 was my favourite game I played this year, but I guess I'll give my #1 spot to Fire Emblem Three Houses, that's rad too!

Wooo! Time to show love to Total War and the outerwilds!

Rough draft -- Control's really good, but nothing really matches 450+ hours of Apex good...at least until they dialed up the SBMM too far :-/ Special note -- Control, Goose, and Ace7 were the only ones I finished on this list, with some seeing as few as 5 hours of playtime.

Surprised I played this many games from this year...this year. AC7 might be too high, but my hype for it was huge until it released with limited/branded-only joystick support on PC. I really can't stand first-person Fallouts like the Outer Worlds imitates, but I'm 20 or so hours in and it's...okay. I'm getting bored by it and the combat handles predictably badly, probably bumping it lower.

I think #s 1 and 2 on this list are an order of magnitude weightier for me personally than 3+. Those were the standouts for me this year, everything else is pretty distant.

Not shown are Void Bastards (beat it in one attempt with the first guy you get, lost its charm by the end) and Borderlands 3 (expected nothing and was still let down).

Unsure if additional platform releases count as being released this year but I'm still playing the hell out of Overload, the spiritual successor to Descent. It saw an X1 release this year, and the community's been able to crack open the PC version and add mod support, better servers, additional modes like CTF and Monsterball (now better known as Rocket League) and set up a teams ladder (otl.gg). That's probably my overall game of the decade -- clearing 1000 hours since early 2017 and not stopping anytime soon.

EDIT: Risk of Rain 2 is #10

1. Control

2. Resident Evil 2

3. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

4. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

5. Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

6. Code Vein

7. The Outer Worlds

8. Death Stranding

9. Devil May Cry 5

10. Blasphemous

I feel like I cheated by putting Tarkov on here, but I just got into it this year. Without Tarkov I only would've had a top 9 because there's no way I'm putting Death Stranding on here.

I'm pretty bummed I didn't get to play Control, The Outer Wilds, Ancestors, and the new Rogue Galaxy this year. I'm sure they would've knocked any of the last 5 games on my list off. Between trying to catch up on those four games and the avalanche of big titles coming out at the end of Q1, 2020 is going to be rough.

Creature in the Well is so good and it seems like a lot of people missed it.

List:

I think it'd be very helpful to get a list of notable games that came out this year, especially for those of us who aren't games journalists and maybe can't remember all the things we played this year. But I put in the time and collated my full list:

If you decide to read my list/video game essay covering this last year (good luck, this one is set to Nightmare difficulty), this song encapsulates the raw LEVELS on which Control, coming in at a fire-extinguisher explosion to the face impact force of #1 GOTY, flipping owns. And then, why a lot of why a lot of other games own also, AND THEN, my editorial-style look-back at, and present state philosophical and practical exploration and personal explanation of what/who/why 'video games', as well. Buckle up, and have two bottles of eyedrops and a beverage. If you like to read words, this one's for you, no promises beyond that, but maybe you'll think A: this guy is a lunatic, or B: this guy's a lunatic, but maybe that was worth the eye-strain.

CONTROL: Going intentionally in on Control as blind as I could, minus a few gifs on the Epic store-page, I was sold on the snippets of floating and throwing chairs into bookshelves and soldier-looking dudes ragdolling as a dumpster beautifully careened into them exploding into what I interpreted as a bloody mist. That alone would have gotten this on my top ten- however, because I went in so blind, I was rewarded with a game that contained just about every thing I love in single-player video games, and then some. More on the importance of 'video game un-expectation blindness' following the list, and what made 2019 not just a year of really great games for me, but a re-evaluation of video games themselves; and, to jump back a couple steps, is how Control in a huge way was a vehicle by which I began to re-evaluate how I understand the landscape of video-gameage in present day, and how I found my way out of an existential crisis of 'should I even play video games anymore?', into a concrete, 'yes, absolutely', but with the mentality, and decisiveness of a picky-eating 12 year old, because with video games now, that's the only way I can enjoy a single one of them. I owe this to Control, in no small way, as a contained, focused, almost 'oldschool' narrative flow and progression, but excellence to my eyes, ears and controller holding hands, and brain that absolutely needed, and wants more.

So above and beyond was my experience playing Control, that, despite it's sort of anti-climactic confusing ending, which (after replaying several chapters), as well as the epilogue, I now re-understand as a natural conclusion to a singular entry-point story within an original game-scape that 'persists' even after you beat it- with DLC inbound in installments and the side-questy 'duties' of being The Director. I cannot say that in 2019 there is a game that I eagerly and seriously carved time out to play, and play around in. I played it with regular max graphics, with RTX, with cheat engine's speedhack-slowmotion mapped to my D-pad to introduce the max-payne bullet time just to marvel at the physics, and stopped and stood and headbanged to the song posted above, as my Janitor-dressed Jesse stood still next to the radio it blasted from in an innocuous security booth near the Executive hub. Remedy was the only developer that really, REALLY surprised, surpassed, and excelled well past what I even hoped Control would be. n retrospect, I should likely walk it back a bit, but for a while I was calling it the Half Life 3 wish fulfillment, among other things in high praise, but only a little bit. It is so different and drenched in atmosphere and I seriously haven't been so blown away since I first played Dead Space, or Dead Rising- the list goes on for a while, in genuinely almost every aspect, compared to what I expected going in, which I honestly hoped, at best, would be a game with verticality and physics combat- which would have alone placed it on my top five, but in case you have made it this far without spoiling yourself on the game's unfolding nature from 'go', I won't be that guy; suffice to say I got more than just radical combat, which I cannot really understand the complaints about from the crew, but we all feel how we do, and that's fair as fair is.

ABSOLVER: Speaking of combat, though originally released in 2017, and though development ceased in 2018, Sloclap/Digital Devolver's Absolver continued to reign supreme not only as the most tragically misunderstood, watershed, and infinite-shuffle create-a fighting game with supremely cinematic memorable and addictive matches that, from tournament season-to-season, to literal 'Street Fighting' in the open world, that in my opinion is more creative, complex, and expansive in quality and quantity than several Street Fighter games rolled together, with only For Honor as a somewhat-similar a construct, continues to be excellent and original and the community that dug it's heels in continues to be rewarded with stories, and this passion runs deep with each of the veterans and every time a new 'prospect' player joins in on the Journey-esque-journey of learning to fight, the game continues to be, just past it's 2nd birthday, my favorite game in my three decades of video game playing. I knew, once I began to unpack the complexity of the combat's systems, Absolver was the game for me. 4,000 hours+ across two platforms, involved heavily in the community and now, post development closure- I can firmly say this game is for me what SF3: Third Strike, or Super Smash Brothers: Melee is for others, the only tragedy is that it never gained traction with the mainstream when it was critically needed- and, that because of bad/wrong word of mouth calling it 'dark souls kung fu', which is what likely most outsiders consider it to be to this day, it only gained a fraction of what could have been thousands and thousands of additional players, because, as a fighting game, people ran with the 'souls' narrative, without understanding, somewhat fairly, that the 'story-world' with bosses, items etc., was there to funnel you into traditional online matches where traditional fighting game rules met a new-school, never before attempted set of systems in a behind-the-back perspective'd best-and-only-of-it's-kind as has ever existed an accurate representation of martial arts in video games. Thankfully, I am not alone, and like SF3: Third Strike, or SSB: Melee, the game lives on through ever-morphing strategies and meta-wrecking-creativity, and because of the literal infinite combinations of move choices one can make in the deck editor, and how to best deploy them in the most intelligent and input-dependent-timing-based rock-paper-scissors- Absolver is a near-flawless love letter to the traditional martial arts, and martial arts cinema, allowing every player to actually form a personality and reputation that continues to, even in it's small corner of niche cult classic continuum, radiate brilliance every single fight worth dissecting. So, even if I am cheating with a game that dropped in September of 2017, I would be lying, if, had Control not been a solo-experience unlike anything I could have seen coming, Absolver continues to be the very first thing I boot up any time I have time for video games. Play it if you like fighting games, and stick with it to understand, if you missed the memo, why it deserves nothing than praise and label as a masterpiece of a fighting game that has so much ambition and execution that nearly surpasses what I even thought a fighting game could even be, in any and every aspect is the kind of fighting game I would make if I had the capability to put every single passion I have into a video game. Also, as an artist, I must state that for it's simplicity, like Journey, or whatever else, the visual treatment of the game, also the style and use of UE4 is BEAUTIFUL, and like Wind Waker, the visuals are timeless because of this.

Yes, this is a fighting game from 2017, this is a screenshot from two hours ago. You owe yourself this game.

The rest of the games on my list are more or less spoken for already, and the reasons for listing them either have to do with additional content to what was already excellent, or innovate on concepts I enjoyed from other installments- OR lastly, were simply games that filled a genre gap, which is why Breakpoint makes the list, before I get backpacks thrown at me. I had fun with that game. It's the cooperative comparative almost-Metal-Gear-Sandbox we will never see out of Konami or Kojima. Speaking of, Death Stranding continues to be like a strange sci-fi television show I like to climb around in as it demands my attention and respect for systems that modern game players are taking, in my opinion, too seriously because of a name attatched to it. I enjoyed Tim Rogers' hour long review almost as much as the game itself, but even there, I do not take as much stock in the nuance he pulls from the kojima minded construct art-piece that it is. I enjoy it. Descenders is my extreme-sport-challenge-score-attack-lol's game that is great, play that because it's good too. NMS I enjoy a lot more in VR, and it just continues to continue, and though yes it has its limitations, the minecraftian nature and now-actual multiplayer components of it make it a lot of fun to boot up whenever I need, well, space. Speaking of space, Outer Wilds I list partially because it's brilliant, and I have a personal bias as an art peer of mine worked on it and, as I have not had yet much time to dig into it properly, I can only assume that it will make my list again some time in 2020 once I thoroughly give it the attention and time it deserves. Remnant was really cool, I enjoyed playing that with friends, and was a mix of tastes and game influences that I already enjoyed, and was in a shooter-format that my casual gaming friends could get in on despite never touching a souls game or a resident evil with any care or attention to do so. So that was cool. I am still a mega-monster-hunter nooblet, and half the time I have no flipping idea how or what I should be doing/wearing/using, but, like Absolver, I understand the complexity, the density of systems in play, and though, sadly, it is not Dragon's Dogma 2, by gosh, it's close enough, and the more I play the more I like it. The tone isn't always my favorite, sometimes I find the silly-anime-ness of it a little too goofy where I would have preferred a more serious tone, but on a different day, I can joyfully appreciate the up-beat nature of it's presentation in turn as well. It's ongoing and still good. Warframe I only got into this year, and it is with heavy regret I had not gotten into it sooner; there is too much to that game, and by now everyone knows what they like or don't about that game, but to me, it was a brand new action game I had tried once, and put down in it's early beta stages, but, boy, has that game grown up into a thing. The addendum to that statement I might say is that, I might have actually listed Destiny 2 for what it deservedly is championed for, but because it is so familiar to Halo which I prefer, with a legacy's fortune that just dropped on PC, I instead chose to note that Warframe, with Anthem slowly building back some faith, I felt was worth more mention for my word-typing. The Master Chief Collection I haven't even touched, so I did not list it, but I know I'm going to close my year out a happy camper with that one. I might have listed The Division 2, but that game REALLY pissed me off with how it handled itself with how it handled end-game-content and balancing problems, that took the high highs all the way into the negatives, and it may be impossible to get me back into being interested in shooting a singular enemy with 12 magazines worth of bullets and gun-recycling and number-juggling with my most anticipated feature, the Dark Zone, essentially ruined in numerous layers of BS I get angry even thinking about, which makes it my most disappointing game of the year, even past Anthem. ...which- even as disasterous as Anthem is/was, I actually enjoyed ALL of my time with, (I know, I'm super weird! But I loved putting the avengers theme on, decking out my robo-suits and Earth Defense Force hilarious mindless cooperative efforts to earn intangible/ridiculously pathetic 'rewards'). I don't need to justify fun I have; as a kid, I had fun with way-too-expensive-breakable garbage all the time, with no regret, with the full self awareness of how stupid I am and how evil corporations are- - - However, the flying around is still exhilarating, the nebulous and unfocused 'point of the game' offset by jetpacks, pretty imaginative and thoughtful environments, explosions, sound work and 'game-feel' that actually has improved dramatically; -despite the collective internet hate, I, if only I, actually hope they manage to pull what that massive mess that has some very satisfying elements in it together in some kind of unprecedented redemption story yet to exist in games by virtue of how the internet acted about it, and what it could have been, or could be if, and maybe ____ happens, on a whim, prayer, hanging by a thread.

Notable mentions of things I know I'll love but haven't had the time with yet include Boneworks (pc VR), Devil May Cry 5 (was that this year? I don't know, I know I'll love that too), Sunset Overdrive I finally played and enjoyed this year, and having not played the Yakuza series but wanting to explore a different aspect and story in Kamurocho, I know I will eventually play Judgement/Judge Eyes. Red Dead Redemption 2 as well, now running properly on my PC in HDR 4k with again, cheat engine's ability to manipulate sandbox is awesome and hilarious, with graphics beyond graphics, and the online component being updated from the year's distance from my last binge/check in, refreshes that game entirely the same way GTAV's jump from PS3 to PC did.

I'd say what a year, but what a heck of a last two years, I can confidently say I needn't spend another dollar for YEARS to find something I need to get to/can happly play, as fresh and new, and varied, without even trying to entertain the unrealistic expectation of beating each of, or keeping current with the expansions to. And holy shit I apparently own Half Life Alyx already having paid-it-forward with the index controller purchase, so F* me, I'm just getting games literally thrown at me without asking. And we are now in an age of game passes, so it is quite possible that, (please don't), video game development could in all practicality universally cease, and I would not have enough lifespan to play what exists already, much less enjoy properly what each has to offer up, like I did as a kid. This is a problem, but it's also indicative that video games are a different monster that I have begun to treat differently- which is to say, you can't play all of them- play the ones that really speak to you, and for gods sake, go with your gut and dig as deep as you can with the ones that you know are 'yours'. To close out here, my suggestion for game players in general- stop eating up pre-release material past e3 announcements- if you are excited enough about a game, skip the reviews. Don't go on reddit and debate the quality and expect to change minds, don't allow yours to be changed on something you enjoy already by some jerk telling you it's bad. That is where we are now, as a byproduct of how many games exist, it isn't 'is this fun for me?' it's instead, 'tell me if this will be fun and why'. That, by itself, to me, destroys the essence of fun; of joyful surprise, of disappointment, of the ability to formulate taste and ultimately reduces the personal experiences we have with games down to quantifiable chunks of time that are meaningless instead of what they were born to be: Fun.

If you read all of that, way to go, I don't have the capability to grant achievements, but heck, I'll buy you a copy of Absolver on PC if your interest is sincere, and on top of that, holy shit my backlog is so full there's like 25 games more I am at the moment forgetting to write about, so I'll stop now and spare the internet from more unnecessary text-praise about things I love about interactive media.

Video games rule.

I consider LiS 2 to be a 2019 release since 4 of the 5 episodes released this year.