2019 - Actually one of the best years of gaming (if you like things other than AAA spectacles)

I keep seeing people say 2019 is a weak year of gaming.

I feel the need to correct that statement to "2019 isn't a strong year if you mostly like AAA shooters or AAA Ubisoft-cloned open world games"

However as someone who prefers Japanese games, narrative games, indie games and unique / original things it has been one of my favs of the generation, there was too much to get to in one year!

Consider the following:

Fire Emblem

Bloodstained

Disco Elysium

Children of Morta

Indivisible

Trails of Cold Steel 3

Cadence of Hyrule

Baba is You

A plague tale: innocence

Outer Wilds

Goose Game

Also rereleases of classics:

Crash Team Racing

Baldurs Gate 1-2

Icewind Dale

Planescape Torment

Trails of Cold Steel 1-2

Collection of Mana

And for the more traditional AAA

Control

Resident Evil 2

Outer Worlds

Kingdom Hearts 3

Pokemon S&S

Im sure there are lots more I'm forgetting / couldnt even get to!

I guess there was no God of War...but there was a cornucopia of unique and amazing games.

I get the feeling ppl just base it on what they've played. I tend to look at everything that's come out cuz I usually only play a tiny fraction of them release year and I see a ton of quality games for every type of gamer.

I was thinking about my top 10, and I have around 20 that are worthy. And I played another 10 games that were ok.

Probably the most games I've played in a year during this generation.

@liquiddragon: Aye, absolutely. It has become so hard to properly play everything that comes out given how wide that range gets especially when you factor in Indy and VR. Taking a stock of what came out in a given year has more than ever become valuable in a world where every year the narrative of what makes games interesting, great, or even successful seems to so rapidly shift.

As for 2019, yeah I think I agree that if you get over the big budget super massively marketed stuff there is lots of originality and forward pushing ideas this year. Both mechanically and from a narrative perspective. I also think we saw a bit more mid tier or B tier type of studios releasing games, and that combined with an overall larger embrace towards more weird concepts has been really refreshing. 2019 may be more divisive in what people consider that masterpiece, and it may not have the large AAA standouts it used to but the bulk of quality, interesting games at a certain point outweighs one or two shining spots. GOTY for sites like GB are probably going to be a lot harder this year because of it.

Yup. The indie game scene continues to flourish with creativity and great games and I absolutely love it as someone who prefers it over a lot of the big budget stuff and have for a while now.

I still don't think that is that many. The past two years also seemingly had way more indie/smaller scale games than this year. I get wanting to provide an alternative perspective, but this really doesn't convince me.

You should add Void Bastards to the list.

I found this year to be the best in years tbh

@sloppydetective:

I forgot about Void Bastards because I didn't have time to touch it or even follow it at all, too many interesting games!

And I didn't bother to add Death Stranding yet either but I look forward to buying that game on a cheap black friday or post christmas sale and trying it for myself.

@arcitee: I'm in the same boat on Death Stranding. Looks like an interesting thing but I won't bite until it's at least $30.

I would also add Ape Out, Afterparty, Katana Zero, Risk of Rain 2 and the upcoming Wattam to the pile of neat indie titles in 2019.

With the proviso that of course I haven't played everything on the list and I DO like AAA games (in addition to indie and smaller stuff)...I don't really agree.

It hasn't been a bad year, for sure, and there's plenty of stuff that even you didn't include (the new Yooka-Laylee is considered one of the best 2D platformers of the decade by many enthusiasts, for example) but the highs haven't been as high as they have recently, and you could build a similar list for basically any year of the last 5. That's just how gaming is now; there's lots of great stuff released because the medium has matured and indie studios and smaller teams are constantly producing amazing and impressively polished passion projects. There will be no more 'bad' years because we don't have to rely on giant publishers and the relatively low number of projects they produce each year.

But like last year had an amazing slate of smaller games too. Into the Breach, Celeste, Return of the Obra Din, Subnautica, Beat Sabre, The Messenger, Tetris Effect, Gris, Frostpunk. Does this year's list beat last year's? That depends on your particular tastes. Meanwhile the AAA slate was, IMO, clearly better and the tippy top was much higher. 2017 was arguably a high water mark for the decade, so 2019 IS a down year in comparison. It's not a bad year, it's just less amazing. I count Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, Horizon: Zero Dawn and God of War 2018 all among my favorite games of all time, and nothing that came out this year has come close so far, though I obviously haven't played everything. That's fine, and again, it's a very solid year with more great games than I could possibly get around to, but it's not a showstopper, which makes total sense. The last year of a console cycle is usually quieter than the few years before it as studios get ready for the launches of new systems and the first party games start to dry up a bit.

I tend to enjoy smaller releases far more than AAA ones, and I'm having trouble paring down to only 10 games for a top 10 list. For me however, there are a lot of very good, very interesting games that came out this year but very few that I feel a real passion for. I had a lot of 8/10 games this year. Nothing wrong with that, but the past few years have had more 9-10 rated games for me. (Yes a numbered rating system is lazy but it communicates the overall feel at a glance).

For me I think I traded in the experience of being frustrated with AAA games (many events in red dead 2 left me yelling out "screw it I don't care about this anymore" as I fought with the game, or not being able to read any of the text in God of War (its too damn small) to being wowed by smaller games and having a fantastic year RPGs.

I would probably agree with the idea that 2017 was the best overall year of the generation though.

I only spend $60 on a game 3/4 times a year, this year I bought.

Total War Three Kingdoms, The Outer Worlds, Death Stranding and Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order.

Nothing in 2019 has been bad per se, but my most anticipated game The Outer Worlds I probably been by far my most disappointing game.

And the last big game of the year I'll buy Jedi Fallen Order released in a very poor state with alot of ideas which sounded good on paper and in pre-release but I feel didn't work.

Considering next year we have FF7, Last of Us Part 2 and Cyberpunk games I'm really really looking fowrard, it's not hard to feel 2019 has been underwhelming especially so when the big stuff misses its mark for many.

It's not just games though with new consoles next years its been a quite year for news everyone holding stuff back for next year.

@thepanzini: lol I look forward to both not being able to run Cyberpunk on a base ps4 and probably not being able to read any codec, quest entry or subtitle in the game.

I feel like now that the development cycle of most big-budget games is at least three years; with fewer of them coming out, every year will be a lean one for some people. For me, it was last year.

I'm not sure if comparing one year in games to another is the most productive thing to do, but was there a particular year in the last generation commonly thought to be an "off" year?

I've been using this year to really dig deep into a handful of games I liked, mostly from previous years. I spent a month just fucking around with AC: Odyssey, for example. In that regard, this has been a super chill year for me and I like it.

This year has been fine, but there have been a lot of big misses and not a lot of real "hits" to speak of. The best games I played this year were bloodstained and RE2 (a remake and a spiritual successor) and most of the indie games this year that were strong just didn't have any staying power.

I find it sad when I see peoples gaming radars are so small that if the top few highest marketing budget games result in disappointment then it's deemed a bad year for gaming all round.

There are tons of decent/excellent games released every single year. Personally 2019 has been especially good with auto-chess becoming a thing and Satisfactory almost becoming a thing, both of which are very welcome to eat my time.

Mainstreamwise maybe leaning to overall disapointment sure.

I also think it was a pretty great year for games. Metro Exodus being a personal highlight but enjoying a lot of other stuff as well. Next year looks amazing as well so far.

As far as AAA games go, Resident Evil 2 was such a breath of fresh air for me. It's a fantastic balance between being a game-y game and being an immersive experience you can get lost in. More importantly, it isn't trying to out-scale anything. This is probably just because it's a remake, but instead of trying to build a bigger city to run around in or having the most realistic whatever. It doesn't have the biggest set pieces and it's not bloated with mechanics that it doesn't need for the sake of some RPG grind. It's just... a police station, a bit of city surrounding it, the sewers, and a short section in an underground lab to top things off. It is precisely no more and no less than it needs to be and it's almost certainly going to be my favorite game of this year...

...if it weren't for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which is bloated and overloaded with mechanics and is loaded with content and secrets and side stuff and so on and so forth.

I wouldn't have either game any other way. Except maybe I'd make the storylines for both characters in RE2 actually compatible with each other - both can't have happened and that's pretty much the only thing I don't like about the game.

Usually I'll buy maybe 2 or 3 new AAA games, some indie games, and mostly catch up on older games or AAA games from a year or 2 before once they are on sale. This year though, I already hit my usual AAA amount within the first half of the year, with Ace Combat 7, DMC5, RE2, Sekiro, Metro: Exodus, and a Plague Tale if you want to count it(I guess that's more of a AA) game. Didn't really slow down either, plenty of great games in the second half. I think this may be the best big game year of the entire PS4/Xbox One era for my specific personal taste.

Games I played that came out this year.

• Kingdom Hearts 3
• Resident Evil 2Make
• Onimusha remaster
• Ace Attorney Trilogy
• Ace Combat 7(how come no one ever mentions this?)
• Judgment
• Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition
• Devil May Cry 5
• about 1/4 of Dragon Quest Builders 2(I played like 30 hours but then realized I mostly fucked around instead of progressing and I ended up burnt out. I'll play the rest some other time though it's good)
• Metal Wolf Chaos XD
• Code Vein
• Death Stranding(hey, I liked it)
• EDIT: Oh right, Final Fantasy 8 Remastered

Games I'm interested in playing and will at some point that came out this year

• Sekiro
• Bloodstained
• Jedi Fallen Order
• Control
• Shenmue 3(need to play Shenmue 2 first)
• Plague Tale
• The Caligula Effect
• Super Robot Wars T
• Atelier Lulua
• Atelier Ryza
• Contra Anniversary Collection
• Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled
• The Sinking City
• Anodyne 2
• Catherine Full Body(especially cuz I never played the original)
• Tropico 6
• Star Ocean First Departure R

And maybe some other stuff I played/wanted to play and I missed it on wikipedia's list. So, basically, I dunno about anyone else but this year was pretty good for me! If I had more money it would have been even better.

@electricbarrier: if you like JRPGs (based on your list) you need to be playing the trails of cold steel games (and Trails series in general)

@arcitee: No offense to people that like Cold Steel, but I played almost all of that first game and gave up when I learned the game wasn't over yet and I had a whole final dungeon left to do. I don't get what people see in it, I found the dialogue to be incredibly repetitive and obnoxious and the plot and characters to be paper thin. And that free roaming section was terrible. I love Trails in the Sky, and Cold Steel didn't hold a candle to them. I'd much rather play through all 3 Sky games than even one more Cold Steel game!

But for people who don't feel like I do I'm very glad these games are finally getting the localization and attention they deserve at least.

@electricbarrier:

I won't argue against Sky being the better (and I hear Azure/Zero are the best) but Cold Steel is all about the slow build of the world and how everything lines up and comes together (and the gameplay keeps improving).

@arcitee: Fair enough, but even as a JRPG fan, someone who is well versed in story and even gameplay not getting interesting until 25-50% of the way through, I just don't know if I can push myself through until that buildup pays off. More power to you I'll just miss out I guess.

I've been working on a top 10 of the decade by creating individual top 10's for each year (I like making lists, ok?) and I'm inclined to agree. Looking at the overall strength of my personal lists, 2019 is actually a very decent year of games. Plenty of competent games, there's just not much that excels at the triple-A side of things. That makes it very comparable to 2013, 2014 and to a lesser degree, 2015. There's also a couple of years that are very top-heavy with the overall quality being comparable to this year.

I do think years without that one game are easily forgotten and 2019 is definitely one of those.