A list of my personal top 10 games from 2016. A lot of things I never got a chance to play, so the list is pretty limited in scope. Honorable mention to Overwatch, as it is a huge release this year that deserves recognition but I just didn't really like it.
A game I have been waiting for for over ten years, and probably my favourite entry in the series to date. Great gameplay, amazing characterization, an easy standout this year for me in a year without many games in my favourite genre (RPGs).
I have played WoW for most of my adult life, since beta. Legion is probably the best expansion the game has ever had, which is pretty high praise. I would love to just take three months off life and just play Legion that whole time, but unfortunately I cannot.
Having not been a fan of Blow's previous works, I was surprised at how much I fell in love with The Witness. I was bringing graph paper and pictures of my TV to work to work on puzzles on my off-time. I will never again look at In The Hall of the Mountain King the same way.
Uncharted does set pieces like nobody's business, and Uncharted 4 was a great experience from start to finish. Maybe the best entry in the series and a great way to conclude that particular Uncharted story arc.
This has been a year of a lot of PC gaming for me, and no game series has occupied as much of my time on the computer as Civilization. Civ VI is a continuation of the design philosophies of Civ V, bringing a more updated aesthetic to the series. It is a good game now but I have no doubt that after a couple DLCs it will be one of the best games the series has seen.
I generally am not big on the "walking-simulator story" games but Firewatch was a great surprise for me. The game looks fantastic and the development of the story and the mysteries behind it was very satisfying. Played the whole thing through in one sitting and loved it from beginning to end.
Harvest Moon nostalgia away! Stardew Valley is a staggeringly impressive feat coming out of a one-man development team, and is up there with Legion for "games I want to take a holiday just to play". I sadly haven't been able to spend as much time into this as I would like, but with the release of the PS4 version I hope to settle down for some farming this holiday.
If you had told me that a FPS game would have made my game of the year list at the beginning of 2016, I would have said you were crazy, as it is just not a genre for me. However, Titanfall 2 is a fantastic game with an absolutely incredible campaign that makes it worth the purchase price. I don't really ever play multiplayer in FPS games and that remains true here, but the campaign alone was worth the price of admission.
Abzû is one of those games that I just absolutely adore, and sit there with a smile on my face the entire time through. Absolutely gorgeous game in the vein of a Journey, if you like exploring beautiful worlds you can't go wrong with this.
The third entry in my favourite visual novel series, Zero Time Dilemma continues a lot of the story-telling that has made the series so good. If you enjoyed the first two games in the Zero Escape series, you should play this. If you haven't played them yet (999 and Virtue's Last Reward) you should play those first.
