This year felt insane both in terms of bullshit happening to me and the rest of the world, it also seems like it was the longest year of my life. I was shocked to find out that not only monster Hunter world but also Dragonball fighterz and far cry 5 all came out early this year which feels like a lifetime ago.

Before getting into my list I have to say my dishonorable mentions is nearly as long as my list itself but specifically battletech and soulcalibur 6 are top of my pile of shame, these games are deeply my shit and I should have played them.

10. Into the breach and hitman 2

You may begin to notice with this entry that I am an unapologetic cheater when it comes to making lists. These are two games I've spent a combined three hours playing, but I already know enough to say they are going to be things I come back to over time.

9. Artifact

Oh boy, this thing has been through some turmoil recently. It's not something I play every day, but sometimes I want to play a card game and this will be the one from now on. The correct amount of depth and rng, systems that remove some of the things that annoy me in other card games.

8. Escape from tarkov

An early access game! Blasphemy? Don't care. This game is incredible, of all the early access games I've played I have seen the most progress here. The risk/reward gameplay still causes my heart to go into arrhythmia even after all these hours. No other game quite captures that feeling of being so deadly, yet so vulnerable.

The games also graphically phenomenal

7. Dragonball fighterz

I'm a casual fighting game player at best, dbfz makes it fun not only to do your basic dragon rush spam but also to learn some of the deeper mechanics with the perfect level of fan service.

6. Marvel's Spider-Man

I love Spider-Man, I love what insomniac is doing with the characters here, the gameplay is a blast. I hope they find a way to keep me more engaged through the middle section of the game next time though.

5. Red dead redemption 2

There were times when I thought I hated this damn game. The more you try and play this game like a game the more it pushes you away. This is an experience, this is a sim, but most importantly it's a story. Trying to run through and check every challenge and mission off as efficient as possible is going to result in tedium and frustration, but if you soak it in, if you take the time to do what you think Arthur would do it will reward you in the end.

I lucked into my Arthur's redemption tale making sense, I decided early on that Arthur had very few limits when it meant providing for his family. That meant he was nearly as bad as he always said he was in the early game. It frames the late game side quests in exactly the way they must be for this story to have it's maximum impact. I also used my horse, Ice through basically my entire game so that special thanks really hurt.

4. Monster Hunter world

My name is Brandon, and I am an addict. I am addicted to loot. MHW came out at a time when my previous loot provider ran out of supply, it was serendipity that it was also fun, had a decent amount of depth, and a lot of cool people I like were playing it. That depth is kind of fake however, and the repetitive nature of the movesets for each weapon drove me back to my old faithful eventually.

3. Dead cells

I think personally the best way to represent speed in a video game is afterimages. The devs of dead cells agree. They are also damn good at making an action game that feels essentially perfect to play. It has some of the most interesting loot of any game on my list, they are able to make some things incredible powerful since they do end up taking it from you if you die.

2. Destiny 2 forsaken

I have so much to say about forsaken, about how it saved my favorite franchise from becoming just another shooter, about how they brought story elements I personally loved and never thought I'd see in the game and put them front and center. It also doubled down on the deep lore, made it even crazier, it's given me and many others reasons to theorize and talk about what's coming and it's wonderful.

At the end of the day though, it's about the loot, of course, and forsaken delivered. Random rolls make every drop at least potentially interesting. It's not a perfect system but it gets better week by week. They continue to deliver raids that are unlike anything else in the shooter space, I love figuring out their crazy puzzles. won't you join me o’ reader mine?

1. God of war

To be honest my top three are interchangeable based on the day. I keep coming back to dad of war, as my top game though. In case it isn't clear I am not super into single player story based experiences. If they are good I'll check them out but I likely won't finish, or even if I do it'll take me weeks. That was not the case with God of war, it wasn't one specific thing, I liked the story it was engaging throughout, yes boy getting uppity was annoying but that was intentional. The gameplay was surprisingly deep and satisfying, moment of the year is recalling the Leviathan axe don't @ me. Punching draugr into dust is quite fun

It's also just the novelty of caring about the story in a god of war game, kratos has never been much of a character so much as an anger and revenge factory. They make that part of his character in this game, they address how bad he used to be, and take steps to redeem him. The loot pretty good as well.