Giant Bombcast Game of the Year 2017: Best Debut

My money is on emil.

He is hardly in the game.

Bayek or Aloy, or bust.

Jan for best debut, Abby a close second. Ben brought Kingdom Heartache.

At least the staff acknowledges Nioh. Nioh is an incredible video game that is so much more than it meets the eye.

Even me as a japanese history enthuiast didn't knew that back then people really used cats as clocks as acording to their pupils people could deduct what time it was. Thats a real thing that people did and that info I had to hunt down myself and I never knew that.

No other game this year made me do that. Beside that, the game is quite historically accurate, sans the yokai and magic stuff of course, but that still is intertwined with japanese folklore by that time (they didn't create that stuff for the game and all demons you see are based on real japanese folklore).

The detail in Nioh is second to none and no action game ever made me actually learn about historical stuff on a part of history I already am interested for over a decade. It surely made one hell of a impression for me. Its legit one of the most impressive games of the year and it says a whole lot.

Anyway, my picks would either be Nioh or Night in the Woods, I'm super glad that NITW is within the top 3!

@mechsican: Emil exists since 2010. Hes far from being new.

I'm guessing this is Studio MDHR/"Cuphead"'s award to lose.

EDIT: And I'm wrong!

Rivals of Aether is "just Smash Brothers again", but PUBG is totally new and fresh since it's a new IP...

No love for Hellblade is a shame. Such a beautiful, strong game from Ninja with a very limited budget. Loved it from beginning until end.

A fantastic performance by Melina Juergens.

(Note: Just started watching list...)

Color me surprised PUBG is even on this list! What's "new" or "fresh" about an old Arma 2/3 mod???

Horizon Zero Dawn? Yes!

Night in the Woods? Yes!

Dream Daddy? Yes!

Pyre? Yes!

Cuphead? Yes!

What Remains of Edith Finch? Yes!

PUBG?! No. I can't even... Everything above deserves to be included in this list--y'all are crazy.

I flat out don't even understand what this category is if Horizon doesn't make the top three. I do not understand what the point of it is. It's just "favourite game from a new IP"? Why does that need its own category? At that point why not have the creaky old "Best console" or "Best [Genre]" categories?

I think Sundered should have at least been mentioned. It probably wouldn't hang with the best on the list. I really hope it's mentioned in 'Best Styyyyyyyyyyyyle' though.

Y'all have officially lost your goddamn minds.

I mean the same could be said for those games you listed too. What's new about an open world action game, a 2D platformer or a visual novel?

@nameredacted: Its their list, just roll with it.

It's now evident that you guys NEED to play Arma.

Did DOTA2 win best debut? No, because someone on staff had played the mod it was based on before. There is nothing new about PUBG, except that it's got micro transactions, you can't shoot as far, and you can't fix your cars. People have been playing that game for about 6 years.

@benpack: I have to ask, how many visual novels have you touched? It could just be my sense of humour, but for Dream Daddy - "it's funnier than any other visual novel thing I've ever touched" - it barely even rates on that scale for me.

@teigen: PUBG is literally the third time Brendan Greene made the same basic game. Classifying it as a "debut" is the same as saying that Rocket League is a debut.

ez for nioh

Poor Hollow Knight. It's such a fantastic game.

@joey_ravn: This! My problem with PUBG even being on this list isn’t because there were other games in this genre, it’s that the same guy has been remaking and refining the same game/mod. He finally nailed it for many people — not me. It’s that refinement of making the same thing that made everything Alex was saying about it possible.

I purchased Nioh

I tried to like Nioh

I hate Nioh

I just felt like it was trying to juggle waayyy too many gameplay mechanics that never came together in a very intuitive way. Like, there's 3 different stances, you can switch between them mid attack, but don't forget to regain your stanima at the end of each attack, also the menus are kinda bad. Ya got 2 sets of items you can switch between, with 4 items in each set, and it's kinda hard to remember what each of those items does, plus you can feed weapons into other weapons because I don't know why? I guess sometimes the numbers go up??

Just felt overly complicated.

Plus the lore sucks.

The mission design is pretty basic.

I've been spoiled by the souls series.

There are so many other things I wanna bitch about it but I've scrubbed most it from my mind.

I will say that it's better than Lords of the Fallen and The Surge combined.

Should rename this to most impactful debut, it is certainly not best debut.

The argument that PUBG has had a bigger impact on the industry seems to fly in the face of past years where a person couldn't use the affect a game had on people outside the room as a reason for something to win. I have no problem with it winning, but it felt like there was a double standard in place for giving it an easy path to victory.

Best is such a vague superlative that maybe they should go with most ___ <award> next year tbh.

PUBG is not a debut.

Yeah, they seem immune to recognizing their own hypocrisy and inconsistencies. It drives me nuts.

All the dislike for Hellblade bums me out. I loved that game.

And did PUGB actually debut prior to this podcast? Cause it was kind of just early access...

It's exactly what I knew would happen going into this category.

I'll say it again. Horizon getting screeeeeewed by the crew so hard.

PUBG is definitely not a great debut to me. If you had seen King of the Kill long before PUBG, you'd know they are pretty much identical games except graphics are different (still not good) and they removed the crafting. Same game.

the full release was December 20th the podcasts were recorded before then I think therefore it should not be on the list as it was still in Early access, if any thing it should qualify for next year, but of Course the GB crew re-write the rules to serve their arguments.

I am so tired of hearing PUBG in every category.

It's a bummer that they didn't finish Sexy Brutale...the ending reveals lots of good stuff and contextualizes the entire game in a way that kinda blew me away...and an eventual second playthrough will feel so different

Prediction - PUBG wins

The hate for Horizon is mind boggling. I like how the guy who made the most well known Battle Royale Mod, of which there are like 4 others that have been made before PUBG, makes his own Battle Royale mod and its the BEST NEW IP of the year.

Some of you get really worked up over this. It's their list and their categories, they can be as arbitrary as they want to be. The fun of these things is not the lists, it's the debates. Calm yourselves. I thought HZD was one of the best games of the year, it's my #2 game, but I'm not upset they didn't get as in to it.

The argument for PUBG is really silly. They're arguing it like it's "biggest debut", when it's "best debut". Cuphead didn't necessarily have as huge of an impact as PUBG, but it's actually, you know, a good, complete game.

It feels like they're constantly just putting in because "it's got the industry spinning" etc. which I don't think should really be the point of GOTY, especially on a site like this.

Hard agree

I am puzzled and kinda tired each time this comes up in one way or another in the podcasts - granted I don't live in the US but the sub-context makes it seem that because the elections didn't turn out as they wanted the end times are near.

If they had a category named "Fuck you Horizon: Zero Dawn 2017", I don't think Horizon would be shortlisted even in that one.

I never felt this in a previous year but I think this is a bad category. In an ideal world for debuts, doesn't this just spoil the GOTY discussion? That already has happened to a degree with the Cuphead vs PUBG discussion which is basically the GOTY discussion by looking at staff's personal lists.

That aside, the spirit of the category seems to be in rewarding developers for being original and throwing aside set series. So why not just make it Most Original Game? That would be a much more interesting discussion and would also avoid overlap with GOTY discussion. Just my two cents as a fan who has listened to these since the start of the site.

The dismissal of Hellblade is ridiculous.

So Dark Souls didn't fit best debut but PUBG does.

The awards are meaningless as they are wholly arbitrary to how people feel about a game at any given time.

Is Horizon just too far out of their purview at this point? I mean what is going on here?

Your argument against PUBG being eligible for this category was great, Ben.

This is not Brendan Greene's first Battle Royale-outing.

.

As for this category, I think it could do with being redefined or being scrapped altogether.

• The first game from a developer?
• The first entry in a franchise? (Hard to nail down since you won't know whether or not there will be a franchise.)
• The start of a new genre?
• ?

yeah i don't like PUBG being picked, since it's basically the third iteration that the same guy created of a battle royale game but that's just me.

Honestly, this is the lone category that Cuphead should have won. There were at least 3 better looking games than it, and Persona 5 trounces it in style. In terms of debut, everyone I know had the same reaction when Cuphead was first announced. It was in the middle of an indie dev reel for Xbox, and for the short amount of time it was on, everyone’s reaction was, “wait, what was that.” After that, every game show had people asking about that one game. There was some worry about if it could deliver on the hype it had generated, and I feel it did.

Like I accepted a long time ago that I won't agree with the crew on politics the majority of the time, but I'm still able to enjoy some of their political talk. But Brad and Alex in particular get so superlative when they're talking about politics that shows become hard to watch/listen to. Obviously it's their platform so it's their prerogative, but I personally find it really off putting.

I'm with Ben on Battlegrounds. It's not about "common elements" - it's the fact that there were literally several mods that did the exact same thing and were even made by the same person. Yes, Cuphead is a platformer boss-rush game, but it's also got the most insane, genius, and detail-oriented art style in any game maybe ever. The rest of the crew just gets so caught up in PUBG being the "zeitgeist" this year, but it shouldn't be about what game was biggest on twitch. Looking through internet comments (a great way to spend time) I am at least a little glad to see some backlash to the immense outpouring of praise for a game with shit graphics and up until like last week 1 map (still can't choose), tons of hacking issues, tons of tech issues (Fallout anyone?), I don't wish any ill-will to the devs or Brendan, I just think game critics are overrating the shit out of your game.

But everyone knows the best debut was Abby Russell!

This category seems more and more superfluous with each year. Just like the "Best Downloadable Game" stoped being a thing. We are far away from the days of only AAA sequels being among the best games of they year, especially with this many great indies. At this point it would make more sense to have a best sequel category.

Agree with Brad lol... Hellblade is great and you're all wrong.

Also idk how I feel about the thing with Horizon where they're talking about controller in hand fun versus "passion", that line of discussion/argument/reasoning seems a little dubious to me. I know what they're getting at and talking about, but I guess personally I don't view that as a requirement to hold a game in super high regard. If a game is fucking great and fun while I'm playing it, it's gone above and beyond. That should come before anything else, the rest should be a minimal consideration for "bonus points" at best.

I was feeling the argument @benpack had against pubg but I feel like he failed to drive home the fact that Mr. Player Unknown had had this clear vision of what a battle royale game should be, even if those versions weren't official game releases or had the impact PUBG had. PUBG is essentailly the 3-4th iteration of the same game this one person has been making over and over again. It's like saying DayZ the game is Best Debut when there were again 3-4 mostly realized versions of the concept before the official game releases.

Edit - Also, if PUBG is considered for best debut so should Nier since it isn't a direct sequel but it was very much a refinement of Yoko Taro's style and vision and had enough through-lines from previous games which is why it obviously wasn't even mentioned. PUBG should have never even qualified for the category in that sense.