NOTE: The nominees and winner were decided by an internal vote held among the entire GamingBolt staff.

THE NOMINEES:

GHOST OF TSUSHIMA: LEGENDS

Ghost of Tsushima: Legends was a truly unexpected surprise, not only because its announcement came after the game’s launch out of nowhere, but also because it added multiplayer to a game that had been so focused on single player storytelling. It also proved to be a rare case of multiplayer not feeling shoehorned into an experience where it did not belong. With multiple separate modes, a healthy amount of story-driven content, exceptional class-based gameplay, and even a post-release raid, Legends turned out to be a surprisingly essential part of the Ghost of Tsushima experience. The fact that it was added to the game for free made it that much more irresistible.

METRO EXODUS: SAM’S STORY

Metro Exodus may have missed the mark somewhat with its first expansion, but its second chunk of post-launch content, Sam’s Story, was a perfect encapsulation of everything that made the base game itself so good. An excellent new location to explore, a solid mix of semi-open world gameplay and expertly crafted linear sections, typically engaging storytelling, all wrapped up together in a meaty and beautiful-looking package. Sam’s Story did exactly what fans of Exodus wanted it to- it delivered more of the same.

CONTROL: AWE

Remedy Entertainment have revealed their bold and ambitious plan to bring together several of their properties into a single, larger universe, with Control and Alan Wake being the first two to join hands. Control’s AWE DLC was the first step in that shared universe, and though it didn’t stick the landing perfectly, it was still an exciting glimpse at what lies ahead. On top of delivering more of the frantic combat and solid design that characterized the base game, AWE also managed to bring Alan Wake into the Control universe in satisfying fashion. We can’t wait to see where Remedy’s universe goes from here.

DESTINY 2: BEYOND LIGHT

Destiny has been caught in a seemingly never-ending loop of disappointment and recovery for pretty much as long as it’s been around, and every new step that the series takes seems to come with an equal number of pros and cons. Beyond Light was a major step forward for Destiny 2, and though it does leave a few things to be desired (the PvP side of things especially has a lot of room for improvement right now), those who’re looking for more solid PvE content have been serviced well enough by the newest expansion. An excellent raid, fun new Exotics, and largely enjoyable endgame content ensure that longtime Destiny players will have more than enough reasons to check this one out.

MORTAL KOMBAT 11: AFTERMATH

No one really expected NetherRealm Studios to make a single player story-driven expansion for Mortal Kombat 11, especially not when they were already so focused on continuing to add to the game’s roster with DLC characters. Aftermath, then, was the very definition of a pleasant surprise- more than pleasant, in fact. New stages and added mechanics like Friendships and Stage Fatalities were great, each of the new characters was a blast to play as, and in true Mortal Kombat fashion, the new story content was absolutely bonkers, bringing the story of the series to a satisfying conclusion (for now, at least).

GEARS 5: HIVEBUSTERS

The three player co-op Escape mode in Gears 5 was an enjoyable experiment, but it was definitely the weakest part of that meaty package. A single player expansion telling the origin story of that trio didn’t seem like it would be much of an unmissable experience- but boy, did that turn out to be a wrong assumption. Gears 5: Hivebusters is absolutely fantastic. It captures that thrill of frantic combat in tense encounters the way only a Gears of War game can, and keeps things moving at an excellent pace as you move from one expertly designed environment and superbly crafted scenario to the other. Hivebusters is pretty short at roughly three hours long, but it’s also the very definition of “packing a punch.”

REMNANT: FROM THE ASHES – SUBJECT 2923

Gunfire Games’ Souls-inspired shooter RPG Remnant: From the Ashes was one of 2019’s best and biggest surprises, and through steady and consistent post-launch support, the game has maintained a healthy and dedicated playerbase even over a year after its release. With Subject 2923, Remnant’s story was brought to a close in appropriately solid fashion. Rich and engaging lore, thrilling boss fights, oodles of secrets to discover, an entirely new biome to explore- Remnant’s newest DLC was absolutely brimming with compelling new additions.

BORDERLANDS 3: PSYCHO KRIEG AND THE FANTASTIC FUSTERCLUCK

Borderlands 3 has seen no shortage of updates and post-launch content additions since its release in late 2019, but the colourfully named Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Flustercluck is probably one of the best pieces of post-launch DLC the game has had to date. It doesn’t set the world on fire, but thanks to some fun new weapons, a great boss fight, and just how ridiculous it tends to get, Psycho Krieg is still easy to recommend to anyone who enjoyed the base game.

POKEMON SWORD AND SHIELD: THE CROWN TUNDRA

Pokemon Sword and Shield were the first time ever that Pokemon as a series released expansions for a mainline game. It’s fair to say that it was a largely successful first attempt. The second expansion, The Crown Tundra, suffers from a lot of the same issues as the base game itself, such as a lack of ambition and some ideas that haven’t been fleshed out properly, but by and large it’s a fun new addition to the larger experience. There’s more monsters to catch, a new location to explore, and more battles to be fought, and if you manage your expectations, there’s a lot of fun to be had here.

WORLD OF WARCRAFT: SHADOWLANDS

World of Warcraft’s enduring quality even close to two decades after it first came out has to be one of the most impressive things we’ve ever seen in this industry. The MMORPG has, however, hit a few stumbles over the past few years. In 2020, however, with Shadowlands, it came the closest it has in a long time to an unreserved victory. The changes Shadowlands makes to progression are mostly all for the better, there’s a bevy of new content to dive into, the new locations and dungeons in the game are excellent new additions, and the things that the expansion contributes to the game’s narrative and world are hard not to like. Shadowlands is easily one of the better WoW expansions in recent memory.

WINNER:

GEARS 5: HIVEBUSTERS

Gears of War isn’t really a series that does single player expansions too often, and Gears 5, given its consistent ongoing multiplayer support, didn’t seem like a likely candidate for it either, especially not so long after launch. The Coalition surprised fans with Gears 5: Hivebusters, and we’re so glad they did- because it’s easily some of the best Gears content they’ve ever made. Hivebusters is gorgeous, tightly paced, tells an engaging (if unspectacular) story, and is packed full of masterfully crafted combat encounters and set-pieces the way you would want a quintessential Gears experience to be. Like the base Gears 5 itself, it makes us more than a little optimistic about the franchise’s future.

NOTE: The nominees and winner were decided by an internal vote held among the entire GamingBolt staff.

The Nominees:

Star Wars: Squadron

In the golden age of Star Wars games, among the most popular ones available were the Rogue Squadron titles. These space vehicular shooter games let players fulfil the fantasy of piloting the fanciful military vessels of the Star Wars universe, in some of the most thrilling combat scenarios (recreated, or inferred) from the movie series. With EA finally having managed to resuscitate the classic Battlefront games, they turned their eye to the Rogue Squadron games next, and we got Star Wars Squadron. It’s a shockingly well made game, with a bevy of modes, great controls, and some of the most immersive Star Wars content we have received in years (especially if you play it in VR). The game’s launched was marred by a few bugs and glitches, but thankfully, EA and Motive have since been working on patching it up, and today, Squadrons stands as one of the best shooters available on the market, and one of the rare titles that is easily recommended to players of all ages and demographics.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection (PC)

Microsoft and 343 Studios made good on their promise to bring the Master Chief Collection to PC, finally bringing the bulk of the franchise to the platform and seeing it achieve great popularity with an all new audience in the process. Released piecemeal one game at a time, 2020 saw Combat Evolved, 2, 3, 4, and 3: ODST all come to PC. The PC ports were extremely well made, with all the options, bells and whistles, and more that PC players expect, and the games themselves represent some of the best shooter design on the market, which explains why The Master Chief Collection has done so well on the PC as well. And the journey isn’t over yet – 343 Industries continues to work on the PC versions of the games, and players can surely expect many improvements and additions to the games to come, making an already incredible package that much better.

The Last of Us: Part 2

Great storytelling, okay at best gameplay – this has long been the refrain used to describe Naughty Dog’s titles. And while once it may have even held true to some extent, it hasn’t for a while now. Nowhere else has that been as evident as it was with The Last of Us Part 2, a game that represents the ultimate culmination of all of the studio’s learnings of their new gameplay format’s mechanics and styles. The Last of Us Part 2 has been a controversial game for many reasons, but the one thing that even most of its ardent haters have been able to admit is that it plays wonderfully. Naughty Dog have given us one of the best controlling third person shooters this side of Metal Gear Solid V (especially once you have upgraded and decked out all your weapons to reduce sway and recoil), and they have paired those excellent controls and mechanics with incredible encounter design, giving us mini sandboxes for each altercation, offering players a bevy of options and possibilities to approach any scenario, rewarding creativity and out of the box thinking. The Last of Us Part 2 reigns supreme as arguably the best playing Sony in-house developed game of all time, and one of this generation’s best playing shooters.

Cyberpunk 2077

There’s a lot to say about Cyberpunk 2077, but the one thing a lot of people have been pleasantly surprised by is just how well the combat holds up – surely you remember the ongoing refrain that The Witcher 3’s combat was the weakest link in an otherwise superlative experience. Expectations regarding Cyberpunk’s combat were low, but surprisingly enough, CD Projekt RED have delivered a well playing shooter here. The melee combat is definitely still weak, but the shooting part of things (the one that this category is concerned with) plays extremely well. Throw in the range of different weapons, as well as the different possibilities for encounters that the game offers – what with it being an RPG and everything – and you get a surprisingly competent and accomplished shooter, that may not be the best, but is definitely among the better ones in the category that we have seen this year.

Black Mesa

When Valve started up development on Half-Life Alyx, they decided to play Black Mesa, to refamiliarize themselves with what should go into a good Half-Life game. That the creators of the franchise turned to this game to understand what makes their own games tick should tell you just how great it is – Black Mesa, the long awaited and vaunted remake of the original Half-Life game, is absolutely incredible. The original Half-Life game was revolutionary and a pioneering trail blazer for its genre, but being the first one of its kind means that it has since been bettered in almost every aspect by pretty much every game that came after it and built on it. Black Mesa, then, plays like what Half-Life would have been like had it been made for the first time in 2020 – and honestly, there is no higher praise we can give it than that. It truly is one of the greatest shooters available on any platform at the moment, and cannot be recommended enough.

Half-Life Alyx

Valve, however, is not content to just let their fans do the dirty work, and decided to give the world a new, internally developed Half-Life entry as well. Half-Life Alyx is the first new game in the franchise in over 10 years, and to say that it lives up to the enormous hype and expectations surrounding it would be an understatement. With Alyx, Valve set out to make a game that fully delivers on the promise and potential of the VR paradigm, something that no other game so far has been able to accomplish. And lo and behold, they succeeded. If there is one must play, killer app VR game, Half-Life Alyx is it, a game that is so incredible, it’s caused countless players across the world to splurge on expensive Valve Index sets (which you don’t even need! You can play it on a lower end PCVR set if you want) just to be able to experience this game in all its glory. Much like its forebears, Half-Life Alyx has set the standards for any shooter that will follow in its wake, in this case on VR – and we can’t wait to see how Valve will top themselves next. Whenever they get around to releasing a new game, anyway.

Call of Duty: Warzone

The first attempt by the Call of Duty franchise to deliver a battle royale experience was… not the best, let’s leave it at that, with Blackout not quite being the breakout hit one might expect from the pitch of “Call of Duty meets the most popular multiplayer game genre at the moment.” Warzone, on the other hand, is a slam dunk, a home run, a… whatever other sports metaphor you want to use here, honestly. It’s an incredible game, taking the fantastic mechanics of last year’s Modern Warfare and wrapping them up in arguably the best designed battle royale game available on the market currently. It’s so good, we have seen analysts argue that it might be responsible for the slight underperformance of Black Ops Cold War this year, because why bother spending full price money on a new Call of Duty, when the free to play Warzone is giving you all the Call of Duty goodness you want anyway? It’s so good that players around the world continue to make room for it on their systems’ storage, even as its filesize continues to balloon to frankly absurd proportion (we’re at over 200GB and counting at the moment).

DOOM: Eternal

The 2016 DOOM was a sleeper hit that took everyone by surprise, because of how incredibly great it was, and how much it understood the essence of what used to make shooters so great back in the day. So what did id Software do for DOOM Eternal? Give us more of the same, mostly, just amped up to even more intensity. DOOM Eternal has some fantastic weapon variety, shooting mechanics, enemy design, and just non-stop action, and it manages to also address several of the problems that were raised with 2016. It also delves deeper into the lore of the DOOM universe, while including much better multiplayer elements than the original’s disappointing outing on this front managed to provide. DOOM Eternal plays like a character action game with guns – it’s like a finely tuned instrument of rhythmic destruction, and at its best, there is no other shooter, and really, there are few other games, that truly manage to be better than it.

Zombie Army 4: Dead War

Given that these games are based on Rebellion’s flagship Sniper Elite series, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Zombie Army 4 is a remarkably well playing shooter – since Sniper Elite 4 was, too. Arguably the best one in the series yet, Dead War delivers all the great co-op action that excels with its map design and a surprisingly strong campaign. “Shooter with Nazi zombies” may no longer be the novel pitch that it once was, but Zombie Army 4 keeps things consistently thrilling and fresh, keeping players returning for more, offering enough fun and enjoyment that it’s easy to overlook its not insubstantial number of rough edges in the process.

Valorant

A League of Legends multiplayer hero shooter. It literally writes itself, and sure enough, Valorant has been an incredible hit. Breaking all manner of Twitch and player records (only Riot’s own League of Legends has managed to top it), Valorant is now squarely a fixture of a genre that was otherwise dominated by stalwarts such as Overwatch or Counter Strike Global Offensive. Its bevy of great modes, and refined mechanics, as well as its remarkable game balance and map design, have all made it clear that Riot Games are not a one trick pony – and make us excited to see where they take Valorant, and the whole League of Legends universe, next.

THE WINNER

DOOM Eternal

Really, you probably saw this coming. If you play shooters for the pure mechanical finesse and prowess that they can offer, then there is literally nothing else on the market that is better than DOOM Eternal. It’s like a dance of carnage, blending quick mobility, over the top action, and incredible level and encounter design to deliver a truly potent mix that results in one of the best games of, not just the genre, not just the year, but of the entire generation so far. While Eternal does have some misfires of its own, including some areas in which it represents a puzzling step back from 2016, it is on the whole unmatched in terms of what it offers as a shooter, and indeed, as a mechanics driven game. It’s available on literally every platform under the sun, so you have no excuse – if you haven’t played it already, go out there and play DOOM Eternal right away.

NOTE: The nominees and winner were decided by an internal vote held among the entire GamingBolt staff.

THE NOMINEES:

FALL GUYS: ULTIMATE KNOCKOUT

Fall Guys just came out of nowhere this year, but it really took the industry by storm- and rightly so. It strikes that perfect balance between pure, unadulterated enjoyment and a semblance of fairness and balance that is so elusive in even some of the most popular multiplayer games out there. Mediatonic’s chaotic, bizarre platforming-battle royale-party game mashup is unique, unhinged, ridiculously fun, and consistently whacky, and we’re here for it.

THE PATHLESS

If there was one thing that Abzu proved, it was that Giant Squid have a knack for creating beautiful and immersive environments that are a complete joy to explore. The Pathless, of course, is radically different from the studio’s debut game in so many ways, but it carries those traditions forward proudly. Diegetic exploration grounds players in its hauntingly beautiful world, slick and fast-paced traversal makes the moment-to-moment gameplay incredibly enjoyable, while solid puzzle design ensures that there’s always a great new activity to seek out in the world.

GHOST OF TSUSHIMA

Ghost of Tsushima should honestly not be as good and as addictive as it is. It is, in many ways, so close to a classic style Assassin’s Creed game set in Feudal Japan. It even comes with a lot of the same failings as Ubisoft’s franchise, including repetition in the style of content. And yet, somehow, Sucker Punch have managed to craft an enthralling adventure that truly transports players to its immaculately realized setting, while also delivering a surprisingly affecting story and some remarkably polished mechanics. That Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t have much new to say is irrelevant when it says what it does say as well as it does. Most of its mechanics may be retreads of existing concepts, but they are done so well – be it the game’s surprisingly robust combat, or its fantastic and immersive navigation of its vast world, or just how unbelievably pretty it all looks – that it’s hard to take much issue with any of it. Sucker Punch have managed to deliver an incredible title that can stand toe to toe with many of Sony’s best first party offerings of the PS4 era, and that is the highest compliment you can really give Ghost of Tsushima.

PERSONA 5 ROYAL

To call Persona 5 Royal the ultimate JRPG would still somehow be underselling it. Over the last 15 years, and multiple iterations, Atlus and P-Studio have obsessively iterated on the series’ addictive dungeon crawling/social simulation role playing formula, until at last, we have received a game that is, not perfect, but as close to it as is possible to get. Persona 5 Royal is tremendous in every sense of the word – it’s bursting with content (adding over 30 hours to a game that was already north of 100 hours to begin with), it addresses most flaws from the original release, it enhances every single strength of the vanilla P5 multiple times over, and it does so without ever missing a beat. It’s incredible that Atlus and P-Studio have managed to scale the heights that they have with P5R, because it beggars belief that any game should manage to be firing on this many cylinders to begin with. It’s impossible to see how Atlus will top this game in the future- but at the same time, we have no doubt that they’re going to do just that, just as they have progressively done with every Persona release since Persona 3.

ASTRO’S PLAYROOM

Astro Bot has quickly become one of PlayStation’s best properties in a very short time, in spite of consistently being relegated to the metaphorical backstage. In 2020, with Astro’s Playroom, Sony sought to showcase the capabilities of the DualSense, and boy, did they do that well. Not only is Astro’s Playroom a great showcase of that, however, it’s also a jolly celebration of the history of PlayStation, and an excellently designed platformer in its own right.

13 SENTINELS: AEGIS RIM

Vanillaware have been plugging away at making unique narrative-driven games for a while now, and their efforts have mostly gone unnoticed in the mainstream. 13 Sentinels may very well be the game that brings more people to pay attention to them- which isn’t surprising, considering how good it is. Whether it’s with its mind-bending non-linear narrative or with its blend of genres in terms of gameplay, this is a game that constantly keeps players on their toes.

NIOH 2

The Soulslike genre has garnered a massive legion of fans over the last decade, and other thank the Souls games themselves, Team Ninja’s Nioh series is probably the best that sect of games has had to offer. In 2020, Nioh 2 came along and honed on the strengths of its predecessor in almost every way possible, from deeper and more flexible role playing mechanics to challenging combat to exhilarating boss fights. For those who’re looking to scratch that very particular Soulslike itch, you can’t really go wrong with this one.

THE LAST OF US PART 2

To say that The Last of Us Part 2 is a game that has divided audiences would be a massive understatement, and though it’s not a perfect game by any means, we definitely fall on the side of the spectrum that’s been enamoured by what Naughty Dog did with it. Ambitious storytelling, pushing the boundaries of technical accomplishment in games, refining their linear gameplay formula to an absolute sheen- they did it all with The Last of Us Part 2. For our money, this is yet another shining jewel in the crown that is the PS4’s library.

FINAL FANTASY 7 REMAKE

There has not been a Final Fantasy release that didn’t split the fanbase in almost two decades now. And while it would be generous to say that Final Fantasy 7 Remake manages to unite all fans, it is at the very least the most coherent and consistent vision of where Square wants the series to go that we have gotten since the release of Final Fantasy 12, all the way back on the PS2. FF7R is a game with purpose, and that comes through in everything about it – it has a marvellous battle system, one that manages to appease fans of the series’ turn based roots and new action combat alike; it has really endearing characters, who in spite of Final Fantasy’s known anime excesses, manage to win you over with their charm; and it has all the trademark spectacle and insanity of storytelling that the franchise has become synonymous with. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is as much a tribute to the franchise’s past as it is a bold statement of purpose for its future.

MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN: MILES MORALES

A lot of people probably went into Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales with tempered expectations, given that fact that it’s more of an expansion that serves as a stopgap until the mainline sequel arrives, but it’s fair to say that Insomniac once again surpassed all expectations. Miles Morales retains and improves upon the biggest gameplay strengths of its predecessor, delivering excellent combat and traversal yet again. On the storytelling side of things, it tells a heartfelt story that expands this new Spidey universe in exciting ways. If you were a fan of the first game, there’s no way you’d be disappointed in Miles Morales.

SPELUNKY 2

Spelunky holds the honour of being one of the best and most influential roguelike games of all time. A sequel to a game with that kind of a legacy always has a lot to live up to, but Spelunky 2 didn’t buckle under those expectations. In fact, it flourished under that pressure. Spelunky 2 doesn’t set the world on fire. It’s greatest strengths lie in how it iterates on the biggest strengths of its predecessor, and in how it never misses the mark with any of those improvements. It’s a game that, just like the first Spelunky, you can easily pour hundreds of hours into- and if you’re anything like us, you probably will.

DEMON’S SOULS

Rumours of a Demon’s Souls remake developed by Bluepoint Games had been swirling around for a long time, and the final product tells you just why everyone was so excited about those rumours. One of the best, most influential games ever made, being remade by a studio that has almost perfected the art of modernizing classic titles- that’s a winning combination no matter how you look at it. Demon’s Souls’ PS5 remake lives up to all of the lofty expectations millions of people had for it. Sony couldn’t have asked for a better way to kick off their new console’s life cycle.

DREAMS

Media Molecule sure took their sweet time developing Dreams, but now that we’ve spend a healthy amount of time with the game (if it can even be called a game), it’s easy to see what took them so long. The depth and complexity of this creation engine is staggering to see, and the ease with which it presents those tools to players in an accessible and enjoyable manner is just as impressive. Dreams is an endless pool of new content and creativity, and we can’t wait to see how it will grow and change over the coming years.

YAKUZA: LIKE A DRAGON

Yakuza has been a rather prolific series over the last few years, to the extent that we often get multiple mainline Yakuze game in a single year. That kind of a release schedule and franchise fatigue often go hand-in-hand, but RGG Studio deftly avoided that problem with a radical reinvention of the series. Yakuza: Like a Dragon takes the long-running hardboiled brawler series and turns it into a full-fledged turn-based RPG, while also delivering the fun characters, densely packed world, and riveting narrative that people look for in a Yakuza game. It’s an excellent way to kick off the next era of the Yakuza franchise.

SACKBOY: A BIG ADVENTURE

LittleBigPlanet has always been praised more for its creation mechanics than for its actual platforming, so a spinoff that focuses completely on the latter could have easily gone wrong. Sackboy: A Big Adventure, however, proves that there’s a lot of ways this property can be successful, and makes the jump to 3D platforming with surprising confidence. Creative level design, tight and inherently enjoyable mechanics, excellent co-op gameplay, and all around jolly vibes come together to make for an unmissable platformer in Sackboy: A Big Adventure.

WINNER:

FINAL FANTASY 7 REMAKE

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a monument to ambition. Its subversive storytelling is already enough to give it that moniker, but the game repeatedly goes above and beyond every chance it gets. Its battle system cannot be praised enough, finally delivering the kind of tactics and thrills that the series’ turn based combat was known for in real time action, its deep dive into the world of Midgar delivers the most well-realized Final Fantasy setting we have received since Ivalice and Spira, its set-pieces are so gloriously over the top you can almost hear Kojima furiously jotting down notes, its soundtrack is absolute perfection with not even a single stinker, its characters win your heart almost immediately. Even many of its (admittedly numerous) stumbles all happen because of the game’s almost audacious ambition. Square Enix could have taken the easy route out with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and delivered a pretty straightforward recreation of the original beloved game in HD. That would, in fact, have probably alienated far fewer people than Remake ultimately did. But channelling some of that old brilliance that once made them the kings of the RPG world, they decided to challenge expectations, challenge fans, and most of all, challenge themselves. And the result is a triumphant display of creativity that even its most ardent detractors will be hard pressed to not respect.

NOTE: The nominees and winner were decided by an internal vote held among the entire GamingBolt staff.

THE NOMINEES:

Death Stranding

Hideo Kojima’s eccentric open world game was extremely arresting in 2019, but in 2020, it took on a brand new resonance. That, perhaps, is what helped it capture an entirely new audience on PC upon release, as its story of a world torn asunder and causing people to live in isolation, relying on delivery men for the most basic of necessities, found new meaning in a COVID-19 world. It helps, of course, that the game itself remains extremely unusual and engaging, and that the PC port was fantastic – substantially better than many console games find their PC versions to be.

Horizon Zero Dawn

One of those bad PC ports of a console game was Horizon Zero Dawn. While Death Stranding had already marked a great debut for the Decima Engine on PC, Horizon itself was a shoddy port, besought with multiple problems, and generating a lot of backlash from users. Over time, Guerrilla has addressed a lot of these issues, and the port today is in much better shape. It helps, of course, that the game itself is pretty good too, with its unique setting and great enemy encounters especially helping it stand out even three years on from its original release.

Hades

Hades captured the zeitgeist in 2020 like very few other games did, and with good reason: this roguelike game is just that darn good. While technically the game had been available on PC in early access for over a year before, its official 1.0 release was what pushed it into the eye of the mainstream, including on PC. Fast, frenetic, unpredictable, and as engaging to play in a short, 10 minute burst as it is for hours long marathon sessions, Hades is one of the best games of last year, indeed, of the generation, and it should come as no surprise that its incredible PC version finds itself on this list.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection

While Halo Reach launched on PC last year, the bulk of the Master Chief Collection – Combat Evolved, 2, 3, 4, and 3: ODST – all came to the platform this year. They were incredible ports too, doing justice to one of the most prestigious and beloved series in gaming as they made it available to an entirely new audience. The ongoing success of The Master Chief Collection is a testament to just how great these games are, and how well PC owners took to their PC versions – and with multiple updates planned into 2021 and beyond, we can probably expect Halo to be a fixture of PC gaming for a long time to come now.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft’s Flight Simulator games were always a pretty niche thing, so no one really expected the revival to be of any interest to anyone beyond a few enthusiasts. Flight Simulator, however, found a massive audience on PC in 2020. Perhaps buoyed by people looking for any escape into the outdoors that they could find among the endless lockdowns caused by COVID, a lot of people flocked to the game – and they found an incredible flight simulator in the process, with a staggering and frankly frightening level of attention to detail, and photorealistic graphics so good, no one would blame you if you mistook them for real life.

Risk of Rain 2

Like Hades, Risk of Rain 2 had technically been available for a while before its “official” launch. But that official launch finally made this gem of a roguelike shooter get the recognition that it deserved. Mixing and mashing up a smattering of gameplay styles, including roguelike, third person shooter, co-op horde, and moving the classic original to a 3D environment, this game found rave success in 2020, and managed to stand out even in a year where Hades sucked the air out of the room for roguelike discussion. If you haven’t played it already, absolutely check out Risk of Rain 2 – it can run on pretty modest rigs too, so no PC gamer has an excuse for passing on this one.

Spelunky 2

The original Spelunky was a seminal game that managed to define roguelikes almost as much as the original game that birthed (and subsequently, named) the genre to begin with. Expectations were understandably high from its sequel, and while Spelunky 2 is not quite the revelation that the original game was, it’s a pitch perfect sequel that iterates on everything that its predecessor did, making it better, and delivering a far superior package in the process. It’s brutally challenging, always unpredictable, and full of content for the enterprising player to discover and master – in other words, it’s everything that a Spelunky fan would want from a follow up.

Half-Life: Alyx

Valve’s first new singleplayer game in a decade was also something that people had long been hoping for, but given up hope on it ever happening – an honest to goodness new Half-Life title. While Half-Life: Alyx is not Half-Life 3, it is nonetheless a brand new entry in the series, and one that manages to advance the plot in spite of its “prequel/sidequel” status. A VR exclusive game, it demonstrated Valve’s utter mastery over the nascent format like few other developers have managed so far, delivering the kind of high profile VR exclusive that the medium has been lacking so far. It being a VR game also meant that it was every bit as much of a revelatory game as Half-Life 1 and 2 had been in their time, finally managing to find a way to deliver that same kind of leap forward that people had doubted the series would ever be able to deliver again.

Valorant

Valorant is a hero shooter set in the League of Legends universe, which means it’s taking one of the most popular genres on the market (especially on PC), and combining it with one of the most popular games of all time. Of course Valorant was a runaway success, it was never going to be anything else. However, it also, obviously, helped that it was a heck of a game, managing to deliver a compelling shooter that evolved a rather nuanced and complex competitive scene shockingly fast. Valorant proved that Riot is not a one trick pony, and that its upcoming League of Legends spin-offs are ones to keep an eye on.

Phasmophobia

Co-op and horror games don’t usually go well together (how can you be afraid when you have others with you bantering away?), but Phasmophobia proved to be a rare exception to the rule when it launched earlier last year. One of those games that managed to break out in 2020, its unique blend of co-op and horror, which takes multiplayer game tropes such as voice chat, and subverts them by turning them against the player, managed to garner it a massive following. Phasmophobia is hugely recommended to everyone, even those who may not necessarily be fans of horror games otherwise.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Ori and the Blind Forest was a revelatory experience, and widely regarded as one of the best Metroidvania games of all time. It says something about Will of the Wisps, then, that it is so incredible, it all but makes Blind Forest obsolete. Improving upon the original in every possible way, Will of the Wisps is a bigger and better follow up, expanding the platforming and combat that defined the original game, bringing in mechanics inspired by other successful games in the genre, and retaining the strong, tightly crafted level design that is the mark of any good Metroidvania. While the game had a fair few technical issues at launch, most of those are long since smoothed over, which means anyone jumping into this game now has nothing preventing them from experiencing a masterpiece of game design.

Football Manager 2021

Critics of the franchise derisively call Football Manager “spreadsheet simulator”. That is a name that fans of the series have embraced and taken to, calling Football Manager spreadsheet simulators affectionately, because the ridiculously deep and addictive simulation of football is as popular as it is because of how much it asks its players to keep track of. Football Manager 2021 is no different, delivering the strongest outing the series has had yet, overhauling the presentation, AI, and greatly improving and expanding manager interactions with players, with owners, with the media, adding new recruitment options, and so much more. Football Manager 2021 is a love letter to anyone who is a fan of the beautiful game… and spreadsheets.

Black Mesa

While Half-Life: Alyx is the Half-Life game from Valve everyone had been waiting for for the better part of a decade, let’s not forget about Black Mesa, the fan led remake of the original Half-Life game, that finally launched in its 1.0 guise in 2020. Modernizing the original game so thoroughly that it feels right at place next to other games on the market today, without losing the essence of what made the original Half-Life so great to begin with, Black Mesa is an incredible tour-de-force that is simultaneously indicative of how strong the original game was to begin with, and also just how talented fans can be – very often, more so than even the developers whose works inspired them in the first place.

Wasteland 3

inXile’s Wasteland 2 was… fine. It wasn’t really great, definitely not worth the decades long wait fans had to endure. It’s not a surprise that not many expected much out of the follow-up, especially when its new, quippier tone was revealed, which flew in the face of what fans expected from the series. But honestly, a break from the original game, rather than a slavish attempt to recreate it, was probably what the series had needed all along, because Wasteland 3 is fantastic, delivering a strong, engaging, and ridiculously deep cRPG that can stand side by side with any number of the great games that have headlined the cRPG revival. Technical issues aside, it can be definitively stated that it is one of the best PC games of 2020.

The Pathless

The Pathless delivers the kind of open world game that is still unfortunately in rather short supply. Stripping the markers and maps and compasses et al that comprise most open world titles, The Pathless forces players to actually pay attention to the world they are navigating, guiding them through its vistas with nothing but its strong visual and terrain design and the player’s curiosity leading them on. It is telling that it is a better open world game than most others, with a fraction of the dev team size – and it is also uniquely distinct in being the rare open world game that does not outstay its welcome, delivering a short, compact experience that signs off on a high.

Gears Tactics

Microsoft announced, and then subsequently released, Gears Tactics without much fanfare, and honestly, that’s a damn shame, because this game ended up flying under the radar for many as a result. Gears Tactics, however, might be the strongest and most exciting outing the Gears of War universe has had in a while, with the shift to an XCOM-style turn based strategy template proving to be a breath of fresh air, while also allowing for different stories of vastly differing scopes to be told. Gears Tactics is just a damn good game, as much of an obvious recommendation for fans of the notoriously hard to crack into turn based strategy genre as it is for fans of Microsoft’s iconic franchise.

THE WINNER:

Half-Life: Alyx

There have been many great PC games in 2020, but none of them was probably as monumental, as important, as historic, as Half-Life: Alyx will prove to be in the long run. VR as a format has mostly struggled to gain traction in the mainstream market for years now, with high-end VR especially finding takers hard to come by, with its high costs and lack of compelling content. Valve managed to change that in one fell swoop, while also rewriting the rulebook of exactly what one should expect from a VR title in the process. Comparisons in video games critique are always suspect and problematic, but it isn’t exactly inaccurate to say that Alyx is every bit the revelation for what VR game design can be that Super Mario 64 was for what 3D game design can be more than two decades ago. That it also manages to live up to the expectations of Half-Life fans who have been starved for a new game for over a decade, and have built up a new full game in the franchise to near mythical status, is ultimately all the evidence you need of just how incredible Alyx really is, in the end.

What follows is a list of the fifteen best indie games that launched this year – but these games are so great that most of them could well find themselves on a list of the 15 best games of the year, period, and no one would bat an eye.

NOTE: The nominees and winner were decided by an internal vote held among the entire GamingBolt staff.

THE NOMINEES

Spelunky 2

No other game has perhaps done as much to popularize the roguelike as the original Spelunky did. While the game was already well received upon its original release on the Xbox 360, it was the subsequent redo on Vita (and then on other systems) that made it the universally beloved game that it is today. The original Spelunky is one of the most acclaimed games of all time, with its purity of design and skill based mechanics making it a mainstay in many people’s gaming libraries on a near constant basis. Spelunky 2 had a lot to live up to, and by and large it delivers. It’s an excellent game that polishes an already perfect formula even further, delivering a compelling roguelike that once again ranks as among the best the genre has to offer. If there is one criticism that is to be leveled at the game, it’s that it’s not as revolutionary as the original game was – but few games are, and holding it to that standard feels almost unfair.

Levelhead

Another great example of the vast range of genres that indie developers and games now cover, Levelhead lets you create, share, and play your own platformers, in the tradition of games such as Super Mario Maker and LittleBigPlanet. It’s remarkably intuitive, hilariously well contextualized, and even the platforming mechanics work well. With great sharing features and cross platform play functionality, this is also a game where you’re guaranteed to find a community, whether you fall on the creator or the player side of the equation. Levelhead is a remarkably full featured game, and is yet another example of the stunning ambition indie games so often display now.

Amnesia Rebirth

Frictional Games’ original Amnesia was a big bang moment for horror games, with its unique blend of psychological horror and non combat scenarios almost instantly leaving an indelible mark on the genre, influencing all games to follow. With SOMA, Frictional proved they’re no one trick pony, but it was their return to the Amnesia world that drew all eyes on them once again. After all, they promised it would be their most ambitious game to date. And boy, did they deliver. Amping up the psychological horror even further, and making the storytelling an interactive part of the experience that is intractable from the gameplay, this non-linear sojourn into gradual insanity may lack the instant milestone status its celebrated predecessor achieved, but manages to be a heck of a game regardless.

Streets of Rage 4

Sega’s Streets of Rage series is arguably the single greatest achievement of the brawler genre, particularly Streets of Rage 2. Suffice it to say, there was skepticism when Streets of Rage 4 was announced, and that it had some mighty big shoes to fill. It is incredible, then, that it actually manages to meet those lofty expectations, and then some. We’ve received so many great brawlers in the last few years, in 2020 alone, in fact, and yet Streets of Rage 4 easily outclasses them all. Hopefully its success prompts Sega to look at producing a higher budget sequel, and bringing the talented indie team at Dotemu, Lizardcube, and Guard Crush Games on board as well. They’re too good at what they do to let them slip away.

Fall Guys

There are many ways to describe Fall Guys, the delightful blend of Mario Party style shenanigans and a classic TV game show format, concocted in a battle royale mix – but the best one is “absolute mayhem.” Mediatonic struck gold with Fall Guys when it launched earlier this year, and that’s because the game is just so gloriously, ridiculously, absurdly fun. Putting its contestants through a series of increasingly ridiculous (and frankly outlandish) gauntlets, Fall Guys is that rare game that was at the right place at the right time, and managed to capture lightning in a bottle. It’s so good that it transcends its genre, and manages to just be a hell of a good time regardless. The true mark of a great multiplayer game is that you manage to enjoy yourself, regardless of whether or not you win – and if that’s the metric by which one is to be judged, then Fall Guys stands as among the best multiplayer games we have received in a very long time.

Spiritfarer

Management sim games are a concept almost as old as video games themselves, and even indie games have managed to put out some truly unforgettable ones, with Game Dev Tycoon standing out as one that truly broke out into the mainstream in the last few years. And yet, in spite of the prevalence of the genre, Spiritfarer stands out. A large part of that is because its core conceit is so unusual – you’re not managing a city or a restaurant or a hospital or anything like that, you’re managing the transportation of the deceased to the afterlife. That already sets it apart from other similar games, but Spiritfarer goes above and beyond – it tackles some heady existential topics with grace and tact, but manages to be an optimistic outlook nonetheless. And it’s not just about the setting or plot, either – the core gameplay is remarkably addictive, with the central loop likely to keep players engaged into the early hours of the morning before they realize that they let all that time slip away. Like the best sim games, Spiritfarer can be lethal if consumed unmoderated – and that’s really the highest compliment we can give it.

Risk of Rain 2

Some of the best work in fiction has followed people stranded in space – games themselves have seen seminal entries such as Metroid and Alien Isolation, based on the same central conceit. Risk of Rain 2 manages to rank among the best that this concept has to offer. Survival and roguelike indie games are dime-a-dozen, so it’s to Risk of Rain 2’s credit that it manages to stand out so much regardless. There isn’t much that Risk of Rain 2 really does that’s different from other games in the genre (other than a surprisingly well handled transition to 3D), and it still suffers from some of the jank that plagues all early access titles. That, in fact, speaks more than anything else to just high quality the game is, that in spite of all of these potential shortcomings, it still manages to stand out as much as it does, as well as it does.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

The original Ori is already arguably one of the best games ever made – at the very least, it ranks as one of the genre greats for Metroidvanias. And yet, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, the long awaited sequel, manages to outdo it so thoroughly in every regard, that it’s not controversial to say that Blind Forest has been made obsolete and redundant by its own sequel. A masterwork of tight, breathtaking design, Will of the Wisps expands upon the original game’s strengths, works to address its shortcomings, and also takes liberal inspiration from some of the other genre greats that have come in the years since the original title’s launch, such as Hollow Knight. That Ori and the Will of the Wisps can legitimately lay claim to being one of the best games of, not just this year, but this generation, when there have been so many great games in this period, should tell you everything you need to know about just how great it really is. Honestly, we can’t wait to see where Moon Studios goes next.

If Found

In the last few years, we have seen increasingly accomplished examples of games that are not loud or explosive, as so many are wont to be, but contemplative and introspective. If Found is cut from that latter cloth, presenting itself as an adventure game following a young girl who must delve into her past to try and solve a mystery intractably tied to an impending world ending cataclysm. Gorgeous art, resonant writing, and some stirring sound design make this game a painful, haunting, but ultimately rich and evocative experience that truly stands out as a remarkable example of what games can accomplish, and how much they can be true works of art.

Florence

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the minds behind Monument Valley were able to deliver an incredible game such as Florence, but this game still stands out due to just how remarkably well it blends storytelling and gameplay, all while tackling some universally identifiable themes. Florence, the eponymous protagonist, is disaffected at the age of 25, with no idea of where her life is going – all until she meets a young man, who shows her a new way to look at the world. Following a charming and sweet story of young love, Florence is a staggering achievement of true storytelling delivered via interactivity, and is hopefully a portent of how storytelling in videogames will evolve and develop in the coming years.

The Pathless

Open world games are a very tricky genre – even massive teams of AAA developers struggle with getting them right. And yet, The Pathless, an unassuming open world action adventure game delivered from the same small team that gave us ABZU, manages to deliver one of the most stirring and remarkable open world games in recent memory. Much like some of the other best open world games, The Pathless eschews genre tropes such as maps, markers, and icons, instead relying on the player’s natural curiosity and drive to explore to lead them through its beautiful and desolate world. By keeping the emphasis solely on exploration and collection, The Pathless keeps the emphasis squarely on the one thing it manages transcendentally well – evoking as sense of wonder and wanderlust in the player, and slowly leading them through its beautiful world.

Haven

RPGs are usually high stakes games. You’re saving the world, taking on evil powers, dismantling crime rings, battling down existential threats, or trying to be the very best there ever was. Haven is so refreshing in being a role playing game that’s just about… life. You’re following the story of two people stranded on an alien planet, but you objective in the game is simply to build a life for yourself. You set out into the world not to beat back some threatening invading force, but simply to find things to better your life. Haven is that rare game that puts the emphasis on the smaller moments in life, and its distinct flavor, coupled with its well done mechanics, make it one of the more unique games we have received in a while.

Art of Rally

Racing games are typically the purview of high end developers delivering top of the line graphics and thrilling speed or grounded realism, but Art of Rally manages to show us that indie developers are as capable of giving us a top notch racing experience as anyone else. Its stark art style can be off-putting at first, but ends up working to the game’s favor, while its top down perspective lets it play differently than other racers, while also being far easier to get into than its contemporaries. If you’re a fan of racing games, then you definitely need to grab yourself Art of Rally and give it a go as soon as you can.

Littlewood

Stardew Valley meets… something. That’s how you’d describe Littlewood. The Dark Wizard has been defeated, and the world is at peace, but the personal cost was great, and you remember very little. Now is the time for you to rebuild not just the world, but also your life. Taking the best from games like A Link to the Past, Animal Crossing, and the aforementioned Stardew Valley, Littlewood is calm, meditative, and surprisingly unique, given how much it shares with so many other games. Right now, it’s flown a bit under the radar, but here’s hoping that the plaudits it has received, as well as its impending console launch, will help it catch the eye of many others in the future.

Hades

You knew this was coming. You knew this would be on this list. Few games, indie or otherwise, have managed to capture the zeitgeist like Supergiant’s latest effort did when it launched on PC and Nintendo Switch earlier this year after a long Early Access gestation period. Hades joins the rarefied company of games such as Stardew Valley, Undertale, Hollow Knight, and Celeste in becoming an indie title that transcends those indie origins and becomes a mainstream hit regardless. And all that hype is backed up by an incredible game – Hades is a remarkable roguelike, a roguelike for those that don’t like roguelikes (it achieves this by minimizing the frustrations typically associated with the genre), while delivering enough depth and nuance to placate even hardcore genre fans. It’s extremely strongly designed and well balanced, and a tour de force of video game storytelling, with some fantastic writing and voice acting making the narrative a surprisingly compelling raison d’etre to keep playing, again and again and again, even after you’ve died so many times. A masterpiece of game design and storytelling, Hades is arguably the most important roguelike since the original Spelunky, and well and truly one of the all time great games.

THE WINNER

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Moon Studios have perfected the Metroidvania with Ori and the Will of the Wisps, a game so incredible that it received the vaunted GamingBolt 10 when it launched earlier this year. The biggest problems with the game upon launch – its technical performance – have long since been ironed out, leaving nothing but a triumph of game design for players to experience, with little to no friction along the way. Stirring music, gorgeous art, tight controls, and literally mind bending level and world design all come together to make Ori and the Will of the Wisps a true standout game – and GamingBolt’s indie game of the year 2020, a title that it truly deserves. Here’s hoping Moon Studios manages to scale even higher heights with their next game.

This year was jam-packed with excellent looking games- some that astounded with their technical fidelity, some that wowed us with beautiful art design, and some that took our breath away with a combination of both. Here, we’re going to recognize the games that did that better than all the others, before crowning one of them as what we feel is the best looking game of 2020.

NOTE: The nominees and winner were decided by an internal vote held among the entire GamingBolt staff.

THE NOMINEES:

RESIDENT EVIL 3

Resident Evil 3’s remake may have been a bitter disappointment on multiple fronts, but as far as graphics are concerned, it was an absolute tour de force. Capcom have been putting out excellent looking games thanks to the incredible RE Engine for a few years now, and Resident Evil 3 showcased the strengths of that engine once again. Raccoon City’s decrepit environments were brimming with detail, character models, zombies, and monsters were brought to life with startling authenticity, and things such as lighting and particle effects were hard not to be amazed by.

MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN REMASTERED

When Marvel’s Spider-Man released for the PS4 in 2018, though it was a good looking game, it wasn’t anything to write home about. Its remastered release on the PS5, however, is an entirely different story. Thanks to higher density of traffic and crowds in the streets of Manhattan, much more detail on things such as Spidey’s suit and the character models, and the immense boost that the addition of ray-tracing provides to things such as shadows, lighting, and reflections, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered is easily one of the most impressive visual accomplishments of the year, especially considering the fact that technically this is still a two year old game.

MAFIA: DEFINITIVE EDITION

Say what you will about how horribly Hangar 13 bungled Mafia 3, if there was one thing no one could fault that game for, it was its visuals. This year’s Mafia: Definitive Edition was a vastly better game in terms of polish and gameplay, and just as impressive as Mafia 3 in terms of its graphics. Lost Heaven was brought to life in spectacular fashion in this remake, which turned out to be an admirable technical feat crammed with a level of detail that lent an incredible amount of atmosphere to the game and its setting.

HALF-LIFE: ALYX

Half-Life: Alyx would have been deserving of praise for its visuals even if it had been a conventional PC/console release, but the fact that the game looked as good as it did while being a VR exclusive made its accomplishments that much more admirable. Valve really didn’t cut any corners with this game. Every inch of Alyx was overflowing with tiny little details that added immensely to its breathtaking immersion factor, nearly everything you can lay your eyes on could be picked up or interacted with in some way, and in spite of all of this, Alyx constantly looked amazing and ran like a dream.

MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR

Video games have been striving to achieve photorealism in visuals for a long time, and will continue to do so for many more years to come, but never before has the medium come as close to photorealism as it does in Microsoft Flight Simulator. Usually when a game of such massive scale attempts to scale heights like this in the visuals department, it ends up making sacrifices in other areas, but Microsoft Flight Simulator is the rare exception to that rule. You need a pretty beefy rig to be able to get the full experience as far as graphics are concerned, but if you have the hardware for it, you’ll be able to experience one of the best looking PC games to date.

ASSASSIN’S CREED VALHALLA

Assassin’s Creed still hasn’t managed to reach the heights of visual fidelity that it did with 2014’s Unity (which obviously came at a cost), but Valhalla comes pretty damn close to doing so. The uncanny plasticky faces endemic to Ubisoft games still show up in the background every now and then, but by and large, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is a beautiful game. It paints 9th century Norway and England in a gorgeous light, and exploring its massive open world never gets old thanks to how consistently great it looks.

ORI AND THE WILL OF THE WISPS

While the bulk of the games on this list have made it in thanks to technical accomplishments, Ori and the Will of the Wisps succeeds more because of its gorgeous art. That’s not to say it’s a slouch in the former department, but given the pedigree of its predecessor, it’s not at all surprising to see the excellent artistic talent of Moon Studios shining through in this game once again. Every nook and cranny of Will of the Wisps’ vast and varied world is a sight to behold, from haunted and dying forests to vibrant thickets full of lush trees, from sparkling pools of water to snow-capped mountaintops. Even after you’ve spent well over a dozen hours with it, Will of the Wisps will still continue to astound you with its beauty- and that’s the mark of true artistic excellence.

THE LAST OF US PART 2

Naughty Dog have garnered a reputation for themselves over the years that not most other developers can only dream of- each of their games is a visual spectacle, and The Last of Us Part 2 is no different. In true Naughty Dog fashion, it is brimming with an almost obsessive amount of detail, with tiny touches that you might not even notice at a glance. From the way the characters animate to the tendrils of smoke that drift off of a gun after you fire a shot to the way bright red fountains of blood shoot out of enemies, The Last of Us Part 2 works overtime to provide its players with an unbelievably impressive visual experience. Add to that the excellent art design of Naughty Dog that brings their depressing, post-apocalyptic world to life in thoroughly convincing fashion, and what you have is yet another game made by this developer that looks far better than it has any right to given the hardware it’s on.

HADES

Hades doesn’t have the technical wow factor that many other games on this list do, but as anyone who’s played it would tell you, it’s hard not to be impressed by the game’s visuals nonetheless. The aesthetic Supergiant’s roguelite action title employs is immediately appealing, and from the environments to the character models and the flourishes that make its flashy combat pop that much more, Hades constantly impresses players with its sense of style and visual flair. Whether you’re making your way through the lava fields of Asphodeal or the lively locales of Elysium, Hades is a visual delight from beginning to end.

GHOST OF TSUSHIMA

Ghost of Tsushima might not have the hyper-realistic visuals and obsessive attention to detail that games like The Last of Us Part 2 or Red Dead Redemption 2, but it’s still easily one of the best looking games we’ve played this generation. Sucker Punch let their artists run absolutely wild when they were designing the open world of Tsushima, and it was a choice that paid off. Ghost of Tsushima is full of moments of startling beauty, of vibrant colours and lush environments, of sweeping vistas that can take your breath away, of artistic flourishes that make even the most mundane scenes come to life in breathtaking fashion. It might falter a bit under scrutiny from a technical perspective, but given how unbelievably gorgeous this game is in all the ways that matter, those slight stumbles are easy to ignore.

FINAL FANTASY 7 REMAKE

The dream of a full-fledged remake of Final Fantasy 7 only became a thing when, in 2005, Square Enix showed off a tech demo of the game’s opening to show off their new development tools and what they could do with the PS3’s hardware, so it’s fitting that the eventual remake that we finally got this year is an absolute looker. Final Fantasy 7 Remake brings the decaying city of Midgar to life in ways that we could never even have imagined, with every dirty alley and every dark corner brimming with unbelievable attention to detail. Yes, the game sometimes does buckle under the weight of its technical ambitions (looking at you, door to Cloud’s room whose textures refuse to load), but in the grand scheme of things, those are really just minor nitpicks.

MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN: MILES MORALES

Given the fact that Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales launched as a cross-gen title for the PS4 and PS5, it was never really going to be a next-gen technical showcase. In spite of that, it manages to look surprisingly excellent on the PS5. The snowy streets of wintery Manhattan are full of technical flourishes and little details that lend the open world a new level of authenticity, while the addition of ray-tracing contributes to the game’s visuals significantly as well. The next mainline Spider-Man game will probably be a much better game to look at (especially if it’s exclusive to the PS5), but already, Miles Morales hints at some exciting things for the future.

DEMON’S SOULS

The horrifying, decrepit world of Demon’s Souls is one that has stood out in our memories for over a decade at this point, and the timeless art style of the original game is largely responsible for that enduring legacy. And though Bluepoint Games could have easily messed up their recreation of that iconic world, the Demon’s Souls remake is a blessedly gorgeous game. It’s a technical marvel in every sense of the word, and a great way to show off what the PS5 is capable of right out the gate. At the same time, however, it also sports an excellent art style, one that surely differs from the sensibilities of the original game in some key ways, but is no less impressive.

WATCH DOGS: LEGION

Like pretty much any Ubisoft game that releases in today’s day and age, Watch Dogs: Legion is not without its technical glitches and bugs, and as we mentioned when speaking about Assassin’s Creed, things such as texture pop-in and facial models that look like they’re made of clay do pop up every now and then. What makes Watch Dogs: Legion so good to look at, however, is the creative choices the game makes with its setting. Watch Dogs: Legion, you see, goes all-in on the cyberpunk aesthetic that the series has always toyed with, and delivers a neon-drenched, bright, and flashy reimagination of a near-future London. It strikes the perfect balance between virtual tourism and far-flung fiction, and the excellent art design deserves a lot of credit for that.

DOOM ETERNAL

When it comes to games like DOOM, good visuals are most definitely not what people are most concerned about. As such, DOOM Eternal could just as easily have gained all the plaudits in the world even as a much worse looking game- but id Software are known for their technical proficiency, and in DOOM Eternal, their talent shines through once again. This is a gorgeous game to look at, whether it’s its varied environments we’re talking about, or the imaginative monster design, or the morbidly beautiful explosions of blood and bits.

CYBERPUNK 2077

Let’s get one thing out of the way before we talk about anything else here- Cyberpunk 2077 on consoles (especially the base last-gen consoles) is absolutely not one of the best looking games of the year. Hell, it’s not even a good looking game, period. On PC, however, especially if you have a good, up-to-date setup, it tells an entirely different story. Night City comes to life the way it was always meant to, the cyberpunk dystopia of 2077 shines through thanks to excellent art design and the technical chops to back it up, and the immersion factor touches the kind of heights that the game’s console version never even comes close to. It’s a shame that so many people won’t be able to experience the true beauty of Cyberpunk 2077– because if you have the hardware for it, this can be a real visual treat.

THE WINNER:

DEMON’S SOULS

Bluepoint Games are masters of the remaster (or remake, as the case may be). They earned that title with 2018’s Shadow of the Colossus, which was an absolute beast from both a technical and artistic perspective, and they’ve achieved even greater heights with this year’s Demon’s Souls. As the only true major next-gen exclusive game so far, Demon’s Souls looks appropriately stellar, from the excellent design of every single nightmarish enemy you come across to the crisp visual quality that works wonders to bring its gothic art style to life to the more granular yet no less impressive accomplishments of the lighting, animations, and particle effects. We’re barely weeks into the 9th console generation, but with Demon’s Souls, it has already given us one of the best looking games we’ve ever played.

NOTE: The nominees and winner were decided by an internal vote held among the entire GamingBolt staff.

Nominees:

Media Molecule

It was a long time coming, but Dreams finally hit this year, and goodness is it a staggering achievement in democratizing game development. Media Molecule must be given mad props for just how much they have managed to make complex game development paradigms and concept so easily accessible to just about anyone who chooses to engage with Dreams – while also offering extensive support for PSVR, PS Move, and the DualShock 4’s Sixaxis features. That they achieved all this while being a really small team a fraction of the size of most AAA studios only makes their achievements that much more impressive.

Valve

Not too long ago, Valve would have been an annual fixture on these lists. These last few years, they’ve slid off thanks to a dearth of big releases. That changed this year with Half Life Alyx, which was a new paradigm for VR games and first person shooters alike, with one feeding the other. Predictably enough, the game is a pioneer and a trailblazer, and that Valve was able to write the rulebook for what interaction with VR games should look like on their first real attempt should be lauded. You have to hand it to them, they still have that talent and skill that made them so beloved in the first place. Hopefully the wait for their next big game won’t be quite as long.

Nintendo EPD

Nintendo had a quiet year this year, with little in the way of big releases – but they still managed to have the single biggest game release of the year in Animal Crossing New Horizons. New Horizons was the right game at the right place at the right time, but even removing the COVID-19 induced quarantine and lockdowns from the equation, it’s impressive just how instantly accessible and addictive Animal Crossing really was in its new incarnation. That this game was able to cross demographic boundaries and get literally everyone playing is a credit to just how well Nintendo EPD understands the language of the construction of video games, and how, when they flex their creative muscle, they are able to make something that the entire world is forced to sit and take notice of.

Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch has always made fan favorite games, but, much like several other studios in Sony’s first party portfolio, they really managed to hit it big with their PS4 release – in their case, Ghost of Tsushima, which launched this year. Enough has been said about just how great Ghost of Tsushima really is (very great), but the fact that Sucker Punch was able to put out such an inherently addictive big open world title, without any reports of the kind of crunch that seems to pervade most other big AAA open world productions, is to their credit. The success of Ghost of Tsushima is immense, and I can only hope that Sucker Punch staffs up and gets a bigger budget for their next game – I can’t wait to see where they go.

Square Enix

Square Enix had one of their best year in, well, years. Final Fantasy 7 Remake was obviously their crowning achievement this year, which finally seemed to put the franchise back on track after a few years of increasingly misguided installments, but Square also had some other stuff out this year. Trials of Mana is a sleeper hit, a great classic style RPG that all fans of the genre owe it to themselves to check out, while Kingdom Hearts gave us an incredibly fun rhythm game in Melody of Memory. Square are still a far cry from being the industry leading prestige developers they once were, long ago and back in their heyday – but at least we can now say they have definitively started their long road to recovery.

Naughty Dog

When you have a game that sets the world on fire and is considered by many to be the best work of the entire medium, and one that elevated it in the process too, many would be totally fine with a pretty safe sequel that’s literally more of the same – why rock the boat, right? People are clearly going to be perfectly happy with just that. So it is to Naughty Dog’s credit that they went the direction that they did with the follow up to their most beloved game of all time. The Last of Us Part 2 is bold, daring, and ambitious, and it is a game that dares to alienate the multitude of fans of the original game. In the process, it ends up delivering a story that, even if flawed, is significantly more ambitious than anything that most other games manage. And this is to say nothing of just how incredibly well The Last of Us Part 2 plays – arguably the best playing game by a Sony first party studio yet. 2020 proved to be another feather in Naughty Dog’s already very feathery cap.

Supergiant

While Supergiant had already won acclaim with their previous outings, it was Hades where they finally realized their vision. With Hades, they took on a genre long considered to be incompatible with meaningful storytelling – roguelikes – and then proceeded to tell a meaningful and fantastic story with it anyway. That Hades plays as incredibly well as it does (even those who don’t like roguelikes are likely to fall in love with it) and as immaculately well designed as it is only makes it that much better. And then you consider that, unlike most other developers on this list, Supergiant is basically 20 folks, and that they made this game without any crunch or the backing of a big publisher – and holy crap, these guys really deserve all the plaudits they have been getting. I don’t know how they will top Hades, but you know what, I have no doubt that they ultimately will.

Moon Studios

Moon Studios are a gem. Ori and the Blind Forest was already one of the best Metroidvanias ever made (a tall order when the two games that gave the genre its name are also, in fact, considered to be among the greatest games ever made), but Will of the Wisps takes it so much further that Blind Forest feels almost quaint in comparison. It’s bigger and better in literally every regard, while retaining all the strengths of the first game too. That they managed to get a game this ambitious working on hardware ranging from the uberconsole Xbox Series X all the way down to the humble Nintendo Switch only speaks to their talent even more. Will of the Wisps is one of the best games of the year – and its developers are naturally to be lauded for their work on it too.

Bluepoint Games

That Bluepoint is a bunch of talented folks has never been in question. They did great with the HD ports of Sony’s first party games to the PS3, they did incredibly well with the downport of Respawn’s Titanfall to the Xbox 360, and then they really came into their own with the 2018 remake of Shadow of the Colossus on PS4. Demon’s Souls on PS5 continues their ascent – this is one of the best looking games ever made, it’s polished to a ridiculous degree (more than even any game FromSoft themselves have put out), and it plays every bit as great as the original game did – if not better, owing to it lacking most of the jank. Demon’s Souls shows us just how talented Bluepoint is – and I can only hope we get to see them work on an original game next.

Giant Squid

Abzu was pretty good, but The Pathless is incredible. Giant Squid has put out an open world title that puts most other open world games (almost all of which are made by giant teams with AAA budgets) to shame. It’s a game that embellishes the spirit and magic of discovery and adventure, a game that truly leaves exploration to the player. It is an open world game that truly feels like it was made in a post-Breath of the Wild world, and it manages to truly stand out even considering how beloved its apparent inspiration is. It’s a bold, daring reinvention of open world games – and I hope its success means we can see more similarly ambitious, but even larger and grander, games from them going forward.

WINNER

Moon Studios

It’s incredible that a team of just 80 people put out a game as expansive, as ambitious, and as accomplished as Ori and the Will of the Wisps. It’s incredible that they managed to put out a game like that in a state of high polish (albeit not at first, given the framerate issues at launch) on so many different hardware configurations. It’s truly impressive – Ori and the Will of the Wisps would be impressive no matter what, but it feels even more so considering the context surrounding it. Moon Studios’ talent is no longer in question, and we can’t wait to see how they top themselves with their next game, now already in development with Private Division.

But this list isn’t about those. This list is very specifically about honoring the best role playing games – true role playing games, as opposed to games with role playing elements – that came out this year. As you might expect, there were a lot of incredible ones. But here are the ones that stand out as among the very best ones.

NOTE: The nominees and winner were decided by an internal vote held among the entire GamingBolt staff.

The Nominees:

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Assassin’s Creed had been tending towards role playing game elements for years even before Assassin’s Creed Origins reimagined the franchise as an action RPG back in 2017. However, the vision of the series as an RPG has never once been as clearly distilled and gorgeously well realized as in this year’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. This Viking game excises the excess bloat that dragged down Origins and Odyssey, getting rid of a lot of extraneous systems and content that just muddied the water, and streamlining and pulling together everything that remained. The result is a game that’s not small by any means – Valhalla may actually have the most content of any game in the series yet – but one that doesn’t feel bloated, one where every bit of content truly feels as though it belongs, rather than just being put there to pad out the hours players can get from the game. Throw in some of the best combat the series has seen yet, along with some hugely improved writing, a world that is brimming with secrets, and some incredible quests (that rethink how quests in an open world game should be approached in the first place), not to mention one of the best and most meaningful skill trees in recent memory, and you’re left with a title that truly stands out as one of the best RPGs of this year.

Wasteland 3

Wasteland 2 was a bit of a disappointment. It wasn’t bad, just subpar and underwhelming. So people being skeptical about a third game in the series had every right to be – especially when the overtly MCU style quippy tone was revealed in trailers. All doubts were put to the rest when the actual game came out, however, and delivered arguably the best Wasteland game yet. The RPG mechanics are staggeringly deep and nuanced, what seemed to be forced humor is some marvellously dry and uproarious satire, and the world just begs you to engage with it. Really, the only blemish on an otherwise fine experience was the presence of bugs and glitches – though a lot of those have been addressed by now, which means you have very little reason to not give the game a go, if you haven’t already.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon

Taking your flagship game franchise – really, the only game franchise you have that does consistently well critically and commercially – and completely rethinking it as a game that is literally the exact opposite of the kinds of games that previous titles in the series have been known for is a bold move indeed, but Sega’s RGG Studio did just that when they rebooted their brawler franchise Yakuza as… a turn based JRPG. Taking liberal cues from sister franchise Persona, Yakuza: Like a Dragon nonetheless retained the core and spirit of the series, from the charming characters and aesthetic to the surprisingly wholesome stories about crime lords and political drama (don’t ask). Series staples such as incredibly involved and nuanced minigames and great sidequests are all here, while Like a Dragon also sheds baggage by jettisoning the old cast and location, and following a new set of misfits in an entirely new town. The end result is the biggest and best Yakuza game yet, and also, remarkably, one of the best RPGs of the generation. Who would have seen that coming?

Nioh 2

Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo didn’t rock the boat too much with Nioh 2. The sequel to the original Souls-style action RPG is pretty much more of the same, but when “the same” is so good to begin with, you’ll hardly find anyone complaining. Nioh 2 takes everything that was great about the original game, and makes it even better, while adding some new mechanics and twists to the formula of its own. Indeed, if there is any criticism to be leveled at the game, it is only that it doesn’t take this opportunity to address the numerous smaller flaws the original game had – those are still here in this outing, and they feel less forgiveable this time around, given that this is no longer the first attempt by the development team. Don’t let that dissuade you from trying out the game, though – for fans of action RPGs and great combat systems, there is very little out there that’s truly better than Nioh 2.

Demon’s Souls

The original Demon’s Souls is one of the most important games of all time, leading, as it did, to the creation of Dark Souls, and therefore indirectly to the latter’s massive influence on the rest of the industry. The remarkable thing about that game – though this should come as no surprise to anyone considering how incredibly well it was designed, really – is just how well it holds up. In fact, in many regards, such as graphics or polish, Demon’s Souls is far beyond any other Souls style game developed by FromSoft. But neither of those are why one plays these games, and in the parts that really matter – the incredible combat, the mystery and cryptic obtuseness of the world, the fantastic, class leading level design – Demon’s Souls still stands tall, rubbing shoulders with many of its own follow ups, while towering over some other ones. What was one of the best RPGs in 2009 is one of the best RPGs in 2020 too – except now we also have the hindsight to know that it’s one of the best RPGs of all time in general.

Cyberpunk 2077

CD Projekt RED had a massive act to follow with Cyberpunk 2077, following as it does in the footsteps of The Witcher 3, a game many will tell you is the best one ever made. They didn’t help matters by hyping it to the moon and back either. Whether or not Cyberpunk lives up to the insane hype is a question for another time, what cannot be denied is that all else aside, on its own merits, it’s still a great RPG. While some things, such as the much ballyhooed life paths, are disappointing salad dressing, it’s in other areas, such as the quality of the main quests, the massive divergences caused by an incredibly fleshed out choice and consequence mechanic, and the sheer variety in loot and character builds on offer, that makes this game shine. As long as you keep your expectations in check, it’s unlikely that you’ll come away from Cyberpunk 2077 disappointed.

Genshin Impact

One of the most influential games of the last few years was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and this year, we finally got to see the impact it would have on the design of open world games that follow in its footsteps. The biggest one of these was Genshin Impact, a free to play AAA open world RPG production that wears its inspiration on its sleeve. Its arguably the most high quality and best produced free to play game yet, which is even more impressive when you consider just how great it is. The Breath of the Wild influence is clear, and there are clear indications of how this game has been influenced by Nintendo EPD’s 2017 masterpiece everywhere you look. The addition of RPG mechanics even helps Genshin Impact be better than Breath of the Wild in many ways, including immediate combat, as well as a much more immediate story. Genshin Impact would have been one of the best RPGs of the year even if it had been a full priced release; that a game of this quality is available free to play just makes its achievements that much more impressive and mind boggling.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

While the approach to storytelling and liberties taken with the story of the original game made Final Fantasy 7 Remake fairly controversial among some segments of the Final Fantasy fanbase, the one area where almost everyone agreed it was a triumph was in its merits as a role playing game. Featuring Square Enix’s best battle system in years with the active time battle system (which is a great blend of turn based and real time gameplay), Final Fantasy VII Remake would deserve to be on this list on the basis of that alone. But in addition to that, the game also gives players a lot of leeway in terms of how they choose to build their characters, thanks to its Materia system, as well as systems that let you properly modify your weapons and skills. Even in spite of its failings (such as the inane sidequests or the extremely linear level design), the sheer latitude and agency provided by the character builds and battle system is such that this is a game you can return to multiple times, and get something different out of it each time.

Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition

One of the most celebrated RPGs of all time finally got its chance to reach the mainstream audience it deserves with this year’s Definitive Edition re-release. Other than touched up graphics and a redone soundtrack (though you get the option to swap to the original music should you like), as well as a few QoL improvements, Monolith Soft decided to leave the original game mostly untouched – and that was a great decision, because boy does Xenoblade hold up. The world is still awe inspiring, the story is still epic and arresting, the battle system with all its possibilities is still addictive, and the characters are still a jolly cast of misfits that you want to stick with through to the end. Xenoblade Chronicles is one of the great achievements of the RPG genre – and now, thankfully, more of the world can see that.

Dragon Ball Z Kakarot

Not many people know this, but the Dragon Ball Z saga actually got adapted into a series of great action RPGs on the Gameboy Advance in the guise of The Legacy of Goku trilogy. While the original game in that bunch was very disappointing, The Legacy of Goku 2 and Buu’s Fury are the games that series is remembered for. The prospect of a brand new Dragon Ball Z RPG was exciting to many who had played those games – and Kakarot largely delivers. While it feels unfortunately half-baked in a lot of regards, on the whole, it does the job and gives players Goku’s story in RPG format. As an RPG, it’s good. As a Dragon Ball game, it’s good. Given how often we get misfires in both those categories, Kakarot already stands out, thanks to its battles, open world, and faithfulness to the source material.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Rereckoning

The original Kingdoms of Amalur: Recknoning never quite lived up to its potential, so in a way, it’s disappointing that this hilariously named re-release was so conservative, retaining the original game almost entirely as is. That said, the original game was still a pretty good RPG, so it should come as almost no surprise to anyone that this re-release is too. While there are definitely parts of it that are dated now – meaning this is actually a weaker release this year than the original was when it came out – on the whole, it’s still a pretty great time for anyone looking for a dash of classic high fantasy questing. Hopefully the sequel will finally let this IP reach the heights it feels destined to reach.

CrossCode

Indie games now stand side by side with full fledged AAA productions, and CrossCode proves that amply. It’s a great action RPG that is every bit as great as just about any other RPG of the year, and its sci-fi setting, sharp writing, and Zelda-style emphasis on puzzles actually help it stand out a bit in a very crowded genre. The fact that this is a crowdfunded game that ended up not disappointing – a definite deviation from the norm – only makes its success feel that much sweeter. If you’re in the mood for a fast-paced RPG with some charming characters and retro action adventure style sensibilities, CrossCode is the game for you. And if you’re not, well, you still should check it out. It’s really great, and chances are you’ll like it a lot.

Persona 5 Royal

Persona 5 Royal is the ultimate form of the JRPG, and one of the best and most perfect games ever made. Taking the original Persona 5 (which was already a damn good game), sanding off its rough edges and flaws, bolstering its strengths, rethinking content and  mechanics from the ground up, and adding much in the way of new content and mechanics that it gets entirely right the first time around, while keeping the incredible sense of style and fantastic music that made the original game so beloved to begin with, Persona 5 Royal is without a doubt one of the top releases of the generation. If anything dulls its impact, it’s that its achievements are built on top of an existing, admittedly already great game – but even players who spent hundreds of hours on the original title (which was basically necessary if you were to finish it) will find themselves falling in love with Persona 5 all over again when they play Royal. And those that never played the original? They are in for a treat with arguably the best game ever made.

THE WINNER

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Persona 5 Royal is an incredible game, but as mentioned, it is ultimately a re-release that shines up an existing game. Final Fantasy VII Remake wins this by virtue of being something entirely new (in spite of what its name might suggest), and on the basis of its sheer audacity and ambition, which introduce some of the best RPG systems and mechanics we have seen in a very long time. That the game manages to stand out so much even in spite of its many shortcomings – narrative and mechanical – is ultimately all the testament and proof you need of just how good it is at what it does. It is not exaggeration to say that VII Remake is the best Final Fantasy single player game we have had in a very long time – and similarly, it makes us excited for the future of this franchise too, also for the first time in a very, very long time. We can’t wait to see where Square Enix takes the Final Fantasy VII story next, now that it’s been blown wide open.

Here, we look at the best remakes and remasters that were released in 2020.

NOTE: The nominees and winner were decided by an internal vote held among the entire GamingBolt staff.

NOMINEES: 

Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition

With the Xenoblade series finally having found mainstream success on the Nintendo Switch with 2017’s Xenoblade 2, Nintendo and Monolith Soft decided to give everyone a taste of the epic that started it all back in 2010. The original Xenoblade was built for the Wii, but it has never shone and sung like it did on the Switch. Now finally free of the shackles that the Wii and 3DS imposed on the game, Monolith’s gorgeous, breathtaking spectacle of a world came to life like never before, in the process also sanding off some of the rough edges the original release had. Xenoblade was lauded as one of the all time genre greats when it originally launched – and 10 years later, it still stands toe to toe with genre giants.

Demon’s Souls

Similar to Xenoblade, Demon’s Souls was a chance provided by Sony for newer fans of From Soft’s Souls series to see how it all started. Demon’s Souls was remade lovingly by masters of the craft Bluepoint. Made to showcase the PS5’s incredible prowess, Demon’s Souls is gorgeous, looking literally multiple generations beyond the original release – and indeed, looking far beyond any other Souls game to date. The graphical touch up helps showcase just how far ahead of its time the original, pioneering game really was, as little else has been touched, and Demon’s Souls manages to far exceed most modern games on the market anyway.

Kingdoms of Amalur: The Rereckoning

Big Huge Games and 37 Studios’ Kingdoms of Amalur was a tale of missed potential. The game, while holding a lot of promise, was flawed, flaws which could easily have been addressed in a sequel. Unfortunately that sequel was not to be. Until THQ Nordic acquired the IP. Maybe they plan to produce a sequel to the game – who knows? But whatever their reasons may have been, they did decide to lead with a remaster of the original game. Hilariously titled Rereckoning, this was a fairly conservative remaster, touching up the graphics and little else. In spite of that, however, the promise of that original game is still here – and we hope we get to see a follow up that finally delivers on the tantalizing glimpses of greatness this remaster brought to modern audiences this year.

Mafia: Definitive Edition

You can make the case – convincingly, I might add – that the original Mafia game is the only good one. So it’s fitting that its rerelease got so much more effort, love, and care lavished on it than the other rereleases and updates in the series that were released this year. Mafia’s fantastic crime drama story holds up and still exceeds its own follow ups. The core design of the game is surprisingly strong too. Mafia’s decision to keep its campaign purely linear, keeping the sandbox separated from the story driven proceedings, helped this game age far better than many other similar ones. While parts of the package, such as the awkward and stiff shooting, definitely mar the experience with the Definitive Edition a bit, on the whole, it’s a laudable update that definitely stands as one of the more ambitious ones we’ve seen.

Super Mario 3D All Stars

For Mario’s 35th anniversary, Nintendo decided to bring three classic 3D Mario games to the Switch. Super Mario 64, Sunshine, and especially Galaxy are among the best, most influential games of all time, so the ability to play them on modern systems is definitely much appreciated, especially given how well they hold up. And yet, this rerelease is fraught with poor decisions and baffling cut corners – the updates are minimal (Mario 64 wasn’t even updated to be widescreen!), there are little to no extras included (which is perplexing for an anniversary celebration), and the decision to only have this be available for a time limited window (including digitally!) rankles as one of Nintendo’s worst in recent memory. The only reason this collection manages to rise above this blend of poor decisions is because of how incredibly strong the games included are – Galaxy, in particular, can still rightly claim to be better than most games released on the market today, including most of Nintendo’s own.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

The long awaited, almost mythical remake of Square’s seminal 1997 RPG Final Fantasy 7 released this year after an incredibly long gestation period at last. And what a release it was. The graphics were modernized, standing toe to toe with the best lookers of the generation. The new ATB battle system straddles the line between real time and turn based so incredibly well, it’s hard to see future Final Fantasy game use anything else. And the story – well, that’s one thing that’s bound to be controversial, in true modern Square fashion. No matter where you land on that, however, it’s indisputable how ambitious and breathtakingly bold and daring this remake really was.

Pikmin 3 Deluxe

Nintendo’s Pikmin series has always been a victim of bad timing (so far, it’s seen releases on GameCube and Wii U, two of their worst selling consoles ever), so it made sense that Nintendo would want to give it another shot on the Switch. As far as their Wii U rereleases on Switch go, Pikmin 3 Deluxe definitely ranks as one of the better ones. The real time strategy game was included with all the content in the base game, the DLC, and some extra content included to boot. While the graphics are surprisingly poor for a rerelease on a much more powerful system than the original one it released on, on the whole, this is Pikmin 3 in its best incarnation yet – and it being portable is just the cherry on top.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 HD

In one of the weirdest twists of the last few years, Activision has somehow managed to consistently deliver some of the best, most through, and most value for money rerelease of classic games. Much like Crash N.Sane Trilogy and Spyro Reignited, Tony Hawk 1+2 is a thorough overhaul of the original two games in the skateboarding series, receiving such a from the ground up polish that you’d be forgiven for not recognizing their roots. Add to that the incredible low price, and this definitely stands as one of the best purchases you can make right now – even if you’re not as big a fan of skateboarding games to begin with.

Command and Conquer Remastered Collection

Another shocking development is EA taking the beloved Command and Conquer games, and re-releasing them while… according them all the respect they deserve? Huh. A far cry from the mobile game abomination they attempted to push on series fans just a few years back, the Command and Conquer Remastered collection is a loving homage to, and update of, the seminal classic real time strategy games that literally blazed the trail for an entire genre, while, yes, being shockingly low priced. Hopefully, this means there’s a new, big budget real time strategy entry in this series that can rightly claim to be a titan of the medium and its development in the cards some time in the future.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit Remastered

Hopefully Criterion can resuscitate EA’s once proud Need for Speed racing series after the beatings it’s taken three last few years; however, in the meanwhile, there’s this rerelease of one of the last great games in the series. Criterion’s own 2010 reimagining of the series classic Hot Pursuit conceit holds up surprisingly well, and actually acts as a remarkable look at what the automobile scene was like a full decade ago. The trademark speed and risk/reward gameplay that’s so central to the Hot Pursuit concept is every bit as thrilling now as it was then, and Hot Pursuit Remastered ends up being remarkably equipped to take on all of its contemporaries to boot. If you’re looking for an arcade racer, you could actually do far worse than Hot Pursuit Remastered.

Black Mesa

The original Half-Life is one of the most important game releases of all time, so it makes sense that it’s inspired so many fan tributes and works, including some great remakes. But the king of all those is Black Mesa, a fan remake of the original game that’s literally been years in the coming – and that’s been so high profile that it ended up catching Valve’s attention and becoming officially sanctioned along the way. Black Mesa is an incredible work, and you can convincingly make the case that it’s in fact the best version of Half-Life. In fact, the developers of Half-Life Alyx actually played it before they set out to make their game. And that, ultimately, is the most ringing endorsement it can get – Valve themselves used it as a study for what makes a good Half-Life game.

Spider-Man Remastered

Spider-Man Remastered is a fairly conservative update of the 2018 release, and with good reason – the 2018 game was already fantastic, and Insomniac wisely decided against tinkering with a winning formula. The biggest additions and changes in Remastered are all graphical, whether it be ray tracing or the bemusingly controversial update to Peter Parker’s model. One of those graphical changes, however – the ability to play the game in 60FPS – is a total game changer, adding a fluidity and sense of motion to a game that already felt kinetic and fluid to begin with. If you play Spider-Man so that you can feel like Spider-Man, no version of this game will do a better job of that than this remaster. If you haven’t played Spider-Man already, this remaster is the way to go.

Destroy All Humans

The cult classic and fan favorite Destroy All Humans from the PS2 era was brought back in 2020, and it was… fine. An exceedingly faithful remake of the original action adventure title, Destroy All Humans suffered from aspects of dated design that would have been better off had THQ Nordic modernized then and brought them to contemporary standards. Those flaws, however, didn’t take away from the kind of mindlessly engaging fun the original game was so great at providing, and this remake is too. And in the end, sometimes that’s all you want – and in that regard, Destroy All Humans 2020 delivers in spades.

Saints Row The Third Remastered

Ask any fan of the Saints Row series which game was the best, and you’ll get a universal consensus (or as close to one as is possible) – Saint Row The Third, where the series really found its voice as the over the top and wacky counterpart to the then increasingly grounded GTA franchise, but before it descended into the insanity that it would with the fourth game in the series and beyond. So it makes sense that this is the one fans would want on modern systems. And THQ Nordic delivered, giving us Saints Row The Third Remastered, an enhanced rerelease of the original title that shows us just how surprisingly well it holds up all these years later. This was aided, in no small part, by how convincing a visual overhaul the game received, to the extent it could have passed for an early gen PS4 game. That kind of staggering effort made this fan favorite title shine bright once more, and made Saints Row The Third Remastered one of the best rereleases in a year full of great rereleases.

WINNER:

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

There has never before been a remake as ambitious and as audacious as Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Square could have easily gotten away with just putting out a simple modernization of the old game – in fact, you can argue that’s really all that fans wanted – but instead, they chose to give us an alternate interpretation of the original story, literally remaking it and where it goes along the way. The changes to the story are of course the big eye catching bullet point here, but every part of the package saw incredible updates, from the story to the gameplay to the surprisingly great voice acting to, of course, the gorgeous graphics. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a product that stumbles often, but when you’re this ambitious and aim this big, that’s bound to happen. And in spite of those stumbles, FF7R gives us a truly unforgettable experience – one way or the other.

NOTE: The nominees and winner were decided by an internal vote held among the entire GamingBolt staff.

THE NOMINEES:

XENOBLADE CHRONICLES: DEFINITIVE EDITION

Xenoblade Chronicles made a glorious comeback to the limelight on the Nintendo Switch this year, and it was somehow bigger and more beautiful than ever before- which is high praise for a game that was already considered one of the greatest RPGs of all time. An epic story, a gorgeous world to explore, a meaty chunk of new content to dive into, and so much more- Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition had a lot to offer.

CROSSCODE

CrossCode has been in a playable state to some extent for a long time now. After spending three years in early access, the action RPG released in full for PC in 2018, before debuting on the Switch this year. And as anyone who’s played it would tell you, it was well worth the way. CrossCode takes a unique concept, a fascinating narrative premise, challenging and thrilling action combat, and beautiful retro visuals, and combines them all in one of the finest games we’ve played on Switch all year.

PAPER MARIO: THE ORIGAMI KING

Paper Mario has been struggling with finding its feet with its action-adventure approach for a while now, and after several stumbles back to back, this year, it landed on its feet with The Origami King. Beautiful, charming, funny, and addictive, Paper Mario: The Origami King turned out to be the best game this series has put out in many years. It might not be the The Thousand Year Door successor we’ve been waiting for for years, but if this is the direction Paper Mario wants to stick with, at least it’s finally found the right way to do it.

MARIO KART LIVE: HOME CIRCUIT

Nintendo is always more than willing to experiment with how its games are played, and of late, they have been doing that even more than usual. From Labo to Ring Fit, they’ve had some interesting and unconventional experiments of late, and Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit was another similar attempt. Blessedly, it was a successful attempt. Combining the chaos and unadulterated fun of Mario Kart with augmented reality gameplay and actual RC karts sounds like a completely ridiculous idea, but true Nintendo fashion, Home Circuit makes it work.

ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS

With Animal Crossing, you always know what you’re getting into- a wholesome, ridiculously addictive game that you can (and probably will) sink hundreds of hours into. New Horizons was that- and so much more. On top of expanding upon the core formula that its predecessors have polished to a sheen over the year, New Horizons also introduced major new mechanics like terraforming and constant progression system in Nook Miles. The result was what is easily the best Animal Crossing to date, and probably one of the finest games in the Switch’s library.

ORI AND THE WILL OF THE WISPS

After Ori and the Blind Forest debuted on the Switch (and saw great success, to boot), most people were sure that its sequel would also eventually make its way to Nintendo’s hybrid. And merely a few months after its initial launch on Xbox and PC, that is exactly what Will of the Wisps did. With their second Ori game, Moon Studios delivered an instant metroidvania classic, once again concocting a perfect blend of tight platforming, intricate level design, beautiful visuals, and affecting storytelling. With that, and major improvements over its predecessor in key areas like combat and progression, Ori and the Will of the Wisps is easily one of the best metroidvania games you’ll ever play.

KINGDOM HEARTS: MELODY OF MEMORY

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory isn’t what you expect from Kingdom Hearts game, but though it drops the flashy and colourful action of the mainline RPG series, it instead chooses to hone in on the series’ musical strengths. Melody of Memory, as its name suggests, is a solid rhythm game that, crucially, has excellent music and feels like a celebration of the series’ history up until this point. After Kingdom Hearts 3 wrapped up a major, longform arc, Melody of Memory feels like a perfect breather while we wait for the series’ next big step.

GHOSTRUNNER

Ghostrunner has a simple core idea- your enemies die in one hit, and so do you. What makes this cyberpunk action title so special, however, is that it takes that idea and keeps on building upon it, keeps on escalating it, keeps on using it in new and interesting ways. Its kinetic and thrilling combat and traversal are bolstered by true challenge, which in turn is balanced excellently by a generous checkpoint system which keeps encouraging players to immediately jump right into the action even after multiple failures.

STREETS OF RAGE 4

Streets of Rage is the poster boy of beat ’em ups, and the burden of responsibility that Dotemu, Lizardcube, and Guard Crush Games were shouldering with the series’ revival was a heavy one. They rose up to the challenge like champions though, with Streets of Rage 4 turning out to be an excellent return to the spotlight for the series. Its classic, varied, and satisfying combat, its excellent music, its beautiful art design, and its cast of characters were everything that fans had hoped a new Streets of Rage would boast of- and those were just a few of the game’s many notable strengths.

CHRONOS: BEFORE THE ASHES

Chronos: Before the Ashes has been around (if not exactly in its current form) for a while now, but this year, Gunfire Games released the previously VR-exclusive RPG as a non-VR game, retooling it and officially confirming it as a prequel to the surprise hit Remnant: From the Ashes. And Chronos succeeds in a lot of very similar ways. Solid, challenging combat, meaningful progression mechanics, compelling Souls-like design, and more come together to make up for deficiencies in other areas, and even though Chronos: Before the Ashes won’t set the world on fire, it’s still a damn fine game.

SUPER MARO 3D ALL-STARS

Super Mario 3D All-Stars has no shortage of issues. The remastering work done here was far from the best (especially from a visuals perspective), some important features were missing at launch (but some have since been added in), while its nature as a timed release was met with plenty of controversy. It really says something about the inherent strengths of Super Mario, then, that in spite of these issues, 3D All-Stars is still an easy purchase to recommend. It compiles three excellent games in one package, two of which are arguably among the greatest games ever made- it’s hard to say no to a package like that.

PIKMIN 3 DELUXE

One of the Pikmin series’ more overlooked releases, Pikmin 3, came to the Switch this year as another game in a long line of Wii U games being given a second lease of life on a much more successful system. And that’s a good thing, too, because as Pikmin 3 Deluxe illustrated, this is a great game that deserves to be played by more people. It looks better, of course, but more importantly, the core gameplay loop remains predictably solid. This is the best way to play a great game, and though our long wait for Pikmin 4 continues, Pikmin 3 Deluxe is more than an adequate stopgap.

HADES

Supergiant Games might not be the biggest developer in the industry, but over the years, it has proven that it is definitely one of the best. And for a studio that has a track record as immaculate as Supergiant’s, to say that their latest, Hades, is their best work yet, is incredibly high praise. It’s very well deserved though. It balances its roguelite structure with constant and rewarding progression, and actually uses that structure to effectively tell an incredible, smartly written story. Moment-to-moment gameplay is always a thrill thanks to exciting combat and fantastic boss fights, while the beautiful art design serves as the cherry on top of the sundae.

NEED FOR SPEED: HOT PURSUIT REMASTERED

Though Need for Speed’s recent history has been a bit spotty, the franchise has seen some truly excellent entries throughout its lifespan, and this year, EA remastered and brought back one of those highlights. The original Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit in 2010 was an excellent racer that cared about nothing but, well, racing, and to be able to have that kind of an experience in a superbly designed AAA production in 2020 was a refreshing change of pace. More than anything else, Hot Pursuit Remastered is a testament to the timeless quality of the 2010 original.

HYRULE WARRIORS: AGE OF CALAMITY

With Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Nintendo promised us a hardboiled Breath of the Wild sequel. It turned out to be… not that- but if you keep those expectations aside and look at it for what it’s is, there’s no shortage of things to be impressed by. It captures the essence of Breath of the Wild really well, which is made all the more surprising by the game’s action musou nature. On top of that, Age of Calamity boasts of a large roster of characters – each more enjoyable to play as than the last – and the pure visceral fun of mowing down hordes of hundreds of enemies that any good musou game should deliver.

WINNER:

ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS

Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ rapturous success tells you everything you need to know about this game. Sure, some of that success can surely be attributed to the circumstances surrounding the game and its launch- but nothing can take away from how delightful, charming, wonderfully fun, and welcoming Animal Crossing is an experience. Regardless of whether you’re engaging in the most mundane of activities – like catching fish and watering flowers – or the more long-term goal-oriented mechanics like terraforming your island to turn it into a proper paradise, New Horizons is constantly addictive, constantly entertaining, and constantly delightful. It’s a truly excellent game that deserves every ounce of praise and success it has enjoyed thus far, and will surely continue to enjoy for a long time to come.