Its first major update in November suggests Hello Games are determined to build and improve on the base experience, so there’s plenty of reason to hope there’s a bright 2017 ahead for the English studio and its unique game.ĭark Souls 3, From Software / Bandai Namco The screenshot button was made for this game. It is a great hiking experience, where you can just wander to your heart’s content to see what’s over the horizon - and, if you get bored of said horizon, you can just zoom off in your spaceship to another galaxy. It is a game with impossible aspirations of infinity (literally), but ultimately excels in intimate moments of loneliness and discovery. For every undeniable mechanical frustration there was a moment where the game’s extraordinary art design and algorithms came together to create sights & sounds like no other game has ever offered. What it was, for this writer anyway, was a flawed but fascinating experiment. After release, a furious internet mob decided it was the interactive entertainment equivalent of a war crime. Hello Games’ epic space exploration game was heralded by some before release as the last game we’d ever need. Mini Metro (mobile), Hyper Light Drifter, Uncharted 4, Thumper, Islands: Non-Places, Firewatch, X-Com 2, Virginia, Pokemon Sun / Moon, Pokemon Go, Fire Emblem Fates, Superhot, Zero Time Dilemma.Īh, the ever-controversial No Man's Sky. Here's some excellent games that didn’t quite make the top ten only because it was an extraordinarily busy year: Honourable mentions: It’s always a good sign when 10 games feels like far, far too few to capture a year in gaming. But there's more than enough other quality titles to pull together a top 10 - and still have plenty left over. are absent not as a cheeky snub, but simply because I haven't had the time to play them yet. Games such as Dishonored 2, Forza Horizon 3, Civilisation VI, Darkest Dungeon, Battlefield 1, Final Fantasy XV etc. There's a few blind spots here, perhaps inevitable given the volume of games released during the year. Independent developers were on fire, but even in the AAA space there were more major and accomplished releases than usual.īut on to the best of the best. Elsewhere, Final Fantasy XV, DOOM and The Last Guardian were finally released - three games that spent so long in development many doubted they would ever see the light of day. As of writing, it looks like Mario Run will be another mobile hit in the Japanese developers' increasingly ambitious steps into the mobile arena. It was a slow 12 months for Nintendo ahead of next year's Switch, and yet the phenomenon of Pokemon Go (a terrible game in many respects, but an addictive and inspired one at the very same time) was the pop cultural event of the year. One way or the other, it was an exceptional year.
#Best video games 2016 Ps4#
Perhaps it was coincidence, or perhaps three years after release developers are finally comfortable with the PS4 and Xbox One. It's unusual to see a 12-month period that feels quite so jam-packed. 2016 is not a year that will be remembered fondly by many people for a plethora of reasons - but for video games, it was a truly vintage year.