It has been a genuinely amazing year for games. The sheer variety of games on offer has been bountiful and means everyone has something they can enjoy. AAA offered some excellent big budget experiences. Indies of all sizes created unique and stellar games. There were in fact, far too many games. So much I couldn’t even get to things like Outer Wilds, Heaven’s Vault, Mechwarrior or Resident Evil 2.
But the 10 best games of the year 2019? The ones I played are below:
10: Hunt Showdown
Finally launching out of early access in 2019 and therefore viable for the games of the year list. Hunt Showdown is a Player vs Environment vs Player game. An odd blend that takes full advantage of blending tone and gameplay for an exhilarating experience.
One to three hunters team up to explore either Deltas or Swamps in the southern US. Their objective is to find three clues that will narrow down the possible locations for their target. 5-6 teams scour the ruined farms, battered civil war structures and smashed caravans for clues as to the location of a boss monster.
Along the way, they just need to evade the demonic dogs, women with beehives for torsos, swamp zombies, ducks, huge leeches and oversized butchers. Plus all the other hunters.
Hunt: Showdown is an exercise in restraint. You could take out that swarm of monsters ahead with your rifle. But that will be so very very loud. The incredibly good 3D audio system will tell everyone where you are. And that’s when everyone else swoops in to take advantage of your distracted state.
But, as with most battle Royales, it’s in the final moments of a match that the game is most spellbinding.
Taking out the boss monster is only the halfway point. Then you need to escape to the fixed points on the map border. After making a significant amount of noise and drawing the attention of every enemy player still on the map.
It’s tense and exhausting and almost always rewards teamwork and strategy above all else.
9: Islanders
I’m a massive believer that the City Builder genre is having a Renaissance in the last few years. We’ve had big names like Anno and Tropico getting new entries. We’ve seen crowdfunded efforts like Kingdoms and Castles. Beyond that, stylish indies like Cliff Empire, Foundation and Dawn of Man are coming out. There’s a wide variety of games to enjoy in one of my favorite genres.
But Islanders is a spin on the genre that I didn’t realise I wanted. A minimalist city builder.
It takes the strategic placement of City Builders and focuses down on it. Get points for every building you place on a set of islands, where placing certain buildings near each other creates multipliers.
Using the space and buildings you are given, hit a points total.
A cerebral and slightly challenging task, that you get slightly better at each time you play.
The game could get complex and frustrating, but a soothing soundtrack, the low/roguelike stakes of failure; and pleasantly non European design aesthetic for the buildings means the game is consistently pleasant.
Islanders is knowingly small and cheap, which is a confidence that only endears it to me more. A solid, unified design and development that perfectly suits the game. Not a big game, but the sheer confidence of the design means it’s going on this list as one of the Games of the Year.
8: Sayonara Wild Hearts
A gleeful, exquisitely presented rollercoaster of a rhythm game. Not one I was particularly good at, but damn if it wasn’t enjoyable the whole way through.
The best game about masqued musical lovers fighting on motor cycles with swords I’ve played in a while.
Plus this was probably one of the most perfectly engineered hours I spent this year. I normally don’t care for the genre, but between the excellent music, spellbinding psychedelic style and deeply enchanting gameplay switchups, Sayonara Wild Hearts is a must play game. And especially with headphones.
And the soundtrack keeps pretty well even after you’ve finished.
8: Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan
Developers adapting to, and codifying the way players actually play games is always fascinating to me. But following the success of Until Dawn, Man of Medan’s decision to double down on co-op horror is a no brainer. Equally as entertaining and accessible by playing online or on the same couch, the game is perfectly suited to the yells and screams of friends experiencing horror together. Alone though, it left me sweating with stress and a thumping heart.
Less familiar than the cabin in the woods conventions of Until Dawn, the move to a Ghost Ship is a welcome one, especially with the extra focus on fixed camera work in those tight bulk heads.
It’s fun knowing the tropes and expected tricks of a genre, but getting to explore further genre staples in the same well designed gameplay system is excellent fun.
That and getting rid of infuriatingly unfair gyroscope based quick time events is enough for me. The rhythm based replacement is significantly more fair.
If this is the first game in the series, I’m deeply excited to see more from Supermassive Games in this Dark Anthology. Little Hope looks significantly more in my wheelhouse.
7: Life Is Strange 2
A move to a family road trip story made up of vignettes could have been a disaster following the success of Life Is Strange, but Dontnod made it work.
The strong writing between Big Brother Sean and Little Brother Daniel really gels. Gameplay wise, the constant reflection on what you’re teaching a child with your choices is a great hook for an adventure game.
More than that, rather than the small town supernatural teen drama, Life is Strange 2 is much more concerned with presenting a look across the United States as a varied setting. The game examines families both natural and created, as well as taking the chance to show the wide range of attitudes to those who live on the margins of society.
The Dontnod formula is still here though to form the core of the game though. Excellent music direction and pacing, spaced out over an episodic story that knows when to ratchet up the tension.
The Diaz Brothers may not have the same place in my heart as Chloe Price and Max Caulfield, but this game proves Dontnod didn’t just luck out on their first try.
Genuinely moving and difficult in parts, but satisfying nonetheless.
5: Apex Legends
Initially, I had a difficult time with Apex Legends. My personal preference for Battle Royales is for solo play. Caution. Careful positioning. Choosing your moments and strategizing.
And yet somehow I’ve put several hundred hours into this hyperfast, hero ability based Royale game that can only be played in 3 person squads.
Apex Legends scrambled onto this list thanks to two key things. Character mobility and Revives.
Your teammates go down, and all you need to do is reach their death position, grab a tag from their corpse then take their tag to a predetermined respawn location. Revives are easy right? Well after enough daring escapes and last second rescues, Apex had me hooked. Having a movement system that borrows more than a little from Titanfall goes someway to helping with this.
But it’s the team focus of the game that really ends up being the strength.
Being able to play characters that are more focussed on supporting their allies with escape routes or survival techniques means I don’t have to be a pin perfect shot to succeed. Just a strong team player.
4: Untitled Goose Game
Untitled Goose Game would be one of the Games of the Year, even if it wasn’t half as charming as it actually is. The simplest and most evocative of gameplay ideas, presented in a charming aesthetic with easily approachable gameplay.
When I’ve presented this game to people, it takes only a matter of minutes for them to immediately get the idea and start having fun.
But what’s best about Untitled Goose Game and why it’s one of the Games of the Year is that it encourages play.
Sure there’s objectives to meet and a toolbox of systems to interact with. It’s well designed to allow for multiple solutions to those puzzles.
But rather than just meeting objectives and completing challenges, Untitled Goose Game has had every player I’ve seen start playing along with the game.
Should they be interrupted by the gardener while being mischievous, I’m yet to see a player not start flapping their wings and honking.
There’s no material benefit to it.
But every single player has had an absolute blast immediately taking on the role of a naughty goose and behaving like one.
Any game that can capture the imagination so simply and so well deserves to be on this list.
3: A Plague Tale Innocence
A Plague Tale: Innocence is a stealth based escort game about guiding a small boy through plague ridden France as his only slightly less small sister.
Despite the conventional expectations of that pitch as being slow, frustrating, annoying and french, this game was an early highlight of the year.
Partially it’s the brutally realised setting. A war ravaged France thronged with thousands of incredibly presented rats on screen at any one time. Yet they’re just the environment. Where Plague Tale stands out as one of the Games of the Year is how it treats people.
Excellent character work and scripting paired with engaging, entertaining voice work mean the humans of Plague Tale are the most fascinating element. Whether it’s the plucky pair of protagonists or the all too understandable paranoid citizens or the monstrously evil villains, the game excels at presenting them all.
More than that, fun and fair stealth gameplay always gives you clear solutions to each situation while escorting an NPC has rarely been this pleasant.
2: Control
Control is a whole bundle of my favourite genre conventions. Mysterious government Agencies, endless esoteric apocrypha and completely unexplored backstories that provide endless intrigue.
It’s got a combat system that makes every effort to make the player feel powerful and give them a toolbox of fun options to use. It even makes collectibles interesting in a third person action game thanks to some excellent writing decisions and creative media work.
A great package with relatively few foibles other than a slightly underwhelming progression system and ending.
But more than anything, Control is here for the Ashtray Maze.
One absolutely perfect game sequence combining a masterfully mixed blend of diegetic music, level design, aesthetic style and in universe storytelling.
It is a sequence that only works fully by playing through for the first time. And it is the best single designed moment in games this year.
(Plus it’s giving Remedy a chance for a resolution to Alan Wake in the DLC so most of the foibles can be overlooked).
1: Disco Elysium
I had to think about the placement for the first nine games on this list. I knew Disco Elysium would be top of the Games of the year within five minutes of playing the opening. The best written game this year, probably the most written game this year based on how dialogue heavy it is.
I love it. I love the world. I love the art. I love the internalisation of concepts and ideas. I love that it wants me to play a role and constantly self reflect on what type of person my choices are making me.
I love Kim Kitsuragi as my partner more than most characters in any other game.
Most of all I love that it took a genre I find clunky and tedious and made me find new ways to appreciate it. Disco Elysium stands far and above all other games this year as a true masterpiece.
To say more would rob you of the best experience of 2019. Play it.