Games Of My Year 2015
Here’s my year end “Best Of” list, because if you’re on the Internet, you have to do a year-end list of some kind. It’s the law.
2015 Contenders
After studying my Steam purchase history and searching my memory, I’ve come up with the following list of new games that I purchased and played in 2015. These are only games that were released in 2015, not every single game that I purchased or played in 2015. In other words, this is the pool from which I’m going to pick my games of the year.
- ARK: Survival Evolved
- Besiege
- Fallout 4
- FFXIV: Heavensward
- Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
- GRAV
- The Park
- Rocket League
- Savage Lands
- Shelter 2
- Skyforge
- TOXIKK
- The Witcher 3
Not a huge list, very few AAA titles, and of course they are all PC games. I should also say that my controversial definition for the “release date” of a game is the time at which anyone can purchase or download a playable game. So, for example, Trove, which “launched” in 2015, does not appear on the above list because I purchased and played a substantially similar version before 2015. And Prison Architect, which I bought in 2015 and Steam lists with a launch date in 2015, does not appear because its Early Access release was before 2015. (Steam overwrites the Early Access launch date with the Release launch date, but the Internet remembers.) Similarly the Early Access titles ARK, GRAV, and Savage Lands appear on the above list because they became available to buy in Early Access in 2015.
So yes, in a way, I’m punishing developers for releasing games too early.
Game of the Year
The Witcher 3. Not much of a contest, really.
Biggest Disappointment Of The Year
ARK: Survival Evolved. Why do people buy this broken piece of unplayable crap? Why don’t the developers fix it instead of putting out new dinosaurs and holiday events? Do they not have any programmers working there? Are they all artists and modelers? I simply cannot understand why the Internet hasn’t lost their minds with rage over this game.
Most Emotionally Devastating Game Of The Year
Shelter 2. A unique, beautifully atmospheric game, but if you fail at this game, it feels like your heart is torn out and stomped on. You must be an unfeeling robot to actually play this game more than once.
And because this is mostly an MMORPG blog…
New MMORPG Of The Year
Skyforge … but only because there is literally no other choice.
MMORPG Expansion Of The Year
FFXIV: Heavensward, because even though it’s a bit of a slog, I keep going back to it, whereas I have no desire to go back to the new zones in Heart of Thorns. I didn’t include Knights of the Fallen Empire here because, while I technically “bought” it (having a subscription) and have access to it, I don’t have any characters high enough in level to actually see it yet.
Now for some other categories.
Best Game That I Played in 2015
Dark Souls. Along with Dark Souls II, it completely took over my summer.
Most Consistently Played MMORPG In 2015
I’m going to have to go with Star Wars: The Old Republic. I’ve played it a decent amount in six of the twelve months in 2015, and leveled a Jedi Knight from around level 13 in January up to (as of this writing) level 56.
Best Game With Art From People I Used To Play Quake With
GRAV. A nifty survival/building game, check it out. Or not, because I’m totally biased.
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