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Financially Sound Award: Portal Knights

You may recall this one from last year! Portal Knights has now officially launched and while it has some weird price points depending on the platform you purchase it on, it doesn’t really matter because it’s worth the money anyway! Zelda/Dark Souls (though a lot easier) gameplay meets Minecraft’s building/navigation! There’s a lot to build, craft, fight, and explore- particularly since 1.2′s patch! The game is continuing to be supported with new content, which means its 20-30 USD price (5 on mobile for the full game) should only raise in value!

Sleeper Port Award: Resident Evil: Revelations 2 (Switch)

What starts off as a blatant attempt to ride off the Saw craze (and years too late at that), very quickly reveals itself to be far more competent than a side series has any business being. With the episodic content and DLC bundled together and the micro-transactions from the raid mode made purchasable with in-game currency, what you have is a startlingly well-crafted game with an addictive multiplayer. If you own a Switch, this should probably be in your library- especially since it comes bundled with Revelations 1, doubling the value.

Outstanding MMO Award: Elder Scrolls Online?

I shouldn’t be surprised at this one, considering all the great things @iamonlykidding had to say about it, but here we are. Perhaps more so than any main series Elder Scroll game, this is incredible. The scale of this game may very well stagger even BDO (who, turns out, has really terrible customer service). Quests galore, fully voice acted, a wide assortment of environments, many playable races, and most surprising to me was just how profound the game’s balance is. The available skills are so varied that any of the game’s classes are capable of tanking, healing, or DPSing- and how you go about doing those things even feels different depending on which class you are!

Single-Player MMO Experience Award: Secret World Legends

A lesser game overall compared to ESO, but it still has more fascinating story/characters/choreography (which is why its on the list). It has much less substance than ESO, but the quality of its presentation is superior. SWL ultimately fails as an MMO, and its combat isn’t refined enough for a single-player game, but it is worth the storylines alone. Just know that you’ll probably have to look at a guide for some of the quests.

Best Open-World Award: Nier: Automata

While largely covered here, it’s worth comparing Automata to Breath of the Wild. I played BotW several times longer than Automata (and had a ton of fun with it!). I also never finished it. I stopped playing because I realized while hunting Lynels that I hadn’t had any fun with this game in over 20 hours. And that includes time spent with one of the game’s only 4 dungeons. Ultimately a lack of story, character interaction/development, and variety/progression in gameplay forced my attention elsewhere. And those very 3 things are the entire reason why Automata is the superior title. Both good games, but where BotW faltered, Automata has no shortcomings- including not overstaying its welcome.

In After the Lock Award: Night in the Woods

Due to technical issues with my controller, I didn’t get a chance to play this until the year had already ended. Still, I’m setting this one in the same vein as Portal Knights from last year. I haven’t had a chance to play it much, but I like what I’ve seen so far! Especially noteworthy since I don’t really care for adventure games. I really like the characters and their dialog/interactions!