2016 was a very exhausting year. The fact that that sentence feels tired and cliché at this point should be some indication. In between juggling work with deep and growing depression about my career and my body image, dodging political conversations, and helping friends and family through some truly difficult times, I did manage to get some significant work done on my silly EGA RPG which I’ve come to call Chronicles.

More importantly, though, (or, perhaps, more representative of my actual experiences) I escaped through a variety of fantastic games old and new. Because I spend a large amount of time following the games industry and the critical media around it, I couldn’t help but get caught up in the idea of my own listings of my favorite games of the year.

So here they are.

10. Tricky Towers

A very simple game which joined the pantheon of “Free PlayStation+ Games That Turned Out To Be Actually Good.” The premise is essentially “yo what if tetris had physics” and it lead to some of the best time spent with friends of the year. I especially treasured the discovery that both of my parents fell immediately in love with it and we played 3-player puzzle mode for hours over thanksgiving.

9. Dragon Quest Builders

This came late in the year and was another surprise. I think that the common description has been “Minecraft with RPG elements” but I think that sells the game quite short. What I found there was something closer to a simplified Dragon Quest game (with some Minecraft elements). It takes the survival and building ideas and places it into a very structured, non-procedural world where you have quests and purpose. I especially enjoyed that constructing various types of buildings unlocked special room-specific bonuses.

It’s dripping with charm and awoke a nostalgia for the old NES-era Dragon Warrior RPG’s that I had forgotten that I had. I still have difficulty recommending it at full retail price due to some odd decisions with how the game progresses but It’s definitely worth nabbing in a sale.

8. No Man’s Sky

This thing needs no introduction to large swaths of the industry but I think it deserves a place on my list. Setting aside for a moment the infinite amounts of news, articles, think-pieces, forum posts, anger, hatred, lawsuits, and controversy around the game I can still look back at the time I gave to it with fondness.

There was a feeling I had the week that the game came out where I had a lot of issues with a lot of parts of it but that I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It ultimately filled the place of a relaxing escape. In the end I think I would have rathered No Man’s Sky be a $20 early access indie piece on steam where it would have been free to live happily for what it was.

7. Monster Hunter Generations

I really like Monster Hunter. I first got into the series on the PSP in ‘07~’08 and have some fond memories of those games’ basic loop: Kill Monsters, craft better gear out of their faces, kill more monsters.

Generations is an exciting game for U.S. fans because the series is primarily Japan-based and this game is a sort of greatest hits of all of the past games. Strangely enough 2016 was also the year I bought a New 3DS and it was partly for this game. I really enjoyed diving headfirst back into the madness of that world.

6. Overwatch

Overwatch is great. Admittedly I bounced off of it pretty quickly But I still admired it from its betas all the way to present. I’m not much for shooters and mostly can’t stand team-based competitive games. The focus on positive feedback and exciting characters welcomed me into a game I originally never saw myself spending a single moment on.

Every single inch of that thing is lovingly crafted and a joy to witness. It was a treasure to get wrapped up into the initial rush of that game when friend’s lists were filled to the brim with people screaming “WE HAVE SPOTS OPEN LET’S FUCKING GO”

5. Stellaris

Stellaris was something I was pretty sure I was going to pass by until the weekend before it released when I started really looking into how it was going to work. The game is made by the same folks who made Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis, and Crusader Kings, all games in a “Grand Strategy” genre that the studio has become famous for.

Stellaris is definitely “one of those” with a ton of common mechanics and traces to the more historical real-world-based strategy games. I was certainly reluctant of its abandoning on real-world history that their other games had come to be known for. Stellaris takes place far in the future where generative alien races with their own religions and ethics fight over star systems instead of the more familiar dukes and kings vying over western Europe.

Still, I found myself completely engaged with the game for a good long time. The situations and stories from my empires were exciting and fun and I look forward to returning to it again down the line.

4. Dark Souls 3

I have difficulty talking about my love of Dark Souls. Mostly I feel like everything I have to say has already been said because this is maybe one of the most talked-to-death of any games franchise in history. To distill it down, I fucking love Dark Souls. It’s mood, it’s opacity, it’s intricate layers of bullshit, all of it. The first Dark Souls game might just be my favorite game of all time and that’s sometimes a weird feeling to grapple with.

It was difficult to come into the 3rd entry into the series with tempered expectations. I was very worried that it wouldn’t light the same fire the first game did or that it would take it in a different direction than I personally wanted. In the end I would say that DS3 is a fantastic entry in the series. It is beautiful and haunting and rewarding and exciting in all the ways you would want.

In the end I found myself walking away from it after beating the main final boss and not pursuing any further. And ultimately I might even say I was left with a sour taste in my mouth. I could spend many hours going into the specifics of that feeling but mostly just wanted it said. 3 earned a prominent spot on this list but I kind of just wanted to go and play some more 1 afterward.

3. DOOM

I don’t have much nostalgia for Doom. The brutal PC shooters of the mid-90’s were certainly not the sort of the thing allowed in the house growing up. Nonetheless when it came out and, against all odds, was being critically praised I took a look.

I said before that I’m not much for shooters. I have some fondness for memories of old PC Halo and CS 1.6. Aside from Half-Life 2 and maybe Modern Warfare, It takes a lot for me to be that interested in the genre.

Doom, however, is simply in a league of its own.

Fast, funny, exciting, heart-pounding, the game felt like a roller coaster. After every combat sequence I found myself remembering to resume breathing. Even with very little frame of reference for what it did to revitalize a long-dead franchise, my time spent with the game left me with an eternal smile on my face.

2. HITMAN

I had always heard of the Hitman series and, hell, through various Steam sales I’m pretty sure I own most of the series. But before this year’s game I had never taken a bite into them. From what I have gathered, this was the right one to play.

The game consists of being given assassination targets on enormous maps filled with people. There are no random NPC’s in the game. Every character from the party guests to the security guards have names and schedules in a clockwork showpiece that you must study in order to master how to get at your targets.

I found the game to be a ton of fun and look forward to getting back to it in 2017. It’s the most cleanly executed example of a game that says “if you can think of it, you can do it.” It cheerily rewards you for exploring and experimenting and you just have a constant feeling that the developers are all just having a hell of a laugh with every update.

1. The Witness

This game feels like an eternity ago. Released in January, 2016 felt like it was going to be pretty great! Looking back on it now is almost nostalgic. I think this game passed by a ton of people unnoticed or disregarded. On its face it’s a puzzle game and little more.

I’m a person who cannot stand puzzle games. I’m never interested enough in the surrounding pretense the puzzles are set in to give much of a shit.

The case for The Witness as my game of the year doesn’t come so much from the puzzles or the art or the environments (although all of those things are fantastic) rather I’d say it’s strongest asset is that month that it came out. I could only describe the buzz around that thing and the people who engaged with it as sheer obsession.

We lusted after answers on that island. Conversations about the game were strategic and thoughtful so as to try to talk about common achievements without accidentally spoiling any tiny experience the other person may not have yet encountered.

During the day I would see the lines and the dots in everything and at night I would turn the lights off, turn the phone to silent, and sink into that island for hours. I was an intrepid explorer working with colleagues to unravel its mysteries. I was drawing diagrams, cutting out tetris-shaped pieces of paper, and hastily scrawling notes

The Witness captured my imagination and awe and wonder in a way that no game has since I was young.

In Conclusion

All the games on this list were released in 2016. I want to give some honorable mentions to Firewatch, even though its ending soured me on the game as a whole, Forza Horizons 3, which I need to play more of, and Trackmania Turbo, for breaking my heart.

In terms of games not released this year, I spent a good long amount of time playing Dark Souls 1, completing a soul-level-1 run and really digging in deep into the inner secrets of that swiss watch of a game.

I also really enjoyed getting back into Elite Dangerous this year with the purchase of an Oculus Rift to go with my HOTAS controller setup. Flying around space stations in VR was probably the coolest thing I did this year with that tech.

This was also the year I finally played The Witcher 3 and I definitely need to pick it up again next year. That game has some of the most incredible writing and storytelling I’ve ever seen in a game. It’s made me question my own love of the elder scrolls in some ways.

Lastly I couldn’t go out without talking about Diablo 3 which I have been playing on PS4 with a friend. As someone with hundreds of hours on the PC version, it being a game that I have played and frequently returned to since its initial launch, it has been a joy to introduce someone new to the series. With a common goal of the PS4 platinum trophy, it has been something we can get together and put a few hours into as much as a few times a week and it has been a really wonderful thing to look forward to day-to-day.

That’s it! I’m done talking about video games this year! Good Night!