Top 10 Video Games of 2016
2016 was filled with huge surprises for the year of video games. Nintendo announced a new console, major franchises received sequels, and two games stuck in development for years finally made their way onto playable consoles and PCs. 2016 was a banner year for games with many games bursting onto the scene and becoming worldwide sensations. Games challenged the way we think and the way games operated.
Thus, as tradition dictates, we must highlight the best games of the year. What follows is a varied list of some of the best games offered from this year. Enjoy and play more games!
First, some Honorable Mentions: The Banner Saga 2, The Last Guardian, Ratchet & Clank, Darkest Dungeon, and Enter the Gungeon.
And some games that deserve recognition due to their placement on other lists, but I simply had no time to play them: Oxenfree, Dark Souls 3, XCOM 2, Civilization VI, Titanfall 2, Pokémon Sun & Moon, Stardew Valley, and Battlefield 1.
Also, a rule for this list specifically dictates I do not include DLC as contenders for the list, but due to its incredible quality, story, and gameplay I must give a shoutout to the amazing expansion to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt known as Blood and Wine. Expanding the lore of vampires, introducing incredibly fascinating and wonderful characters and giving a fitting conclusion to Geralt of Rivia's storyline. Blood and Wine is incredible.
Now, onto the list!
10. Overcooked
Developer: Ghost Town Games
Publisher: Team 17
Director: Phil Duncan and Oli De-Vine
Designer: Phil Duncan and Oli De-Vine
Platforms: Windows, PS4, Xbox One
By far the weirdest and funniest cooking sim of all time goes to Overcooked. Four cooks must master their skills to defeat the Ever Peckish, a being with an insatiable hunger that must eat everything in its sight. Traveling across the country these chefs must master their skills under the most difficult pressure. Challenges await on slippery ice, moving trucks, and rickety galleons.
Overcooked is a beautifully realized couch co-op game. Its greatest fault is not having online multiplayer, but in the times when a party calls for a riotous game to be played, Overcooked is your best bet. The levels are challenging, but not in a frustrating way. You’ll find yourself rolling on the floor laughing so hard that you’ll be unable to complete the food orders put in front of you. The game provides a great deal of fun and laughter for the whole family or friend group that has joined you for your game night. Not to mention the revolutionary choice of controls designed around two players using one controller, meaning it isn’t required for you to have all four controllers to have a full team.
9. SUPERHOT
Developer: Superhot Team
Publisher: Superhot Team and IMGN.PRO
Director: Piotr Iwanicki
Designer: Panos Rriska
Platforms: Windows, Linus, OS X, and Xbox One
SUPERHOT has an incredibly simple story. A new game has just arrived on the market and it’s incredibly addictive. People have been experiencing odd moments where it seems as though the game is hunting them, and surprisingly they can’t seem to warn people of the effects the game has been having on them. Before they know it they begin to discover that somehow the people dying in the game might be real people and the game is ordering the player to keep killing. It’s an average premise that devolves into a pretty interesting and creepy meta-commentary about halfway through, but SUPERHOT’s story is not what makes it so good, it’s the gameplay. SUPERHOT is one of the most unique shooters on the market this year. Time only moves when your character does. Walking at a normal pace results in time passing at a regular rate, but slow down or stop your movement and time around you does as well. Bullet’s slowly fly past your head as though you are in The Matrix.
These amazing mechanics allow you to pull off some of the craziest and most fascinating combos in all of videogame history. It offers an insane amount of difficulty and the strategy required to win makes for a really challenging time. It’s the kind of game that demands your attention and it is certainly one of the most unique games to come out of 2016.
8. Thumper
Developer: Drool
Publisher: Drool
Director: Marc Flury
Designer: Marc Flury and Brian Gibson
Platforms: Windows, PS4, and PlayStation VR
Lovingly referred to as a “rhythm-violence” game, Thumper is another game of many in this list that feels wholly unique. You play as a mechanical scarab traveling down a track with obstacles designed to stop you in your tracks, but hitting notes and reacting to the tracks turns will allow you to continue your fast-paced journey.
Thumper is an amazing rhythm game. Its soundtrack is visceral and punches you in the gut with its powerful drum beat and heavy electronica. The music of the game is something you don’t see in games of this genre, it’s dark and destructive just like the game. Reacting to the beats on the track requires precise timing and you’ll find yourself getting lost amongst the lights and turns that you can find on every track. Thumper is an unforgiving game that will leave you returning to try and best its stunningly beautiful and difficult levels.
7. The Witness
Developer: Thekla, Inc.
Publisher: Thekla, Inc.
Director: Jonathan Blow
Designer: Jonathan Blow
Platforms: Windows, PS4, Xbox One, iOS
It’s rare to find a game that makes you want to tear your hair out while also bringing you immense joy. The Witness is one of those games. You find yourself stranded on an island covered in lush vegetation, abandoned towns, and strange panels with puzzles on them. Having absolutely no direction given to you, the best option left to you is simple: solve all the puzzles.
The Witness is incredibly frustrating. The puzzles you are meant to solve are so difficult that you will find yourself absolutely devastated at your inability to solve them. As you explore the island you begin to discover that different areas hold the keys to solving puzzles in separate areas of the map. It’s a competent design element found in most puzzle games, but never in the open-world setting The Witness uses. While solving the puzzles is enough of a fun challenge to make The Witness one of this year’s best titles, its opinions and philosophy on the beauty of the human brain make it an even more worthwhile journey than you may expect. The Witness is this year’s best puzzle title, and I will never forget the experience of playing it.
6. Owlboy
Developer: D-Pad Studio
Publisher: D-Pad Studio
Director: Simon Stafsnes Andersen
Designer: Simon Stafsnes Andersen and Adrian Bauer
Platforms: Windows
Owlboy had been in development for ten years. Even still, this long-development has absolutely no adverse effects on this amazing 2D adventure-platformer. Playing as a young human-owl hybrid creature known as Otus you are thrust into a world of fantasy and cities in the sky. After pirates attack Otus’s hometown he and some friends take matters into their own hands to take down the pirates and stop their plans to destroy the world.
Otus himself cannot attack the various enemies you find in the game, but his friends who travel with him can. Each friend is unlocked throughout Owlboy’s incredibly well-written narrative, and each offers separate ways of fighting enemies. This translates into interesting environments and boss battles that require incredible amounts of dexterity to master. What works best about Owlboy is its story and visuals though. Each character and environment is beautifully realized through hand-drawn visuals. It’s an art-style rarely seen in games these days, but one that results in an immaculate and gorgeous world to explore. Owlboy’s story is a beautiful fantasy of unlikely underdogs as its heroes, and speaks powerfully to the idea of heroism, and standing up to adversity despite your weaknesses. It’s an uplifting and powerful story with a lot of nuance and fun characters to enjoy.
5. Firewatch
Developer: Campo Santo
Publisher: Panic and Campo Santo
Director: Olly Moss and Sean Vanaman
Designer: Chris Remo, Jake Rodkin, James Benson, and Nels Anderson
Platforms: Windows, PS4, Xbox One, OS X, Linux
This game is all about story, and man is it good at what it does. The gameplay of Firewatch is nothing spectacular, but the narrative makes it one of the best interactive experiences of the year. Henry takes a job as a fire lookout in Wyoming. He hopes to use the relaxed job to finish his novel and escape the sadness of his life. He begins to form a friendship with his supervisor Delilah over a walkie-talkie and they become good friends. Henry receives a threatening letter at his watchtower one day and the two began to uncover a frightening person threatening them with blackmail. They begin to uncover mysteries hidden in the forest for decades.
While Firewatch’s mystery is certainly well-written and very interesting, the game is about so much more. Dipping into themes of forced isolation, mental illness, suicide, alcoholism, and environmentalism. The story is a deep and beautiful exploration of the human condition and all the dark things that corrupt us. Its environment is also beautifully rendered, making every section of Shoshone National Forest an absolute beauty to behold.
4. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
Developer: Naughty Dog
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Director: Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann
Designer: Kurt Margenau, Emilia Schatz, Anthony Newman, and Richard Cambier
Platforms: PS4
The latest installment in the Uncharted series is one of its darkest additions. The story begins with Nathan Drake, the series protagonist and renowned treasure hunter, in a more relaxed life. His work isn’t nearly as exciting as it used to be, but he provides steady income for his wife, and he seems happy. When his long-lost and presumed dead brother Sam comes back into his life he persuades Nathan to go on one last quest. The two of them uncover clues to the first treasure they started to chase: Captain Henry Avery’s treasure and the location of Libertalia. What ensues is an adventure across several continents that finds Nate making decisions that drive the people closest to him away and stirs up emotions hidden from the rest of the world.
Sam is an incredibly interesting and captivating addition to the Uncharted lineup of characters. The motion-capture and voice actors are at the top of their game in this chapter of the series. Giving the characters an emotional weight never seen before in this series. Its third act resolves too quickly and makes the emotional heft of the story feel weightless, but not much tops the brilliant writing and acting in the first two acts of this amazing adventure story. The gameplay was also beefed up in this game, switching traditional run and gun shooting for isometric stealth levels and improved shooting that makes every fighting section feel fast-paced and dangerous. Uncharted 4 is not the best in the franchise, but it is certainly one of the best of this year.
3. INSIDE
Developer: Playdead
Publisher: Playdead
Director: Arnt Jensen
Designer: Jeppe Carlsen Platforms: Windows, PS4, Xbox One
INSIDE is a terrifying experience. Every second of this short, but amazing experience, feels like one of the most terrifying chases I’ve ever experienced in a game. Following a young boy being hunted by factory workers and police, he runs to escape an unknown fate. During his escape he comes across mind-controlling parasites, people being mind-controlled, and a violent underwater siren.
Every single moment of this insane game is terrifying. Its puzzles are not incredibly difficult but will result in brutal deaths. INSIDE’s commitment to violence makes it incredibly scary, but the game is much more than just a terrifying experience. It’s about control over people, it’s about the fear of the state and it’s about perverting nature for fun. All of this culminates in one of the most insane endings I have ever seen. The last twenty minutes of INSIDE had my chin touching the floor. I was flabbergasted at the insanity and odd beauty on the screen. INSIDE is about a boy escaping a terrifying fate and for that it made my heart race and my mind twitch. It’s a game I will never forget, and one that I can’t wait to play over, and over and over again.
2. Doom
Developer: id Software
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Director: Marty Stratton and Hugo Martin
Designer: Jason O'Connell
Platforms: Windows, PS4, and Xbox One
An action-packed, unrelenting FPS filled with gore and blood-spattered glory. The game follows a powerful juggernaut designed with the express purpose of destroying Hell. You play as Doomguy after his awakening and subsequent destruction of the hordes of demons that have taken over the Mars-based energy facility that he has been asked to protect. The Marine’s arsenal is incredibly well-designed and the cacophonous heavy metal music echoing throughout the game’s vast array of unique environments makes every second of this game incredibly fun. Its story is average, but it’s enjoyably satirical in this regard.
Doom hearkens back to a time when games were less about complex narrative and more about unbridled, unstoppable fun. This not only means that Doom is a glory-killing good time, but also has some funny and interesting things to say about the nature of video-games in general. No matter what your opinion, one thing can’t be denied, Doom is absolutely amazing and the experience will leave you wanting more and more. Ripping demons apart with a chainsaw has never felt so incredible.
1. Overwatch
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Director: Jeffrey Kaplan, Chris Metzen, Aaron Keller
Designer: Jeremey Craig, Michael Elliott, and Scott Mercer
Platforms: Windows, PS4, and Xbox One
Overwatch’s mix of standard FPS shooting with MOBA ability mechanics makes for an incredibly unique game and one that has absorbed much of my free-time. The game doesn’t feature a story mode, instead focusing on multiplayer matches online that takes place in the game’s amazing world. The universe of the games is depicted as near future Earth, with a robot vs. human war having changed the earth an exponential degree. You have the choice to play as over 20 characters, all with unique personalities and opinions about the world they inhabit.
At times when I should have been examining and playing other games, the call to play Overwatch always tugged at the back of my mind. The characters are colorful with unique personas, each one of them having distinctive and interesting styles of play that keeps the game varied. Add on to this the amazingly well-created maps and a constant influx of new content from the game’s developer company: Blizzard. It’s a vibrant and diverse game with a competitive learning curve that makes it approachable to all kinds of gamers. Its gameplay doesn’t make some grandiose speech about humanity, but its side material of comics and short films give the characters plenty of nuance and emotion. The end result is a fabulously well-created universe and an incredibly fun and entertaining game. Overwatch was the game I was most excited for this year and playing it gave me some of the most challenging and interesting experiences of my gaming career. Overwatch brought me plenty of joy in 2016, and it’s sure to bring me even more in the coming years.