There were a whole host of great games released in 2018, but which were your favorites? Below are some of the candidates for best game of the year from some of the biggest developers, but are they your favorites?
After having a read of this list, tell us your favorite game in the comments below.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Another year and another Assassin's Creed game, but Odyssey did take us in a different direction. Building on the tonal shift that Ubisoft introduced with Origins, Odyssey took players to ancient Greece where they took part in the war between Athens and Sparta, making surgical strikes where necessary to unite their family and deal with a dangerous cult.
There's much of the typical Assassin's Creed experience in this game and it looks as gorgeous as ever, but there were enough new mechanics and gameplay features to mark it out as one of the year's better AAA games.
Sea of Thieves
Although it might have stumbled out of the gate, Rare's MMO pirate experience, Sea of Thieves, has proved a monumental success with young and old alike. Its whimsical take on the age of scurvy and ship wrecks keeps it light and fun, while offering a lot of content to explore and partake in. Sail ships, siege fortresses on land and sea, explore islands, fight over treasure, and contend with the beasts of the deep in an expansive world.
And you can do it all with your friends too, which is always a treat.
Monster Hunter: World
A soaring triumph in bringing the grindfest of rinse, upgrade, repeat, of hunting giant monsters in various biomes, Monster Hunter: World is both fantastic to look at and a blast to play. It was mired by some connection problems and a sub-par optimized PC port, but overall, Monster Hunter: World has been a huge success, guaranteeing sequels and continued life for the franchise on PCs.
It also introduced a number of major quality of life improvements over its predecessors. While some may lament the lack of a need to cook steaks, or a simplified skill point system, the fact that Monster Hunter has proved so successful on PC, delivering upwards of 100 hours of content to the average player, shows how far its come from its niche, hardcore community. It was a game we played a lot of this year and continue to dip our toes into with the regular content releases and new beasties to hunt.
Hitman 2
The sequel to the widely successful reboot of the franchise, HItman 2 sneaked in to the chart in November and proved to be a solid entry in the assassination series. It ditched the episodic nature of its prequel, but continued with the same location-driven missions, of which there are six in total. Each one features unique challenges that push players to find clever ways to make their kill.
An effective and fun sandbox experience in a variety of situations make this one worth coming back to even when it's done and there is some solid expansion content coming down the pipeline too.
Conclusion
Which of the above few games were your favorites? Did you have something else in mind? Let us know below.