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[Chaos2Frozen]

Top 10

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Metacritic = 97 / OpenCritic = 96)
2. Persona 5 (Metacritic = 93 / OpenCritic = 94)
3. Horizon: Zero Dawn (Metacritic = 89 / OpenCritic = 89)
Red Dead Redemption 2 (delayed until Spring 2018)
4. Mass Effect Andromeda (Metacritic = 71 / OpenCritic = 72)
5. NieR: Automata (Metacritic = 88 / OpenCritic = 89)
6. Nioh (Metacritic = 88 / OpenCritic = 88)
7. Resident Evil VII: biohazard (Metacritic = 86 / OpenCritic = 87)
8. Gravity Rush 2 (Metacritic = 80 / OpenCritic = 81)
9. Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (TBD 2017; expecting more info at E3)
10. Yooka-Laylee (Metacritic = 68 / OpenCritic = 72)

With the exception of Yooka-Laylee and Andromeda, every thing else turned out good-great.

With the exception of Horizon, all of those that turned out good-great are Japanese games.

 

[Zhao_Yun]

After E3 I thought Ni no Kuni 2 was safe for this year, but guess I was wrong.

Top 10

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Metacritic = 97 / OpenCritic = 96)
2. Persona 5 (Metacritic = 93 / OpenCritic = 94)
3. Horizon: Zero Dawn (Metacritic = 89 / OpenCritic = 89)
Red Dead Redemption 2 (delayed until Spring 2018)
4. Mass Effect Andromeda (Metacritic = 71 / OpenCritic = 72)
5. NieR: Automata (Metacritic = 88 / OpenCritic = 89)
6. Nioh (Metacritic = 88 / OpenCritic = 88)
7. Resident Evil VII: biohazard (Metacritic = 86 / OpenCritic = 87)
8. Gravity Rush 2 (Metacritic = 80 / OpenCritic = 81)
Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (delayed until January 19th 2018)
9. Yooka-Laylee (Metacritic = 68 / OpenCritic = 72)
10. South Park: The Fractured but Whole (October 17th)

11-20

11. Prey (Metacritic = 79 / OpenCritic = 81)
12. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (August 22nd)
13. Danganronpa V3 (September 26th)
14. Yakuza 0 (Metacritic = 85 / OpenCritic = 86)
15. Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age (Metacritic = 87 / OpenCritic = 88)
16. Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite (September 19th)
17. Sonic Mania (August 15th)
18. Crash Bandicoot N.sane Trilogy (Metacritic = 81 / OpenCritic = 81)
19. Dragon Quest XI (July 29th in Japan; TBD for the West)
Scalebound (canceled)
Shenmue III (delayed until second half of 2018)
20. Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue (Metacritic = 76 / OpenCritic = 76)

 

[Griss]

It's crazy how few big games are left this year by Gaf's hype standards. Never really seen anything like this before.

8 of our original top 10 have released, the other 2 delayed.
14 of our original top 20 have released, 2 delayed, 4 left.

And looking at the 4 left:
14. Uncharted The Lost Legacy
15. Danganronpa v3
18. Marvel v Capcom Infinite
19. Sonic Mania

...It's a long way from the kind of blockbusters we got earlier this year. Almost feels like the kind of year where it'd be appropriate to have a 'second half' vote to see if those really are the most anticipated games of the rest of the year because somehow I doubt it.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

It's crazy how few big games are left this year by Gaf's hype standards. Never really seen anything like this before.

8 of our original top 10 have released, the other 2 delayed.
14 of our original top 20 have released, 2 delayed, 4 left.

And looking at the 4 left:
14. Uncharted The Lost Legacy
15. Danganronpa v3
18. Marvel v Capcom Infinite
19. Sonic Mania

...It's a long way from the kind of blockbusters we got earlier this year. Almost feels like the kind of year where it'd be appropriate to have a 'second half' vote to see if those really are the most anticipated games of the rest of the year because somehow I doubt it.

Super Mario Odyssey would have been on the list if we'd actually been allowed to vote for it. We all knew it was coming (it was shown in the Switch reveal trailer in October) and it was a shoe-in for 2017.

 

[Zhao_Yun]

A lot of the usual blockbuster Holiday titles are also not formally announced 1 year in advance and this years examples would be titles like: Battlefront 2, Destiny 2, CoD WW2, Wolfenstein II, AC Origins. Add to that that all Switch titles were unannounced until their event at the beginning of this year and the result is that a lot of the holiday titles are missing in our list.

 

[Griss]

Super Mario Odyssey would have been on the list if we'd actually been allowed to vote for it. We all knew it was coming (it was shown in the Switch reveal trailer in October) and it was a shoe-in for 2017.

Yeah I remember making that point at the time. No wonder this year's list has seemed so skewed.

To be honest my guess is that a revote would probably end up with the remaining top 10 consisting of Switch games + the 4 we already have left there.

I do still think it's odd that there are no real Playstation / Xbox blockbusters coming out near black Friday that people are hyped for. I guess the franchise fatigue for most of the holiday big hitters is real. Would be interesting to see if E3 changed anyone's minds regarding games like AC: Origins, for example. I really like Ubisoft games and cinematic blockbusters and even I'm struggling for enthusiasm for these games this year.

A lot of the usual blockbuster Holiday titles are also not formally announced 1 year in advance and this years examples would be titles like: Battlefront 2, Destiny 2, CoD WW2, Wolfenstein II, AC Origins. Add to that that all Switch titles were unannounced until their event at the beginning of this year and the result is that a lot of the holiday titles are missing in our list.

Well there you go, I guess. Makes sense. Shame, as I'd like to see how Gaf rates their excitement for all of those standard blockbusters.

 

[Zedark]

Super Mario Odyssey would have been on the list if we'd actually been allowed to vote for it. We all knew it was coming (it was shown in the Switch reveal trailer in October) and it was a shoe-in for 2017.

Yeah, the reasoning was a bit off too imo. The final date couldn't be postponed until after the January presentation because that would make it too close to RE7 apparently (which wouldn't release for another 2 weeks). Shame, but in the end that just means we will have some games on the GOTY lists that didn't reach the most anticipated list beforehand.

 

[BDGAME]

That is the kind of thread that is better per semester.

 

[Zhao_Yun]

Yeah, the reasoning was a bit off too imo. The final date couldn't be postponed until after the January presentation because that would make it too close to RE7 apparently (which wouldn't release for another 2 weeks). Shame, but in the end that just means we will have some games on the GOTY lists that didn't reach the most anticipated list beforehand.

I agree that this will be more prominent this year, but it's not like it doesn't happen every year due to either games being announced and released in the same year or localization announcements coming late (Ys VIII would have been on my list otherwise).

 

[Lifeline]

Yeah, the reasoning was a bit of too. The final date couldn't be postponed until after the January presentation because that would make it too close to RE7 apparently(which wouldn't release for another 2 weeks). Shame, but in the end that just means we will have some games on the GOTY lists that didn't reach the most anticipated list beforehand.

The reasoning was fine. The list should only include games announced already in the previous year. If you decide to wait for one event later in the year and then you can argue to wait for another and then it'll just keep going.

As for RE7, 2 weeks prior to release some pre-release early impressions and stuff would already be out. And if you set the deadline right after the switch event, people would complain they didn't have enough time to vote for/think about the switch event games. You would have to give atleast a week and at that point it would only be 1 week before RE7 comes out.

With the vote being held till right after the event, the games announced there would get a boost. Just like, for example, the Yakuza games would be higher on the the list if the voting was held right after the Yakuza localization announcement/event.

Logistically, the way it was done made the most sense.

 

[Barry Burton]

It's just a weird year, where a number of the big Japanese titles that released in the first few months were oft-delayed and/or had been out in Japan for a while. And then you had the Switch coming out in March, where we didn't know a whole lot beyond Zelda until the January blowout. And then there were just a lot of games revealed at or around E3 that are coming out this year (Wolfenstein, Shadow of War, Evil Within 2, etc.)

I think I only ranked 6 or 7 games in my list instead of the usual 10, because of my uncertainty regarding a few games' quality (Nier ended up being great! Mass Effect...not so much...) and not much announced for Q3/Q4 at that time. Obviously, my list would look a lot different if I knew then what I know now.