So another year unwinds, inching us inexorably towards the darkness and the end of our mortal existence. As that absolute silence creeps ever closer we can reflect on the fact that this year gave us some nice videogames to distract us from that final mystery. Which is nice.
Last year I proclaimed the year of “Meh”. Afterward I second-guessed myself. Was it that bad? Maybe I was having a bad year? Maybe I was tired of the tried-and-true mechanics? Maybe I was just really, really sore about how the Thief reboot turned out?
But no. If anything, last year looks even more pathetic compared to the lineup of 2015. I couldn’t even remember my GOTY from 2014. Looking back, I see that it was Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. To show just how different 2014 and 2015 are: If Pre-Sequel had come out this year, it wouldn’t be in the running for GOTY and it might not even make my end-of-year list at all. I mean, I liked it at the time. But I don’t think I’ve given the game a second thought since writing that post.
Every year I look for a theme that ties it all together, but this year we kind of have two. In the indie space, this seemed to be the year of games about programming and development. We got TIS-100, Human Resource Machine, The Magic Circle, Infinifactory, and Else Heart.Break(). You could argue that the command-line and script-driven Hacknet also belongs on the list. Maybe Beginner’s Guide could be part of the list as well, since it’s a game about game development? Sort of?
It’s all very meta. We have games about designing games, games about coding games, games about coding in general, and games about logic and flow control. It’s experimental and educational in places. Speaking from a purely selfish standpoint, I wouldn’t mind if this was the start of a trend and indies gave us more games about coding and less games about retro-styled 2D side-scrolling platforming.
But in the AAA space I think we had a different theme going. For big-budget games, 2015 was the year of bugs, glitches, and bad ports. So I suppose it was also about coding, but in a different way. To put it in perspective: Bethesda released a game this year, and it didn’t even make the list of top 3 buggiest games. What are you doing, Games Industry? Look at you! Pull yourself together!
Doubtless next year will be better, bug-wise. We’re still in the shake-out period for the new console generation, and that’s always hard on game engines.
Before we talk about my favorites, let’s jeer at the losers…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Dénouement 2015 Part 1: The Losers”
Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.
T w e n t y S i d e d
