While its endgame suffers a few stumbles, Shadowlands prepares you to make one of the more meaningful narrative choices in a WoW expansion. Shadowlands thrives at its level cap, though, with new gameplay elements that combine to make an excellent experience.

Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp successfully resurrects Nintendo’s terrific, turn-based tactics series by offering a generous package that nearly makes up for the 15-year wait.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus isn't the open-world Pokemon game fans have been waiting for, but it's still the most ambitious Pokemon experience yet, and a fun collect-a-thon in its own right.

The First Berserker: Khazan is an action-RPG set within Nexon's Dungeon Fighter Online universe that pivots from the franchise's beat 'em up roots to embrace weapons-based, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice-like action. However, the game stands apart from its inspirations by leveraging cool anime-style aesthetics and environments filtered through stylized comic book shading.

Cairn combines limb-based controls, visually striking graphics, and a somber tone to create an original and moving mountain-climbing adventure.

Resident Evil Village blends Resident Evil 7's grounded horror with Resident Evil 4's fast action and offbeat concepts. More tension, more combat, and more weirdness round out a game whose faults lie on the edges of the overall experience.

Helldivers 2's thrilling action, absurd humor, and surprisingly fair monetization practices make it one of the best PlayStation 5 multiplayer games.

Packed with action, side content, and heart, Yakuza 6 brings Kazuma Kiryu’s gangster journey to a close. Despite lacking challenge and snubbing important series characters, The Song of Life is an excellent beat-'em-up title.

Stray is a wonderfully endearing game about humanity in a world without humans, delivering quality feline exploration/adventure, with some passable action thrown in.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla continues the series’ recent winning streak. This stellar entry boasts an expansive world, many exciting missions, and a tight, character-driven plot that make it one of 2020's best games.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga packs the nine, mainline films into a galaxy-spanning, kid-friendly, open-world toybox.

Super Mario 3D All-Stars offers three excellent games in close to their original forms, but it misses a lot of opportunities to polish and improve them.

Super Mario Party Jamboree introduces an array of new content, modes, and options to push the Mario Party foundation as far as it can go.

Ninja Gaiden 4 is a hard-hitting action game that's sure to satisfy genre enthusiasts, but it exchanges the franchise's complex combat mechanics for a simpler, more arcade-like experience.

Featuring a potent mix of classics like chess and mahjong, Clubhouse Games is an excellent compilation of what might as well be public domain board games and card games. The titles are a blast while playing solo or online, but some games offer limited local multiplayer options.

30XX recalls classic robot-blasting action of the Mega Man X series, but adds its own fun-filled spin on the formula via multiple play modes, custom stage creation, and randomly generated weapon drops.

Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs drops classic Angry Birds gameplay into virtual reality, making it a fun diversion for its intended younger audience.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is one of Bethesda's finest releases. If you loved the original, rest easy knowing that Oblivion Remastered is almost exactly the same as you remember, now beautifully refined in the Unreal Engine. If it's your first time in this world, I encourage you to approach it with an open mind. Although dated in some ways, Oblivion is still one of the best open-world RPGs ever made.

Marathon is a thrilling extraction shooter with satisfying gunplay, beautiful art direction, and tough-as-nails difficulty. It's a breath of fresh air in a packed genre, and one of the best games of the year.

Live A Live delivers a gem of a JRPG from a lost generation. It's a nostalgic blast from the past with enough modern innovations to keep the experience fresh and engaging.

Rune Factory 4 Special delivers all the life sim, farming, and RPG action of the original 3DS release—it's perfect for fans of the Story of Seasons series or Stardew Valley.

River City Girls 2 tops its predecessor in nearly every way with more characters, enhanced combat, cross-platform play, and some of the best music you'll hear in a video game.

Ghostrunner has ferocious melee combat, nimble first-person platforming, and cyberpunk style to spare. Unfortunately, it's also frustrating and needlessly unforgiving.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a nostalgia-packed superhero celebration that features hard-hitting action, a wealth of comic book flavor, and a thrilling tag mechanic that sets the brawler apart from its genre contemporaries.

Marathon is a thrilling extraction shooter with satisfying gunplay, beautiful art direction, and tough-as-nails difficulty. It's a breath of fresh air in a packed genre, and one of the best games of the year.

More than Marvel meets XCOM, Midnight Suns is an epic comic book adventure with dynamic and inventive strategy mechanics paired with engrossing superhero socializing.

A mainline Halo game has finally come to PC as part of a much larger compilation. If you desire high-octane Halo action on PC, Reach is as good a start as any, but heed this port's rough edges and missing features.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD’s upgraded visuals and motion-free control options make this the best way to play the Wii classic, even if the game is firmly stuck in Zelda’s past.