A grim, gorgeous milieu of societal depth and cunning design. That its mechanics slot so naturally into its environment, giving players the freedom and choice to explore, influence and infiltrate means that Dishonored 2 represents the very best gaming has to offer.

There are so many beautiful touches to the game, and it’s so different to what’s come before, that it will keep blowing you away, surprising you, and delighting you. It’s clear how much the team behind Sun and Moon care about their players and their experiences, and it really makes a difference.

There are so many beautiful touches to the game, and it’s so different to what’s come before, that it will keep blowing you away, surprising you, and delighting you. It’s clear how much the team behind Sun and Moon care about their players and their experiences, and it really makes a difference.

I’m genuinely surprised with how much I adore Watch Dogs 2’s world. Its satire works because it is always punching up, never down. As such, Watch Dogs 2 feels like it’s making a statement. Rudyard Kipling once said, “San Francisco has only one drawback – ’tis hard to leave.” While Watch Dogs 2 isn’t as faultless as Kipling’s vision of Northern California, you’ll still want to spend tens of hours wandering this virtual recreation of the famous city and on into the Bay Area beyond.

D-Pad Studio has crafted a sublime, pitch-perfect adventure. Smart, gripping, joyful and expansive, Owlboy sets the bar sky-high for future 2D platformers.

Imaginators captures a magic that I’ve rarely felt since my late childhood, playing the aforementioned N64 platformers on a Winter’s afternoon. This is how you do games for younger people, this is how you do Toys to Life, this is how you do action platformers in general.

A brilliantly solid, popcorn, sci-fi shooter with you behind the visor. This is, for our future space credits, the best Call of Duty package in years.

Xbox One owners will be super pleased –– thanks to Bethesda’s ongoing mod support since the release of Fallout 4, you’ll get access to over 200 mods at the time of writing. PS4 players aren’t so fortunate, and will likely be disappointed by the paltry number choose from –– Sony’s 1GB limit on mod files means that the mods themselves are limited to more cosmetic changes that don’t nearly explore the vast potential that a community driven bank of content provides.

Titanfall 2 shines when it is, as Alavi says, doing things that other shooters do not. Whether it is in the surprising invention of its campaign, or the busy ebb and flow of its multiplayer modes, this is a shooter that should not be overlooked.

It might seem short and simple, and there is perhaps more I’d like the concept to explore, but this fantastic little example of crowd-sourced morality is deftly handled, super evocative and one of those games you absolutely should experience.

It’s an absolutely fascinating, atmospheric take on the horror genre that plays on the mechanical strengths of its various genres to create an utterly unforgettable experience.

Bohemian Killing is, despite some problems in execution, one of the most alluring games I’ve ever played on a conceptual level.

It is a fantastic example of how to combine the numbers-driven loot game with a top class FPS, and Lo Wang should be chainsawing his way into the annals of FPS history. Plus it also has music by Stan Bush. What more could you want from a blood-soaked, irreverent, funny and frantic shooter?

Battlefield 1 is a fantastic game. If you want a shooter that replicates the epic scale of two armies at war, or one that prioritises tactical thought over twitchy trigger fingers, this is the FPS for you.

For such a complex and in depth game to feel so intuitive is impressive, but for such a game to remain fun, exciting and unpredictable after forty, sixty, one-hundred hours of play? That’s joyous.

The plot’s exceptionally strong too, albeit with one rather jarring bit of progression that didn’t feel hugely believable to me, mainly due to the game’s brevity. It’s enough to stop it being up there at the pinnacle of game storytelling, but only by a hair’s breath. Otherwise, the dialogue is believable, sensitive, thoughtful, the plot surprisingly gripping, and the potential deviations and outcomes are all equally satisfying. It’s £2.79 on Steam, 2-3 hours long, and I absolutely highly recommend this little gem.

Burly Men at Sea is the closest thing I’ve played to an interactive fairy-tale.

At its heart, Mafia 3 is a simple story of revenge, but its actors sell it to you with gusto, and the linear prologue does a great job of getting players invested. Unfortunately, as soon as you’re out in the open-world and you’re free to roam, it becomes a repetitive slog, not least because when you’re doing the same thing on repeat, it only serves to highlight the limitations of the rest of the game.

Its thrilling, opulent campaign is tempered only by a lingering sense of familiarity and hesitation to capitalise on some interesting new ideas. While its online offerings feature all the bells and whistles you would expect of Gears of War. There is some work to be done for The Coalition to make Gears their own, then, but as the first page of a new chapter for the series? It is a helluva place to start.

The smart trade-off between rollicking action and exploration makes for a cohesive, confident and satisfying adventure. Where Lara Croft goes from here will be fascinating, but rarely has a game's title been so apt.

Even the co-op, local-only, fails to save the game from tedium. It’s a shame; aesthetically and mechanically there could’ve been something here, but there just weren’t enough ideas put in play to make Mother Russia Bleeds into anything special. Coupled with the often frustrating collision detection and the woefully poor friendly AI, Mother Russia Bleeds ends up as little more than a tedious, forgettable drudge.

The underwater controls are sublime, the soundtrack by Austin Wintory is perfect; choral swells and orchestral build-ups, a real sense of place and spirituality. If exploring an underwater paradise and uncovering a fantastic story appeals to you, then give this stunning little gem a go.

Head and robot gameplay styles mesh together in a fluid, intuitive way, and the gorgeous colourful space stations and melodramatic sci-fi synth soundtrack makes this sci-fi romp an enjoyable, surprisingly sincere tribute to the wobbly sets of old.

Every choice, every death and every shot feels like it counts in XCOM 2 and it is this feeling of real consequence that makes for a truly remarkable strategy game - one that goes beyond its clever design decisions and the odd technical hiccup to create a tangible sense purpose and real emotion to your squad’s story. As an experience that puts you in control, lets you relish victories, forces you to truly mourn mistakes, and allows you to grow as a tactician against insurmountable odds, XCOM 2 is near faultless.

It is a shame that FIFA 17, for all of its definite gains, still has familiar problems on the pitch. There, PES remains champion, but off it, FIFA is unrivalled. And it certainly plays well enough that the unique pleasures of The Journey and the rest of its footballing suite remain a treat.

A feast of driving that sets out to sate whatever vehicular desire you may have from minute-to-minute. It can’t be perfect, perhaps, but it is a real pleasure.

Virginia hit me right in the chest, the kind of game I’ve wanted to exist for years, and the first game to actually nail it in a way that I think fully takes advantage of the potential. It is the game that titles like Dear Esther, Gone Home and Firewatch have hinted at, but in a way that evolves the interactive narrative form way beyond anything we’ve seen before. It’s a game to savour and talk about for years to come, one that left me, just like the inhabitants of Kingdom, Virginia, speechless.

BioShock: The Collection is just one iconic, influential game and its two excellent sequels packed together in one box. These kinds of games come around rarely, and if you’ve not played any of them, you absolutely should.

While there are off-field problems that go beyond unavoidable licensing issues; on the pitch, PES remains peerless.

A sterling upgrade that has taken the fine work of its predecessors, and ran with it.

Here you feel like you are put on both sides of the divide, manipulated by fsociety to manipulate others. That you might start to enjoy and crave the power that the latter affords is a disturbing and fascinating thing.

Video game narratives can be great, but nothing will surpass the stories we create in collaboration with a game – emergent, unscripted moments that pop up unplanned and create lasting impressions, and that’s where Mankind Divided excels.

F1 2016 is the game Codemasters has almost been making for years; complex, feature-full and still packed with the adoration for the sport that the studio has demonstrated since it got its hands on the license back in 2010. For anyone that’s a fan of racing, this is without the doubt the most unmissable recreation of it you can buy. For anyone that likes going fast, this will probably convince you, too.

Incredibly simple to pick up and play, but with the potential for plenty of tactical approaches, Videoball is a great multiplayer game and I’d love to see it hit the esports scene in a big way.

Chime Sharp is maybe a tiny bit bare bones compared to its competitors, with no multiplayer and fairly short round times, but the focused precision really suits the game here, and it’s nonetheless a fantastic chillout puzzle game, one I highly recommend.

It’s not the most difficult of games, as Kirby titles generally aren’t, but it is enormous fun, and up there as one of my all-time favourite 3DS titles.

No Man’s Sky is a fundamentally simple game; one that’s flawed, slow, and where the moment-to-moment activities are sometimes even... boring. But its intoxicatingly rare attitude towards pure discovery create a game that’s captivating unlike any other.

Despite a few quibbles, Overcooked is terrific because of its commitment to uproarious, hilarious and challenging co-operation. As long as your friendships, family bonds and marriages can take the odd dropped champignon à la crème, of course.

Ripe for exposure to a wider audience, X is a splendid sequel/remake of the original, serving up 60 new levels of precise platforming to go with the original 40 legacy level

It is still zippy and enjoyable enough -with touchscreen mini-games for purifying and Soultimates- but strikes an awkward middle-ground where combat isn’t involved enough for more experienced players, but is chaotic enough with its machinations to befuddle newcomers.

Generations refines and perfects the Monster Hunter formula, and presents us with comfortably the best title in the series' history.

Still, despite the inconsistencies, The Devil’s Daughter is an enjoyable thriller. Albeit one that doesn’t always know its strengths.

Playdead's Inside is fiercely intelligent, exquisitely grotesque - and one of the best video games of the year.

Games often reach for this kind of digital dopamine hit of course, and many succeed, but the reason Mirror’s Edge is so good at it is due to developer DICE’s knack of having you inhabit the body of your avatar so fully.

Blood and Wine is an expansion that’s more generous with its content than some full priced games, and the fact that CD Projekt Red has maintained such a consistent level of quality across both of its expansions is really remarkable.

If there is a complaint to be had it is that, currently, there is perhaps not enough to it. The four game types are a variation on two themes, the 12 maps quickly repeat, while competitive ranked play is yet to be included. But Blizzard has made all the right noises about being committed to building on Overwatch, providing new heroes, maps and gametypes for free across the game’s lifespan.

There were no doubts that Doom would play fast, look stunning, or be gory; the surprise is that Doom is as relevant, smart and self-aware as it is; merging old ideas with new ones; injecting its near-flawless shooter mechanics into a campaign that’s impeccably refined, hilariously dumb and fiendishly moreish.

For now, Sapienza is a fabulously strong episode, and one of the series’ greatest hits.

It is rip-roaring stuff. There is no great illusion here; any risk that may have been associated with Nathan Drake’s introduction a decade ago has long gone, swept away in a tide of crowd-pleasing spectacle. But Uncharted 4’s swagger makes it easy to succumb to the ride, its craftmanship, sense of adventure and willingness to open up to its players providing a potent sugar-rush of popcorn gaming pleasure.

The learning curve makes it likely you’ll want to blast through again at least once with your flight skills finally under control. And this is when Star Fox Zero is at its best: a thrilling, fleeting and flawed joyride.

It’s testament to Codemasters’ calibre as a developer that they have so successfully revitalised a sport that’d been forgotten in games.

Not only is Ratchet & Clank the best family-friendly game that I’ve played in a long time, it’s one of PS4’s standout titles and a blistering return to the glory days of the 3D platformer.

It is one of the most fascinating games you’ll play this year, or any other, a high-profile game that still dares to go against the grain despite its ever growing popularity.

It is explosive, barely coherent, high-budget bluster. And, for the most part, is rather good fun.

It weaves a miserable tale of loneliness, dehumanisation and sexual and emotional abuse. It will exhaust and upset, leaving you bereft for Renee and the thousands of women like her. Contrary to the title, there is no light here, only darkness. But that doesn’t mean it is not worth a look.

For a game built around the shallow need for incremental improvements, there is a surprising amount of depth when you dig into character and gear statistic tweaking, too, which only makes the tight squad action of the minute-to-minute gameplay even stronger.

There are speed runs, challenges and endless survival modes to add longevity, but it takes a special kind of game to provide such a lean playtime with such self-assured verve. That is Superhot all over: stylish, confident and perfectly formed.

Ultimately, Hitman’s current mileage is going to vary depending on your openness to experimentation. But as a statement of IO’s intent with this reboot, this is a confident first episode that invites you into the flashy world of murder with one of the most sumptuous, devilishly delightful levels ever seen in a Hitman game. Time will tell whether the subsequent packs will allow Hitman to regain its once-revered status, but this is a fantastic start.

It is all thoroughly enjoyable. If you have had your fill of Ubisoft’s open-world template, much of Primal may give a sense of ennui. But for me, stripping it down to focus on hunting and gathering, while removing heavy ordnance and vehicles, gives it a calmer rhythm. It is slower and more methodical, with you soaking in the splendid prehistoric world Primal provides. It isn’t the future of the genre, but you will have plenty of fun knocking around in its vision of the past.

Most importantly it feels great. The colourful, muscular artwork lends extra weight to already ferocious scuffles, moves landing with crunchy force, accentuated by its brilliant habit of a split-second freeze for fierce hits. Everything is quick and forceful, with fights quickly taking on their own rhythm depending on both the characters and the players using them.

Every choice, every death and every shot feels like it counts in XCOM 2 and it is this feeling of real consequence that makes for a truly remarkable strategy game - one that goes beyond its clever design decisions and the odd technical hiccup to create a tangible sense purpose and real emotion to your squad’s story. As an experience that puts you in control, lets you relish victories, forces you to truly mourn mistakes, and allows you to grow as a tactician against insurmountable odds, XCOM 2 is near faultless.

While this relationship is a triumph rarely seen in video games, the moment-to-moment storytelling is not as well-crafted. Firewatch sets up a smart bait-and-switch by messing with your assumptions about what’s going on, but doesn’t quite deliver on it. The build-up is tremendous, lacing the air with paranoia and tension by dangling different threads. But by the end doesn’t tie together.

Unravel never entirely shakes that aura of niceness over its five hours or so. It is both its strength and weakness. The background tale of Yarny searching through a family’s memories is a bit mawkish, but the little fella’s determination to trek through the challenges Coldwood chucks at him is adorable and endearing.

The Witness is a game that will genuinely have you punching the air or laughing out loud, just from correctly drawing a line on a grid. If that isn’t the mark of a truly special game, I don’t know what is.

There's a haunting elegance to Oxenfree that's there because each of its constituent parts are working together to create it.

Will I ever understand such faith? No. But now I understand how much it can help people through something so unspeakably tragic. While nothing can ever bring back their little boy, I am glad the Greens had that faith. And I am glad they were brave enough to share it with us.

A lack of variety doesn’t stop this being a wholly welcome return for Amplitude. It has a thumping heart and soul, a timeless nucleus of gameplay that I hope Harmonix has the opportunity to build upon. A euphoric finger dance across a fizzing, abstract space.

But that focus is what makes Siege’s multiplayer so good. In a year with a glut of good competitive first-person shooters –the sci-fi fizz of Halo 5 and Star Wars Battlefront or bombastic ordnance of Battlefield Hardline and Call of Duty: Black Ops III- Rainbow Six Siege’s smart, sharp tactical nous marks it as one of the best.

When you liberate an enemy stronghold Rico sometimes says, “That was fun - let’s do it again.” This feels like a perfect summary for the game: it is 15 minutes of stupid fun on repeat. But that barely matters when you are firing remote-detonated cows at a military compound filled with the red stuff.

Feels like a rushed Christmas pick-up after the incredible fan-service of Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart 8. The tennis gameplay is solid fun, and groups will certainly find some enjoyment at its core, but with a limp lack of variety and none of Nintendo’s usual personality, it’s a functional but forgettable note in Mario’s history on the court.

This seems unlikely to be a game that can be played hard for 12 months. But it’s also a far more polished and properly executed tie-in than films are typically given. Battlefront does a particular thing very well - it is not so much shallow as strategically popularist. Skill and tactics play their part, but it’s one subservient to the John Williams-scored rush of finding yourself in these battles, in these surroundings.

Despite its less impressive iterations over the years, the Need for Speed name has delivered some truly excellent games - from Underground’s street racing to Shift’s wannabe-simulation, all the way to Hot Pursuit’s absurd action. But rather than build upon this rich diverse history of fun, Ghost Games has sucked the fun out of a game that should epitomise the outlandishness of going really bloody fast. When you could be playing Driveclub, or Forza Horizon 2, or Project Cars, or even the beautiful and superiorly quick Forza Motorsport 6, offering a racer without speed? That’s suicide.

If you’ve been waiting for Fallout 4, it will simultaneously meet your expectations and exceed them in others. Who would have thought a Fallout game would convince us of Bethesda’s storytelling and shooter credentials? In a year full of brilliant open-world games like The Witcher 3, it manages to stand apart from the crowd and deliver something that feels fresh, despite its familiar foundations.

These breaks in linear action are wonderfully judged, allowing you to take a breath, find hidden treasure and help tribespeople by hunting down some wild boar or disrupting Trinity communication towers. There’s perhaps nothing here that you won’t have seen in open-world games, but these alluring pockets of freedom breaking out from a cinematic thrill-ride is a clever change of pace.

No, it’s not the best Call of Duty ever made, but the sheer volume of content on display largely makes up for its weaknesses in specific areas. A worthwhile story would have added enormous value to the overall package, but its absence doesn’t undermine what is another solid release.

Tales of Zestiria is a profound disappointment, and does not deserve the time investment that huge games of this length require.

Halo 5's campaign will not be the groundbreaking adventure that sends players flocking to the Xbox One, but Warzone's sprawling battles twinned with the precision of Arena just might tempt competitive shooter fans to take the plunge. Work to be done for both 343 and the Xbox One, then, but this is a formidable start.

Hearts of Stone succeeds in stringing together several intriguing stories, excellent characters and standout moments in quick succession, and very little of it feels like a retread of quests that main protagonist Geralt has already undertaken.

The commitment to its ideas makes Live a confident, bold and stylish game.

Syndicate is a massive shame. Ubisoft’s yearly development cycle is really beginning to leave its mark on the series. Assassin’s Creed has been good. It is a series that can be great, but unfortunately Syndicate is a misstep. For a series concerned with making its players historical tourists, it is ironic that it is so stuck in the past.

Harmonix remains the master of mapping note charts to the music.

As a huge series fan, I had high hopes for Maiden of Black Water. I certainly didn’t expect to find my attention drifting because the game became boring. For all its flaws in the past, the Project Zero series has never been simply dull. And yet that’s exactly what Maiden of Black Water is.

This is a generous, technically excellent and genuinely fascinating omnibus.

The football here is unpredictable and undefinable. Matches take on their own personality, depending on who is playing, both on the pitch and behind the controller. You are given enough control and room for expression that you don’t need to conform to best practice. Instead you need to play to your and your team’s strengths, negating the opponent’s and managing the tempo of a game.

If you’re a veteran player, after a jolting transition this is the best the game has ever been. If you’re new - this is the best thing available to play on console. Let’s pretend it’s always been this good.

FIFA 16, as a whole, feels like a new foundation for the series. It takes a little readjustment and not everything is quite in place yet, the lack of tactical difference and the clear scripting are stark in comparison to PES 2016's on-field excellence, but its action feels fresher and built for further improvement. And the work off the pitch remains exceptional.

It may not have the established brands that its rivals can lean on, but SuperChargers is good enough not to need them.

It’s not cheap, but there is a huge amount of value here for families.

Despite the volume of content and the sharp precision and attention to detail levelled at everything from visuals to audio, Forza 6 can oftentimes feel like the standard bearer of a bygone age. On the one hand it's a mechanical wonder, but on the other it's firmly rooted in ideologies and design tropes of the past.

It effortlessly switches from tense stealth to tactical but speedy combat, managing to put most games in both genres to shame in the process.

It contains obvious missteps and a clear reliance on repeating objectives at a time when the open world genre has taken leaps forward, but for all its repetition, it never became boring. For all its barren desolation, I was never without things to do, find or see to continue my satisfying path of progression.

On the face of it, an improved core game and a flexible but flawed sandbox mode might not be enough to give Disney the edge over its rivals. On the other hand: Star Wars.

There are still problems when it comes to balancing realism with spectacle, but Madden NFL 16 manages to get the mix mostly right. Certainly, when compared to previous releases, there's a far greater sense that what you're playing tallies with what you see on Sundays.

Super Mario Maker’s chaotic smorgasbord is part of its appeal. Wild, unbridled and even inspiring, Super Mario Maker achieves the envious feat of making both Play and Creation a joy. And all it had to do was remove the barrier between the two.

The horror movie the game reminds me most of is Joss Whedon's The Cabin in the Woods. Not from a narrative sense, you understand, but in the way it lampoons the genre, while never losing sight of what bloody good fun it can be.

Perhaps MGSV’s best quality is how in pulling gameplay to the foreground and letting much of the exposition remain optional, it opens it up to be enjoyed by people who have in the past been put off by its weirdness, serving as both the perfect entry point and a satisfying conclusion. MGSV takes the best of a great series and creates a series’ best in the process.

It's all highly unsettling, and the most important things about the game -- its mood of fumbling desperation, its clapped-out London settings, its focus on exhaustion and disempowerment -- remain startlingly unchanged after the transition in platform and the stripping of the Wii U's clever propwork.

The cliffhanger The Dark Room finishes on opens a whole new can of worms, so to speak, while the more surreal questions remain unaddressed (what’s with the whales on the beach? The crazy weather? The nefarious Prescott family?). Finales can make or break a series and Life is Strange is precariously balanced.