I have spent more than 60 hours in the Xbox One version of the game and don’t feel anywhere close to having tackled most of the content. Fallout 4 could be the only game you buy for the next six months, and you might never get bored. It’s everything that Fallout fans were hoping for. When it comes to game releases in 2015, the best was truly saved for last.

If there’s any message in That Dragon, Cancer that ought to be universal to anyone who plays the game, it’s that time is precious.

The pervasive visual theme of death is as heavy in this game as it was in Bloodborne and the boss designs are as creative as anything found in the original Dark Souls. It’s remarkable that Dark Souls III manages to showcase these influences while still being able to stand out with an identity of its own.

I found playing through a modern imagining of this classic to be almost perfect. While it doesn’t reinvent the franchise or break convention, it never acts like it wants to. There’s something comforting about returning to a world like this: to know its every corner, to recognize its colorful cast, to feel truly lost in the experience.

Battlefield 1 is a refreshing, gorgeous shooter that breaks up the monotony of futuristic action games with solid mechanics and a setting that has never gotten the attention it deserves.

In its finished form, the game tells a story with uncompromising vision and engrossing emotional heft. The resulting experience comes off as delicately prepared, and the mythical nature of the game’s development only enhances the fantastical tale at its core. Imagining the missteps the game could have taken if released in an unpolished rush is easy, but bickering about the build-up to The Last Guardian’s release will be long outlived by its success as an emotionally evocative masterpiece in the annals of modern gaming.

Firaxis has done a wonderful job of taking the life-and-death, intense pressure of the tactical infantry game, and mapping it onto the strategic game.

Every so often a game jam produces something special that is both interesting and commercially viable. A game like Superhot.

Resident Evil 7 is that breed of survival horror that manages to instill a omnipresent sense of fear. I was constantly concerned about my immediate needs rather than planning for the long term. In turn, I broke with my survival horror play-style traditions, using all available weapons and resources when necessary instead of playing conservatively in anticipation of challenging boss fights and possible difficulty spikes. It turned out to be the right choice, which is a credit to Resident Evil 7's fair difficulty.

Breath of the Wild’s only tangible constraint is how creative the player can be at any given moment. The game is genuinely challenging, with secrets and rewards to be found around every corner. As you play, the staggering amount of ways in which you can interact with Hyrule naturally reveal themselves. There is always something new to discover, but at your own pace. Somehow, the adventure never loses momentum over dozens of hours of exploration, the inspired design holds up, making for an unmistakable Zelda game that completely changes everything expected from the series. After spending so much time with Breath of the Wild, it is already hard to imagine going back to the antiquated presentation of the past.

It’s the kind of closure that will make you reminisce about the first time you fired up the debut Uncharted game, but you won’t feel nudged to fire up Drake’s Fortune immediately after completing A Thief’s End.

If you’re willing to do the social networking and accept the time commitment that Destiny requires to reach its endgame content, you’ll be treated to the first massively multiplayer online game built around the core of first-person shooter gameplay, a unique entry in the world of video games, and a growing universe where you and your fellow Guardians are all that stand between the Light, humanity’s last hope, and the Darkness that threatens to wipe us out forever.

Pokémon Sun and Moon are best Pokémon games released yet for the 3DS. While the framerate still takes a dip whenever there’s multiple Pokémon in battle, the engine suits the swaying trees and sunny beaches of the Alola region wonderfully. The music, characters, and story are some of the strongest in Pokémon history and the core gameplay is irresistibly rewarding.

Pokémon Sun and Moon are best Pokémon games released yet for the 3DS. While the framerate still takes a dip whenever there’s multiple Pokémon in battle, the engine suits the swaying trees and sunny beaches of the Alola region wonderfully. The music, characters, and story are some of the strongest in Pokémon history and the core gameplay is irresistibly rewarding.

Doom’s single-player campaign offers elements that are often rare in modern shooter design, ideas that maybe should never have been left behind as the FPS genre evolved. The multiplayer shooter design elements that have been left in the past, on the other hand, might best be left in the past.

With hundreds of Power Moons to collect, an entire wardrobe of outfits that span Mario’s storied history, and no shortage of Easter eggs to uncover, Super Mario Odyssey is one of the most complete packages Nintendo has ever offered.

Come, feel the history, watch it, touch it, marvel at how anyone a century ago ever got by in this crazy world full of chess-themed electrical plugs. But don’t forget where you came from, and honor those traditions, goofy as they may seem to us now, and you’ll have all the more fun for it.

At the end of a tumultuous decade, it’s only natural to reflect on the years gone by. And here comes a great game to cap the previous decade—and signal the start of something new. If I hadn’t already spent the last several years being told that Kentucky Route Zero was a special game, I’d have known it immediately.

This feels like a case where a video game movie can afford to pay proper deference to the source material. If the Ratchet & Clank movie’s creative team chose to do so, we might have a rare entry into the very short list of video game movies that don’t suck.

I can’t imagine anyone walking away from Gears 5 disappointed. This is a complete package, tied together with some of the most consistently engaging gameplay you could ask for. The storytelling on display proves that the franchise has yet to peak, and it lays the foundation to continue improving with whatever comes next.

While this is a fantastic game on its own merits, it also stands as a towering achievement in Star Wars storytelling.

Dishonored 2 is just the latest example in a long line of games that continue to illustrate the close relationship between quality stealth games and emergent gameplay. Any given playthrough will present you with myriad chances to both create and react to opportunities, many of which appear with little to no warning. It's in surviving these situations (preferably undetected) where Dishonored 2 delivers its most tangible rushes and most profound sense of gratification. It's a tale of vengeance that's presented in an imaginatively conceived world, one that is as threatening as it is inviting.

While I’m playing, I’m enthralled by the intricacies of every new mechanic folded into my progression. When I’m away from it, I’m imagining new experiments and combinations to toy with on a future run.

Where many open-world games present large stretches of the map that are unremarkable filler, The Division is dense with tiny details that make every corner of the city interesting.

Wargroove is challenging in all the right ways, but never rigid in obstinance. From all angles, this is an experience you can truly tailor to do just what you want it to. Chucklefish has packed this game so full with meaningful experiments—and things that are worth seeing.

Street Fighter V delivers where it counts as a fighting game, the gameplay, and makes leaps and bounds of improvement everywhere else. That makes it a must-buy if you're any type of fan of the series—especially since there are no Super, Ultra or Turbo versions coming out in the future.

This game stands out as an exceptional entry in a series that has consistently delivered action-movie thrills. If you’ve felt series fatigue creeping in with recent entries, Far Cry 5 is just the antidote you need. It’s an incredible game. Play it. Love it. Just don’t get brainwashed by the cult.

Watch Dogs 2 is such a fully realized mid-2010s time capsule that—even if the online features are unavailable down the line—it would make for an especially insightful playthrough a decade from now, personal San Francisco native bias notwithstanding.