The best video games of 2015, as picked by the Ars editors

Narrowing an entire year of video games into a list of the 20 titles most worth your attention is always difficult, but it was more difficult than usual in 2015. We could have easily extended this year's list to 30 or 40 games without breaking a sweat or recommending any marginal titles (see our upcoming "best of the rest" list as proof).

The year was just that jam-packed with quality titles. Perhaps that's because the new generation of consoles is finally coming into its own, or because a number of independent developers surprised us with highly polished and utterly unique titles. Whatever the reason, we hope 2016 can capture even a fraction of the joy and variety found in this year's best games.

20. N++

Platforms: PS4
Release Date: July 28
Developer: Metanet Software

A full decade after the release of the original N, this second sequel is a perfect combination of refinement and dedication. The key, as always, is a beautiful physics system based on floaty leaps and wall-climbing hops. There's a strong sense of momentum to every movement and an almost balletic feeling of balance in carefully managing your speed and position from moment to moment.

But the real star here is the level design, with over 2,000 single-screen stages in the single-player portion alone and not a bit of filler in the bunch. Those levels go from merely hard to insanely difficult quickly thanks to dozens of merciless hazards and enemies that often require pixel-perfect movement to avoid. Expect an even tougher challenge if you want to collect every piece of gold or unlock some of the more devious secrets buried in the game.

N++ will only appeal to a certain class of player that has been constantly looking for an ever-increasing levels of precision platforming challenge in the three decades or so since Super Mario Bros. For those players, this may the platonic ideal of a largely defunct and unappreciated genre.
- Kyle Orland

19. Pac-Man 256

Platforms: iOS, Android
Release Date: August 20
Developer: Hipster Whale

Sequels are always a mixed bag no matter whether you’re talking about movies, books, or video games. Sometimes the first installment endures so well for so long because the follow-ups are sadly lacking. That was the daunting challenge awaiting Pac-Man 256, a smartphone- and tablet-based follow up to the original Pac-Man (and its own successful sequel, Ms. Pac-Man). Luckily, this sequel was up for the task.

Rendered in a charmingly blocky 8-bit style, Pac-Man 256 offers up an endless, randomly generated maze, filled with more ghosts and more powerups than the original. As you dodge monsters and gobble power-ups, the maze below you dissolves into a mishmash of random characters, just like the rarely seen kill screen on level 256 of the OG Pac-Man. Head too far down in the maze to avoid the ghosts, and you’ll de-rez along with the rest of the maze.

As you dodge new ghosts with different personalities (beware the glitch ghosts), you can gobble up coins that you can then use to unlock and then level up new power-ups like electricity (zaps nearby ghosts), stealth (turns you invisible to ghosts), and freeze (slows ghosts to a virtual crawl). You can also earn coins by completing quests (e.g., use a radar power-up to kill 20 ghosts) and watching advertisements (who knew there were so many games involving dragons?).

Pac-Man 256 rewards quick decision making—and not just when it comes to dodging ghosts. Do you move across a dot-free part of the maze to gobble a power-up or stay with the dot-line in hopes of completing a 256-dot chain and clearing the visible maze of ghosts? Either way, Pac-Man 256 is a great way to distract yourself with your tablet or smartphone when you’ve got a few free minutes… and you probably won’t want to put it down.
- Eric Bangeman

18. Sage Solitaire

Platforms: iOS
Release Date: August 26
Developer: STFJ

Really? A single-player card game as one of the best of the year? Believe it. Sage Solitaire is a much deeper take on the classic Klondike Solitaire you might know from Windows; this is a game that relies on memory and skillful decision making to maximize the value of each random shuffle

The basics are incredibly simple: Match two-to-five of the top cards on nine piles to make one of a few specific poker-style hands, each with varying point values (with bonuses for a different suit each game). You can throw out a limited number of single cards that get in the way, which is handy because clearing entire piles earns multipliers and clearing the entire board earns a substantial bonus. Be careful though; each hand needs cards from at least two different rows on the 3x3 grid, and hands can get difficult to make once you start running low on piles and matchable cards.

After tapping around aimlessly for a few hands, some basic strategies begin to present themselves. After a few dozen games, you’ve probably figured out how to clear the entire board with some frequency. A few dozen after that, and you may be ready to build up a bank in the cumulative Vegas mode or face nerve-wracking True Grit mode, where your initial $500 stake can be lost forever.

Through it all, it always feels like there’s more to learn as you struggle to balance the potential risks and rewards of each potential play with the inherent randomness of the deal. Much more than a mindless twiddling of cards, Sage Solitaire is a great brain workout that makes you feel like there's always a bit more strategy to learn if you just try one more hand.
-Kyle Orland

17. Guitar Hero Live

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, PS3, Xbox 360
Release Date: October 20
Developer: Freestyle Games

Will 2015 be remembered as the year that rhythm games made a stunning comeback after a five-year hiatus? Perhaps not. Though Rock Band returned with less of roar and more of a whimper, there was one game that truly pushed the genre forward and gave us all a jolly good time in the process: Guitar Hero Live.

Freestyle Games' reinvention of the Guitar Hero series was a risky move, particularly as it requires players to buy a new controller, but it resulted in a game that is comfortingly familiar, yet surprisingly fresh. The magic lies in the new guitar, which has six buttons spread over two rows of three. This clever tweak makes it easier for beginners to just hit three notes while presenting a new challenge on the higher difficulty levels in the form of chords that require switching between the two rows.

But Freestyle Games went further than just a new guitar, giving the game a thoroughly needed visual overhaul with crisp live-action footage and a way to play a whole host of new songs without having to fork out any additional cash in the form of Guitar Hero TV. The MTV-like streaming TV station is a stroke of genius, working as a music discovery service, a wonderfully compelling meta game, and a party playlist all at once.

Activision could have so easily dialled it in and churned out the same game it did five years ago. Instead, it gave us something far more interesting. Like I said in my review: Guitar Hero Live is the rhythm game for the people who got bored of rhythm games.
-Mark Walton

16. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Platforms: Windows, Gear VR
Release Date: October 8
Developer: Steel Crate Games

We try to be platform-agnostic when it comes to fun games. Whether they require computers, game consoles, giant tables, plastic music instruments, motion-sensitive wands, or virtual reality headsets, we’ll jump through all kinds of hoops to engage in a refreshing game alone or with friends.

But even we’re surprised to admit that one of our favorite 2015 games required a pretty ancient-sounding peripheral: an instruction manual. In the case of Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes, however, that manual doesn’t necessarily help players in a clear and concise manner. That’s the whole point. The game’s fun factor depends on bridging the chasm between the complex descriptions one player finds in that instruction manual and the bizarre bomb that another player sees on the game’s screen.

Two players must practically speak two entirely different languages for the game to operate on all cylinders. As a result, the worst part of KTANE is when any player lifts the veil and sees Oz’s wizard on the other side of the game’s curtain. Once you’ve memorized or mastered any of the game’s modules, you’ll need to crank up the challenge to get back to the same first-time thrill—and to that end, KTANE does offer some pretty steep difficulty ramping, so the game is no one-trick pony. It's at its best in a party setting, where people take turns with the screen or the bomb manual while onlookers laugh at what they see. Make sure you gather an audience for maximum explosiveness.
- Sam Machkovech

15. Just Cause 3

Platforms: Windows, Xbox One, PS4
Release Date: December 1
Developer: Avalanche Studios

After leaping out of a helicopter, I pop my parachute and glide hundreds of meters above a lush, beautifully rendered island paradise that stretches from horizon to horizon. Descending slowly, I pull out a rocket launcher and begin obliterating structures in a town below me—I blow up signs, water towers, statues, generators, enormous fuel tanks. My feet touch the ground and I’m already running. I mow down 30, maybe 40 ski-masked thugs, then I grapple four of them together, hook them to a tank of compressed gas, shoot the tank, and watch them ascend into the heavens attached to a makeshift rocket, screaming until the tank explodes far above my head. Finally, I saunter over to the village square and raise a flag amidst wild cheering. Celebratory fireworks burst in slow motion. Women want me. Men want to be me.

I am Rico MF’ing Rodriguez, this is Just Cause 3, and I am definitely all out of bubble gum.

In our review, we praised Just Cause 3 for being a fun, accessible explosionfest—all the best parts of a Grand Theft Auto game without the navel-gazing and TV watching. The downside, though, was that reviewer Steve Strom found the game riddled with bugs, most of which manifested in the form of lag, freezes, and other performance issues. In 30 hours of play time with the PC version (on a gaming PC with a quad-core i7, 16GB of RAM, a fast SSD, and a 980ti, playing at 2650x1600 resolution with all graphical options at maximum), I can’t say I’ve run into any of those issues—even after multi-hour play sessions, the game remains smooth and performant.

I’ve crammed my weekend hours full of liberating towns and grappling people to cars and cars to bridges and then blowing up those bridges and sending the cars and people flying. The grappling hook mechanic adds a certain amount of devilish creativity to the mayhem you can create, and the Just Cause subreddit is a never-ending fount of GIFs and YouTube videos showing the absurd lengths players have gone to in devising ways to hook things to other things and blow those things up.

Ultimately, the game comes down to having fun while blowing stuff up. Why? Just 'cause.
-Lee Hutchinson

14. Dying Light

Platforms: Windows, Linux, PS4, Xbox One
Release Date: January 27
Developer: Techland

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. But seriously consider playing Dying Light because its anxiety-inducing, parkour-flailing, zombie-horde-destroying goodness is worth every penny. Trapped in a massive, open-world fictional middle eastern city, you do your best to help the few survivors of a massive zombie outbreak.

Running and jumping off and onto everything is part of the necessary means to surviving, and Dying Light gets it right. The parkour is fun first, challenging second. Weapon modding is rewarding and critical to survival. This is not a game where you get the rocket launcher and everything else is cake. You have to level your character, diversify your weapons, and then run and gun.

Or maybe you'll holster that gun—which invites every neighborhood zombie to the party when fired—and instead use a police baton you’ve wired up to a battery to beat the zombies into DC-currented submission. The choice is yours! All of this happens in a gorgeous graphical environment alongside a decent story and a difficulty progression that keeps the game challenging.
-Ken Fisher

13. Forza Motorsport 6

Platforms: Xbox One
Release Date: September 15
Developer: Turn 10 Studios

Forza Motorsport 6 was everything its Xbox One predecessor wasn't. That game—Forza Motorsport 5—came in for a lot of flak for feeling too slight to be a marquee title. Without the immovable deadline of a console launch and a couple more years to add new cars and tracks, Forza 6 has upped the bar for console racing games—even against stiff opposition like Project CARS. From the excellent wet weather simulation to the all new and/or heavily revised tracks, there was obviously a lot of care put into this one.

The single-player career mode has enough depth to keep you occupied for months (I've still not finished the showcase events), but it's also amenable to quick games here and there for those of us for whom time can be in short supply. Online play has a healthy community, both here at Ars as well as the wider world, although Microsoft needs to fix voice chat sooner rather than later.

While the game doesn't do anything radically different in the genre, Turn 10 has incorporated a lot of improvements that the fan community have asked for. A racing game needn't break out of the mold as long as at the core it does everything this well. DLC continues to come out at a steady pace, and the new year will see the long-awaited return of Porsche to the game. What more could a racer need or want?
-Jonathan Gitlin

12. Downwell

Platforms: Windows, iOS, Android
Release Date: October 15
Developer: Moppin

In a gaming world that's been recently inundated with roguelike platformers, Downwell still manages to stand out. Navigating down a narrow, randomly generated well filled with enemies, your only real tool is your gunboots, which fire down at the enemies below and also give you some limited hovering time.

It's slow going at first, as you carefully plan each step down and focus on one enemy at a time. Quickly, though, you realize the value of stringing together long chains of enemy kills by shooting and bouncing on enemies without landing on the ground. These chains give you the additional ammo, health, and money needed to survive as the well gets more and more treacherous as you go.

This kind of precision platforming practically demands a good gamepad: the iOS version suffers quite a bit for its lack of tactile buttons. Even the stark, pixelated, black-white-and-red graphics are more than just an aesthetic choice; the color palette helps you identify at a glance what scenery and enemies are safe to step on and which will do damage when touched.

The ultra-fast, twitchy jump-and-shoot gameplay isn't for everyone, and the game's quickly ramping difficulty will have many giving up before they reach the ending (yes, there is an ending). Those willing to invest their time and skills, though, will find Downwell provides a tightly tuned, almost zen-like state of platforming flow almost effortlessly.

11. Splatoon

Platforms: Wii U
Release Date: May 29
Developer: Nintendo

When Splatoon launched in May, the Wii U game had a lot going for it—primarily, its welcome and unexpectedly unique twists on the team-shooter genre. We’ve played a lot of shooters and mods over the years, but we’ve never seen one with such an accessible emphasis on speed and turf control. "Unique" is an insane adjective to apply to a genre that’s existed for two decades, so hats off to Nintendo for that achievement. Plus, all of of Splatoon’s sticky, gooey paint, and all of those cute squid-kids swimming and blasting through giant, skate park-inspired battlegrounds, make for quite a good-looking shooter spectacle.

Even so, we put the game away for months after playing it during the launch window. That's in part because we saw Nintendo tease so much upcoming free content, including a few maps that were already on the Splatoon disc and a criminally needed ability to team up with friends in team battles. Those eventually arrived along with a few more welcome multiplayer modes. We’re big fans of the “control and move a giant floating tower” gameplay in Tower Control mode, which feels both derivative of Team Fortress 2's Payload mode and somehow fresh.

Some of our biggest beefs were never remedied, including a total lack of voice chat (even among pre-selected teammates) and a lack of between-respawn loadout swaps (which hampers any good team’s ability to react should they face an all-roller squad or any other peculiar match-up). We’re also still weary about the game’s netcode fudging certain "who killed who first" showdowns. Having said all of that, we still recommend the game, particularly as the safest and most energetic shooter game to hand to the little gamer in your life, chock full of content and "holy cow" turnaround moments in online combat.
-Sam Machkovech

10. Rise of the Tomb Raider

Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox 360 (PS4, PC coming next year)
Release Date: November 10
Developer: Crystal Dynamics

Rise of the Tomb Raider might not have improved on the narrative woes of its predecessor, but everything else about Lara Croft's latest outing is bigger and better.

The opening set piece—a ferocious jaunt over a Siberian mountain top—is a master class in tension and scale as you gently shuffle Lara along cracking ice and crumbling rocks. Rise of the Tomb Raider effortlessly mixes these cinematic moments with the exploration of a Metroidvania game, letting you explore a large interconnected world map littered with extra quests and tombs to discover.

Those tombs are Rise of the Tomb Raider's greatest triumph. Sure, the action is slick and the shooting pleasingly punchy, but Tomb Raider has always been about more than explosions and guns. There are true moments of serenity and contemplation to be found within its puzzle-based tombs, and even just finding said tombs buried at the back of a cave or tucked away beneath a fallen ruin is as satisfying at solving them.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is the action-adventure game of the year, one that is pleasingly unsullied by any frivolous multiplayer modes that will be entirely forgotten within a few short months. The only issue right now is that Rise of the Tomb Raider is a timed-exclusive for Xbox consoles. Is it enough of a reason to pick up Microsoft's ungainly black box? Maybe. But if you're not convinced, it'll be coming to PC and PlayStation 4 at some point in 2016.
- Mark Walton

9. Her Story

Platforms: Windows, Mac, iOS
Release Date: June 24
Developer: Sam Barlow

If you told me a year ago that one of the best games of 2015 would be told via minimally interactive recorded video, I would have laughed in your face. Yet here we are, and Her Story makes a strong case that the industry as a whole gave up too easily on the FMV game craze of the ‘90s.

Using nothing more than a virtual PC terminal and a searchable database of interrogation clips, Her Story crafts a slowly unwinding tale of mystery and intrigue. What starts off as a simple whodunnit quickly evolves to include potential homicides, cases of mistaken identity, childhood trauma, incomplete physical evidence, complex psychosexual personality quirks, and the vagaries of memory and fantasy itself. The intricate dialog is delivered brilliantly by Viva Seifert, with a subtle and nuanced performance that leaves a lot to interpretation.

Thanks to a search system based on transcript keywords, the video clips play out in an extremely non-linear fashion that requires you to piece the whole story together slowly. Even after you’ve seen everything, there’s no pat everything wrapping a bow on the experience. What it all means is left as an exercise for the player to run over and over in their head, giving the story a stickiness that is often lacking in video game narratives.

Perhaps the best thing I can say about Her Story is that the story is so open ended that I’ve had colleagues argue vociferously for diametrically opposite interpretations of one of the game’s key plot points. The fact that both sides have plenty of ammunition to make their case shows just how well-crafted and well-presented this amorphous tale is told.

8. Life is Strange

Platforms: Windows, PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360
Release Date: October 20 (Final episode)
Developer: Dontnod Entertainment

Life is Strange was quite the surprise. Developer Dontnod's previous outing, Remember Me, wasn't well-loved for its story or characters (or at all, by most people). Leaving that game's cyberpunk splash of Neo-Paris for Life is Strange's precocious teen in the Pacific Northwest — albeit one with the power to rewind time — at least seemed like a bold departure.

And Life is Strange is quite bold. The time-bending adventure series rarely leans on its fantastical elements to draw emotional impact. Instead, it's the story of two friends—Chloe and Maxine—that draws the biggest reactions.

A game about friendship, much less one between two young women, isn't the sort of thing we see in games all that often. But Life is Strange uses the ubiquitous Telltale adventure formula to great effect on the topic, culminating in some rather heartbreaking twists. When it's not busy twisting your guts in a knot, the episodic series does an amazing job of making you care for its heroines through your own actions.
-Steven Strom

7. Super Mario Maker

Platforms: Wii U
Release Date: September 11
Developer: Nintendo

Lego bricks are the best toy because you can build practically any other toy with them. Similarly, Super Mario Maker is the best 2D Mario game because you can build practically any other Mario game with it.

That might seem like a strained analogy, but it’s true in a lot of ways. With a simple touchscreen interface, level building tools that used to be limited to dedicated ROM hackers are now in the hands of the masses, who can easily make and upload levels in minutes. Mario obsessives may notice a few pieces missing, but the sheer creative potential of the building blocks you are given is staggering (and if you’re too overwhelmed by the blank slate of a fresh level, there are plenty of samples for you to copy from).

The community has shown endless ingenuity with the limited building blocks on offer. On the obvious side are the ultra-difficult levels, the levels that play themselves, the intricate mazes. But then there are the really creative levels; the ones that examine existential dread, or that play more like shoot-em-ups or puzzle games than simple platformers, or that recreate other classic games with a Mario twist. If the Mario kitchen was previously limited to expertly trained chefs, Super Mario Maker shows just how many interesting new flavors can be created by letting novice cooks take to the stove.

Finding those gems amid the thousands and thousands of crappy designs is still a challenge, but one Nintendo is working to fix, with a new connected Web portal that allows for easier browsing outside the game. Other post-release updates have fixed initial problems with the creator-tool unlocking system, added features like checkpoints and new building blocks. Another even recently introduced a time attack leaderboard for additional replayability. Now if they’d just add a method for tying levels together, we’d be all set.
-Kyle Orland

6. Bloodborne

Platforms: PS4
Release Date: March 24
Developer: From Software

At first blush Bloodborne feels like just another "Souls game" with a new setting. It's also stripped of the series' variety in weapon and armor types. Look a little closer—say 50 hours' worth of crawling through Chalice Dungeons, for example—and you'll see it cuts its own identity quite nicely.

Limited weapons means the game is more about perfecting your execution than ever. Every attack, dodge, and counter is perfected over dozens of hours spent in a world that holds more secrets than are clear at first. Then there are those Chalice Dungeons: predesigned caverns with unique bosses for you and your crucible forged skills to crash up against in the endgame.

And, yes, it does look quite different from the Dark Souls series' spartan, Medieval drapery. The nightmarish Victorian aesthetic hides even stranger monsters and locales that feel twisted in entirely new ways. It's all the more interesting to look at as you unbury the oblique story hidden behind splattered cobblestones, and shambling, alien gods.
-Steven Strom

5. Undertale

Platforms: Windows, OS X
Release Date: September 15
Developer: Toby Fox

On the surface, Undertale is just another old-school RPG in the 16-bit style with blocky graphics and an incredibly catchy chiptune soundtrack. Underneath, though, there’s a complex fable that touches on the nature of good and evil, of loneliness and connection, of mercy and vengeance. These heavy themes are skillfully woven effortlessly with a zany sense of humor that pokes fun at countless genre tropes with equal parts earnestness and cynicism. It's an incredible and personal writing effort from a development team that's almost entirely one person

The game’s unique battle system—based heavily around dodging bullet-hell style attacks in a small box—stays fresh throughout with endless twists on the basic formula. Undertale also avoids the standard problem of repetitive RPG battles by giving every encounter a “pacifist” option, letting you get out of trouble with words or actions rather than attacks. Each of these are hilariously tailored to the personality quirks of the surprisingly human monsters you’re facing, thus adding a bit of depth to the part of most RPGs that amounts to spamming the “attack” button endlessly. The choices you make regarding strength or mercy also have a somewhat profound effect on how the game plays and how the story develops.

This short but sweet experience can be finished in just about six tightly paced hours, but its themes and characters will stick with you much longer than that. While the next few years will likely see many games that are largely indistinguishable from most of the titles on this list, Undertale will likely remain a unique experience that’s nearly impossible to recreate.
-Kyle Orland

4. Metal Gear Solid V

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Windows
Release Date: September 1
Developer: Kojima Productions

If you can think of something to do in Metal Gear Solid V's desert world, odds are the development team at what was once Kojima Productions thought of it first. What if I inflate this life-sized balloon of myself under a guard's feet? It'll launch him flat on his back and conveniently unconscious, of course. How about if I stand on this cargo container as it's airlifted out? Sounds like a convenient plausible method of extraction to me.

The Phantom Pain achieves this lunatic level of depth while also playing and feeling better than any other game in the storied, 30-year series. It does suffer from what seems like an obviously cut ending—seemingly the victim of budget constraints on what must have been an astronomically expensive game. What ending is there, however, is that blend of ridiculous fan service and forum war sparking insanity that fans should have likely come to expect.

Plus you can fight a bear while listening to Hall and Oates' "Maneater." This game is incredible.
-Steven Strom

3. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Windows
Release Date: May 19
Developer: CD Projekt Red

The Witcher 3 just doesn't stop. Every time you believe you've cleared out an area, or completed a quest, there's more to find and further consequences to discover. Of course, not all of the seemingly endless quests are as deep as some of the best—"The Bloody Baron" being just one example among many.

Few of them feel perfunctory, however. Even the lowliest contract for corpse-eating ghouls has its own, unique story and specific dialogue. It's a far cry from the superficial collectibles found in the other 99 percent of open-world games.

The game isn't perfect. Its user interface mirrors its world. That is to say, it's full to bursting with options for dispatching drowners, griffins, and cave trolls. Too full, in fact, as finding the correct oil or bomb for the approaching genus of monster doesn't reflect the ease a skilled monster slayer should possess. That said, the baffling array of tactics keeps you on your toes and prevents the 100-plus hours of game from getting stale too quickly.
-Steven Strom

2. Fallout 4

Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Windows
Release Date: November 10
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

Fallout 4 is the best Bethesda-era Fallout yet, building on what was great about the previous series (faction politics, companions), while abandoning a number of annoyances (repairing weapons in New Vegas, anyone?). This game is so thoroughly replete with content that anyone who so wishes could easily spend 100 or more hours on a single character and still not have exhausted the game. What makes this work is a strong story with plenty of fate-changing decisions in the main quest. While the game does not lack for “grindy” side missions that aim you at combat and exploration XP, how much of that you do is entirely up to you. People have “beaten the game” with level 30 characters, while I’m probably 80 percent through at level 55.

Fallout 4 has successfully merged a “first person shooter” feel with the tactical aspects of Fallout, particularly with V.A.T.S. Either form of combat is enjoyable, and I find that you do need to use both at various times. “Perks” in the game are very powerful, but it’s harder to stack ‘em up as in the past, making character leveling something one ought to ponder carefully (Critical Banker is one of my favs). Modding armor, weapons, and even building settlements is a welcome addition too. And I’m rather confident that Bethesda made the right call by making Power Armor harder to maintain, but also making it moddable to include awesome add-ons.

Weaker graphics than were hoped for and a cludgy UI kept this out of the top spot this year, but for this writer, Fallout 4 is the game I’ve been waiting for over five years for. It has mightily delivered. I just hope that the DLC train makes many stops in 2016, because post-apocalyptic Boston is a thrilling place to hunt and be hunted.
-Ken Fisher

1. Rocket League

Platforms: PS4, Windows (Xbox One coming soon)
Release Date: July 7
Developer: Psyonix

Rocket League may not have the epic quests of games like Fallout 4 and The Witcher 3, or the unique story of games like Her Story and Undertale, or the boundless creative potential of games like Super Mario Maker. But it sits at the top of our Games of 2015 picks for one simple reason: it provides pure fun in the most original, instantly accessible, and deeply enduring form of any game of the year.

On paper, Rocket League shouldn’t work as well as it does; combining a driving game with soccer sounds like the kind of bad idea you’d get from a lazy game concept generator floating around the Web. Yet somehow, it works beautifully. Directing an RC-style cars to tap the large, floaty ball forces players to focus on every touch in a way that’s nearly impossible to simulate in a standard soccer video game. At the same time, the limitations of speed and maneuverability inherent in the vehicles force you to pay attention to individual positioning on the field, constantly planning ahead to cut off the ball's next bounce.