William Schwartz
While the Rogue like genre may be getting a little crowded, there's certainly room for the likes of Enter the Gungeon. It ticks all the boxes, with gameplay that beckons you to come back for one more run, a great art style and presentation, and seemingly something new discover or unlock on every playthrough.
Perhaps the true definitive version of Ori and the Blind Forest assuming you can get it running at 4K. Even if you can't and you haven't played it yet, it's still one of the very best platformers of the last few years with a stunning art style, incredible score, and emotional storyline.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is one of the few PS4 exclusives that lives up to the "Greatness Awaits" slogan. There's a special element to games from Naughty Dog that deliver the type of single player experiences that can stand on their own, offering the perfect blend of story telling, visuals, and gameplay -- everything else I just consider a bonus.
DOOM is 2/3 really good and 1/3 really mediocre. The single player campaign is an absolute blast and if you like the shooting action from that you can get all you can eat via Snap Map. DOOM competitive multiplayer is really unfortunate, however.
Total War: Warhammer is the most interesting, most polished, and most enjoyable Total War game to date. Depending on which camp you come from you may have a slight learning curve, but its definitely worth it as this game has plenty to sink your teeth into if you're a fan of strategy, high-fantasy, or both.
Mirror's Edge: Catalyst rarely, if ever, makes as memorable an impression as its predecessor did. While it tries incredibly hard to do so, and succeeds in terms of world building and story development, it's all at the sake of nearly every other facet that players of the original may have held near and dear.
Firaxis has saved the best for last with the Shen's Last Gift DLC. A narrative-driven mission that culminates with adding a brand new mechanized squad member to your XCOM team is far more than anything we've seen from previous DLC releases.
One of the most anticipated games of the year, No Man's Sky is somewhat of a letdown. While it certainly puts its best foot forward with a beautiful audio and visual presentation, to put it bluntly, it's boring. Ambitious as the universe that's been created by Hello Games is, what lies within is a middling survival/crafting game.
Madden NFL 17 certainly isn't a release for the series that introduces sweeping changes for the annual franchise. Smart tweaks to familiar modes, a slew of accesibility features, and a presentation that continues to impress, it's hard to knock this year's package for what it contains. NFL 17 builds off of the base that we've seen established over the last couple of years, for better or worse.
This Xbox One version of the Witness stands shoulder to should with its PC and PlayStation 4 counterparts, delivering the same content we saw in those releases with a comparable visual fidelity.
While there's not much in terms of new content here, Bioshock: The Collection is a must-own for fans of the series, and a must-play for those that have yet to do so.
One of the very best looking and playing sports games on the market today, NBA 2K17 continues to take from the "Free to Play" handbook in some of its best modes. Funnelling players towards microtransactions at every opportunity take away some of the fun, but not all.
Rise of Iron isn't quite the game changer that the Taken King was last year, but it continues to build on the work-in-progress experience that Destiny has become. Looking at it peice by piece it's very easy to discount certain aspects of Destiny, but as a whole there isn't a better or more robust game that ties together single player, cooperative, and competitive multiplayer gameplay the way that Bungie has.
If you can sacrifice an unlocked framerate for the locked 30fps option, Forza Horizon 3 is one of the very best looking racing games on PC to date and quite possibly a glimpse of what console players can expect from Microsoft's next console.
Gears of War 4 is exactly what you've come to expect a Gears of War game to be over the years -- an impressive visual showcase in the campaign, with the accompanying competitive and cooperative modes to keep you busy long after the credits roll. Its good to finally see a new Gears of War game on the Xbox One. The wait has been long for Gears of War 4, and now we've seen that the wait has been worth it.
While the downloadable content is about seven months overdue, and the patches to fix online performance even longer, Mortal Kombat X for PC is better than its even been with the release of Mortal Kombat XL.
Shadow Warrior 2 is a worthy successor to the 2013 reboot. Flying Wild Hog obviously put more work into some of the gameplay systems for the game, while keeping the original's great combat system and charm. If you're up for some bloody fast-paced first person combat, this ultimate power trip won't disappoint.
A shift to shorter, more intimate stories alongside the impressive visual and audio presentation make Battlefield 1 one of the more enjoyable single player shooters from DICE in quite some time. While multiplayer is far less ambitious than we've seen in years prior, it still scratches that itch for Battlefield fans who crave the chaos and cooperation that only this series can deliver.
Brillance in simplicity, SuperHyperCube is one of the better launch titles for the PlayStation VR headset due to its impressive presentation and compelling score attack gameplay.
From Software plays to its strengths with Dark Souls 3: Ashes of Ariandel giving players more difficult content to progress through in a big new area to explore. While a little light on big boss fights, the new multiplayer Arena mode has the potential to keep the fun going long after players have mastered and discovered all the new secrets and items this content has to offer.