The doors have been opened, the games inside have been devoured, and now it’s time to recycle the cardboard. Below you’ll find all of our picks for the best PC games of 2018, gathered together in a single post for easy reading.
I realise, at the end of 2018, that I ve spent much of the year digging back over games released in 2017 and earlier. That s in part because I ve been subject to the demands of evil overlord Graham, but also because I ve been trapped in the gravity well of monster timesinks like Destiny 2 and Divinity 2. When I did reach escape velocity, I cherished my time in the kind of small-and-perfectly-formed games that 2018 did so well: Dead Cells, Celeste, The Banner Saga 3. All of which get honourable mentions in my list, but get beaten out by (more…)
Videogames are full of many things: Guns, knives, ventilation shafts, castle sewers and mushrooms you can jump on. More than anything, they're full of words. Words that tell you where to go and what to do, words that create characters and drama, words that bring wholly imagined worlds into being. To celebrate the best words in videogames this year, I decided to turn to the people who write them. I asked a whole bunch of videogame writers to tell me about their favorite story this year, and to also pick out a particular bit of writing to highlight: a singular story moment, or dialogue, or bit of flavor text that suck with them long after the game was over.
Here's what they had to say. For more on the best writing in games this year, check out our Best Story GOTY award for The Red Strings Club and our feature on the brilliant localization of Dragon Quest 11.
Best writing: I'm going to cheat a bit and talk about a game I helped write: Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. In the interest of objectivity, I'm not bringing up any of my contributions.
So we have these characters called "sidekicks." They're companions you pick up along the way who don't get the full "companion treatment" of personal quests, deeper relationships, or emotional arcs. That said, sidekicks are more than just fighting mannequins—they get their own unique voices, personalities, and in some cases intellectual growth. My colleague Kate Dollarhyde wrote the sidekick Rekke, who the player discovers shipwrecked, having sailed from a distant land. He speaks Seki, a mysterious language Kate painstakingly invented, and over time Rekke learns to communicate with the player and share his story.
What I think works about Rekke is that his origins are so far removed from the context of the game that he approaches the plot as a stranger squinting at the unusual locals. While all of the other characters bicker over political alliances, cultural struggle, and religious tension, it's refreshing to have Rekke observing from the sidelines and taking it all in with a sense of lighthearted bemusement. He's a breath of fresh air when intrigue and annihilation get a little too overwhelming. It also helps that he's perfectly charming. — Paul Kirsch
Best writing: Hands-down, it's the "Nemnok the Destroyer" quest from Pillars of Eternity 2. You're trying to rescue this kid from a cult whose members worship this giant demon, Nemnok—and, frankly, Nemnok's kind of a dick. Turns out he's just an imp with a giant ego under a giant-making spell, and once you defeat him you can take him along with you as a loud-mouthed pet for the rest of your playthrough.
I don't know if I would have enjoyed the rest of the game half as much without Nemnok shouting put-downs with poor grammar at me from my pocket (and occasionally trying to pick up my crewmates). He's an adorable little asshole and I would die for him. Sometimes when I'm sitting at home I'll find myself quietly chanting "Nem-nok! Nem-nok! Nem-nok!" I think... I think I'm part of his cult? — Sam Maggs
Best writing: This year I greatly enjoyed playing The Red Strings Club, a cyberpunk noir adventure game revolving around brain implants that can alter your mood, morality and sense of self. I feel that these kinds of games often disappoint when it comes to asking the hard questions about free will, identity, personal politics, and what doing the right thing is, in a context where everyone is manipulated at one degree or another. But "Red Strings Club" didn’t shy away, and includes many thoughtful dialogues where there is no right or wrong answer.
One dialogue in particular stuck with me: if you could alter everyone’s mind, of course you wouldn’t do it; you'd know it’s wrong. But what if you could at least prevent people from committing suicide? What if you could prevent depression, or say, racism, without changing anything else in people’s personalities? Would you do it? This branching dialogue with a clever, non-judging AI was so well crafted and interesting, it turned the whole game into some kind of philosophical experiment that had me think really hard—and reloading a saved game many times. — Sachka Duval
Favorite story: A friend of mine who was a history student once explained to me how he was using old insurance papers and last wills to figure out how common people were living a couple of centuries ago. Just a list of personal items could reveal many secrets, even though he knew that it was barely a shadow of what these men and women were really like. I thought of that conversation again while reaching the ending of The Return of the Obra Dinn. The player is an insurance inspector, and after investigating the fantastic events that happened to the crew on that doomed ship, which involve all sorts of otherworldly creatures and gruesome deaths, she simply files a report: a list of names, causes of death, brief accolades and the estimated value of their personal possessions. The rest, as unique as it was, will be forgotten.
I loved how each individual story is mostly left to the imagination, and in the end only amounts to an insurance assessment. But the player has seen what was hidden underneath those few lines and numbers—the bravery, passion, treachery, cowardice, love... That’s the beauty of it: the mundanity which remains as sole testimony of the turmoil of life. Interestingly this was also true of Lucas Pope’s Papers Please, where entire lives and fates were contained in a few ID papers, for the player to judge. In both games I saw a bittersweet homage to the multitude of fleeting anonymous stories that is humankind. — Sachka Duval
Favorite story: While its story is just getting started, Deltrarune, the surprise follow-up to 2015’s Undertale, is probably the one that struck me the most of all the PC games I played this year. Creator Toby Fox has a unique knack for tone-setting, and a quirky, confident personal style that won me over in Undertale, especially as I approached its spectacular finale. Deltarune carries that spirit forward in an unmistakable way. It starts off even stronger than Undertale did, deftly introducing a humorous and heartfelt cast of characters I want to learn more about whenever the rest of the game unfolds. The highlight is Susie, a big, scruffy, scary misunderstood loner/bully who won me over almost instantly.
Undertale was a wonderfully unique game, and from what I played of Deltarune, it looks as though Toby Fox and his collaborators are well on their way to creating a worth successor with lots more surprises in store. I would say ‘I can’t wait', but it’s really the opposite—I can and will. I’m happy to wait as long as it takes for something like this to be fully realized. — Greg Kasavin
Best writing: A bit of writing that most stood out to me in a PC game this year comes from Into the Breach, the outstanding and elegantly crafted turn-based strategy game from the creators of FTL: Faster Than Light. Into the Breach presents a grand conflict on a very small-looking scale; using little grid-based battlefields, the game expects you to believe that the entire world is under siege by an alien menace. And it’s completely convincing at this, thanks partly to little snippets of dialogue attributed to the buildings your squad of mechs is charged with protecting.
My favorite, most efficient little bit of this type of writing in the game is a two-word sentence: “Dad, look!"
I just love everything about this when it appears in the context of the game. You see it pop up from time to time near a tiny little pixel building. Then, all of a sudden, you are reminded it’s a building full of innocent people you have to protect, who are putting all their faith in you. They give the game an emotional weight and a sense of place to accompany its terrific design. For me, these snippets of flavor text from Into the Breach did a ton of work in making the conflict in the game feel more real and personal. — Greg Kasavin
Favorite story: I’m going to highlight Star Control: Origins, because while I definitely have issues with some of the mechanics, the script is wonderful. Star Control 2 is a tough game to live up to, with some of the best and most memorable aliens in the business. Just look at Star Control 3. But Origins pulls it off, whether by punishing you for running out of fuel by making you listen to Star Trek fan-fiction, or the increasing frustration of Earth as you keep bringing interstellar weirdos back home.
There are better stories in terms of overall plot and twists and all that jazz, but I can’t think of a game I smiled and laughed as much at in 2018 and damn it, that’s worthy of a mention in my book. — Richard Cobbett
Best writing: I’m cheating a bit because technically I played it before this year, but I’m not about to give up a chance to spread the word of Yakuza. I adore this series, and Yakuza 0 is arguably the best of it. In particular, I want to highlight the localisation team. It’s often overlooked, but you play games like this or Phoenix Wright or the Mario RPGs and the contribution of localisation can’t be overstated. Yakuza is a masterpiece of the form, balancing the gritty crime story at its core and the utter insanity of all the side-quests around it, while leaning into the cultural side of its twin cities, Kamurocho and Sotonboi, in a way that feels both like visiting a foreign country and being completely at home.
That said, weirdly, the big moment that springs to mind isn’t one of the big dramatic showdowns, or jokey encounter for series lead Kiryu and newly playable Majima to play the ultimate straight-men against, but a single line in a quest to—no kidding—buy porn for a curious child, despite being so embarrassed that avoiding the eyes of people in the area immediately turns it into a stealth mission. "Begin your dubious quest!" it declares. If only all RPGs were so honest. — Richard Cobbett
Favorite story, Spider-Man: I can say this because I only worked on the DLC, but it has to be the Spider-Man PS4 golden path. Not only did the team manage to craft a story that felt like you were playing through a Marvel movie, but the characters and their stories also hit me in the feels in a way that few super hero films ever have. Focusing on an adult Peter and his relationships—with MJ, with his aunt, with Otto, with his own powers—connected me to Spider-Man on a real, (super) human level. They absolutely knocked it out of the park. — Sam Maggs
Favorite story, Spider-Man: My favorite game of the year, hands down, was Insomniac’s Spider-Man. Not because of the sensational score, ultimate cast, or spectacular swinging, but because of Peter Parker and his amazing friends. It’s the rare triple-A game that understands a protagonist is more than just a cool set of powers. Insomniac understands that radioactive blood might make you a hero, but it’s the people in your life that make you super.
By opening the gameplay to multiple characters, including Miles Morale and Mary Jane Watson, Insomniac showed us the heart of Spider-Man. Not only that, they allowed us to see the villains as three-dimensional characters capable of good, but unable to overcome their darker natures. But most importantly, it allowed me to sweep up garbage at a homeless shelter. The game didn’t tell me to, nor did it reward me—not even so much as a Trophy. It just let me do it, because that’s what Peter Parker would do. — Walt Williams
Favorite story, God of War: Full disclosure, I worked with Richard Gaubert on a game at Sony that was cancelled. So we're friends. I know he's a father and how important that is to him and how that influenced his writing of God of War.
I don’t always play the latest games when they come out. I sometimes don’t get to them until a year after they’ve been released. I haven’t played Red Dead Redemption 2 yet and I was a huge fan of the first, but in terms of the newer games I’ve played this year, I thought God of War had a wonderful narrative. The dialogue is sharp and emotional and the voice acting is fantastic. Kratos and his son, Atreus, have a touching and troubled and realistic relationship. Kratos lost his wife and Atreus, his mother, and she was their primary connection. With her gone, they now have to forge a new kind of relationship. Atreus wants his father’s love and support, but fears him and doesn’t understand him as he was never around much.
Kratos is not one to express his feelings and the emotional armor he wears to protect himself creates the conflict that fuels so much of their relationship. Richard Gaubert, Matt Sophos, and Cory Barlog did a great job of creating characters the player can connect with and a deep and believable father and son relationship. It’s always better if gameplay can mirror the emotional and narrative aspects of the story and in God of War that’s exactly what they did. Father and son must work together to succeed and for that to happen, they must come together. I’m a sucker for father and son stories. (I loved Field of Dreams.) So God of War really connected with me.
I don’t want to spoil anything, so I will be as vague as I can be about my favorite moment. (But this is a minor spoiler.)When Atreus falls ill, the pain and fear Kratos feels is palpable and what he must do to save him is epic and emotional. I believe the number one job of a game writer is to create an emotional context that drives the game play. You have to make the player care and God of War made me care. — Haris Orkin
Having already reached number four in our Top 100 list earlier this year, we're delighted to name Subset Games' Into The Breach our Ultimate Game of the Year for 2018, joining past winners like Divinity: Original Sin 2, Dishonored 2, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, and Alien: Isolation. Check out the now-completed list of GOTY awards and personal picks.
Tom: Into The Breach shows that you can create tactical intrigue without force-feeding the player a 100-page manual. This game gives you an eight-by-eight grid, a few enemy types, and squads of cool mechs with different attacks and… that’s it. It even tells you exactly what’s going to happen next turn, and it’s still a fascinating tactics game that you can enjoy in snackable short sessions. It’s elegantly designed and accessible enough to appeal to people that might not think of themselves as strategy gamers. Battles feel like emergent puzzles rather than serious tests of martial skill, but it’s still quite hard, particularly when parts of the arena start flooding, or collapsing away completely.
Evan: When you unlock a new set of mechs it feels like ripping open a new set of Pacific Rim action figures, a trio of robots that form a unique fighting style. The Flame Behemoths torch everything. The Rusting Hulks use smoke to disable enemies. The Steel Judoka are all about setting up sweet suplex combos. And upgrading these bots almost always feels like a tough choice between survivability or movement, between attack power and utility. Into the Breach's dedication to less-is-more design makes this possible.
Samuel: Like FTL, it's a perfect modern form of strategy game that's engaging and easy to pick up without being too complicated. Plus you can play it in tiny chunks. One of Into The Breach's strengths over FTL is how difficulty scales: easy is a steady way to enjoy the game and get used to its systems, while normal is tough moment-to-moment but well-balanced. Each set of mechs is like playing an entirely different game—and the sense of discovery that comes with working out how their various abilities fit together to dismantle a Vek assault in a single turn feels like magic. The path to unlocking them all gives players a generous amount of game to dig into.
Then there's the touch of letting you abandon a timeline in the event that the Vek wins—which will happen a lot. Not only does it give you a sense of continuity between playthroughs, letting you keep some form of progress, it also underlines what a hopeless, unending battle it is that your little mech dudes face. The little bits of narrative here or there do enough to bring the world to life without ever wasting a second of your time.
Then there's the variety provided by the game's different islands: airstrikes, trains you have to defend, evil AI battlebots, temporary allied units, being able to dump acid on enemies, blowing up mountains to stop the Vek reproducing. There's so much here to keep things surprising.
Wes: One of Into the Breach's small, brilliant decisions was putting the focus of each mission on saving civilians, rather than your own mechs. It has me doing scary math every turn: should I put one of my units in the line of fire to take a hit? If they die, losing some of the special abilities they've accrued by leveling up, is that worth the trade-off of protecting the precious energy meter? A single civilian loss can feel devastating, but this framing sets the tone for the whole game. It's about surviving, not killing 'em all, and lasting long enough for the Vek to retreat had me pumping my fists like it was a massive victory.
I also appreciate that almost everything in Into the Breach feels finely calculated and deliberately un-random, except for the grid defense stat. In most runs that number's going to stay low, maybe 20 percent, meaning you have just a one in five chance of a building deflecting damage that should've destroyed it. But when that happens—when the clouds part and the god of RNG bathes you in a pure, protective light—euphoria.
When it happens twice in a row when you're facing certain ruin? Post-euphoria. Is that a thing? Whatever's better than euphoria. Game of the year.
Phil: That you can see exactly what your enemy is going to do before they take their turn is everything. There are no surprises, just precise, accurate information detailing exactly how screwed you currently are. It's great if you can finish a turn without any buildings being destroyed, but it's rarely enough. You also have to avoid taking too much damage yourself and, if you ever want to upgrade your squad, complete a bonus objective too. But, because you know how and where your enemy is going to attack, you have a chance to turn things to your advantage. To push a bug here into the path of another enemy's attack. To deliberately take damage in order to save a valuable building. To not kill an enemy, but instead move them in such a way that they'll block reinforcements on the next turn. Into the Breach is constantly putting you in impossible seeming situations, but also gives you the time, information and tools to think your way back out.
Check out Alex Wiltshire's original 93%-scored review.
My 2018 in games had me dealing with failure in multiple ways. Designed to move further and further away from the fantasy of the all-powerful player ever looking for an appropriate challenge, these games teach to forgive and accept forgiving someone a past hurt, accepting the lack of a perfect solution to a problem. From the satisfyingly familiar to a type of game I would usually avoid, 2018 had it all. (more…)
I ve spent 2018 particularly distracted, flitting between games and feeling guilty that I haven t quite finished them or spent the time they deserved. Maybe it s because there have been so many good games? Or maybe I m just awful. Either way, I resolve to take better care next year.
Now I look back, I realise that I ve particularly enjoyed a series of games which gave me space to explore them on my own terms. Whether on the scale of giant monsters or the confined scale of the decks of a ship, they ve all felt expansive and generous, and respectful of me as a player.
Also, it s always hard to figure out a five, so shoutouts to Forza Horizon 4, Donut County, Far: Lone Sails and Total War: Warhammer 2 s pirate vampires.
It s well known that games are an awful mistake that should have never been unleashed on an unsuspecting humanity. That said, here s five that hushed the howling primates that reside in my skull just long enough for me to consider them a worthwhile investment.
Honorable mentions go to Cultist Simulator (For it s alchemical harmony of theme and mechanics), Vermintide 2 (for being the second best Lord of the Rings game ever made) and Prey: Mooncrash (For being more Prey). Not in order of goodness: (more…)
Magnificent monster-mashing mecha strategy game Into The Breach has added controller support, so you can now save the world while slouching on the couch. It’s a rare PC strategy game that’s suited for controllers, but Breach seems a fine candidate. Our Alec was excited when Into The Breach added touchscreen support earlier this year, say this was its “first step into ultimate perfection becoming a game I can play while lying down.” Now, for those of us without fancy touchscreen laptops, here’s controller support.
The sublime strategy game Into the Breach got a little better today with a small but important update that adds full controller support to the game.
The update means that Into the Breach will work properly, and natively, with any Steam-supported controller. Hookup is easy: Just plug your controller in while the game is running, then mash a button and it will switch to controller mode.
There is one minor catch: If you've been using a controller already via a custom Steam Controller config, you'll have to manually set the controller configuration back to "gamepad," or else it might not be properly recognized. Details, such as they are (that's really the whole thing—if you want to use a controller, just plug it in), are on Steam.
