Every website I’ve ever worked at, even the scrappy upstart freelance sites, have eventually been blanked. Vanished. All my work, gone. Deleted and unable to be retrieved. But since now I co-own this website, nobody gets to destroy my game of the year top ten lists but me!
For now, I have to re-do them from scratch, and I don’t care if the order isn’t the same as it was back in the day. This is 2025 me making these, not 2014 me! I’m sure there are things I forgot about, indies lost in the shuffle, honorable mentions not mentioned, but I’m only human. I’m just a mere mortal — a man dedicated to chronicling what I deem to be the best games of each chunk of twelve months.
You can read the first entry in this series here, from 2022-2024.
You can read the second entry in this series here, from 2019-2021.
You can read the third entry in this series here, from 2016-2018.
2015
Honorable Mentions: “Hand of Fate,” “Box Boy,” “Stretchmo,” “Batman: Arkham Knight” and “Tales from the Borderlands”
10. “Dying Light” — This game was so much more fun than it had any right to be. The sequel, spin-offs, and anything “Dead Island” related have not come close to the buffoonery you can pull off in “Dying Light.”
9. “Her Story” — This ushered in a new age of PC-exclusive detective games using fun or novel interfaces that then later got ported to iPads. But this one might still remain as the best.
8. “Rocket League” — The ultimate co-op and multiplayer game for our modern era. This is better than soccer — straight up. Everybody loves this game and I love every new mode they add. Pure sex.
7. “Hotline Miami 2” — Why they stopped making these games, I’ll never understand. The art style alone was worth it to keep this series going, but the soundtrack will live on forever. Banger after banger.
6. “Ori and the Blind Forest” — I think the sequel improved quite a lot on this one, but as far as Metroidvanias go, you won’t find a better one that prioritizes exploration over combat.
5. “Grow Home” — Robot climb tree. Robot climb plant. Robot fly. Robot jetpack. Robot make me smile.
4. “The Beginner’s Guide” — A beautiful, twisted, tortured personal tone essay made up of entirely bizarre Source engine rooms. It’s an unreliable narrator and impossible level design juxtaposed against a backdrop of a lost friendship (that might be made up) between two game devs. Mix in some SSRI meds for all the depression you’ll acquire playing this, and you get a one of a kind experience no one has been able to replicate. Mostly because nobody uses Gary’s Mod for anything except Skibidi Toilet now.
3. “Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” — The greatest stealth game ever made? Which is insane to type with my keyboard because I am the world’s biggest “Sly Cooper,” “Splinter Cell,” and “Dishonored” fanboy. But what Kojima and his team were able to pull off (story not included) is nothing short of perfect. If I ran a studio, I would rip off everything I could from this game except for the sexism. And the story. But keep everything else! A masterclass from start to finish.
2. “Bloodborne” — Some people say this is the best Soulslike, and I am okay with that opinion. It’s not a perfect game; farming for blood vials is just a shittier system compared to Estus flasks. The framerate hasn’t been updated in a decade. The load times are still bad. I still think it’s the hardest game From Software has ever made, and there are still some DLC bosses I haven’t beat because they’re pure bullshit. But there’s a reason this is people’s pick for all-time favorite game. It’s remarkable, and more memorable than 99% of all games released.
- “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” — This is the game of the generation once it was all said and done. The DLC expansions, the patches, the improvements, and impact on the industry were all just multiple cherries on top of an already delicious cake. A well-written, addicting, gorgeous, smart cake that happened to have “Gwent,” and that alone catapults this over the top of all other games in the PS4 era.
2014
Honorable Mentions: “Dark Souls 2,” “Captain Toad’s Treasure Tracker,” “The Vanishing of Ethan Carter,” “Hitman Go,” “Threes,” “2048,” “Far Cry 4,” “Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze,” “Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare,” “Wolfenstein: The New Order” and “Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor”
10. “South Park: The Stick of Truth” — This beat out SO many worthy games, but this is a breezy JRPG with a wicked script, no bloat, a hilarious story, and enough charm that it makes it past some stiff competition.
9. “Halo 2 Anniversary” — This launched as a complete mess which is why no one remembers how awesome the “Halo 2” campaign looks remastered. Still an all-timer, one that I have to show Grant in co-op some day.
8. “Sunset Overdrive” — What a fun, vibrant, exciting new direction for Insomniac to go in. Only for them to immediately NOT do that, never follow this up, forgo making new or interesting guns, and just make Marvel super hero games? “Sunset Overdrive” was such a delight. The fact that nobody bought this is a sin. The grinding, colors, music, humor; what the hell do people not see in this?
7. “Ultra Street Fighter IV” — Do I count this as its own game? Or is this just a DLC? Do I hold the character balance and rough hit boxes against this, or just appreciate the new stages and modes on top of the excellent fighter underneath? I played so much of this shit — you have no idea. Maybe the most amount of time I’ve ever spent playing games was this year because, if you add up “Binding of Isaac,” “Street Fighter IV,” and “Hearthstone,” you get approximately one fifth of my entire life span.
6. “Jazzpunk” — This is the funniest game ever made. I don’t care what you think — I think this is the thing that made me laugh the most. And that’s saying something because “South Park” is on this list too! It’s a bizarre avant-garde game of jokes, gags, bits, and things to poke until they make you chuckle. There’s nothing quite like it, and I love the ’60s spy aesthetic so much.
5. “The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth” — There’s two games on this list that I don’t know how to exactly categorize. Both this and “Street Fighter IV” underwent so many DLCs, re-releases, collections, and new names that one could count the original “Binding of Isaac” in its first art style as its own game, and then this as another completely separate one. But any way you slice it, this remains the greatest roguelike of all time. It’s just that disgusting, unique, addicting, and insanely replayable.
4. “P.T.” — This isn’t a real game! It was a playable demo that was taken down by the chumps running Konami, and this was supposed to be the next step in the horror genre. Guillermo del Toro has an entire career of failed projects that would trump most artists. This is still the scariest game ever made. Kojima, please make something that just rips this off with Norman Reedus and the same hallway over and over. Out of spite.
3. “Titanfall” — I think the multiplayer for “Titanfall” is better than the sequel. Obviously, this one had no campaign, but this game got me through grad school. It was the new FPS franchise that never took off. We never got what we deserved — Xbox fumbled the bag on their new Halo-quality IP, and this was supposed to be the evolution of “COD” on the Xbox One. But you assholes didn’t buy it and now we have no more “Titanfall” anything. A fucking battle royale spin-off overtook everything. We live in the worst timeline.
2. “Shovel Knight” — If any other outlet gave this GOTY, I would not only be okay with it, I would endorse it. This is a phenomenal platformer full of charm, wit, clever ideas, a bangin’ soundtrack, and it’s paced to perfection. Pogo hopping would become very en vogue after this; “Duck Tales” for the NES would be remastered, and then the “Hollow Knight” games would bring the mechanic back. “Shovel Knight” fucking rocks so hard.
- “Hearthstone” — I still play “Hearthstone” every single day. It’s the CCG that resuscitated the genre, and created the template for all other card games in the modern age. The bones of its gameplay and aesthetics are so polished and well thought out that millions are still on the hook for new expansions and card releases. One of my favorite games of all time, and the game I’ve spent the most amount of time playing. It’s my “WoW,” which is funny because it’s based on “Warcraft” and I don’t know a single thing about that lore still.
Image Credit: CD Projekt Red
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