Are We Looking at One of the Best Gaming Years in Recent Memory?

When Fallout 4 dropped in the waning months of the year, I remember thinking, my gawd, 2015 might be one of the best video gaming years that I could remember in my adult life. Even as Fallout obliterated relationships, employment attendances and porn traffic, the game was so heralded with so many individual testimonies of crazy shit happening in the game, it was hard to imagine that not only was it possible for the game to be Game of the Year, but was barely in the discussion for some sites and critics. This was, Fallout, after all. The seemingly final form of one of the most beloved gaming franchises in history and yet, this was the kind of year it had been in gaming. The kind of year, where no matter how hardcore a gamer you were, it was possible that you didn’t even play a game yet that someone else considered the best game of the year. Starting the year off with Saint’s Row IV and Dying Light (opposite sides of the quality gaming coin for diversity sake). But the year included some games that were not only the best of that year, but the best of the last several years like Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Bloodbourne, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Batman Arkham Knight, Halo 5: Guardians, Mortal Kombat X and my personal Game of The Year, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. 2015 was FLAMES. But 2017 doe? 2017, said game recognize game and 2015 lookin’ mad familiar. Of course, any prediction for how great the gaming year can be is based on speculation and even 2015 fell prey to some ex…