The real reason that FFXIV makes my top 10, though, is that it’s been key to reconfiguring my leisure habits. Dungeons and big boss encounters have increased in mechanical complexity, offering something to focus on besides just playing my class well. As the writing becomes sharper and the animation strikingly communicative, what were barely character sketches turn into detailed and evocative portraits. It’s not a journey I can recommend (at least not yet), but it’s been fascinating to watch as the developers find their footing along the way. The music, thankfully, was good from the jump.ġ60 hours and one expansion later, the music still slaps, and I’ve found more to love in Eorzea.

Instead, I found a hollow estimation of what made me originally love the franchise, with characters that grated my nerve, boilerplate MMO combat, and a marathon-length, sprint-quality story. But all of the things they told me to expect-fantastic characters, dramatic boss battles, worldbuilding that took politics seriously-were absent. I was brought to the game by friends who were enamored by the latest expansion, Shadowbringers. Those who have listened to me catalogue my time with FFXIV over on Waypoint Radio for the last few months know that it has been a trying time. What can you do, besides write the most honest, hypocritical list you can? There’s one game on here I mostly played in 2018, and one that I first played (all the way through!) in 2013. I’ve removed multiple games I’ve really enjoyed ( Remnant: From the Ashes, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Cube World)) for things I’m deeply conflicted about. It starts with a game I’ve spent dozens of hours hating and ends with something I love in a way I struggle to communicate. Except in this one way: This list is a fucking mess. However much it might have been fun to opine about The State of Games, the truth is that (barring some rhetorical acrobatics) my favorite games of 2019 don’t have much to say about the decade that preceded them. Be embarrassed to include your guilty pleasure if you have to, but do it, and do the work of trying to untangle why it’s jammed itself into your psyche. And top 10 lists are the place where critics ought feel the most self-indulgent and honest.

These are sentences begging to be written, but which mean little to me emotionally. A half dozen sentences and phrases just like it followed: “The dominance of games-as-service has never been more clear.” “…one positive: the slow normalization of crossplay.” “After XCOM, the tactics genre found an audience intrigued but cautious.” “What started as a way to draw new monthly subscribers has become a model for the future” “ More games doesn’t necessarily mean better games, and yet…” “It’s been a decade of roguelikes,” I wrote. But when I sat down to write this list of my favorite games of the year, I could feel the pull of this sense-making logic seeping into my words. 3650 days is a lot of days, and if my brain wants to filter down the noise of years the same way it transforms raw, overwhelming sensation into something usable, more power to it.

Outer wilds ending