The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. What more needs to be said about 2017? Honestly, not much.
Not only did Nintendo rebuild one of their marquee franchises into something even bigger than before, but they also launched a brand new console/handheld hybrid, delivered the biggest Mario game in more than a decade, and updated Mario Kart 8 with an actual Battle Mode. Not a bad run for a company that struggled in recent years with the Wii U.
But it was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that took home the most “Game of the Year” accolades in 2017, leaving the rest of the field fighting for scraps. Nintendo’s Super Mario Odyssey was a popular choice for publications that didn’t have Hyrule on their itinerary, as was Atlus’s Persona 5.
You can see more of last year’s “Game of the Year” contenders in the 2017 GOTY Scoreboard after the break.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
★ DICE Awards
★ The Game Awards
★ GDC Awards
★ SXSW Gaming Awards
★ Critical Hit
★ Destructoid
★ Digital Trends
★ Easy Allies
★ EGM
★ Entertainment Weekly
★ Eurogamer
★ Forbes
★ Game Informer
★ Games Radar
★ GamesBeat
★ GameSpew
★ GameSpot
★ Gaming Age
★ Gaming Bolt
★ Golden Joystick Awards
★ The Guardian
★ IGN
★ Kinda Funny
★ Maxim
★ Metacritic
★ Nerdist
★ New York Game Awards
★ Paste Magazine
★ Polygon
★ Screen Rant
★ Shacknews
★ TheSixthAxis
★ Stuff.tv
★ Time
★ Twinfinite
★ USgamer
★ Vulture
★ Destructoid
★ Eurogamer
★ Game Informer
★ Golden Joystick Awards
★ IGN
What Remains of Edith Finch
Dead Cells
★ Rock Paper Shotgun (Best PC Games)
Nier: Automata
Persona 5
★ DualShockers
★ GameRevolution
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
Super Mario Odyssey
★ Ars Technica
★ COGconnected
★ ComicBook.com
★ Cubed3
★ DarkZero
★ Empire
Unranked Lists
And there were plenty of other great games from 2017 that might not have earned “Game of the Year” honors, but did appear further down at least one list…
- ★ Arms (#6 at Eurogamer)
- ★ Assassin’s Creed Origins (#12 at Empire)
- ★ Cuphead (#2 at EGM)
- ★ Destiny 2 (#10 at Time)
- ★ Divinity: Original Sin II (#4 at GameRevolution)
- ★ Friday the 13th (#14 at Games Radar)
- ★ Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (#4 at Shacknews)
- ★ Hollow Knight (#20 at DarkZero)
- ★ Horizon: Zero Dawn (#2 at EGM)
- ★ Injustice 2 (#20 at Screen Rant)
- ★ Little Nightmares (#20 at Games Radar)
- ★ Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (#5 at Eurogamer)
- ★ Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (#18 at Gaming Age)
- ★ Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (#8 at Entertainment Weekly)
- ★ Night in the Woods (#4 at Paste Magazine)
- ★ Prey (#7 at Polygon)
- ★ Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (#5 at Polygon)
- ★ Sonic Mania (#7 at ComicBook.com)
- ★ Splatoon 2 (#12 at Maxim)
- ★ Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (#16 at Slant Magazine)
- ★ Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (#7 at USgamer)
- ★ Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (#11 at Gaming Bolt)
- ★ Yakuza 0 (#7 at Ars Technica)
This obviously isn’t every “Game of the Year” list from 2017 (more links will be added as I find them), but it feels like a fairly representative sample of the overall critical reaction from the past year.