Welcome, 2021. Another year has come and gone, and as we roll 2020’s flaming dumpster down the hill into the pile of years that has come before, it’s as good a time as ever to reminisce upon the games that released throughout the mess that was 2020.

While delays were rampant, many games still managed to release, such as the Demon's Souls remake, a "definitive edition" of one of the biggest recent JRPGs in the form of Persona 5: Royal, new Animal Crossing, The Last of Us, Half-Life, Yakuza, and Assassin's Creed games, indie darling hits, like Hades, Spelunky 2, Spiritfarer, and so many more.

This previous year saw the release of a brand new console generation, with both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X|S. Those console launches also brought with them waves of scalping, to the chagrin of most gamers worldwide. But for the most part, the major titles this year came earlier in the year, releasing at the tail-end of the lifespan for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. And, of course, you can’t forget the Nintendo Switch, which exploded in popularity yet again with the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and spent the rest of the year quietly coasting along with sparse first-party releases here and there.

What wasn’t sparse, however, was the number of leaks that proliferated throughout 2020. From Watch_Dogs Legion’s source code leaking right on launch, to most of The Last of Us Part II’s story cutscenes being uploaded before the game was even publicly available—and of course, you can’t forget the insane Nintendo Gigaleaks—this year saw companies getting hacked and data being illegally distributed at a breakneck pace.

No matter what your thoughts on 2020 overall, it’s clear that it was a downright wild year, so we ask you, what video game-related event, be it a release, an event, or scandal, was your favorite of 2020?

And by the way--Happy New Year, GBAtemp!

 

[Deleted User]

Playing on my New 3DS XL USA has been a great source of fun throughout 2020; all the Nintendo titles available here and not on the Switch, from the 3DS' and NDS' expansive libraries to Injecting from a host of Emulators developed by the kind people that share their work on GBATemp and GitHub, have brought a little bit but much-welcomed rose-tinted Gaming nostalgia.

For that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and wish you the best in 2021.

 

[Bladexdsl]

luigis mansion and dq 11 DE and that's about it. 2020 was a garbage year for gaming!

 

[Deleted User]

Now that i have my full cognitive capacities, i'll say that indeed in all seriousness i'm loving operation Broken Fang, i had a lot of fun in Shattered Web, and been having a lot of fun doing BF missions, though unlike SW, i did not buy BF the day it came out, i'll wait for a price drop, good to see Valve has not forsaken us (though they still need to give us func_vehicle in csgo)

 

[BaamAlex]

I played nier automata for the first time. And this is besides immortals fenyx rising my favorite. I bought cyberpunk 2077 but paused it for now. Mario Kart Wii and immortals fenyx rising are more important for now

 

[MarkDarkness]

Hades was an unexpected boon. I knew it would be good. Just didn't know it would be this good.

 

[slaphappygamer]

I got a kick ass laptop for Christmas and I’ve been playing stranded deep on ultra settings. It looks and plays real nice.

 

[Paulsar99]

Probably buying a ps5. Can't wait on what this baby has to offer in 2021 and the upcoming years.

 

[raxadian]

Scalpers suck, Hades is great.

 

[RedoLane]

DOOM Eternal. That one game which not only became my GOTY, but also my newest favorite game of all time.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

I had a lot of fun with Warframe on Switch over the last 8 months or so. Great little time sink.

Also happy new year. I've finally sobered up for the night.

 

[mightymuffy]

A year of disappointments really!
Rogue Legacy 2 is unfinished: just isn't the same level of fun either (early access though, will reserve judgement)
Spelunky 2 missed the mark: just isn't the...ohh, deja vu..
Super Meat Boy Forever, just WTF were they thinking....(intros are quality though!)
FFVII Remake? I enjoyed it more on my 2nd playthrough, but it still missed the mark. Will reserve judgement until all 3(?) episodes are finished though.
Last of Us II? Well fuckin hell...I don't know where to start with that one..
At least I've not played Cyberpunk yet, the other big game I looked forward to, will leave that for this years disappointment list.

Good stuff though? Well while I don't think it's the best game ever, not even the best game in the series, my personal fave for 2020 was AC New Horizons: love how the way the whole family got behind it, all of us playing it on a near daily basis... took me back to the older days of the GC/Wii Animal Crossing times, or just family gaming in general: lads are now at Uni/College and 99% of the time are playing soddin Overwatch etc on their PCs..

Runner up would have to be the awesome fun/quick 5 minutes or so of Super Mario 35! I'm sure it's getting refreshed into something different by 31st March, probably making us pay for a 'DX' version of whatever that turns out to be, ala Tetris 99, but they can happily have my money for it!

Honorable mention: Puyo Puyo Tetris 2. More of the same really ...and I ain't complaining about that!

 

[Bedel]

Genshin impact was one of the best games of the last years.

 

[Lostbhoy]

2020? Mario 64 and GTA3 Wii U ports FTW!

I'm oldskool

 

[Subtle Demise]

Finally a properly translated global release for PSO2 is my favorite moment. My least favorite is the release of Cyberpunk 2077. One of those "don't meet your heroes" situations.

 

[DaFixer]

Hades and Street of Rage 4!

 

[lordelan]

It's the little things.
I loved that the devs of Children of Morta decided to donate their earnings from their DLC.
I was happy when I caught shiny Mewtwo and shiny Rayquaza in Pokémon Shield (still not happy with those games though).
And I was happy about the announcement of the Genki ShadowCast that enables you to use your notebook/MacBook as a screen for the Nintendo Switch so I backed it.

 

[Windaga]

My first successful run through Hades! I haven't had that much fun with a game in some time.

The first time I slowed down time and slid under a mantis enemy, then double jumped onto a sex shop roof and sliced the head off a target enemy in Cyberpunk was probably the most bad ass I felt as a player this year, too.

 

[Cyan]

2020 was a good year for me gamewise.
I completed around 20 games in 2020 !

Notable games I liked : Until daw, Heavy rain, Vampyr, the Syberia trilogy, call of cthulhu, sinking city, Diablo III, and last game I'm still playing Hollow knight for the first time (105% over 112%)!

Games I played but didn't complete :
Genshin impact : playing slowly, chapter 1-4
Spider-Man PS4 (70%)
Rime (android, not the console game) 99%. stuck on last puzzle.

Game I tried but didn't understand all the hype : Hades

What I wanted but still don't have :
The last of us 2
a PS5 !

 

[DarkCoffe64]

While I have a brain like swiss cheese, meaning I can't remember much if not at all, there be like... 3 moments that I'm mostly clear about:
Playing and ending up disappointed with Crash 4 with how full of padding and just garbage design plaguing it.
Recently finishing Pikmin 3 deluxe with a bud in co-op.
And playing what is surely my fave game of 2020, Mad Rat Dead. That game is effing amazing and I hate how basically no one knows about it and instead are all about cybercrap 2077 or some other triple ay shitty videogame.
Right now, this is all I can remember of 2020 game-wise. Mean moments related to me, at least.

 

[ov3rkill]

I finally got to play and finsih Final Fantasy VII Remake just before the year ended. It was an awesome ride, a lot of surprises in the ending and the story. I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel. I just hope I'm still alive by then.