Is Civilization VI Your "Game of the Year" for 2016 so far?

[Uberfrog]

Of that list, I've only played three games! I'm not much for buying new games these days, and aside from these I spent most of this year on Team Fortress 2 (which I return to perennially) and Dragon Age Inquisition.

So while Civ VI is a ton of fun, it needs a little bit of work before it's close to edging out my personal GOTY Overwatch. Despite being completely different games the one thing that is striking between them is the level of polish. The various interacting mechanics of OW have clearly had eons of careful balancing put into them, even on release, and the UI and visual clarity of the game is astonishing. That's not to say there haven't been issues and tweaks since then but Blizzard have been very good at communicating with their audience about them.

In contrast, the myriad issues with balance, UI and AI in Civ VI show a game that was released too soon. I'm really enjoying it and the new mechanics are great, but the level of polish doesn't compare. I have every faith that Firaxis will improve it over time, but there's no real competition as to which is my GOTY.

(The other game, if you're wondering, is Pokémon Go. It's a fun diversion on a walk for a few times, but the grinding mechanics are extremely tedious and shallow, and I find there's very little incentive to the flailing combat system...)

 

[UponATime]

Seeing Blood & Wine as its own game of the year contender says a lot about CDPR and the videogame industry as a whole. Voted for it in any case, nothing came even close to the fun I've had playing this expansion this year.

Civ 6 is good, don't get me wrong. I'm enjoying it, but it's definitely not GOTY material as of right now.
Hopefully 2017 brings a lot of patches/expansions to it! It has great potential.

 

[Deaga]

Certainly not, given the absolutely sorry state of the AI as of now. It's still very fun to play, but not "best game of the year" material by a longshot.
Maybe it can be my 2017 GOTY if we have some nice patches by then.

 

[Fabiano1979]

Civ Vi has too many bugs and other issues, I cant see them being fixed until the end of the year...so, no goty for you Civ..

My guess is that most GOTY awards will be to WOW Legion, every one is praising it.

 

[DutchJob]

I feel blessed with having the choice to either play Civ6 or HoI4.

 

[Zuizgond]

Grim Dawn for me. Fantastic game and it was released as a finished product.

Grim Dawn for me too!

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Civ 6 is still too rough, and I doubt it will get enough patches this year. Civ 4 and 5 only got sufficiently patched by spring the year after release, but seeing as 6 is actually in pretty good shape for a new Firaxis release, there's still a chance.
Right now Xcom 2 is leading, but that might change next week with Doshonored 2.

I hear Mankind Divided is excellent, but it has too much DLC/Microtransaction chicanery for my taste, so I'm waiting for the GOTY edition, ironically.

 

[sanchopanda]

Voted "Other". It's WoW Legion. An acceptable amount of bugs/issues, a really smooth release and an overwhelming amount of content. Moreover they kept their word about the patch cycle and released a big content patch shortly after release.

I like Civ 6 but quit due to frustration. I still have hope but there no chance that they will fix the major issues this year. Maybe early spring.

 

[Zaarin]

Deponia Doomsday is my game of the year. Unless releasing an episode counts, in which case Kentucky Route Zero will be my favorite game of the year every year it releases an episode. Civ6 is a pretty good contender for number three, though, depending on how Silence turns out. Sadly, I probably won't get to experience Tyranny this year; if it's as good as Pillars of Eternity it would probably be another top 5 contender for me.

You know what will not be game of the year? Skyrim Remastered! Same soulless empty game, but graphics almost as shiny as four year old mods! Bethesda is totally turning into EA Lite.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Civ 6 is the only game I bought this year. So, yes?

 

[Xur]

Asking in a civ6 forum renders the vote useless...

Anyway... civ6 is probably the biggest disappointment so far. I really thought Firaxis had learned not to screw up a launch like previous games - they even hinted at that with a more "complete" game that doesn't require 2 expansions to be good. Firaxis ended up with a lot of features in civ6, but it feels like it ended up being quantity > quality because religion seems very shallow and almost useless unless you wanna go for religious victory. The user interface isn't even done at launch - amazing how that can even happen. There's a "sleep/sentry" option for keybinding but it doesn't work... and there's about 100 more things about the UI that is broken.

All in all, I am NEVER gonna buy a Firaxis game again on launch - I really thought it was different this time, but nooo.... I really can't understand why they didn't just push the release to christmas and then get the last UI and polish in... oh and workshop too...

 

[Zuizgond]

Firaxis ended up with a lot of features in civ6, but it feels like it ended up being quantity > quality because religion seems very shallow and almost useless unless you wanna go for religious victory.

Culture victory looks also very shallow.

Oh and the spying mechanics...

 

[Mesix]

I am really enjoying Offworld Trading Company at the moment. It was designed by Civ4's Soren Johnson. It is an indi title, so not really a contender for GOTY, but really a solid game IMHO.

The Master of Orion reboot was also a well done game. Very polished, leading to a lot of "one more turn" addiction. It brought back more than a little nostalgia, but was also easy for a first timer (like my son) to get into.

 

[Gordon Brittas]

Absolutely not. If they sort the graphics out, I could change my mind.

 

[Zaarin]

It is an indi title, so not really a contender for GOTY

Only in the sense that most game award shows, like most award shows in general, are incestuous politically-motivated lovefests. In my personal experience, AAA titles tend to be mediocre, while indie titles represent both the best and the worst of the market. Which means that, in a fair world, an indie title would almost always win game of the year. But the world is not fair, and sadly indie titles rarely get the credit they deserve.

(Offworld Trading Company is pretty good, though I think it loses its charm after a few games. The best thing it has going for it is the soundtrack, which, while not Tin's best work, is quite nice.)

 

[manu-fan]

Yes, it definitely is for me. Within the first 20 hours of Civ BE, I'd gone back to playing Civ 5. No such reaction to Civ 6. Civ 6 is really great.

 

[StittsvileJamie]

I'm probably biased because this is the only game I've bought in 2 years.

Game of the years for me!

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

By the way, I didn't mean to snub Uncharted 4. I meant to included it in the poll, but it slipped my mind at the last moment. I haven't played it, but it's getting a lot of Game of the Year buzz from the sites I'm familiar with, along with The Witness and Inside.

 

[Disgustipated]

Haven't played any of those games yet (Blood and Wine is an Expansion btw, but I haven't gotten around to playing it yet), so by default Civ 6 is the winner. In terms of hours played, it's hands down the game I played most this year.

WOW Legion, every one is praising it.

While I like World of Warcraft, I haven't gotten around to playing this one yet either. It's just such a time consuming game.

 

[dexters]

Nothing wrong with spy mechanics. It hss a balance of risk reward with a lot of clicky options.

Once they fix the counterspy promotion bug, and add in a casus bellI for broken promises/caught spy it will also be arguably the best spy mechanic by a long shot in any game. That's not really even considering what else they add in with a future expansion as espionage has tended to benefit the most from expansions both in Civ 4 and 5