HORIZON ZERO DAWN!!!
- Horizon Zero Dawn (Sony Entertainment Interactive) – 10 first-place votes, 81 points overall
Of the ten people who voted this one first, seven included comments.
So, to recap:
- World building
- Robot dinosaurs
Interestingly, the runner-up, Prey, did not garner the second-most first place votes. That honor went to the third-place game, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which got only one fewer first-place vote than the overall winner. But Prey got more overall votes (18 to 16) and due to the scoring system, the proliferation of seconds and thirds was enough for Prey to win by a point (64 to 63). In fact, Prey didn’t even get as many first-place votes as the tied-for-fifth-place finisher, Mass Effect: Andromeda. But apparently, you either loved Mass Effect: Andromeda, or it didn’t even make your top five. The point difference between Prey and Mass Effect: Andromeda wasn’t close (64 to 47). The fourth-place finisher, XCOM2: War of the Chosen, got the same number of first-place votes (5) as two games that didn’t even make the top five: NieR: Automata and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus which came in ninth and tenth, respectively. The other game that tied for fifth was Divinity: Original Sin 2. Can you have a second Original Sin? This didn’t bother four people who voted it first. It ended up with 47 points, which tied it with Mass Effect: Andromeda.
So, our top five (er, six?) is:
- HORIZON ZERO DAWN
- Prey
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- XCOM 2: War of the Chosen
- Divinity: Original Sin 2
Mass Effect: Andromeda
Two shooty/action RPGs, a straight-up RPG, an action-adventure, an FPS, and a turn-based tactical strategy game. Once again, no flight sims or wargames make the top five. Or the top ten, actually. Here is the rest of the list.
7. Super Mario Odyssey
8. Total War: Warhammer 2
9. NieR: Automata
10. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
Thanks to everyone who voted. A special thank you, papal indulgence, and prayer for rain goes to @arrendek who wrote a script that basically just generated the cue cards for me to read from, kind of like the things Billy Crystal gets to help him every year.
We had 92 voters this year. Last year (according to the spreadsheet) there were 84. The year before that, there were 94. So it seems like there is a pretty stable voting public, although the individual voters change from year to year. Or do they? You can see for yourself by going to our Super Google Spreadsheet (courtesy of @arrendek)
Since this is the first year in which we have had real-time vote counting, I was actually wondering if anyone would change his or her vote at the last second to alter the outcome, which could easily have happened this year with Prey only beating Zelda: Breath of the Wild by a point for second, and Divinity: original Sin 2 and Mass Effect: Andromeda tying for fifth. But I guess anyone who was that invested in Nintendo results already had Zelda first.