Over the next couple weeks we’ll be publishing sweeping reflections on this year’s news, best moments, and shared gaming experiences. Sitting at the center will be our annual Game of the Year awards, the product of 27 PC Gamer editors’ arguments, spent blood, and spilled G-Fuel. Awards will drop day by day beginning this weekend.
We approach these awards somewhat democratically, by first tallying up votes on the five games each editor liked most in 2020. Rather than trying to force a mediocre game into pre-baked award categories, we instead work backwards from those votes to figure out which award fits our favorites. Here are the games that received the most nominations among our team, sorted alphabetically.
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
- Black Mesa
- Blaseball
- Cloudpunk
- Crusader Kings 3
- Death Stranding
- Doom Eternal
- Fall Guys
- Fuser
- Genshin Impact
- Hades
- Half-Life: Alyx
- Kentucky Route Zero
- Legends of Runeterra
- Microsoft Flight Simulator
- Monster Train
- Paradise Killer
- Persona 4 Golden
- Phasmophobia
- Spelunky 2
- Spiritfarer
- Valorant
- Wasteland 3
- XCOM: Chimera Squad
- Yakuza: Like a Dragon
This year we’ll be giving out 13 awards, including Best RPG, Best Action, and Best Strategy Game. Check back beginning December 19 when we’ll debut the first award, then another award each day until the end of 2020. Separately, we’ll also be handing out accolades to this year’s best hardware. Should be a busy couple of weeks!