5) Destiny
Oh, Destiny. Where do I begin? Few games in recent memory have simultaneously filled me with frustration and delight in the manner of Bungie’s shared-world shooter. But we’ve already outlined the inherent problems within the studio’s MMO-lite — woeful, downright lazy storytelling coupled with an unbalanced levelling system — so now, let’s touch upon what the studio actually got right.
Because while it’s easy to hate on Destiny, there’s no doubting that the shooter clicked with a lot of players — heck, last we heard, Bungie had reported that 13 million gamers had logged hours in the fight against The Darkness — and that’s a testimony to the pedigree behind it. Coming off the back of the Halo franchise, the Washington-based developer has near perfected the art of shooting, and its latest effort sports some of the best mechanics the genre has ever seen. Whether its blasting through hoards of Hive menials on the Moon or taking down a towering space turtle on Mars, each kill feels satisfying — and the Hand Cannons, well, they’re in a league of their own.
The thing that typifies Destiny‘s inherent appeal for me is that, despite arriving during a busy period in the video game industry, it was the only game that I wanted to play. Perhaps it’s because sinking time into Bungie’s sci-fi opus is so effortless; maybe it’s the seamless, Journey-like multiplayer that allowed for totally emergent and unique co-op encounters; or maybe, just maybe, it’s because, despite its faults, the studio pulled off one of the more notable feats of the year: Bringing a number of genres under one pixelated umbrella to create an experience that was engaging, addictive and polished to the nth degree.