1. Hades
Supergiant Games, September
Like every son, Zagreus wants to slip the gravitational influence of his father. His father, however, is Zeus, a parent whose clinginess is matched only by divine-grade vindictiveness. So you hack through the ever-shifting maze of Hades, battling whomever Zeus puts in your way. Slick, compelling, endlessly replayable.
2. Animal Crossing
Nintendo, March
A game that brought lockdown households together to nurture a doll’s house community, Animal Crossing was video gaming’s sweetest gift in 2020. Its calm rhythms of pottering and planting were the perfect salve to the discombobulation of the raging now.
3. Among Us
InnerSloth, June
It’s a few years old, but 2020 was the year Among Us, a digital twist on the parlour game Werewolf, had its moment. Players come together on a spaceship and must figure out who among them is a murderer by making (or fielding) accusations. When trust in leaders is sorrowfully low, a game about figuring out if people are who they claim to be fits the moment.
4. The Last of Us Part II
Sony/Naughty Dog, June
It’s too long, too dispiriting and, as a work about the futility of human revenge (here, two young women engaged in a game of lethal tit-for-tat across post-apocalyptic America), strays too close to celebrating that which it aims to interrogate. Still, this is blockbuster game-making at its most decadently extravagant and thoughtful.
5. Fall Guys
Mediatonic, August
It’s a Knockout meets Takeshi’s Castle, played with tumbling characters that resemble jellybeans. Riotous fun that, for millions of children, transposed the forsaken playground to the home.
