Game of the Year Watch 2026 Begins | IGN GOTY Watch

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2:05What's up, everybody? Welcome to a special edition of Game of the Year Watch. This is our show where we start lining up potential Game of the Year candidates to see what we'll likely be voting on come awards season. I'm Damon Hatfield. Today I'm joined by Alyak and Nick Limone. And I hope you guys are ready to talk about some real good video games. Oh, yeah. Always. Lots of good stuff. So no matter where you play, there have been a lot of great games released this year already, from Resident Evil to Pokemon to Forza to Crimson Desert to 007 to Mina the Hollower. Just an embarrassment of riches for us gamers.

2:34I've polled Scoop Nation to see if there are any front runners for the fans. We'll reveal the results in a bit, but first, just so our producers know behind the scenes, although the copy has been updated and run down, the copy here is a little bit outdated, but we can jump into our first game here. I think a good place to start would be the best-selling game of the year and my personal pick for game of the year so far. That's Resident Evil Requiem. So this is the Dame-y pick so far. Well, that's my personal pick. Gotcha. But I also think it's a likely frontrunner just in general and is the best-selling game of the year so far.

3:06So a good jumping-off point. Nick, we've talked about this game a lot on GameScoop. Yeah, and for good reason. I think the game is outstanding. I think still to this day the momentum of this game, this game came out, what, March? Resident Evil? Early March. early March so early early part of the year and yet it still has the momentum that I think is going to carry it all the way through to December it will have to deal with a giant Grand Theft Auto size monster in the room but if there's one person who I think can actually handle it it's maybe Leon S. Kennedy himself I I think Resident Evil Requiem is just a delightful love letter to all things Resident Evil, whether you're a longtime fan or a relatively new one.

3:46And honestly, it's just so fun to play. I played the game like six to seven times in a row. I've 100 %ed it. So like, I love it. The roguelike mode is really fun. Leon must die. However, I do have my qualms with it. You know, if I am getting nitpicky in this game of the year style discussion, the only thing I can think that is really going against Resident Evil Requiem is strong first half of the game all the way up through grace's basement section where you get to the midpoint of the game and then we switch and we make a pretty drastic change in location tone and um the the pacing gets flip-flopped a little bit and i think that's where the game gets significantly weaker that said the first half of the game is the strongest resident evil has ever been i'm gonna go outright and say it the grace uh the trauma center the the medical ward yeah that is i would argue one of the finest Resident Evil environments ever.

4:38I look forward to years from now where we do an art of the level on just Grace's section in that medical ward. And then how it's kind of just sandwiched by delightful bite-sized Leon sections. It's so good. It's a little bit of action. It's a little bit of horror. Just comes together to make a great package. But come on, Leon's whole section in bombed out Raccoon City, when he's climbing that fallen over skyscraper and shooting out the glass to make the zombies fall, all of that is brilliant as well. The set pieces are fantastic. And I think Capcom did such a great job of giving you things to do in the Open City section, but none of it felt particularly meaningful or meaty in a way that, like, juxtaposed with Grace's sections earlier on, they just felt more substantial to me.

5:20And, like, I was doing more Resident Evil things. This almost felt like a Devil May Cry game when I was in Raccoon City as Leon. I can agree with that section where that section where you reach Raccoon City. I expected more from that section. Really? I'm not sure what, I think the pacing kind of slowed down for me, and I kind of got used to the monsters in that moment, but I absolutely loved Resident Evil 9. I think that was the moment where I was like, hmm, what's going on here? But the rest of the game was, to me, amazing. You beat me. You said you beat it 7 to 9. I think it's like 5 or 6 times, but whatever I needed to do to 100 % it.

5:53Wow, okay, I got 4. 4! And a speedrun, though. I mean, that's pretty good. Did you get a speedrun? I got the speedrun. I got the speedrun, okay. I loved Resident Evil 9. I think Capcom did something that they hadn't done before and it was connecting the old Resident Evil and the new Resident Evil. And they made it work seamlessly. We got the horror and honestly, the grace scene that we got at the very beginning is one of the most terrifying moments Resident Evil has ever been. And honestly, any other horror game, I can't remember a horror game that's gotten me like that. I just love that they combined the old and the new and it feels like instead of choosing one of the two, this is the new direction.

6:31They're embracing both sides, first person and third person, and it's working. Okay, so Resident Evil Requiem, hugely successful, best-selling game of the year so far. The fourth best-selling game of the year so far is Pokemon Pocopia. This is a game that I quite enjoyed in spite of the fact that I'm not a Pokemon guy. The tonal whiplash is amazing, and I love it. This is a thing that game of the year does. It brings together disparate types of games and forces them to do bad gladiatorial combat. I love it. Is this cozy town-building social simulator game with Pokemon a game of the year contender?

7:04I mean, I think it's 100 % a valid contender, especially for people who might be turned off by Resident Evil's either violence, gory, maybe it's just not your cup of tea. In the same way that those people may not be particularly interested in Pocopia, you know? I mean, one thing that I did not expect myself to be as kind of grabbed by Pocopia as much as it did. And it's mostly because of the game feel. Like the game feels good to move around in, in a way that a lot of the kind of Minecraft style games don't particularly feel great. Like this is, um, you know, co-developed by the, um, Dragon Quest Builders folks.

7:40And I think a lot of their DNA shows there, you know, I, I'm not a big fan of the, the tree punching survival horror or not horror, but tree punching survival games where you're building up towns just because there's usually never any sort of direction. and the thing that's beautiful about the Dragon Quest Builders games and then that has in turn affected Pocopia is objective-based gameplay where it's like, do this. Now do this. Now go ahead and do this and do it however you want. And I really appreciate that sort of feedback loop. And it forces you to do things and consider things you hadn't before.

8:10Plus, it's great nostalgia bait because you're going back to Kanto region, original Pokemon, and you're seeing like a post-apocalyptic version of Pokemon Red and Blue, which is really delightful. I mean, the Pokemon franchise is 30 years old now. Pocopia is the best reviewed game in the entire series history. Yeah, as a Pokemon fan, I feel like I've been one of those people that have been waiting for a Pokemon game that just felt good, that looked good, that I was excited to play. And this was it. I took, you know, it took Minecraft inspired level building. And it also kind of took a little bit of Animal Crossing, too.

8:45So two highly successful games that meshed together into Pokemon. I guess my question is, do you guys call that innovation or inspiration? I mean, it's innovative in that Nintendo and Game Freak are like, what if we gave it to someone else? And I think that's an innovation that speaks for itself, in my opinion. But I just don't know if this game in particular has the legs it needs from a more hardcore audience. You know, the people who are playing your Crimson Deserts, your Resident Evils and things like that. But, I mean, there are outliers like yourself. So I think it has a shot. Now, there are two games worth mentioning that got a 10 from IGN so far this year.

9:25That's Forza Horizon 6 and Mina the Hollower. Correct. Again, two very different games. Think of the diversity of games we've just mentioned so far. Forza Horizon 6. Forza Horizon 5 was our game of the year in 2021. Is 6 a contender? Look, I love Japan. I love Japan. Don't get me wrong. I love the formula that Forza Horizon has kind of introduced and implemented. but I can't help but feel like I've already played this game and that's like yeah and that's the biggest dilemma I feel it's really fun don't get me wrong it's just I've done all of this before in the way that a lot of the things that we we've been talking about feel fresh and exciting and new whereas you know not to be like you know break it down to its like absolute simplest formula but it is just kind of driving a car around in a way that's very arcade and fun and I think I'm at a point in my life now where I want more sim-based style challenging.

10:18You know, I want to learn that I'm oversteering and figure out how to fix that. This is just kind of something that I play to pass the time as opposed to a thing that I actively want to like make progress in. Yeah, I mean the presentation is flawless. I can't knock it for that. It does have kind of a been there, done that feel. Exactly. And we also talk about friction. You enjoy a certain amount of friction in your games, but Forza Horizon 6 kind of goes out of its way to present a frictionless experience for the player. I don't know, it gets a little bit, I get a little bit tired of its, like, overwhelming, like, positivity, and, like, it's always trying to boost me up, like, you're awesome, here's a free car.

10:53You basically created cars, you're so good at this. It's like, okay, thank you, but also, like, give me a challenge. Give me a challenge. Even, like, the, you know, the giant mech race, right? I thought that would be a lot more challenging than it actually was, in that, you know, on paper, it's a great idea. You are racing against a giant mech, and then it's like, oh, it's all kind of like scripted and chill, and it's designed to lose. And I feel good about it because I win, but I didn't really feel like I earned it, you know? Eliak, what did you think? Yeah, I'm always impressed by the visuals of this game, and I feel like it's one of those games that's just really, really fun to play.

11:29But again, I expect a little bit more from a game of the year. Like, I want, like, personally, this is very personal, I want a really good story that takes me to different worlds. And I think this is a really fun game. It's impressive what they've done with Forza, but we have seen it before. And we have other contenders that I feel like have impressed me more. All right, we need to take a quick break. But when we return, we will discuss Mina the Hollower and your picks for Game of the Year 2026 so far. IGN Summer of Gaming is presented by Amazon Luna, here to play.

12:03IGN Summer of Gaming is presented by our official retail partner, Best Buy.

12:14Welcome back to Game of the Year Watch 2026. We've been discussing some of the highest rated games on IGN this year, but what are your games of the year so far? I put the call out and Scoop Nation answered. Now, there is a clear frontrunner, which we'll get to in a bit, but perhaps more interesting is the tie for fifth place in my very scientific polling. Please break it down. I'm dying to know. For fifth place. So this would be Forza Horizon 6 and Crimson Desert. Wow. I'm not surprised, but I guess maybe a little bit. That's pretty interesting. Yeah, so we talked a bit about Forza Horizon 6. That got a 10 from IGN.

12:50Crimson Desert got a 6 from IGN. But it's a polarizing game, but people have passionate feelings about it. And the people that love it, they really, really, really love it. And I should say, there are lots of people on staff here at IGN that really, really love it. Oh, yeah, I know Justin Davis was obsessed with it for a bit. Mark Vino loves it. Corrado loves it. Like, what was your experience with it? I think this is, I do not love this game. However, I do think it's interesting. And it's a game that I frequently uninstall and reinstall on Steam every time there's an update. Because I always think maybe now's the time that I'll love it.

13:24My thing is, we talked a little bit about me loving friction in my games. And I think that this game has plenty of it. But it's not handled particularly elegantly. Like, one of the things that this is constantly getting served to me, it's like designed for social media. and that there's so many bespoke little secrets that you would never know they're there unless some influencer or content creator told you about it. And it's just because the game doesn't communicate how any of these things are a possibility to you. And to me, that's its biggest problem. It's like, show me that there are these sorts of secrets innately and organically in the game.

13:58I don't need to rely on, I shouldn't have to rely on content creators to show me that there's a really one-of-a-kind unique pair of boots that let you run on water, let you jet ski through the water. It's like, that's really cool. I just wish the game told me that these types of things exist so that I can go and be on the lookout for them in a way that feels like I would actually be able to investigate and figure out these things are there, as opposed to the game just kind of arbitrarily like, well, you didn't interact with every single clock in the town, so how would you not know that the thing is there?

14:28It's little things like that. I just don't think it's, it doesn't kind of choreograph itself very well and tell you what are the possibilities, which I can appreciate, but not Game of the Year material. Game of the Year material should teach you as you play. Alyak, what do you think? I think this is the game that your friends get mad at you for not playing. They're just insisting to, like, please just play Crimson Desert. Has happened already before. There's just something about the game that I think, like you said, is missing for me to be able to, like, consider it for that. I'm not surprised that it's here because of how many people absolutely love this game, but maybe it is filling a space that was needed to be filled before, and that's why people love it so much.

15:07To me, in terms of uniqueness and branding, it just looks like another open world MMO where you can just run around and do cool things, but I don't know. It's missing something. A soul. I mean, it's the only game that we've been discussing. It didn't receive universal acclaim. Yeah, correct. But the people that love it really love it, and I think that makes them want to defend it. Yeah. So they're very loud champions of it. I strongly suspect that the type of people, like, it's people who enjoy, you know, lush, beautiful worlds, which I will not argue that. Crimson Dead is one of the most stunning games I've ever seen.

15:44It looks expensive in a way. Like, I don't necessarily think it's beautiful in that its art direction is beautiful. I think it just looks like the money is on the screen, that the dev clearly put a lot of time and effort in it. and I think it's a very impressive, almost tech demo, but it's like, I don't know, I just have zero interest in actually engaging with any of its systems in a way that, like, I want to fall in love with it, but it just, there's nothing in the game so far that has managed to, like, grab me and grip me in the way that, you know, a lot of the other games. I would actually liken this a lot more to Forza Horizon 6 in that this just feels like something I'm playing to pass the time between big releases without really engaging with it meaningfully.

16:25Well, then it's fitting that this is tied with Forza Horizon 6 for fifth place with the fans. Coming out number four is Pokemon Pocopia. Wow. Lots of fans there. And then number three, finally, Nick, is Mina the Hollower. Woo! My personal number two pick for game of the year. I think Mina the Hollower is just, I'm going to go outright and say it, I think it's the best 2D Zelda game that has ever existed. So better than Link to the Past, better than Link's Awakening. And then better than the Capcom produced 2D Zelda games, which are also better than Oracle of Ages, Seasons, and Minish Cap. And Minish Cap.

16:59And the DS games, Phantom Hourglass. Okay, maybe not between two worlds. Link Between Worlds is pretty damn good. But, no, Mina the Hollower is just this delightful blend of, it feels a lot more like the Oracle of Ages and Seasons games to me combined with Bloodborne in the way the game incentivizes you being aggressive. I really like that about it. I love that there's tons of secrets to find. I like that the game doesn't hold your hand. I like that it's challenging and just everything about the game is just very clearly made by people who are at the top of their craft. And I would expect nothing less from the people who gave us Shovel Knight.

17:35And like Shovel Knight, I look forward to constantly replaying this game probably once a year for the rest of my life. The way I do Shovel Knight and Specter Knight. It's so good. I do have one major problem with the game. The towers are not fun. The towers that you do in the game, after every dungeon, after every boss dungeon, you have to do this thing where you ascend a tower to activate it and then move on to the next one. Those are not fun no matter what you do. However, despite those not being fun, I still think the game is a 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10. Number three with the fans. Number two is 007 First Light.

18:08This is a game I finished recently. I also loved this game. They took a bold risk by telling a prequel story, introducing a new bond, and I think it's a great bond. Aliyak, did you play 007? I did. I finished it and I actually I feel like I want to love it. I want to. I feel like you and Nick are more in agreement and I love it. Yeah, that's good to hear. I wanted to love this game so much. I've always wanted to play Hitman games and I never got a chance to jump into them. So I thought this would be my first entry into the Hitman style genre of games. And I love James Bond. So I wanted to love this game.

18:40But there was something that wasn't just clicking for me. There were moments that were really fun, but it also didn't seem as polished as I wanted it to be. And parts of the story was strong. Some parts weren't as strong for me. It just wasn't hitting. I think I wanted a little bit more from this game. I wanted to see some more fun things from the Hitman games that I feel like a lot of people wanted to see. And I will say, though, positive, when I finished the game and you got a chance to actually see all the cool gear that you could now unlock with a bond and see your cars and all that, the extra content, I thought it was really cool.

19:14I was like, maybe I should spend some more time in the game and just forget about the story and the gameplay I just played. Like, let's just unlock things. So I thought that was exciting, but I don't think it is enough for Game of the Year. Agree, Nick? I'm torn. I think that this game is a prime Game of the Year material. Again, but you guys are going to say Nick is a broken record. He keeps saying the same thing. But I think the front half of this game is so much stronger than the back half. You know, going into the game, I was super hot when I first started playing it. uh i think it's tutorial section all the way up through the like chess the first like time you actually do james bond stuff right the chess match set piece in like um i think it's like croatia or something like that i forget where where it is exactly but that is what i imagined when i heard that io interactive was doing a bond game this was the perfect distillation of that the first chunk was like this is so sick the way that the chess match ends where you're you know falling out of the plane and skydiving and taking out dudes it's so cinematic it's so exactly what i wanted from like the hitman formula combined with the cinematic storytelling of bond however as the game unfolds it starts to get it funnels you into a more linear and linear path and you start to do less of the things that made me fall in love with the game you still do james bond stuff but you don't have the kind of improvisational nature that it feels like james bond is so good at other than oh i failed my stealth now i have to go loud and now i have license to kill so i'm just going to shoot everyone in the head.

20:43Yeah. It is a little bit Breath of the Wild because ammo is very scarce and you're constantly having to, you know, pick up different guns and improvise, right? And whoever at IO Interactive came up with the, you know, throw your gun at somebody to close the distance. You deserve a raise. Get that person a raise because that is one of the finest mechanics. I can't wait for other games to steal it. It's so good and it's a great way of closing the gap in a way that I don't think I've ever really seen in a game before. All right. We have to take another quick break. When we come back, we'll reveal the very clear frontrunner, probably very obvious frontrunner for Game of the Year so far.

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