These aren’t the Best Games of 2020. These are the games of quarantine. The ones that helped us all get through quarantine, felt emblematic of the year, or both.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
This game hit at exactly the right time. As the whole country was going into lockdown AC:NH not only let us pretend to be outside; it gave us goals and chores to do to keep up sane, allowed us to show off our outfits, and let us visits our friend’s place (islands). The perfect game for quarantine.
Hades
In this game you struggle to escape an ever-changing hellscape over and over again. Which for some reason a lot of people related to this year. And thanks to the portability of the Switch I was able to play it everywhere I went in 2020 – my bed, the kitchen, my office (home office), and sometimes even on the big screen (in my living room).
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Yeah, there’s probably way more bad than good to say about Smash this year (that’s a whole different article). But the game kept evolving, with the competitive scene moving almost completely online this year. Four new fighters came out in 2020, each bringing new unique playstyles to the game. SSBU wasn’t ideal, or really even good for most of the year, but it certainly was rarely off our minds.
Among Us/Fall Guys
I’m going to be honest, I didn’t really play much of either of these games this year. But they were ubiquitous. My kids have been playing Among Us clones in Roblox and watching Among Us YouTube videos starring other videogame characters. The memes for these games are all around. These two games just felt inescapable this year.
Cyberpunk 2077
Gamers had really been looking forward to playing Cyberpunk this year, especially on the new consoles. And then it was delayed. And then again. And then again. And then when it finally arrived, it was a bit disappointing to some PC players. And it was worse than disappointing on consoles – it was awful and broken on consoles, even the new ones. The developer, Microsoft, and Sony began offering refunds, but that turned into its own debacle. I think we can all relate to really looking forward to something this year, and then being bitterly disappointed when it finally came.