The 2017 Game of the Year

2017 was an unpredictable year for gamers. Some of the year's best games came from surprising places, from indie smash hits to a resurgent Nintendo, while venerable studios and established franchises stumbled and fell.

[NecrumOddBoy]

BOTW is not the best game of 2017 and not even close to best Zelda game

[pandehz]

It is the best game of 2017 according to them.

And me of course :)

And im sure many others.

Well its gonna win everywhere that matters anyways, so its gonna be a loooong winter for you.

[balance2theforce]

Lol so true.

[Imalwaysright]

I see people saying that a lot and I have no idea what BOTW being or not the best Zelda game has to do with it winning goty . Were other Zelda games released this year?

[Neonridr]

*in my opinion

there, fixed that for you.

[Prince_TFK]

It still is the best game and GOTY for 2017 for almost every gaming media out there.

Maybe you should try it (if you haven’t yet) to see why it deserves these accolades.

[ClayRules2012]

Horizon: Zero Dawn for me.

All will have different opinions, and I respect that.

[TheVetOfGaming]

I bought it and never finished it. It's a beautiful looking game, and the robots were a cool idea, but I just found it extremely repetitive. It's a technical wonder, but I personally think it's just an OK game. Didn't downvote you as it's your opinion just like this is mine. I'm pretty glad I got it for $20 black Friday as it was the hype and everyone raving on about it that made me finally buy it. Got Gran Turismo new for £18, and it was worth every penny, and I'm not a racing fan, but it is a great game.

[ClayRules2012]

Hey, bud. I have no issues with anyone down voting me, here on N4G as long as people can express their opinions to me while being respect & mature, I have no issues with anyone down voting. I respect your opinion too. I’m glad to hear you didn’t spend $60 on it, only to be disappointed in the end. It’s great to hear your enjoying Gran Turismo tho! I loved Driveclub, and am not even a racing fan. I can totally relate.

Much respect to you for sharing your opinion in a good way. I genuinely appreciate that =)

[Prince_TFK]

I had played Horizon. It is a beautiful game. Deserves GOTY even. But just like you had said, the core gameplay is a bit too repetitive, especially the side missions.

Still, it is a great game nonetheless.

[sampsonon]

"but I just found it extremely repetitive." how so?

[LOGICWINS]

I'd give Zero Dawn the biggest surprise of the year. Even as a HUGE Killzone 2 fan, I had no clue GG could create a complex well written story like that.

It's certainly a GOTY contender, but I'd give it to Persona 5 personally.

[ClayRules2012]

That’s cool. I respect that. Horizon was indeed a HUGE surprise. GG’s definitely delivered a fantastic game, but also an open world that exudes beauty & life unlike any other open world game I’ve seen. So glad to hear you enjoyed Persona 5!

[Neonridr]

Horizon was a fantastic game. As was Mario Odyssey. I could have seen any of those three winning to be honest. But I am perfectly fine with Zelda winning it all. It's down to your preference really. If Horizon is your game, then so be it.

I appreciate it even more when people have actually played both games to have a valid opinion on which one is better or not too.

[ClayRules2012]

Well said. I fully understand and respect that every gamer has different & certain gaming experiences that resonate with them. So glad to hear you enjoyed Horizon. I personally didn’t enjoy the new Zelda, but I have no reason to bash or hate anyone who did enjoy it.

[InTheZoneAC]

fyi downvoting without a reason is not expressing an opinion, it's simply an act of a troll.

[SuperSonic91]

The nominees are:
HZD, Nioh, Yakuza 0, Gravity Rush 2, NieR: Autonata, Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy, GT Sport, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy & Persona 5

And my GOTY goes to:
NieR: Automata ..... by a hair
And not just in gaming...
2B is the new pop culture sensation of 2017. You can see here image in any comic con this year.

[bluefox755]

Persona 5 for me. BOTW is not even in the top 3 Zelda games IMO, but to each their own.

[Neonridr]

I am surprised you actually played BOTW. They way you dis Nintendo all the time leads me to believe you don't even own a Nintendo product.

[Prince_TFK]

He’s not. He doesn’t even own a Switch, let alone any Nintendo products to make judgement that the past Zeldas are better than BOTW.

Back on topic, I had played Persona 5, BOTW, Horizon, and Mario O, and I can honestly say that all 4 of these titles deserves GOTY.

[Sono421]

I completely understand this is an opinionated thing, but to me I don't know how you could give such a fundamentally flawed game goty over games with little to now flaws such as Odyssey. The good does not even come close to outweighing the bad in botw. Plenty of downtime and aimless wandering simply finding the same repetitive things over and over with tedious design, never to be actually rewarded. Then you have Odyssey which goes from one brilliantly laid out level to the next from start to finish. As I said it is opinionated but at some level there has to be a science/logic to the ups and downs and Zelda has way more downs than Odyssey with almost no ups. Zelda never truly rewards you for anything you do, and I know people give the bland excuse of "the experience is the reward" which is the most hollow statement you could make.

[Neonridr]

@Sono421 - Odyssey was brilliant, and could have just as easily won. I just found BOTW to be a little grander in scale. Mario was basically just one world after the other. And while there was a so called story connecting them, it just felt like a bunch of separate experiences.

Don't get me wrong, I adore the game and think it's one of the greatest Mario games, but I loved how BOTW just allowed you to do whatever you wanted. Sure, I guess there could have been more enemies populating the world but I didn't need to fight someone every 10 feet or something. BOTW wasn't perfect, but it was a huge step up over Skyward Sword in my opinion and actually opened up the Zelda franchise to do some exciting things in future installments. I can't wait to see how the next one stacks up since it will be developed from the ground up for the Switch.

[Kribwalker]

i agree. A lot of people on here with an opinion don’t seem to own systems that allow them to form a real opinion. they just regurgitate what they hear people say, and bluefox is one of those. I’d love for him to really share what it is that makes him feel that way. Like real examples in game, not generalized answers.

[PigPen]

The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild is just unstoppable. Super Mario Odyssey in the same year is just awesome.

Although 2017 was good, I believe it will be taken in 2018.

[AuraAbjure]

I can't believe they put some random fierce diety mask in the game. Botw wild Link is scronny as hell, fierce diety coulda helped him buff up

[Doomster1971]

Game of the year for me has got to be Hellblade. It's brilliantly different and I love the way they portrayed psychosis. It was a big risk for Ninja Theory and it paid off. As regards the new Zelda. I've not tried it. The last Zelda game I truly enjoyed was A Link To The Past. I've never really got into the 3D Zelda's. I've tried all of them but never finished any of them. I might love the new one. I won't know until I try it. Horizon Zero Dawn is bloody brilliant though. It has one of the best stories in a Video Game I've came across in my 40 years of gaming. I loved it. The game I'm looking forward to most next year so far is InnerSpace. It looks brilliantly different to everything else. I think it's probably because of the length of time I've been into gaming that I'm getting so fed up of the same old formula's in gaming these days. I've pretty much seen it all and experienced it all. It's nice when something different comes along. Rime was ace too.

[LOGICWINS]

I still need to play Hellblade. I hear great things about it!

[starchild]

Hellblade is amazing. It moved me like few games have.

My favorite games of the year are Hellblade, Horizon and Assassin's Creed Origins.

[Kribwalker]

i just bought hellblade and wanna give it a go. Hoping to try that in the next week

[gangsta_red]

Definitely another game that went under my radar.

Will put it on my Gamefly

[InTheZoneAC]

Would BoTW even be getting all this hype if it never released for the Switch? How many defending it at every chance would be doing so it it never was available on the Switch? I think I have my answer.

[stupidusername]

I don't really get your point. So BoTW get GOTY because it's on Switch? And Horizon was nominated because it was released for ps4 pro and not ps3?

[InTheZoneAC]

You have to try to understand the point I was making. I get that a game is a game regardless, but with Nintendo and the Switch, I think it had a lot of extra hype behind it because of the system.

[Prince_TFK]

Just like everyone here is defending Horizon because it is PS4 exclusive right? What if Horizon was on the Xbox instead? I think I also have my answer.

[InTheZoneAC]

If Horizon was xbox only then I'd probably brush it off as a game I'll patiently wait to release on ps4, like tomb raider and dead rising.

If it's xbox only then it would be one of the only games I'd say I wish I had on playstation.

I understand you comparing it to xbox, but there's just an unbelievable amount of hype with any AAA game attached to the Switch, remove the Switch and you see where I'm coming from. Wii U games had no hype at all, and many of the great games it has that I have you hardly hear any prolonged talk about how great any of them were.

[balance2theforce]

Yeah, you probably do.

[Dlaw76]

Well deserved

[Lord_Sloth]

I think it would have been better with actual dungeons. Majora's still stands as my favorite Zelda. BotW is a great concept and direction for the series, but there is work to be done before I'd personally give it a GotY award. Even this year I found myself enjoying other purchases over BotW. Like Divinity:OS2, NiOh, Nier:Automata, Destiny 2 (deal with it) Uncharted: Lost Legacy, etc.

Just my 2 cents.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

Yeah, but can you imagine how long it would have taken the game to come out, if it had 120 large-sized dungeons?
I mean, not that that doesn't sound awesome as all heck, but we wouldn't be playing the game until 2019 if that were the case.XD

[Lord_Sloth]

Obviously I don't mean 120 large dungeons. Just 6-8 large dungeons instead of all the little ones. =/____\=

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

6 to 8 large dungeons sounds nice, but it would have also left a lot less to discover in the overworld itself.
Maybe alongside the 120 shrines, instead? Or at least in place of 6-8 of them.
That sounds better than just cutting out shrines altogether, IMO.

BTW, I'm in agreement with you on Majora. It had the best side-quests of any Zelda yet created, because many of them felt like you were actually doing something to improve upon the lives of the various residents of that world.
The Kafei and Anju side-quest and Romani Ranch side quests, especially.

[sampsonon]

ahhh! Nostalgia