PC GAMER GAME OF THE YEAR 2019
BEST ONGOING GAME 2019
SEA OF THIEVES
Chris: No matter what kind of pirate you are, Rare added something to Sea of Thieves for you this year. Fishing is the perfect activity for solo players with a nice array of fish that can only be caught in certain parts of the world and sometimes only in specific conditions. PvP-hungry pirates got the option for finding quick, chaotic matches in the Arena instead of having to sail for ages to find human opponents. And the lore-heavy Tall Tales are perfect for a few hours of co-op sailing and puzzle solving with friends, and most Tales are even doable alone. Plus, if you’re the kind of pirate who likes to spend real dubloons, there are pets now, too. The beautiful world of Sea of Thieves always had potential, but this year it finally grew into it.
THE BEAUTIFUL WORLD OF SEA OF THIEVES ALWAYS HAD POTENTIAL
Wes: Completing all the Tall Tales with a PC Gamer crew was maybe my favourite gaming experience of 2019. The most memorable felt like a true adventure: we used a magic spyglass to navigate by the constellations, which eventually lead us to treasure. Rare’s designers really excel at giving you scraps of clues that you can just barely decipher. Every time I assumed I couldn’t possibly have come to the right conclusion, the sound of a shovel striking a treasure chest made me giddy.
Also, there was that time I casually swung my sword at Tyler right when he picked up an explosive barrel, instantly killing our entire crew and sinking our galleon full of treasure. Sorry about that, guys, but it was really funny.
Fraser: I was done with Sea of Thieves before my Game Pass trial was over, but I’ve since bought it and made it one of my few live service games. I’m hooked. Over the course of countless updates, it’s finally managed to live up to the imaginary pirate game I conjured up in my head when it was first announced. But for all the new additions it’s the simple things that keep me coming back. Leisurely sailing around with a crew, reading treasure maps and traipsing across snake-infested islands still takes up most of my time.
Phil: It’s a shame that fighting skeletons and other players still feels so bad, with no weight or heft to your strikes. Ground combat in general is always the low point of any voyage. But the sailing and ship combat and sense of adventure is so good that it always makes up for it.
BEST REMAKE 2019
RESIDENT EVIL 2
This is just primo grade-A videogame, right here. Capcom updated a classic, tightly designed game with smooth modern action and managed to retain the low-level anxiety and occasional bursts of terror that early excelled at. As the series got bigger and more bombastic, it lost what did so well: giving you an explorable space small enough to keep in your brain as you poke around. That’s what makes it so pleasurable to criss-cross the police station, opening up new paths between rooms and solving goofy puzzles. It remains a
