Game of the Year Winners Tier List, Ranked

Baldur's Gate 3

A party-based RPG that lets you seduce a druid, argue with a sentient sword, and solve problems by turning into a bear, and somehow it also has a combat system deep enough to satisfy D&D nerds. The sheer density of reactivity, every companion has an arc, every choice branches somewhere, is why people are still finding new stuff in it years later. Pretty much nobody disputes this win.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Dropped you on a cliff with a paraglider and said "go wherever," and the entire open-world genre has been chasing that feeling since. Chemistry-based physics puzzles, shrines you can solve five different ways, a map with almost no hand-holding. It redefined what Zelda could be, and arguably what open-world games could be, period.

Elden Ring

FromSoftware took the Dark Souls formula and cracked it open into a genuinely explorable world, and the result is one of the few open-world games where getting lost feels like the reward. Malenia is still a sore spot in some circles, but nobody seriously argues against this one taking the crown.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The Bloody Baron questline alone has more emotional weight than most entire games manage. CD Projekt Red built a world where side quests routinely out-write the main story, and years of expansions and a Netflix show haven't dimmed how good Geralt's last big outing still feels.

God of War (2018)

Swapping Kratos's blades for an axe and giving him an actual kid to talk to turned a button-mashing franchise into something with real stakes. The single-take camera trick gets less attention now, but it was a genuine swing, and Mimir's running commentary still holds up as some of the best writing in the series.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

No stamina bar to hide behind, no build to grind your way past a hard fight, just you, a prosthetic arm full of gadgets, and a posture meter that punishes cowardice. Genichiro and the Owl fights are some of the tightest sword duels in any action game, and the deflect-everything combat system is the best thing FromSoftware has designed.

Astro Bot

A pure, joyful platformer that treats the DualSense like a toy box instead of a gimmick, every level finds some new trick with the controller's haptics or speaker. It's the rare mascot platformer that feels essential rather than nostalgic, and it won over people who hadn't thought about platformers in years.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

A turn-based RPG with real-time dodge and parry mechanics that actually make old-school combat feel tense again, wrapped in a Belle Epoque art style nobody saw coming from a small studio.

Also ranked in: Metaphor ReFantazio vs Other JRPGs: 2026 Tier List

The Last of Us Part II

This is the one people still fight about at parties. The structural gut-punch of making you play as Abby, right after she kills a character you love, is either the boldest narrative swing of the decade or a miscalculation, depending who you ask. The moment-to-moment gameplay and sound design are untouchable either way.

It Takes Two

A co-op platformer so packed with ideas, magnet mechanics, bee-riding, musical instrument boss fights, that it feels like three games' worth of content stapled together. It's not flashy or prestige-y, which is probably why some critics underrate it, but ask anyone who's actually played it with a partner.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

The Hinterlands opening hours are a notorious slog, all fetch quests and checklist busywork, before the game actually finds its footing. Once it does, the companion writing and the Trespasser DLC payoff are genuinely strong, but a lot of fans feel this win says more about a weak year than about Inquisition's own highs.

Overwatch

A genuinely sharp hero shooter with some of the best character design Blizzard's ever done, but in hindsight this win feels more like a reward for cultural momentum than for the game itself. It was never quite the systems-deep, replay-forever title some of its GOTY company was, and its legacy is complicated by what came after.