GOTY 2018: a Visualization.

This is list is going to be a little different. I found myself taking a lot of photos and videos in video games this year. And as I was thinking of how to do a GOTY list I came to the conclusion that the worlds I escaped to should do a lot of the talking. If you told me at the beginning of this year that I would have put more time into a $10 Destiny 2 DLC than Red Dead Redemption 2. I would have laughed until I cried.

5. Destiny

I am a huge Destiny fan and I ran my course with Destiny 2 by time 2018 rolled around. By that time I was offically back in the Xbox ecosystem. I never played D1 on the Xbox so my year started with another run through this crazy-wierd game. Bungie is the best at creating absolutely breathtaking envionments.

4. Ashen

Ashen takes the idea of Dark Souls like games and makes it palatable. My friend who has never played a Souls game is loving it and so am I. The art style is wonderful, the gameplay is fun and story/lore reels you in. I am glad this little game is doing so many great things.

3. Rocket League

Rocket League was still a main stay for my friend group this year. It is hard to add any more praise to this game now in the year 2018 after so many years since release. The game has an incredible skill ceiling that I could only really compare to real sports. Every time you master a move like the aerial or dribbling there are three more skills to learn and master. Three years later and I am still learning new things every time I play. I finally hit Chamption rank in competitive triples last month. It was a moment that had been years in the making. I can't wait to play more of this game in 2019.

2. Monster Hunter World

World was my first adventure into Monster Hunter. This game was a complete surprise for me at the start of this year. I fell in love with this game and can say I am a Monster Hunter fan for life. Learning about and overcoming every monster was a fulfilling experience and it was fun discovering this game along with friends(even with multiplayer issues at launch and not being able to play missions I completed with friends). Whether it was taking down an elder dragon or joining random players to help them defeat Nergigante for the first time. This game was an absolute treat.

1. Destiny 2: Forsaken

I think if you have this expansion on your list this year, it's a disservice to not talk about the entire 2018 Destiny 2 and Bungie had. Forsaken was not the sole reason Bungie turned Destiny 2 around to be the best Destiny has ever been. It started around May. Bungie and it's community managers took huge strides to communicate with the playerbase -a playerbase that can be entirely too shitty, mind you.- and let them know that Bungie was listening. The Warmind expansion came with a free update that set the foundation for a game to satifsy the taste of the most dedicated while also adding quality of life improvements among many other things.

It all came together in a Lost Sector on a Moon of Jupiter. The Whisper gathered guardians to the deep of Io. We traversed Vex architecture, solved mazes, ignored false pathways, and fought the toughest battle we faced in Destiny 2. All under a 20 minute timer. At the end we were rewarded with the Whisper of the Worm, a sniper rifle guardians shaped from the soul of a worm god.

This put Destiny 2 on a postive trajectory for Forsaken. It delivered a great campaign that utilized Adventures to explore new enemies, it delivered a end game patrol zone that to this day is still revealing secrets, and it delivered my favorite Destiny raid ever(If we go by how long and loud I yelled once my Fireteam completed it). Forsaken is not without it's flaws, but it is the best Destiny has ever been.

Thanks for reading! You can follow me on twitter for more @Owalpo.