The best video games of 2015

Few games have the capacity to disappoint like Just Cause 3, my game of the year.

A tropical playset, its pieces read like the prop list from a 1990s action film: rocket launchers, remote mines, military-grade helicopters, the latter of which the hero sometimes hangs from, upside down, unloading two Uzis into enemies below. This is a safe space for testing absurd cause and effects. What would happen if I dropped a speedboat on the side of a snow-covered mountain slope, and tried to ride it back to sea level? Just Cause 3 will let you find out!

Splatoon is an atypical game for Nintendo. It's a third-person shooter. It's heavily focused on online play. It doesn't have any traditional Nintendo characters — in fact, it's the first time in well over a decade that Nintendo has started from scratch for a major new game.

But at the same time, Splatoon feels like it could only have been made by Nintendo. It's a shooter that swaps colorful ink for bullets, and most of the time you're not even firing at people. The online system is ultra-simple, with little regard for hardcore gaming convention. And while Mario and co. are nowhere to be found, Splatoon's bizarre world and vibrant aesthetic feel like a '90s cartoon-inspired take on Nintendo's library.

I dove back into the world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt a few nights ago, my first time spent with the game since plowing through its first expansion pack in October. I don’t have many quests or treasure hunts left to complete, so I decided to explore the few corners of the map I hadn’t yet plumbed. The sea surrounding the Skellige Isles is studded with nameless islets and booty-filled shipwrecks, many of which are guarded by shrieking harpies and ugly drowners; I wanted to sniff around for new gear. I rode Roach, my stupid but faithful horse, to a fishing village near an Ard Skellig cape, hopped in a tiny boat, and started sailing south. It was sunset, and the choppy water was cast in soft pink light. It felt like I was the only person on the planet.

A second later, I heard a roar off to my right somewhere. I slowed the ship down and started looking around. Were pirates inbound? Were monsters going to board my ship, clawing at its wood until they were dispatched by a well-placed crossbow bolt? I turned to look at the ship’s front, where a giant whale’s tail was rising above the water a few dozen feet in front of me. It slapped the water, and the creature kept gliding forward. I’d never seen one before.

I never got through more than an hour of Dark Souls, the beloved and famously difficult predecessor to Bloodborne. Among other things, I was intimidated by what felt like dozens of initial choices and mechanics, all in a world that felt strangely empty. I just didn’t get it. So I started Bloodborne in hopes that I could experience some of the magic that other people seemed to see in Dark Souls.

It delivered.