GamesBeat head of social Anthony John Agnello’s top 10 games of 2017

2017 was a remarkable year for video games, with a seemingly endless tide of inspired work coming out from the big money publishers and one-dev studios alike. Around every corner, a new idea: old-school arcade brawler mixed with classic cooking competition in Battle Chef Brigade, consciousness expanding ambition in Everything that tries to let you experience the totality of life on earth, the unsettlingly accurate cow milking in 1-2 Switch. The democratization of the medium, the sheer breadth of platforms and development opportunities, was staggering this year.

For despite that newness, I found when I looked back that the games I connected with the most this year were almost universally in established series. They were games that took long-established iconography and twisted them into profound expressions of human experience. 2017 held true to the pattern — this was indeed a revolutionary year. But my 10 favorites were evolutionary, exploring how far old modes could go in reflecting the soul of the world.