Honorable Mention: Dark Souls III: Ashes of Ariandel
Ashes of Ariandel brought Dark Souls players back into the Painted World, an alternate universe that powders its dangers in fresh snow. It’s gorgeous and daunting in all the expected ways: bloodthirsty wolves gather in packs with terrifying speed, hulking Millwood Knights patrol white hills, and Corvian Knights attack with all the grotesque horror of what appears to be grown crow fetuses.
The bosses and optional boss themselves aren’t startlingly fresh, but still manage to pull a few strategic shifts from players. They require more endurance than intellect overall, but neither trait is ill fitting of Dark Souls. The hidden boss also serves as the gateway to Ashes of Ariandel’s PvP arena, a customizable warzone offering new opportunities beyond Dark Souls’ typical one-on-one fare. It’s a happy stop on a familiar journey of dangerous and satisfying conquests, and a genuine bit of replayability for an otherwise brief travel.
Ashes of Ariandel’s combat and world design stand alongside its full game quite confidently, but this DLC stops just short of something miraculous. Though there are plenty of challenges, weapons, and gear sets to discover among its grand landscape, the Painted World of the original Dark Souls feels lore-ripe enough for a more thorough exploration. The result is a quality addition to one of this year’s tightest RPGs, hindered only by its potential to stand taller than its source.
Second Runner Up: Destiny: Rise of Iron
A game released in a light vanilla form, Destiny has routinely been dependent on its expansions, occasional content payloads delivering to tiring players additional stories, missions, and plainly, just more things to do. Rise of Iron, the fourth expansion to Bungie’s space shooter universe, manages to hit all of these goals with a few notable highs.
Center to Rise of Iron’s conflict is SIVA, a forgotten nanobot virus breaking through the protective walls of Felwinter Peak. Undeniable are connections to Game of Thrones, as the snowy peaks and dutiful Iron Lords play as a dramatic and deceptively nostalgic backdrop.
SIVA-infected enemies fight with new fervor, especially within the thrilling Wrath of the Machine. Rise of Iron’s greatest accomplishment is a raid that rests entirely on complex combat scenarios and fresh tactical challenges. Similarly entrancing are the Gjallahorn quest line and the Archon’s Forge public arena. Their tight design in both scope and gameplay make for electrifying moments within a short story.
Though its length and range of novelty fell short of last year’s The Taken King, Rise of Iron receives our nod for its thrilling scenes, decidedly exciting additions, and success in bringing fun back for Guardians, even as Destiny moves into a third year.
First Runner Up: World of Warcraft: Legion
Following ten years and millions subscribers, new World of Warcraft expansions drop on painfully held breaths. Old players hope for a reason to return, new players hope for an injection of momentum, and everyone in between just wants great content. At the same time, it’s no easy task answering those hopes without just pinning powerful gear and piles of quests on last season’s end-game. The typical fodder for MMO expansion, even with a great story, won’t rest well on seasoned players immune to anything but genuine novelty.
So Legion went all out.
The first new class to be added since 2012, Demon Hunters shook technical foundations with their unfairly fun double jumps and wing gliding. Their introduction revolves around the return of the Burning Legion, a dark force that’s assaulted Azeroth since the dawn of WoW history, and Illidan Stormrage, a lore centerpiece even more intriguing. He is everything so conflicting about Demon Hunters — their pain, anger, and twisted sense of justice — and both are far from heroes.
The technical and ideological novelty of Demon Hunters spills into the quests and narratives of the Shattered Isles, Legion’s new region. Each of the five zones revolve around a condensed and impressive plot line, trimming out fetch quests for more unique mechanics and epic, “no turning back now” story decisions.
While they’re out there, players can enjoy revamped skill trees, which after being reduced to fluff abilities years ago, are finally showing meaningful build choices. Blizzard plans to evolve the trees even more in a search for balanced, personal, and satisfying options. Future patches will also bring additional dungeon content, epic class mounts, and a return to the sacrificial scene of the Broken Shore.
At the center of each character adventures are class order halls, the bigger, bolder, and far more successful evolution of Draenor’s garrisons. These headquarters unfurl into their own stories, and house the most revered names of Warcraft history. You’ll quest alongside greats once secluded to cutscenes and lore books, wielding unique class weapons meant to be tuned and upgraded far beyond the new 110 level cap, an early milestone for Legion players.
The best may be yet to come, as BlizzCon 2016 revealed the final chapters of Legion will take players to Argus, the unexplored planet of demons. It’s an unmistakable and unprecedented step forward, much like everything else of Legion.
This is the first expansion to palpably excite players since 2008’s Wrath of the Lich King. Legion in so many ways feels like a long-awaited push for Blizzard, a moment in World of Warcraft history finally ready to explore deep technical and narrative feats, and with no time to hold back.
Winner: The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine
The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine could have been a game all its own, starring not just Geralt, but the intoxicating world of Touissant. The region is massive and its haughty residents are perpetually inebriated, but most strikingly, Touissant is untouched by war.
Conflict ravages the rest of Geralt’s world in a million depressing ways; the base Wild Hunt game is a subtly powerful exploration of war, but in Blood and Wine, hung corpses are replaced by jewel-colored vineyards, and orphaned children with jousting tournaments. The smiling substitutions are startling and flippant, mirroring the Touissant citizens dancing among their secrets, and our witcher, hoping for a happy end despite all else he’s seen in the world.
You could spend hours of Blood and Wine trapezing around with artists, sommeliers, and lavish parties. There are over 90 quests, a new Gwent deck, an armor dying system, new powers through the mutation feature, and a mission starring Roach that is both disturbing and touching. Players that eventually drift into the rich main quest meet settings and characters both wildly vivid and violent. Creatures are bolder, boss fights have evolved into challenging spectacles, and an old friend returns with a charming darkness so fitting for the setting.
Each of these pieces – mechanically, visually, and narratively – rapidly rise to the sky high standards of The Witcher 3, one of last year’s most lauded games. Its fluid combat is a joy, its narrative steps are gratifying, and no minor quest is without a purpose — many are just as engrossing as the starring story line. Without a doubt, Blood and Wine enraptures at every turn.
But as much as this is a fresh adventure for players, another dose of a beloved story for those who have invested dozens of hours into The Witcher, it is a finale — the last expansion for Geralt’s video game saga. More than mounds of content, Blood and Wine masterfully travels through a bold new setting, a wild romp through its beautiful hills, a story of concealed danger, and, in its last breaths, a fulfilling end to a phenomenal title.
