First Runner Up: Square Enix
Square Enix is another publisher that has had quite the impressive 2016. The company most known for the Final Fantasy franchise stepped it up this year to provide a surprising mix of different types of titles.
The year kicked off with Final Fantasy Explorers, an action RPG with light MMO elements that proved to be incredibly fun. I Am Setsuna was another RPG that really stood out. With the publisher putting out quite a few more modern RPGs in recent years, having a title that hearkened back to the more classic JRPG experiences was a nostalgic breath of fresh air. Then there was Dragon Quest Builders, which is essentially what you get when you take the world of Dragon Quest and drop it into Minecraft. It’s surprisingly fun in how it uses world building and a sort of tower defense makeup alongside classic RPG features to immerse players in its world. A huge surprise was the AAA episodic Hitman. It was a risky approach that ended up being one of the freshest games of the year. Offering up detailed playgrounds with plenty of options for players to enact their assassination dreams. Plus, the timed Elusive Targets proved to be an interesting, yet worthwhile challenge.
However, one of the biggest successes of Square Enix, if not the biggest, was Final Fantasy XV. There was a lot of pressure on the publisher regarding this title that had been in development for over 10 years. The fact that it was so different from all of its predecessors was a worry for many fans, and the delay that came after the company finally set a date in stone didn’t go over too well. However, you have to give it to a company that decided to hold a game back knowing there would be backlash instead of just pushing it out as is and hoping to patch it in time. In the end, we received a Final Fantasy that was indeed different, yet still managed to maintain the spirit of what made the series so great in the first place.
