GotY - The Top 10 Most Anticipated Games of 2014

The year of 2013 is over at last, and we find ourselves staring down the barrel of what could potentially be the most exciting year for gaming in almost a decade. For the first time since 2007, we're starting a year with entirely fresh consoles and a whole new realm of possibilities laid out at our fingertips. And do you remember what a seminal year 2007 ended up being for gaming? Giants like Modern Warfare, Halo 3, Mass Effect, BioShock, and Uncharted launched that fall, making 2007 one of the best years ever in gaming - one that we're primed to repeat, with just a little bit of luck.

We've yet to see many of this fall's releases, which will no doubt be revealed at this year's E3. Similarly, many games have been confirmed for next-gen consoles or PCs, but have not yet been confirmed for 2014. Games like Persona 5, which will release in Japan in 2014 but which likely won't hit the US until 2015, are being excluded from the list as well.

That said, we still had a doozy of a time whittling our most anticipated games of 2014 down to just 10 titles. Take a look at our decisions below, and let us know in the comments what games you're looking forward to in the new year.

10. Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones from Tell

We don't know much about Telltale's new Game of Thrones video game, but it's enough. The dark world of the novels and show are a perfect fit for Telltale's newfound focus on gritty, conflict-driven drama that has been so well exemplified in The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us. And with the pedigree of Game of Thrones, we can expect plenty of in-fighting and bloodshed come late this year.

9. Transistor

We first played Transistor at PAX East this year, and the game has been on our minds ever since then. With a gorgeous art style reminiscent of a futuristic Bastion and a unique time-stopping gameplay hook, Transistor looks to be every bit a worthy successor to 2011's indie masterpiece.

8. Destiny

Destiny is the new game from Bungie, which is reason enough to be excited. But while the game does focus on familiar aspects ilke first-person shooting in a large sandbox world, it's the new elements that make us excited. The seamless co-op should lend itself well to strategic large-scale encounters, and the new guns, vehicles and enemies of Destiny will give shooter fans everywhere lots to discover together.

7. No Man's Sky

Speaking of discovery, No Man's Sky is a game that puts exploration at the forefront of its design. Every player will get their own randomly-generated solar system to explore, with each planet having its own resources, biomes, and wildlife. Sharing your discoveries will make them available to players all over the world, but be warned - resources and wildlife drain from a global pool, so once players have harvested enough of a resource or killed enough of a certain species on a given planet, they'll be gone forever.

6. Titanfall

Much of the team that revolutionized shooters with 2007's Modern Warfare are back again with Titanfall, a game that looks an awful lot like Modern Warfare but in the future with mechs and parkour. The fast-paced, twitchy gameplay of Call of Duty should translate nicely to this hard sci-fi setting, which sees players jumping into large robots called Titans to take on their enemies. The addition of jetpacks and parkour moves means that infantry soldiers won't be entirely defenseless, though - they can even take down Titans if they're wily enough.

5. Bayonetta 2

Bayonetta 2

Bayonetta 2 looks to be taking everything that was awesome about the original and amping it up x1,000. The wacky story and hair-for-clothes/weapons mechanics all seem to have made the transition to the Wii U wonderfully, and the combat is just as free-flowing and smooth as ever. But it's the big action sequences that have clearly seen the most attention from developer Platinum. One fifteen-minute stretch we played at Comic-Con had us battling angels on a speeding train as the tracks were destroyed behind us, only to come face-to-face with a massive ogre who we killed using a dragon made out of witch hair. Then, the dragon broke free of our control and began destroying a skyscraper. We couldn't have that, so we took flight and began an airborne battle against the creature. 

If the rest of the game can keep up the demo's frenzied pace, the Wii U's got a winner on its hands for sure.

4. InFamous: Second Son

The sequel to the fantastic InFamous 2, Second Son looks to be the first must-have exclusive on the PlayStation 4. It's got all the smooth gameplay of its predecessors, with a gorgeously-realized new world to explore and a whole new suite of powers just begging to be used on the game's numerous civilians. Will you be good or evil? Ah, who are we kidding? We're going to play it twice and see both endings, as we always do.

3. Watch_Dogs

Watch_Dogs was at one point one of our most anticipated games of 2013, but hey - things happen. The game's lengthy delay doesn't seem to have detracted from what made the game awesome in the first place - an open, hackable world that reacts to your every move. And with the extra polish time its receiving, Watch_Dogs should look and play even better than when we last saw it.

2. The Elder Scrolls Online

The Elder Scrolls Online could very well be the biggest MMO release since World of Warcraft. It's got the series pedigree to support years or even decades of quests, enemies and expansions, and the bright, beautiful graphics make it stand out amongst the competition. ESO may be more MMO than The Elder Scrolls at times, but its unique blend of two genres (you can go into first-person to fight enemies if you wish, for example) could make it the game that finally topples WoW. Look out for ESO to rock PCs in April, and next-gen consoles soon after.

1. The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt

The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt

ESO may be the biggest RPG of next year, but it's The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt that we're looking forward to the most. After nearly an hour with the game at E3 (read our preview here, and check out our interview with the devs to see why we're so excited), you'd be crazy not to see the potential inherent in Geralt's latest - and perhaps final - adventure. With a sprawling open world bigger than Skyrim's and filled with monsters - each of which is unique from its peers - and numerous methods of traversal, The Witcher is finally entering the open world sub-genre with flair. But it's not just the open world and the new monsters that have us excited. The combat has been refined, too, leading to a much more responsive feeling game, and new methods of travel have been added including sailing. Of course, sailing the open seas presents its own set of seductive threats.

The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt promises to be the darkest, deepest, and most inrtiguing game of 2014, so stay tuned for more coverage.


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