Fraser Brown's favourite games of 2017

We asked a handful of our contributors to put together a list of their three favourite games from 2017. Their picks are running across the week while the rest of RPS slumbers.

I think I would have lost my mind if it wasn’t for the many incredible digital holidays I’ve taken in 2017. It’s been a bit overwhelming to play so many great but also massive games in a single year, however. New Year’s resolution: squeeze more brief games into my life.

Divinity: Original Sin 2

If I only got one pick instead of three, this would have to be it -- a game where you can chat to haughty crabs one minute and steal someone’s face to hide the fact that you’re a walking, talking skeleton the next. It sets the bar for sandbox RPGs but also boasts exceptional (and crazy) tactical combat that, incredibly, I might enjoy more than XCOM’s. What can I say? I love to set fire to things.

Tacoma

The impetus for my resolution, Tacoma is as slick and clever as it is intimate and heartfelt. The titular space station made for a wonderful, temporary home, and its inhabitants fantastic company. 50 hours of world-building couldn’t make it more vivid, and there are few stronger examples of fantastic environmental storytelling and incidental flavour. I must have read the ingredients to every packet of food on the station, and I have no regrets.

Total War: Warhammer 2

Warhammer 2 might have finally knocked Shogun 2 off the top of my Total War list, and when combined with the first game via Mortal Empires, it’s the most ambitious thing Creative Assembly has ever made, both in terms of its incredible scale and its elaborate, diverse factions. It’s the Skaven who are the stars though -- nothing will ever be as fun as commanding armies of chittering ratmen as they devour an entire world.