The daring & discounted RPS Advent Calendar 2020

At least the games were good. In a year that's tested all of us in more ways than one, we've still had plenty of great games to play. The RPS Advent Calendar is therefore here to countdown the final days of 2020 with jubilant praise for 24 of our favourite games.

Here's how it works: from December 1st until December 24th we reveal one 2020 PC game that the RPS team loves. Each game gets a post in which the site's writers explain why they loved said game, like a small chocolate made out of adjectives. The games are revealed in no particular order except for the one on December 24th, which is the definitive pick for the best PC game of 2020.

You might recognise this calendar image from last year, since it's basically exactly the same. Please pretend that this is because we saved some money by buying it from the discounted basket back in January 2020, instead of the real reason, which is that Nate does the pictures and he's convalescing at the moment. We may yet spend £2 on a new advent calendar, but it's not like the games have gone off in this one. It's fine, it's fine.

You can access each day's post by clicking on the corresponding door below as it opens (or, if you're on mobile and the image links don't work, scroll below for a normal set of text links).

The rules are the same as always. Any game released in 2020 is eligible for inclusion in the list, whether it was released as early access or left early access with a version 1.0. We also consider games that feel "of" 2020 in some substantial way, whether a live service game that received a revivifying update or an indie game rendered fresh by a sudden surge in popularity. Games not yet released at the time the calendar begins will be considered before the calendar concludes - and yes, this means Cyberpunk 2077 will be considered upon its release on December 10th.

We select the games by giving each member of the RPS team 10 points to spread across however many games they desire. This means that they can give one game 10 points, 10 games one point each, or anything in between. We hope to favour games that people truly love over and above games that a lot of people merely like. We whittle the games down to a final list of 24 via some discussion among the editors - or by Graham just doing whatever he wants (Because honestly who could stop me. --Ed).

We do the calendar almost every year, including in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. In 2014 we did the RPS Bestest Bests which were the exact same only it wasn't based around a calendar. This was clearly inferior, and so the calendar returned in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. That makes this the fourteenth RPS advent calendar, if you count the oddities in 2008 and 2014.