PC Gamer’s Best RPG and Setting of 2016

PC Gamer has announced their Best RPG of 2016 and it is Darkest Dungeon. The question “What is an RPG?” may be even more complex and divisive than “What can change the nature of a man?” but it is a question for another day. Right now you can read the reasoning of PC Gamer’s editors for such a pick. An excerpt:

Chris Thursten: Darkest Dungeon excels in every area. The artwork, music, and writing are all phenomenal—and as Evan notes, they’re all cohesive parts of an intricate, punishing whole. Driving parties of doomed mercenaries deeper and deeper into your horror-haunted family manor, you’re tasked with managing their sanity along with their safety. Through a complex interweaving of RPG systems, random dungeon generation and ambient detail, stories emerge. There was the stalwart knight with a kleptomaniac streak, whose reliability as a front-line combatant meant I overlooked the fact that he’d steal a few thousand gold worth of artifacts on every run. Or the fraught scouting expedition where each of my warrior-priestesses went mad, in turn, until they started to refuse healing with increasing frequency and had to be pulled screaming through each encounter by a paranoid jester. It’s not the year’s flashiest RPG, but the memories Darkest Dungeon have created have stuck with me.

Additionally, Dark Souls 3 was named as the game to have the Best Setting. Here are some of the reasons why:

James Davenport: Irithyll’s introduction is unforgettable. One of the most gorgeous vistas in games, peaceful and shimmering under a soft moon. Then a giant ratdog chases you across a bridge. But if you survive, ghosts walk the streets, elegant warriors and witches from a bygone era lash out, and as you venture further into the city, the architecture begins to feel familiar. It should. Dark Souls has always done this, foregoing generic environmental design in favor of building out the history of entire civilizations in how a building looks and the posture and dress of statuary. Where most games fill out their world with light set decoration, it’s rare to encounter anything in Dark Souls 3’s world that doesn’t carry meaning.