With Covid-19 and the multiple phases of confinement and curfews, video games have had a good year, in France and around the world.
And players have been particularly well served with dozens of high-quality titles.
Europe 1 has selected the seven video games that marked the year 2020 and which will make excellent Christmas gifts.
There are just a few more days before we turn the 2020 page on the calendar.
An unprecedented year in all respects, during which the Covid-19 and confinements have upset the habits of the French.
We thus played more video games to occupy our days and our evenings of confinement.
The advantage is that there has been something to do in recent months with a lot of titles, for all tastes.
Laughter, emotion, anguish, suspense: more than ever, video games are diversifying by exploiting the possibilities offered by the format, at the crossroads of art and technology.
A few days before Christmas, Europe 1 has kept the seven games that we believe marked 2020.
The Last of Us, Part II
: our game of the year
You have to have a good stomach to play
The Last of Us, Part II
.
The first opus, released in 2013, was already a very good game. This sequel, on PS4, is a masterpiece that takes guts, it involves the player emotionally and physically as rarely before.
The storyline, embroidered around a classic revenge story, makes us play Ellie, a young woman in search of herself in a terrifying post-apocalyptic world.
The Last of Us, Part II
isn't for everyone, some will find it too bloody.
But it certainly does not leave indifferent.
For us, it is an impossible game to forget, a game that marks memory with a hot iron.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
: a poetic ode to nature
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
is our heart palm.
Here again, the first opus (
Ori and the Blind Forest
, 2015) was already a splendor.
This second adventure of the little being of light succeeds in being even more beautiful, more poetic, more bewitching.
Making the most of the possibilities offered by the genre, this almost perfect platform game, available on Xbox and Nintendo Switch, takes us to imaginary lands populated by strange creatures.
Hard without being painful,
Ori and the Will of the
Wisps is a game that we make, remake and remake again, carried by the magical score of Gareth Coker.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
: everything for adventure
We had high expectations for the new installment of Ubisoft's flagship license and we were not disappointed.
In
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
, make way for the Vikings who set out to conquer England.
In enemy territory, we build a community from nothing, we plunder villages in search of wealth and we forge alliances with other clans.
By drawing both on the good ideas of the two previous games in the series and by adding mechanics from the first, Ubisoft renews the formula with cunning.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
is the quintessential adventure game, with wide open spaces and a hair-raising epic blast.
Perfect for getting away from it all!
Spiritfarer
: death smoothly and with humor
There are games that are distinguished by an unexpected bias and
Spiritfarer
is one of them.
Her concept: to embody Stella, a ferryman of souls responsible for accompanying the spirits of the dead to the Beyond.
Except that this trip takes the form ... of a cruise.
You have to welcome each spirit aboard a boat, build a cabin for it and meet all its needs, from a good hot meal to a desire for a getaway.
Spiritfarer
is therefore a management game, you have to juggle between the wishes of the passengers and the improvement of the ship, in an oceanic world dotted with islands populated by amazing characters.
Original and very successful, the game, released on Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, also has the advantage of offering a long lifespan.
Final Fantasy VII Remake
: 100% nostalgia, 200% action
Making a remake of
Final Fantasy VII
, one of the most popular video games since its release in 1997, was a gamble for Square Enix.
But the Japanese studio is doing wonderfully.
This remake, redone from the ground up, focuses on the first part of the original game but everything has been enlarged.
About ten hours of play in 1997, it stretches in the remake over forty hours.
We find (or discover for new players) with delight the heroes, Cloud Barrett, Tifa and Aeris, embarked in a fight to save their planet from an ecological disaster.
More modern than ever,
Final Fantasy VII Remake
proves that good games are forever.
Ghost of Tsushima
: Zen with the Edge of the Sword
Here is a video game that the great Akira Kurosawa would not have denied.
The filmmaker, master of samurai films, would have appreciated
Ghost of Tsushima
like us, for his story of honor and betrayals.
But also for its beauty, with a very assertive graphic style, saturated colors that invade the screen like a print.
Alternating choreography-style sword fights with moments of Zen contemplation,
Ghost of Tsushima
, released only on PS4, is a classic but very well-made open world game.
Enough to make us want to see the end of it, which still takes around 40 hours.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
: the cocoon of a confined year
How not to end this list with THE game that will have the most marked in 2020. Released in early March,
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
quickly established itself as the totem game for those confined around the world.
It must be said that the principle could not be more adapted to the situation: it is about creating a happy community of animals on a paradise island.
Quiet management game, without time constraints,
Animal Crossing
is a refuge, a welcome cocoon in a difficult year.
Result: 26 million copies sold, an unexpected worldwide box.
In France,
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
has not left the weekly Top 5 for video game sales since its release.