Game Of The Year 2016 – INSIDE
In a year chock-full of AAA releases, I can’t say how happy I am to see an indie title top our Game of the Year list. INSIDE obliterates stereotypes about independent game development, offering one of the most polished and perfected projects ever to come from any game studio big or small. Sure, it may be a short experience, clocking in at three or four hours, but there isn’t one moment of boredom or filler during the entire creepy journey.
In addition, each segment is polished to perfection; I dare you to find a game of this ilk that controls better. INSIDE creates the sort of mind-gamepad connection that makes taking action onscreen feel effortless, even as your mind races and your hands tremble from the spooky, memorable set pieces that are thrown at you every few minutes here. This might not be straight-up horror, but it certainly filled me with an existential dread that I couldn’t shake for long after I put the controller down.
Words almost don’t do this game justice, especially when trying to avoid spoilers about the absolutely spine-tingling final sequence. Let’s just say there’s a reason this little title blew all competitors out of the water to become our Game of the Year by a mile — Playdead’s long development cycle absolutely paid off in delivering a worthy successor to Limbo.