kcd is great but too niche to ever win at these kinds of mainstream award shows. kcd is still kind of leaning into that "simulator" territory which is too indepth for a lot of gamers
I can't think of any game released this year that even comes close to KCD2, as it ticks all the right boxes for me with its level of immersion, atmosphere, exploration, and specific tone that perfectly matches the storytelling. Granted, it offers little innovation since it's practically the Act II of Henry's adventures and (once again ) the balance gets thrown out of the window way earlier than one would expect; however, the experience is so charmingly unique and enthralling that I can easily look past such warts. It's also well-optimised and polished for an RPG of this calibre, which is always a plus.
There have been some other interesting games worthy of an honourable mention in my book (The Alters, Cronos TND, Tempest Rising, Silksong to a degree - followed by the more mixed Cultic part II, Tainted Grail, MGS3 Remustarded) but in general, my ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ has been very high this year. Avowed/TOW2, Dying Light The Beast, TLOU2, Commandos Origins, Indiana Jones, Hell is Us, Routine and so on all ultimately felt like disappointments -- culminating with the plain sad trombones such as not Bloodlines 2 and PMR.
Roguelike/lites, MMOs, anime-inspired games and JRPGs are my nemesis so the likes of Clair Obscur, Hades, Blue Prince, etc. can't even qualify as I wouldn't be able to judge them properly without showing disdain
Can it be, an optimized CryEngine game for Léo?
This is a CryEngine game right? I just bought this in the sale and out of curiosity, ran it on the Steam Deck … which is a … low end hardware, and wow. Sure, almost everything was on low, and used XeSS/FSR (still not sure which looks better on that tiny screen), but it runs … pretty well for how it looks, and for being a CryEngine game! Amazing. I'll play this thoroughly soon, looks like a nice game. Never played the original, partly due to its terrible performance, but seems like this is better. Did CryEngine become a good engine at some point?
The game doesn't look phenomenal, but it has this photorealistic kind of look to it, like the ARMA games.
The vistas are fantastic, but if you get up close to objects, the spell starts to break. The vegetation is a good example of this, getting close to a tree or flowers is quite the immersion hit.
Well, these days, anything that is not Unreal Angina, looks good enough a runs good enough, is a win for me. If this was Angina 5.x, it would be a total mess. And look worse.
I just finished this recently and was also surprised how polished it ran. Smooth 120fps, no crashes, no quest issues, only a handful of minor visual hickups. Definitely my goty as well.
There must have been a door there in the wall, when I came in.
Truly gone fishing.
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) the balance gets thrown out of the window 
