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GameSpot's Game of the Year and Best of 2016 Schedule

A long road to the top.

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2016 has been a great year full of amazing games, crazy news stories, and memorable entertainment. To help you sort through the year that was, we have stories and videos going up throughout December that highlight the highs, lows, and of course, our overall Game of the Year. Check out the schedule below so you can plan your holiday reading accordingly.

2016 Highlights

Gaming Report Cards

Here's how we feel all the gaming platforms fared in 2016.

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2016 Best Games

For our "Best Games" features, we present an unranked list of the top five games from each console.

Game of the Year

The main event! We start off with our ranking our 25 favorite games of the year. For our Game of the Year reveal, we'll be doing a 5-hour livestream countdown. Check out our schedule for the full details here.

Thursday, December 22

GameSpot People's Choice Award Voting Begins 8 AM PT

Monday, 2 January 2017

  • GameSpot Player's Choice voting ends

2017 Most Anticipated

Thursday, December 22

  • Overall 20 Biggest Games to Play in 2017
  • Biggest PS4 Games to Play in 2017
  • Biggest Xbox One Games to Play in 2017
  • Biggest PC Games to Play in 2017
  • Biggest Nintendo Games to Play in 2017

GameSpot Universe

Monday, December 26

  • Biggest Movie News of 2016
  • Biggest TV News of 2016
  • Biggest Comic News of 2016

Tuesday, December 27

  • Best Movies of 2016

Wednesday, December 28

  • Best TV Shows of 2016

Thursday, December 29

  • Best Comics of 2016
  • Worst Movies of 2016

Friday, December 30

  • Biggest Movies to Watch in 2017
  • Biggest TV Shows to Watch in 2017
  • Biggest Comics to Read in 2017

And of course, you can see everything lumped together in attractive layout on our Best of 2016 hub page.

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Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

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Avatar image for mcstabstab
McStabStab

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Where do we go for the people's choice voting?

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velcroboy

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@mcstabstab: No idea.....

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deactivated-63df62ba1a897

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@velcroboy: @mcstabstab Apologies! We had a slight hiccup on the server end, but voting is now set to go live tomorrow morning!

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Bumblebee1138

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I thought there was going to be a poll....

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deactivated-63df62ba1a897

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@Bumblebee1138: Slight change of plans, it's now going live tomorrow (Thursday) morning!

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deactivated-5ffeb39311bd2

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"The media playback was aborted due to a corruption problem or because the media used features your browser did not support."

Whyyyyy do you still uuuuuuuuse this damn player? Are you not allowed to use Youtube to embed on your website? What? What is it? Aaaaaaarghghhhhhh

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SimplyTheeBest

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Edited By SimplyTheeBest

Game of the year : Forza Horizon 3 Runner up: Call of Duty 4 Re-Masterpiece

Most Anticipated of 2017 : Red Dead Redemption 2 Runner up: Halo 6

Best FPS : Call of Duty 4 Re-Masterpiece Runner up: Doom

Best Racer: Forza Horizon 3 Runner up: F1 2016

Best Action RPG : Dark Souls 3 no runner up, runaway win!

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ninboxstation

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Edited By ninboxstation

Gamespot kind of messed up a few big game review scores in 2016 (giving many games a simple 8/10, like giving Watch dogs 2, Dishonored 2 and Pokemon Sun/Moon each 8/10 -.-... while D2 & Pokemon S/M >>WD2)...

at least they should get the GOTY right, which should be DARK SOULS 3... (and not Overwatch, Doom or Titanfall 2...)

...

btw. why does Wikipedia say Titanfall 2 won the video games goty award? Overwatch won it.. (not the first time I saw BS in Wikipedia about Titanfall.., does EA have such BS fans write such stuff in wikipedia??)

if you wikipedia "List of Game of the Year awards" and scroll down the list of the different GOTY awards (starting with 1UP.com, British Academy Games Awards, Crash, Crispy Gamer, DICE, EDGE etc...., futher down "The Game Awards (Formerly: Spike Video Game Awards)" says Titanfall 2 won.. which is BS, Overwatch won)

EDIT: nm, they changed it to Overwatch (others must have complained too...)

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ogremalfeitor

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If overwatch wins GOTY here too like in the Game Advertisements, sorry Game Awards, I'll just quit trying to understand the masses. Now, back to Dark Souls, cya.

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loafofgame

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Edited By loafofgame

@ogremalfeitor: I suppose you mean Demon's Souls. Dark Souls is way too mainstream.

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ogremalfeitor

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@loafofgame: anything souls related, demons or dark souls - they all beat that oversomething any day.

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GuerillaTaktics

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Edited By GuerillaTaktics

The most fun games I played all year were easily DOOM and Dishonored 2. Those are my choices. Totally subjective but I had a blast with both of those and could play either of them again anytime.

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SingletreeAve

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Edited By SingletreeAve

Doom is the obvious winner by far. A flawless study in game design and execution. It brings back everything that was good about gaming before suits good greedy and crapped on the final product. A close second is Shadow Warrior 2. They also got it right. But Id is still the master.

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ahpuck

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Best game of the year: DOOM

Most disappointing game of the year: Street Fighter V (with a tear in my eye) Capcom you let me down for the last time!

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amampathak

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better give Witcher 3 expansion a mension, its easily GOTY for most of us

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SingletreeAve

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@amampathak: Witcher 3 has the best writing and game world, but mechanics still need some improvement. I often laugh during combat because Geralt's movements are so inorganic.

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amampathak

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@SingletreeAve: Oh no you make it sound so bad. It's pretty good combat and I highly enjoy it! I don't think its inorganic, Its pretty similar to Dark souls combat!

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EmperorPepe

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Edited By EmperorPepe

Their editors just arbitrarily choose now people dont get to vote on GOTY anymore? guess gamespot does not believe in democracy.

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SingletreeAve

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@emperorpepe: America no longer believes in Democracy. That's why we elected Herr Trump fool.

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DK-BT

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Edited By DK-BT

@SingletreeAve: Well it's been that way since the USA was founded, so "no longer a democracy" isn't technically correct. It's just never been a 100% democracy.

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butterworth

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@emperorpepe: Psst...Check December 20th again.

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JoshRMeyer

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I'd imagine goty would go to uncharted 4, since it's the only game that gamespot gave a 10 to all year.

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SingletreeAve

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@joshrmeyer: GOTY should not be a platform exclusive.

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GuerillaTaktics

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@SingletreeAve: GOTY should just be the best game of the year, regardless of weather or not it's a platform exclusive.

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JoshRMeyer

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Edited By JoshRMeyer

@SingletreeAve: The best games are usually platform exclusives though. Better optimized. Bigger budget.

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Leefx

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@SingletreeAve: why?

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deactivated-5d762a7e1423c

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If gamers vote XB game will be, likely, Forza; if "Reviewers" vote it will be, likely, Inside. Played Inside even though I knew it wasn't a genre I liked, just because of the hype....sigh....I told myself....didn't remotely enjoy it.

GOTY I would likely support Uncharted even though I had a much more enjoyable time playing Forza...I just vastly prefer adventure games over racers. Far Cry Primal I would give consideration as, even though it wasn't the strongest FC title (3), I vastly prefer RPG's to all else.....c'est la vie.

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Thanatos2k

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Please don't give awards to consolized shooters. If you have to give an award to a shooter, make it Overwatch please.

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mpl911

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Edited By mpl911

Dear Gamespot.

Please don't bother with anything related to movie or tv stuff, comic stuff or any mobile games.

Many thanks.

Yours sincerely,

many people.

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grungeman91

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Best Comics, Movies and TV?

WHAT IS THIS? IGN??

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Gomtor

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Best console of the year = PS4.

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Shay-Cormac

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@Gomtor: No.

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SingletreeAve

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@Gomtor: Best console of the year is an oxymoron.

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JoshRMeyer

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@SingletreeAve: I don't think you know what an oxymoron is... jumbo shrimp, seriously funny, or original copies are a few examples.

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jyml8582

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Guess everyone agrees unanimously that Uncharted 4 is definitely going to win, 2016 has been a quiet year for gaming, not many memorable games were released this year, Uncharted 4 has zero competition.

Best game still in alpha: Star Citizen

Best game demo: Resident Evil 7: Kitchen

Biggest disappointment: No Man's Sky

Worst technical shitstorm: Too fucking many.

Craziest thing that happened: Pokémon Go

Best Platform: Linux

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JohnMafia

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@jyml8582: 2016 has been a phenomenal year for gaming, but makes sense that Gamespot users think its been Uncharted and not much else. The actual game of the year for just AAA games really should be a close contest between Uncharted 4, Doom, Titanfall 2, Hitman and Overwatch, with Hitman being the winner.

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Terminator95

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GAME OF THE YEAR = Uncharted 4.

The End.

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howthegodzkill

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If only Xbox One had actual exclusives. Makes deciding what real and fantasy are difficult considering I've played all their "exclusives" on my PC already. Luckily, Gears 4 was free with the purchase of a GTX card, Forza H3 was on sale and Recore was heavily discounted too.

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mpl911

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Edited By mpl911

@howthegodzkill: It still surprises me how people just can't understand the simplest things. "Exclusive" means "not released on any other console", so a game that comes out on the Xbox won't be released on the PS4 or whatever console Nintendo currently has out now. As the guy below explains, Xbox One games will also be released on pc - so although a particular game will be an "exclusive" if it's not released on the PS, it will be released on pc. Perhaps you've not heard of Play Anywhere. They wouldn't be able to do that if they didn't release Xbox exclusives also on the pc.

See? Simple.

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Leefx

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@mpl911: I suggest you look up the definition of exclusive smart arse

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mpl911

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@Leefx: I know what "exclusive" means thank you. I also know what "console exclusive" means, like it says on the front of the GoW4 box and the FH3 box. There are other versions which say "for both Xbox One and Windows 10 pc" which obviously don't mention the word "exclusive" at all. So, as I said, a console exclusive will be released for only a single console.

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Leefx

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@mpl911: GOW4 can be played on PC and comes free if you buy a titan gfx card so how is that console exclusive?

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mpl911

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@Leefx: You're proving my point - GoW4 is a console exclusive for the xbox. Whether it comes out on pc, mac or even on mobile, that doesn't alter the fact that as far as consoles are concerned, it's been released exclusively for the xbox One.

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JoshRMeyer

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@mpl911: So street fighter v is a playstation exclusive?

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fig56

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@howthegodzkill:

XboxOne+Windows Store= Exclusive to Microsoft.

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Leefx

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@fig56: this on the other hand is correct, just have a quick word with mpl911

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Tiwill44

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Best movie of 2016: Uncharted 4

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