Runner-Up: Dead SpaceĬlaiming 7.1% of the vote is EA Motive’s accomplished remake of Dead Space, which took us back to the blood-drenched steel corridors of the USG Ishimura. And with its art entirely put together in MS Paint, it's a perfect example of how greatness can bloom from even the most humble tools. It’s all the work of just a handful of people – developer Paweł Koźmiński, writer Cassandra Khaw, and musicians ArcOfDream and Qwesta. Despite its simple, manga-influenced 2D design, this is a sprawling, multi-layered nightmare. You’ll see that journey through the eyes of 14 different characters, with each of their stories having multiple endings based on your decisions. The apocalypse looms, so you must explore a fictitious version of Shiokawa, Japan in the 1980s and attempt to halt the old gods’ plans. A roguelite RPG with turn-based combat, it’s instantly recognisable thanks to its distinctive black-and-white ‘1-bit’ art that depicts stomach-turning monstrosities. Lovecraft combine in World of Horror, perhaps the most unsettling of all the horror games released this year.

That makes every interaction unpredictable – will the mutant peering from the undergrowth run in fear, or be the very last thing you see as it tears you limb from limb? Every enemy has their own wants and needs, and so their behaviour is unique to them.

But it's the adaptive AI that really makes Sons of the Forest what it is the freaky cannibals of the island react to your presence in believable ways. The crafting core of the original has been overhauled with much more realistic building animations that enhance the immersion for instance, you now must snap branches in two to create firewood, or physically cut windows out of wooden walls using an axe. The long-awaited sequel to one of the most respected survival games of all time, Sons of the Forest builds on its predecessors strengths to create a chilling journey into a cannibal-infested woodland. Both are from smaller studios (the latter is actually largely the work of a single developer), but that didn’t stop them from taking Steam by storm. Tied with 2.4% of the vote each are Sons of the Forest and World of Horror.

Runners-Up: Sons of the Forest and World of Horror

Spooky video games to play