Forget Game of the Year... This is Game of the Decade, the true GOAT. I was one of the few people that played The Cycle: Frontier up until the day it went offline and loved it. This is truly the spiritual successor and it really feels like they've learned from their mistakes and IMPROVED in every way. The skill tree, retro sci-fi aesthetics, upgradeable "hideout;" hell, even the quest system is a massive improvement.

A lot of people criticize the PvE, but I've found the AI refreshing, They've taken the punishing, extreme stakes of Tarkov and mixed it with the fun of fighting non-human entities with special abilities. The looting is also a big improvement. Many world events bring fresh varieties bring tons of replayability to the thousands of hours I'm bound to sink into this game.

The PvP is exquisitely balanced. Another criticism people wage is that the 3rd person view will kill this game; I highly disagree. 1st, it massively improves playability cross-platform, although I would never play it off Steam on console due to the competitive disadvantage of losing FPS. 2nd, it brings gravity to the situation and allows you to get more information about fights that locking down to FPS lacks awareness. 3rd, it connects you with your character which means people will be more likely to buy skins because unlike many other FPS games (CoD, Overwatch, etc) the cosmetics aren't just flexing to other people, but you get to enjoy it too!

I do wish there was a head-turning system like EFT and other games (although switching shoulders accounts for most situations). I also find myself wishing there was a FPS/3rd person view toggle like ARMA/Day Z; however, I can see the imbalance issues that come from these transitions. I also wish there was more of a hardcore draw; I can see there being lulls between development cycle when you've finished all the content and are waiting for the next battlepass season to add more content. There's no way playing the same 16 hrs/day as I did on launch is possible indefinitely.

I would also like to see improvements in the sorting of loot to inlcude some way to see what breaks down into what materials because it's currently a little clunky, but may just be the type of thing that you need to memorize. For example, if I need metal parts, filtering out only items that eventually give metal parts would be a massive improvement and also adding the recycling information into the tooltip to skip the step of right-clicking --> Recycle to get the info. I also hope they add quicker interactions/hotkeys to picking up/dropping loot. Not a fan of the double-click system and click-dragging

Ark: Survival Ascended (ASA) is a true-to-faith reproduction of the original ARK: Survival Evolved I loved playing for almost 10 years. I put well over 15k hours in that game. While I don't expect to reach those levels on ASA, the game is still an improvement on last generation. I'm not a huge fan of removing movement speed personally, but the derpy dino AI makes up for the lack of being able to run and adds an element of danger that wasn't there before. The official community is as toxic and full of Chinese hackers as ever, but that just means you have to adapt and overcome and figure out ways to cheat them without cheating the game.

There's so much positive to say about Cities: Skylines. I've been playing this game since the launch and I have over 75% of the the plethora of DLC. I love this game and keep coming back again and again, I can't wait for the sequel when they add multiplayer. This truly will be a monumental franchise.

This game is highly addictive and full of fun. There's so much to do and everything is really well planned and thought out. You'll find yourself buying more than one copy of the game it's that good. I have 3 accounts!