A quick look at the upcoming games of 2020 shows just how much there is to be excited about this year, and the 12DOVE team is already counting down to Cyberpunk 2077, the Dune movie remake, next-generation consoles and more. We asked them was what at the top of their hype list for 2020, and had to hose them all down with cold water and soothing aromatherapy oils afterward.
This is the latest in a series of big questions we'll be interrogating our writers with, so share your answers and suggestions for topics with us on Twitter.
Ooblets
2020 has to be the year. It has to be the year that the pure joy explosion that is Ooblets enters our lives in a way that's more than just the most adorable gifs on Twitter. 2019 was always kind to the humans behind Ooblets, especially when it comes to community backlash, but the team is moving on – with a little help from Epic Games – and now it feels like the Animal Crossing meets Pokemon meets Harvest Moon hybrid is tantalisingly close. From everything I've seen and heard of the game, it's going to tick all my boxes: adorable critters to train, discover and dance with; Stardew Valley-style farming and seed collecting; customisable characters; a quaint little town to explore; and no doubt a whole lot more to discover. I'm so in. Sam Loveridge
Cyberpunk 2077
Any hotness I currently have for Cyberpunk 2077 is based purely on the promise of a proper, meaty, open world to get lost in. It’s CD Projekt Red’s claims of ‘density’ more than anything else that excites me - the idea that I could get lost in a wealth of side missions, just seeing what’s around the next corner and finding memorable moments at the end of some no-name ally. I don’t want a game I can complete, I want a game I can get disappear into. And, most importantly, as I replay The Witcher 3 and gaze across its map packed full of things to do, I want these diversions to be meaningful. Increasingly, open worlds are fleshed out with easily repeatable tasks rather than interesting stories, as the demands of higher resolutions mean resources are spent more on making rocks look pretty than crafting weighty and intricate side quests. But if any one studio or game can buck the trend it’s this one. Leon Hurley
Animal Crossing New Horizons
This is the easiest question I've ever answered. Not only is Animal Crossing New Horizons the game I'm most looking forward to in 2020, it's the sole reason I bought a Nintendo Switch. Life hasn't been the same since 2012, and Pocket Camp never scratched that itch (probably because you had to wait 8 real-time hours for a chair to be built) so I will be pre-ordering the crap out of Animal Crossing. I've already begun counting down the days until I get to inhabit a small island with my adorable anthropomorphic pals, and probably booking the release date off to play it. Sorry 12DOVE. Isabelle comes first. Ellen Causey
Dune
I struggle to wrap my brain around how big 2020 will be for gaming, so I'm focusing on something that is even more difficult to wrap my brain around: Denis Villeneuve's Dune, which is set to drop in December of this year. Dune could quite possibly be the single most intriguing piece of science fiction/fantasy media of all time: the 1965 novel won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, cult film director Alejandro Jodorowsky unsuccessfully tried to make it a film in the 70s, and David Lynch famously adapted it into a film featuring Sting in the 80s, but it has yet to permeate pop culture the same way its genre-mates has. That could very well be due to the headiness of Dune's content (of which I have had mansplained to me more times than I'd like to admit), which includes rather lofty themes like environmentalism, religion, and the rise and fall of empires. But with the man behind Blade Runner 2047 taking a stab at it, Dune may puncture that pop culture bubble after all. Lynch's Dune was notoriously bananas (and a classic in its own right), but Villeneuve's Dune, featuring Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa and Oscar Isaac may be the Kwisatz Haderach of all Dune content. Alyssa Mercante
The advent of next-gen
Nothing beats that new console smell. Intricately compacted parcels of nickel and silicon wrapped in generous layers of silky smooth polyethylene, the next generation of machines make their entrance once every half decade or so, but that's exactly what makes them feel like such event phenomena when they do. For all the promise of new games and smoother experiences being made by Sony and Microsoft, it's the simple, primordial joys of booting up a new console for the first time that still feels strangely more euphoric than anything else. The conversation around next-gen is also as enjoyable to watch as the consoles are to play, and I'm looking forward to seeing how game makers and players around the world respond to the latest models of the future from two of the industry's biggest titans. Alex Avard
The Boys season 2
Like most, The Boys wasn’t really on my radar this time last year. It seemed too tryhard, too edgy, and too cynical to think it’d effortlessly soar above the dozens of superhero shows and movies on the block. But it did. And The Boys season 2 can’t come soon enough.
Not only do we have the promise of an actually intriguing cliffhanger (and one that deviates just far enough from the source material so no one on the internet can read ahead and ruin it for others), but a bigger budget is on the way too. Amazon is going all in and I have a sneaking suspicion it'll be one of the biggest shows of the year, which can only be a good thing for those looking to break the Netflix monopoly. That probably means more blood, more ass-bombs, and more scenes involving dolphins hit-and-runs backed by Spice Girls soundtracks. Just don’t spend the money on a dialect coach – Karl Urban’s dodgy British accent is all part of the charm. Bradley Russell
The arrival of 5G
Yeah, I know this is going to sound like boring tech talk next to all the new games and machines we have to look forward to this year but 5G, when it eventually arrives, is set to change the way we play games forever. What 5G claims to be able to do is offer is a fiber-like internet connection wherever you are. I’ll be honest, I still struggle to get 4G in the center of city if a leaf unexpectedly falls off a tree, but if the 5G revolution happens it will mean we’ll be able to download, stream, and play on our shiny new PS5 and Xbox Series X machines via our phones, tablets, and PCs pretty much anywhere we want. Microsoft has already started to show its hand with regards to cloud gaming with xCloud and you can be sure that once Sony starts finally opening up about the P5S we’ll start to hear a lot more about their plans for the cloud as well. James Jarvis
Hollow Knight: Silksong
The sequel to Hollow Knight has been my most-anticipated game ever since I beat Hollow Knight. Well, Silksong was originally going to be DLC, but then Team Cherry announced a full-fat sequel instead, but whatever. The point is, Silksong looks amazing - it's another 2D action-platformer dripping with style and personality, only this time we're playing as Hornet, the acrobatic huntress from the first game. Early hands-on impressions were promising, and the new world, creatures, and changes Team Cherry's teased in trailers look great. I'm 100% ready to get lost in another smartly crafted bug world. Austin Wood
Streets Of Rage 4
It’s happening. It’s finally, finally happening. Sixteen arduous years following Streets Of Rage 3, the greatest beat-‘em-up series of my youth - of a few million youths - is getting a fourth entry. And unlike previous attempts to recapture 16-bit magic on contemporary machines (let’s never speak again of Turtles In Time), SOR 4 genuinely feels a wee bit incredible. Classic characters Axel, Blade and a newly beardy Adam all return, the action looks stylish and weighty and even more deliciously combo-packed than those classic originals, and it even gets its hammy, guttural death noises just right. Nail the soundtrack and this will be a retro-modern wonder. Ben Wilson
Divinity: Original Sin board game
Tabletop fantasy games are often bogged down by a thick tome of rules or po-faced tropes we've all seen before, but the Divinity: Original Sin board game is different. From what I saw during my preview at the end of last year, it's quirky and far more interested in its players having a good time than scouring the rule book. Everything's immediate and clear, bizarre encounters abound (we ended up chatting to a squirrel who gave us a shiny hat, for instance), and friendly fire is enabled to provide hilarious misadventures where you accidentally set your allies ablaze. It's due in Fall 2020, and I can't wait to get my hands on it. Benjamin Abbott
Boyfriend Dungeon
I've always thought you form a special kind of bond with the big sword you swing around in combat, so when I first heard about the premise of Boyfriend Dungeon, I was immediately sold. I've been following Kitfox Game's upcoming dungeon-crawling dating sim since it first launched on Kickstarter, and I'm so excited to play it when it releases at some point this year. As a long time fan of dating sims, visual novels, and a spot of dungeon crawling goodness, Boyfriend Dungeon has me written all over it. The character designs have me swooning and I love how inclusive the romantic interests are. I know I'm going to dive right in and work my way through dating every weapon (not at the same time, of course), and I cannot wait. Heather Wald
Sports Story
I don't like golf, but I loved Golf Story. The humor, the pixel art, and even the arcadey and approachable golf simulation all worked for me. But still, I don't like golf. When developer Sidebar Games revealed that Sports Story would apply the same lens to the wider world of ball games I was ecstatic - even moreso when I saw it would fuse sports together for unholy Frankensteins of fun. Playing tennis? Great. But how about somebody driving a golf ball at you so you can smack it with your tennis racket into a soccer goal? Now Golf Story's offbeat sense of humor can pervade all of Sports Story, rather than just the dialog scenes and certain sidequests. I can't wait to play Sports Story when it hits Switch sometime around the middle of this year. Connor Sheridan
The Last of Us 2
Whenever Naughty Dog has a game coming out, it does rather feel like an event in itself. And The Last of Us Part II is the biggest event thus far, by a stretch, too. I'll keep it short as fawning over The Last of Us has been done to death, but it's one of a very few games from the last 10 years I've played over and over (five times, so far) and all of its ingredients just combine beautifully for a game, like it was made for me. I could even talk to you about the environment and landscape design in it for hours, if anyone would listen. And so getting more Last of Us in me to enjoy is a no brainer for Best Anticipated Thing of 2020 for me. It's the only game I've ever pre-ordered, too, and I've scheduled in time for a Grounded and Grounded NG+ playthrough of The Last of Us Remastered as preparation, and feel incredibly primed for that, let alone Part II as a brand new experience. I can't wait to devour it and savour it all. I nearly chose the advent of the next gen, I must admit. But that was only really because I would then get to (hopefully) play The Last of Us Part II again on the PS5. Again and again. Rob Dwiar
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