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Ethan Krieger (He/Him) is an editor at DualShockers that got started in the writing industry by covering professional basketball for a sports network. Despite being a diehard sports fan (mainly formula one, basketball, American football, and golf), video games have always been his #1 interest. 

The world of video games can be a cruel place. With just how much quality content is coming out on a literal weekly basis, it's simply impossible for everyone to have the moment in the sun that they truly deserve.

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This even extends to something as high-profile as a ceremony like The Game Awards. Sure, it's a huge honor and achievement if your game makes it onto the list of nominations, but that still doesn't guarantee that the masses will truly grasp just how transcendent a title truly was.

The following ten games were all up for GotY at their respective Game Awards shows, but none managed to actually go home with the crown. Still, these are video games that I'd argue are more important and special than you might even realize, which prompted me to create a shortlist that I'd urge you to experience sometime soon.

10 Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Meet Your Nemesis

Maybe it's just old age and nostalgia creeping in, but there was just something special about Action games of the early-to-mid 2010s. These titles existed in the sweetspot where Live Services and microtransactions hadn't become the major issues that they currently are in 2026. Instead, we had games that were just... fun and cool. Remember that?

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is one of the finest examples of this. If you're as big of a lifelong LotR fan as I am, you probably remember the hype of waiting for this game to come out. Once we got to go hands-on, it was immediately apparent that this game was going to be a blast.

Add in the Nemesis system in which enemies would remember you and the outcomes of previous encounters dozens of hours prior, and Shadow of Mordor really was cooking with a special sauce. This system failing to catch on and be applied to future games across developers and genres is still one of gaming's biggest mysteries.

9 Psychonauts 2

More than Fine

I'll tease several more entries on this list by letting you know early that I'm a very big platformer fan. It's the genre that many of us cut our teeth on when first entering the world of video games, since these games' goals are often simple to understand and controls easy to grasp from the get-go.

Psychonauts 2 is a truly special 3D platformer that hearkens back to what many would consider the Golden Age of the genre from the mid-2000s. Despite all this, it kind of just felt like Psychonauts exited the zeitgeist almost immediately, which is a shame for such a cool game.

I'm not sure if there's something to the fact that it was technically an Xbox first-party game (though it did come to PlayStation as well), but it seems like I've never ever heard someone mention actually playing this game. If you're part of that group, you should fix this.

8 The Outer Worlds

Fallout in Space

Is it a bit reductive to label The Outer Worlds as simply being Fallout in space? Perhaps, but it also just kind of feels like it's what Obsidian, creators of Fallout: New Vegas, were trying to lean into. You don't have to take this as a negative. Fallout is obviously awesome, so taking the same formula beyond Earth's atmosphere seems like a slam-dunk idea.

In actual execution, Obsidian ended up nailing it with The Outer Worlds, and also its 2025 sequel. These are FPS RPGs that are consistently joys to play, and for my money, take much of what makes Fallout great and actually improves upon it in many different ways.

And yet, the staying power of this brand, as well-received as the games have been, is nowhere even close to where Fallout still resides. This is a high bar to be clear, but I can't get over how many people I know that love Fallout and have never touched The Outer Worlds. You're missing out.

7 Inside

Stuck in Limbo

Inside definitely still had a bit of a moment back when it was released in 2016. In fact, there were plenty in-the-know at the time that had to talk about this game extremely cautiously to avoid spoiling its absolutely bonkers final ten minutes.

Still, it didn't hit the collective consciousness of gamer brains quite like Playdead's previous 2D platformer/puzzle game, Limbo. As cool as I still think Limbo is to this day, Inside eats its lunch in every regard.

Sure, a GotY nomination for a little indie like this was no small feat, but Inside is special in ways beyond what people even realize. A genuine masterclass in ambient, atmospherical, haunting game design, Inside still sits atop a specific platformer sub-genre an entire decade later. Don't look up anything about it. Just play it.

6 Titanfall 2

Peak FPS Campaign

The FPS is obviously one of the most popular genres in modern gaming, typically leaning hard these days into multiplayer and Live Service models that can keep players invested for literal months on end. There was a time, however, when Campaign Modes were actually what many of us cared about most when a new shooter came out.

Pound-for-pound, Titanfall 2 just might have the best pure-FPS campaign of all-time, and that is truly saying something. At the very least, even though it's still somehow already ten years old, it's easily arguably the best campaign of the last decade.

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In fact, I myself re-downloaded it and jumped in not two days ago. It still holds up to this day, and is such a testament to just how special and fun and proper FPS campaign can be when it simply sets out with the goal of being fun and nothing else.

5 Super Mario Bros. Wonder

The Most Creative Mario Ever

It feels a bit weird to call a Nintendo game "underrated," especially one starring everyone's favorite plumber. In fact, the fabled "Nintendo Bump" would suggest that, if anything, first-party Nintendo games are typically overrated. But not Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

Listen, Mario is one of my favorite gaming franchises ever. In fact, it might be number one overall. I have undying nostalgia and so many lovely memories of playing Mario titles since I was a wee lad, dating back to the original Super Mario Bros. on the NES. Super Mario Bros. 3 is timeless. Super Mario World is a masterpiece. Yoshi's Island is such a joy.

And... Super Mario Bros. Wonder really might be better than any of those other classics. It's endlessly creative in ways that many of us never dreamed possible for a character and series that seemed to have probably explored everything it possibly could in the 2D space at this point. Wonder got some flowers, but not everything it truly deserved: a real consideration that it's the best 2D Mario game ever.

4 Deathloop

Things that Go BLAM

Dishonored and Prey seem to be the Arkane games that people talk about the most in 2026. I get it. These are truly special, memorable, and creative titles in their own right, and nothing should be taken away from them.

But here's a hot take for you: Deathloop is the coolest Arkane game to date. Not only is the "Stealthy if you want it, Action if not" freedom of the game top-notch, but it obviously just drips with a style and tone that make it stand out above anything else.

It's quippy, witty, funny, intense, and most importantly, a blast from beginning to end. Some might think the timeloop mechanic wasn't best utilized in the end, but despite actually having a surprisingly fairly linear Beginning to End journey, there's a lot more to Deathloop than many people even realize. Take the journey to Platinum this game and see everything it has hidden away for you, and you might join my team on this one.

Persona Non Grata

Metaphor: ReFantazio obviously got a lot of love. In fact, it was voted DualShockers' Game of the Year back in 2024. The people that played this game don't need me to tell them why it's so good. If you know, you know.

And yet, there seems to be almost a 0% chance that Metaphor will ever be for Atlus what the Persona series has ballooned into. Yes, this is another high bar for comparison, but the fact is that Metaphor was made by many of the same team as Persona 5 and actually improved on the game in many ways. Still, have you played it yet, even if you're a diehard Persona fan?

The answer to this way more often than it should be is "No," and that is crazy. If you're into narrative-driven modern JRPGs and you haven't played Metaphor: ReFantazio, you need to ask yourself some tough questions. Mainly, "What is wrong with me?"

2 Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

Desert Island RPG Contender

Perhaps it fell victim to coming out too early in 2025, or maybe it really was just that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (deservedly) took up too much of everyone's collective bandwidth over the course of the year. Either way, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is one of the best RPGs in recent memory, and it deserved to blow up like Skyrim and get some more love in general.

The learning curve of KCD2 is famously steep, but once you invest properly into the game's systems, there really are few examples out there of titles that are just so immersive, interesting, and rewarding. I understand why a game like this will never truly be the next big thing to the extent it deserves, but I wish it could be.

Take it from me, a gamer that actually tends to shy away from massive open worlds and RPGs of this nature. KCD2 is so good that it transcends the stereotypes of its genre and becomes something that I think all serious gamers need to try out for themselves.

1 Celeste

An Entire Genre's Pinnacle

On one hand, it's categorically insane that a tiny indie like Celeste earned its seat at the GotY table in 2018. And of course, we knew it had a slim-to-none chance of winning anything in a year that was stacked enough to also feature the God of War "reboot" and Red Dead Redemption 2.

High recognition acknowledged, it's still simply not enough for Celeste. If I had to pick one example of a perfect video game, it's probably this one. It's wildly impressive that in 2018, it took one of the oldest genres in video game history and somehow did it better than anyone else had. Ever. It is, in my opinion, the de facto best 2D platformer to ever exist.

It's the absolute perfect mix of challenge, fairness, gorgeous pixel art, phenomenal music, charm, emotion, precision, optimization, and fun all while being one of those video games that crosses the threshold into feeling truly important. As stacked as 2018 was, Celeste is the game that stands the test of time as being a true classic, and I hope it gets treated as such by everyone eventually.

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