Alright, it's time to kick this off. I wasn't gonna do honorable mentions this year, hence why even though I am doing it now, there's only this many.
Honorable mention: Biomutant
Not the most highly regarded game out there, and maybe with good reason, but I'll always look back fondly at the time I spent with it last year. It's a truly beautiful world and exploring it was relaxing, soothing even. Still think people were too harsh on it, it got a lot of things really right (and I already mentioned it last year, but the crafting system was especially cool, better than in any other game I've seen).
Honorable mention: Endling - Extinction is Forever
The reason why this post exists. I just played through Endling, a bit too late for it to get on my list, and I'm not sure if it would get in normally, but I had to give it a shoutout somewhere. I actually found out about this game through an article that was posted on VGC's homepage last week, thought it looked cute and I needed something relaxing. That was obviously a mistake, because this game is super stressful, but it's a fantastic journey. The kind where you keep going based on nothing but hope, in spite of everything becoming more and more hopeless around you. And when it hits, it hits hard. So, yeah, thanks @trunkswd for posting the article about it.
Honorable mention: Hyper Light Drifter
I could call this the most "high-profile" omission from this year's list, given the long run it had on my top 50's. I always felt that Hyper Light Drifter was the kind of game that needed a second playthrough to really solidify itself among my favorites, but I never got around to replaying it, so it's faded as the years went by. The lingering feeling, however, is a certain guilt for not having given it a second go, because it really was a great game.
