What has been your biggest gaming surprise this year?

[Mummelmann]

Baldur's Gate III sales numbers, it's insane, but well deserved.

Cyberpunk 2077 comeback; with all the negative press since the release of the main game, I didn't think it had any chance.

How bland Starfield turned out to be. I had some doubts, but it went and fell through the floor of my expectations.

The Star Citizen team actually showing something akin to a finished product, and it looking beyond marvelous.

All the incredibly shitty PC releases, where performance is concerned. I bought an insane rig this spring, and new releases still run like crap at launch.

Diablo IV somehow managing to be even worse than I feared, played for 3 weeks or so and then never touched it again.

The relative success of the Steamdeck; I didn't see that coming at all.

A Call of Duty mainline title finally being deservedly butchered by a, more or less unified, gaming press and gaming community.

People still thinking the Activision/Blizzard purchase will make a positive difference for gamers and developers in any kind of way in the long run.

Epic Games managing to lose money in their incredibly advantageous position on the market. And tied to this point; how poorly Unreal Engine 5 has been utilized so far, it's compounded the very problems it was purpose-built to solve (crazy hardware demands and poor efficiency).