You're probably aware by now that we at GameSpot give a variety of awards to the best games each year. Outside of our official best-of list and our Game of the Year, we also have Editor's Choice awards so individual staff members can champion their favorites. In this case, we've compiled our editors' and producers' highlights--the specific moments, characters, and more that really stood out this year, whether the game in question was in our official awards lists or not.

These highlights encompass a wide range of standout features in 2019, from Control's Ashtray Maze to the excellent ping system in Apex Legends. Most of these games in this feature do appear in our list of 2019's 10 best games, but they're separate--this is more a chance for us to get really detailed about our favorite parts of our favorite games this year.

If you're interested in seeing our other editor- and producer-specific feature, check out our Editor's Spotlight awards, in which GameSpot staff each pick a 2019 game that was not nominated for our main awards to shout out. Unlike the Highlights, the Spotlights are more general picks for great games that came out this year.

For more end-of-the-year content, check out our Best Of hub, where you can find all our picks for the best games of the year, console-specific highlights, and more. And be sure to read about why Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is our Game of the Year 2019.

There are many moments in Control that defy understanding, but there's nothing quite like the Ashtray Maze. If you've been there, you'll immediately understand what I'm getting at, but if you're unfamiliar with its secrets, here's your warning: spoilers ahead!

Partway through Control, you're introduced to a series of similar-looking hallways, collectively referred to as the Ashtray Maze. The path forward looks simple enough, but when you approach the end of a hall, the passage you thought you are heading towards will quickly fold in on itself before a new path blossoms open nearby. No matter the direction you take, you will effectively be led in circles, doubling back to where you came before you realize it, making no forward progress "through" the maze.

You might wonder if you're missing something, and perhaps you try to solve the riddle with logic, observing things like repeated photos of hallways that line each wall, or by using Jesse's powers to outrun the animation of a closing passage. No amount of creative thinking can overcome the maze's will--for that, you'll need a little present from the good, odd janitor, Ahti.

Towards the end of Jesse's journey, Ahti will eventually hand over his headphones, and this is your prompt to re-enter the Ashtray Maze. This time, the solution becomes clear: With a driving rock song pumping through your new phones--and, apparently, acting as the key to the maze--hallways fall apart, divide, rotate, slide, collide, and transform, allowing you to charge ahead through a series of dynamically shifting rooms, all the while Ahti's music provides a cathartic release as you fire away at enemy targets that appear.

When it finally opens itself up to you, the Ashtray Maze transforms from a perplexing puzzle into an incredible set piece. It's definitely one of the best-executed moments in one of 2019's best games, and is a personal highlight for the year that I won't soon forget. | Peter Brown

I love many of Remedy's games, but what sticks out in my mind more than anything else is their unusual use of live-action video. Control is a game that continues that tradition; for as much as I love its world, mysteries, and combat, it's the occasional video featuring Dr. Casper Darling that I expect to stick with me long-term.

That's due in large part to the terrific performance by Matthew Porretta (whom I'm still blown away is that dude from Robin Hood: Men in Tights). Darling is--or at least was--the head of research at the Federal Bureau of Control, the secret government agency tasked with investigating and hiding paranormal phenomena. Control is set in the FBC's headquarters, an elusive and ever-changing location known as the Oldest House, and as you make your way through the game, you're occasionally treated to informational videos starring Darling where he discusses basic, fundamental aspects of this world where supernatural things exist and the work he and the FBC conduct.

But these videos serve as much more than an exposition dump or minor distraction on your adventure. They do help to deliver interesting bits of information about things like Objects of Power, but more than that, they help to ground the game in reality. Much like the memos you come across that reinforce the people working at the FBC are very much just office workers operating within a bureaucracy, Darling's videos serve as a window into the mundane day-to-day operations. What would have been like to be an employee at this secret government facility, watching this man enthusiastically prattle on? (You get a glimpse of this with his assistants at times, who no doubt roll their eyes at him on the regular.) The FBC's head researcher is not the cold, passionless individual you might expect, but a man who is positively tickled by the work he does and the prospect of the next discovery.

It's tragic to watch Darling's descent as you see him anticipate the disaster that is to come, but at least we get one final, incredible performance during Jesse's final trip to the motel. Here's hoping we get more of Darling in the DLC to come. | Chris Pereira

Death Stranding's world is harsh and unforgiving, but what always makes it worth exploring is how you never feel alone facing its innumerable dangers. Through the game's unique asynchronous multiplayer Social Strand System, my time spent making arduous treks across a post-apocalyptic landscape was lined with a glimmer of hope. I could always find traces of other players who set up ladders, built bridges over treacherous gaps, and left behind vehicles. I'd frequently find these structures and tools throughout my journey to help make the hard times easier. Whether or not they were placed intentionally, these subtle expressions of aid always impacted me and gave rise to a desire to construct structures for others to use.

The Social Strand System gave me an outlet to assist strangers. Connecting with and loving others is something I prioritize above all else in my life, but I sometimes struggle thinking about those I could never hope to reach. I realize I'm limited, and I can only aspire to support so many realistically. But the Social Strand System allowed me to enact my desire to help people only on a smaller scale, giving me the tools to serve people in virtual space. It's a microcosm of the behavior I strive to express in real life, providing an avenue to look out for other players while motivating me to do so without expecting anything in return. By encouraging you to help others survive its treacherous world, Death Stranding challenges us to look past acting selfishly to do something for the greater good of serving others even when it's inconvenient.

With every stranger I helped along the way, I felt deep fulfillment over the connections I was able to create. I may not know these people personally. Still, our actions and persistent "likes" towards one another spawned an insatiable desire to help others in the game's world if only to make some small, slight difference in their time spent playing. It's what makes setting up a climbing anchor atop an impassable cliffside or charting a safe path through BT territory hold so much weight. I will gladly brave the mountaintops of the Central region to construct a multi-faceted zipline system if it means making another person's journey more comfortable. Death Stranding's Social Strand System is one of its most remarkable qualities, and it's one that I know will continue to resonate with me in its infectious optimism for decades to come. | Matt Espineli

Disco Elysium's most defining characteristic is its writing. The dialogue in and of itself is meticulously detailed, awe-inspiring with its wit, and just flat-out hilarious. But writing achievements aside, it's the flow of the game's dialogue and how conversations unravel that encapsulates how masterfully crafted this game is.

Every choice has a genuine impact on where a conversation leads, sometimes with unforeseeable consequences. What I thought was a comedic choice in an earlier conversation had a pivotal impact on how people viewed me down the line (for better or for worse). Of course this isn't a new thing (especially in RPGs or narrative driven ones alike), but it's how these exchanges intuitively unfold and how deep they go that caught me completely off-guard.

Disco Elysium doesn't grant you the ability to create your avatar from the ground up. Instead, you step into the weathered shoes of a terribly hungover, amnesiac detective. From there, you are presented with an overwhelming amount of choice in what kind of detective you want to be solely through how you choose to speak to others. And given what feels like an endless amount of choices at times, my brain began to spiral out of control when trying to grasp the intricacy of the game's dialogue trees when considering the paths you can take.

To go even further, Disco Elysium features dialogue with your own inner thoughts. Each skill in the game serves as a piece of your character's conscience. How you spec these skills will determine how successfully these inner thoughts can aid you (or completely ruin you) in a conversation, which adds another level to the complexity of its writing.

Disco Elyisum's intricate system of dialogue with characters and inner consciousness has made it unparalleled among other games--and has set a high bar to match going forward. | Kurt Indovina

Resident Evil 2 is an incredible remake because of the way it modernizes the classic game without losing its identity. Simply throwing Leon and Claire into a much prettier version of the Racoon Police Department--with all of the conveniences of third-person shooting--doesn't make for an experience that inspires fear or dread like the originals. Thankfully, Capcom strove for more than that. It made some key changes to its familiar behind-the-back camera perspective to ensure a zombie walking down the hallway towards you is still scary.

It's true that Capcom was conservative with ammo in Resident Evil 2, true to the original, but that's only part of the picture. The Resident Evil developer also created a smart combat system to keep you from running and gunning your way through the Raccoon Police Department.

In modern Resident Evil games, you're able to move and shoot at the same time. The original Resident Evil 2, on the other hand, forces you to stand still while firing your gun. The remake strikes the perfect middle ground. When you move, your aiming reticle spreads out, making it very difficult to land a shot--but not impossible--in those desperate situations. When you stand still, though, your reticle starts at its regular size and becomes more precise the longer you line up a shot. The more patience you exercise, the better chance you have to score a brain-exploding headshot or that crucial leg shot to send them falling to the ground.

Just like the original, the Resident Evil 2 remake rewards patience and thoughtful planning--not only the amount of ammo to use on an enemy but also how to use it and when. | Mat Paget

It's hard to innovate in any genre, but I feel it's hardest to craft a truly great puzzle game. You need a smart mechanic--one that's easy to understand, difficult to master, and ready to be ramped up in difficulty as the game progresses.

Enter Baba Is You's sentence-building. At the top of the level lie the words [Flag] [Is] [Win], explaining your simple goal: touch the flag to win. But it's not just a bit of text on screen. Those words are pushable blocks that can be combined, split, and rearranged. In another level, the words aren't adjacent. [Flag] sits far away from [Is] [Win]. So you push [Flag] up against the other two words, completing the sentence and allowing you to touch the flag and complete the stage.

This is the basis of Baba Is You: rearranging words to change the rules of the level. Need to get past that wall? Simply break up [Wall] [Is] [Stop], and suddenly the rule no longer applies--that wall won't stop anything. Even the game's title can be altered. If you need to control a rock instead, just push [Rock] into [Baba] [Is] [You].

Unless [Rock] [Is] [Not] [Push] is in play, that is. Much like learning a new language, Baba Is You's sentences grow steadily more complex as the game progresses, introducing negative and conjunctive statements. These if/then statements can't always be freely manipulated either--many puzzles involve carefully guiding a word into just the right spot to complete the sentence you need to escape. Sometimes the words even affect the overworld outside of the single stage you're currently puzzling through, and in many cases, you're actively encouraged to "break" the game by devising multiple solutions or finding a method that seems to go beyond the game's constraints.

Baba Is You is a brilliant puzzle game. By asking you to build and break down if/then logic statements using words blocks, it teaches you a puzzle-solving language via increasingly complex sentences. It's simple enough to grasp, but it requires careful study to master. [Baba] [Is] [Win] for sure. | Tony Wilson

What drives you through to see a long video game to the end? The involved story maybe, or perhaps a satisfaction of an ever-increasing power curve. Maybe it's just the visceral satisfaction you get from combating and dispatching each and every enemy. For me and Resident Evil 2 Remake, it was the exquisitely-comprehensive map screen.

Okay, it was the great gunfeel and the fantastic tension and the wonderful technical design as well, but man, that map though! So clear, so easy to read, and I give my thanks to the UI designers on the development team. It did the Silent Hill thing of marking passages that were blocked off or doors that were locked when you encountered that knowledge, and it also showed you what doors needed what keys and which ones you hadn't unlocked yet. It marked items that you may have encountered along the way but didn't have the inventory space to pick up, so you could always run back to grab them later if you wanted or strategically leave them there for emergencies when you were back in the area.

I'm a completionist, and I'm a very systematic kind of player, and the map really was an invaluable tool for me that helped perpetuate my momentum in Resident Evil 2, so much so that it was the only game this year where I dove right back in for a second playthrough and actually completed it again without pause. And then went back for a third run. And then through a Hunk run. And even a Tofu run. What a game, folks. What a game. What a map. | Edmond Tran

The shinobi execution that concludes the Guardian Ape boss fight was one of the coolest finishers I'd seen in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice up to that point, and I laughed with glee as Wolf decapitated the beast with the sword already stuck in its neck. As the music died down, I turned to continue on my way. But then, after a few seconds, I heard a curious sound; something was moving behind me. I twirled around to see what it was and my heart immediately sank.

The corpse of the clearly-he-should-be-dead-because-he-has-no-head ape was standing up, and it then picked up both its decapitated head and sword (that, again, I would like to remind you had just been used to decapitate and kill him) to wield as weapons to keep fighting.

From Software has crafted some demoralizing bosses, but seeing the zombie corpse of the Guardian Ape stand back up is the most soul-crushing moment I've ever had in all of the studio's games. The boss' health bar was gone and its theme music had ended--both signs From Software has used, for years, to signal the conclusion of a boss fight. The message was clear: Shadows Die Twice would subvert Soulsborne fans' expectations, not reinforce them. After hours of trying to defeat the Guardian Ape, seeing its corpse pick up its own head to deliver a scream of defiance so terrifying that Wolf literally died from fright (forcing me to do the entire fight over again from before the decapitation) is the moment that Shadows Die Twice mentally broke me for the first time. I turned my Xbox off and went to bed after that. If any moment perfectly encapsulates the near-constant mental and emotional stress you must endure to play Shadows Die Twice, it's the surprise resurrection of the Guardian Ape. | Jordan Ramée

Warning: Spoilers for Control's ending herein!

The prevailing undercurrent of Control is that nothing is exactly what it seems to be. The corridors and rooms of the Oldest House sometimes shift and change of their own volition, and other times take on impossible forms that defy logic and physics. The place is littered with Objects of Power, common everyday items that give their users incredible capabilities and sometimes become hostile and deadly. Even the Bureau of Control itself is a place where government agents attempt to study and police the supernatural world, without ever really having a good understanding of what they're dealing with.

Control plays into this theme throughout its story and gameplay as well. Navigating the Oldest House, interacting with the secretive and vaguely spooky Astral Plane entities known as the Board, and trying to battle the malignant supernatural infestation known as the Hiss constantly present you with mysteries that are designed to go beyond human understanding, creating plenty of questions but no answers. Reality is fundamentally weird in Control, and that's never truer than at the end of the game when the Hiss finally manage to invade protagonist Jesse's mind.

At a major turning point in the story, the extradimensional entity that's been helping keep the Hiss (somewhat) at bay, Hedron, is ultimately destroyed. In that moment, somewhat abruptly, the credits roll. For what feels like a never-ending moment, it seems that Control has come to an end right at its climax. But like everything else in the game, it's all a misdirection.

As the credits continue, they morph from a list of names to mimicking the Hiss's endless chanting. Then the words start to smear and distort--not unlike the structure of the Oldest House itself--and it becomes clear that making you believe you've hit the end of the game is actually the work of the Hiss's influence on Jesse's mind. With the final chapter of the game, Jesse finds herself locked in a fantasy belonging to her Hiss-collaborator brother, Dylan, where she's an intern in the Bureau and he's the new Director.

It's an amazing moment because of how well Control commits to and executes on the gag, and reminded me of that harrowing scare in 2004's Eternal Darkness that makes you think your console just got fried. More than any other moment in Control, the false credits warp your sense of reality, with the game breaking the fourth wall one last time to put you in Jesse's distorted frame of mind as she battles the Hiss's influence. It's a great moment that perfectly brings the undercurrent of Remedy's game to the forefront: that maybe, you're never really in control. | Phil Hornshaw

No other game this year has gotten me so invested in the process of going from A to B in an open world than in Death Stranding. While Hideo Kojima's weird, anti-open-world game has an incredible narrative, an interesting world to explore, and engaging delivery gameplay, the thing that got me most entranced was the very act of walking. The actual mechanics of general movement in video games are almost as old as video games themselves. Yet, Death Stranding's approach to traversal with its lead character Sam Porter Bridges focuses heavily on actually getting you to feel connected to him.

How Death Stranding goes about it is by ensuring players feel the weight and heft of Sam's movement. Every step you take when exploring the larger world is always felt, and there's never a moment where you shouldn't be mindful of where you're walking, as slight inclines or rough terrain can cause you to lose your balance. All this is especially important when taking Sam on extended deliveries with precious cargo. Due to this focus on character movement and balance, Death Stranding takes a more measured and intelligent approach to the concept of encumbrance.

Unlike other open-world games that treat encumbrance as an inconvenience--letting you freely carry a hodgepodge of items up until an arbitrary carry limit--Death Stranding's approach is more of a consequence. While this can all seem like busywork, it ends up creating this loop of surveying, preparation, and execution for your travels. Some of my highlights from Death Stranding's expansive world came from taking in the sights while carefully navigating the dense terrain with some precious cargo in tow. Syncing with Death Stranding's sophisticated walking gameplay leads to surprising moments of splendor, even though you're exploring a bleak setting. I would never have thought that Death Stranding would be one of the most meditative and engrossing games of 2019, yet that's what happened when I took the time to be mindful of where Sam took his steps when exploring the world. | Alessandro Fillari

The best highlight in 2019 for me in any game was a very particular moment in Destiny 2: Shadowkeep. It occurs early on in the Shadowkeep campaign--you go through the motions in a manner that veterans of the game have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of times, and then an absolute shocker of an encounter unfolds. There were always assumptions and some speculation that in Shadowkeep we would finally come face-to-face with the darkness itself, but no one could've foreseen how Bungie would address this. All the questions I had about the darkness and Shadowkeep's story were swiftly answered in the form of a Pyramid ship, inky black with a faint sinister shimmer, revealing itself to me completely out of the blue.

The composition was spectacular: You first begin to witness the haunted memories of the moon which take the form of spirits floating in the air, dotting the sky where the Earth can be seen in the background, a faint reminder of what you are defending. A few more steps forward as you round the corner and suddenly it's there, in a massive empty area as the air in the room gets sucked out. Here is your greatest enemy you still don't fully understand, biding its time, remaining completely unperturbed at finally being found.

Seeing how the pyramid was revealed makes me optimistic for Destiny's future. Bungie clearly cares about its game's story and is setting a precedent for a lot of lifestyle games that hope to blend together aspects of RPG grinds with the frenetic pace of a first-person shooter. The reveal of the Pyramid was affirmation that Destiny was always more than just a colored engram of loot on the ground or a power level number. Bungie's most ambitious project was always a world first. | David Ahmadi

Apex Legends' ping system is the most brilliant new feature to hit online multiplayer shooters in years. For those like myself who prefer to play online without talking to randoms, the ping system is a revelation. A simple shoulder-button tap marks points of interest, including loot, enemies, and spots on the map you want your teammates to head to. The ping menu expands the system further to communicate actions like attacking or defending areas. You can even use the ping system to request supplies such as weapon attachments or healing items.

What's most remarkable about the ping system is that it's both easy to use and incredibly useful. I've never played a match of Apex Legends where I felt like I needed a mic to work cohesively with my team--the ping system is more than enough. Unsurprisingly, Epic Games quickly added a ping system to Fortnite after it was so well received in Apex Legends.

In addition to being a capable replacement for voice chat, the ping system also alleviates some of the more troubling aspects of online gaming, such as verbal harassment. As a parent of a young child, I'm wary to let my daughter play any online game that relies on voice chat. Here's to hoping more online games start to adapt clever new ways to communicate. | Steven Petite

The first half of Fire Emblem: Three Houses begins innocently, as you learn the ropes of your newfound teaching career and get to know the wide cast of students attending a specialized military strategy school. Though threats are frequent from bandits and raiders, your students mostly engage in war games with each other--honing their skills but safe from any real harm and generally united in their quest to resolve some of the school's mysterious happenings. That all changes past the halfway point, when the houses violently fracture and you're left unconscious. You awake years later to find the world in the midst of tearing itself apart and the students you once trained having grown into battle-hardened adults.

I'd reached the time jump later than many of my friends and colleagues, but even knowing it was coming didn't blunt its impact. That one event recontextualized everything just when I started to feel a little too comfortable, presenting a world I hardly recognized and igniting genuine concern for the students who weren't yet accounted for. The proceeding half of the game presented a mixture of hope and inspiration in the students I had protected, a sense of grief for the ones who fell on the opposing battle lines, and a constant reminder that war devours youth. | Steve Watts

I'm going to try to convey the impact of the greatest moment in Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers without spoiling it. Let's see how this goes.

Shadowbringers introduces so many new, fascinating narrative threads that build upon the already-detailed lore of FFXIV. Even its days as a bad game in 2010, prior to its redesign and relaunch, remain imperative to the ongoing story. However, this expansion seemingly distances itself from the established world by taking you and your companions to an all-new realm, one that's completely separate from, yet intertwined with, your own.

You unravel the history and plight of this other realm, ravaged by a calamity, clinging onto hope, holding off what seems to be inevitable extinction. You dig deeper into who your longtime enemies are and where they came from. And with each story beat comes revelations about your place in FFXIV's universe--none more powerful than the scene that leads into the final boss fight.

The Crystal Exarch, your mysterious but reliable ally, is responsible for bringing you across realms, though much of his work is done in the background. And what he does in this penultimate scene is powerful and stunning not just as the culmination of his work and a way to set a grand stage, but for what FFXIV means as a game outside the confines of the core narrative. It puts so much of FFXIV's lore in a new light, and also shocks you with how, in a swift moment, this being an MMORPG and requiring other players to join you in fights makes perfect sense.

In a matter of seconds, all these narrative pieces fell into place. It wasn't done in through a big lore drop or in a detailed monologue, either. It was an overwhelming moment of clarity. And with the outstanding use of its soundtrack, this scene in Shadowbringers brought me to tears. I usually get emotional about gut-wrenching story beats or saying goodbye to favorite characters, but in FFXIV, it was that overwhelming sense of clarity.

"Let expanse contract, eon become instant," says the Crystal Exarch, befitting the awe-inspiring scene. I also think of it as a cue to the player that this game's long, detailed history is being recontextualized in that very moment. And by showing rather than telling you about its biggest implication leading into the conclusion is nothing short of amazing. Shadowbringers, whether intentionally or not, has affected the past, present, and future of FFXIV, and I'll never forget the feeling it gave me. | Michael Higham

Being a longtime Pokemon fan, it's hard to be surprised by any new entries in the franchise. Game Freak has evolved the series conservatively over the past two decades, refining some rough edges and introducing new wrinkles to the battle system with each installment while still clinging to the general formula established by Pokemon Red and Blue. That is true of Pokemon Sword and Shield as well, but the Switch titles add a few novelties to the mix, most notably the Wild Area--the first open-world environment in a Pokemon game and the most daring addition to the series in years.

The moment I first set foot in the Wild Area and saw its rolling, verdant hills stretch off into the distance, beckoning me to put my Pokemon League aspirations on hold and comb every last crevice, I was taken back to the opening moments of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, when Link emerges from the Shrine of Resurrection and surveys Hyrule in its vast, untamed glory for the first time. Of course, the Wild Area can't compare to Hyrule in terms of scale or density, but it instilled in me a similar sense of discovery. Each of the myriad biomes that made up the Wild Area was rife with items to pick up, berries to harvest, and Max Raid dens to plunder, making exploration constantly rewarding.

More importantly, for the first time since the series' debut, Pokemon felt surprising. Recent installments in the franchise have a tendency to coddle players, but the Wild Area felt as untamed as its name suggested. Wander recklessly and you could run into a wild, fully evolved Pokemon twice your level, adding a thrilling sense of danger to the experience. All of this helped reinforce the feeling that you were a new, inexperienced trainer setting off on a grand journey for the first time.

My favorite part of exploring the Wild Area, however, was discovering all of the different species of Pokemon that made their home there, many of which, you quickly learn, only emerge in certain weather conditions. My friends and I would talk excitedly as we played through the games about which monsters we've encountered and where they could be found. It brought back memories of the first time I played Pokemon Blue back in 1998, when my classmates and I would spend our recesses sharing stories of all the different Pokemon we've captured--and that's a feeling that I don't get too often. | Kevin Knezevic

Up until recently, breeding just one competitive Pokemon from scratch looked like this: You'd spend hours hatching eggs of the Pokemon you wanted. Every time you hatched an egg, you'd have to go to a specific NPC that would tell you the Pokemon's base stats through a coded message. Bad stats you could deal with, but when it had perfect stats and the wrong ability? That was a gut punch. Oh, and sometimes the moves you wanted on your Pokemon could only be passed down via breeding, so if you forgot to do that or didn't plan ahead, you could have a "perfect" Pokemon that would actually not work at all. I've done that multiple times.

The 3DS Pokemon games slowly added new features to help make this process actually doable for more people, but Sword and Shield made the final much-needed touches. Now you can check your Pokemon's formerly hidden base stats from the Box screen, which is accessible anywhere for the first time in a main Pokemon game. If you realized you bred for the wrong nature, you can change it with an item. If you forgot to breed for egg moves like I used to, you can now just put two Pokemon of the same species in the nursery and they'll essentially teach each other the moves.

These might sound like small things if you aren't like me and have never rigged your 3DS to get your character to ride their bike in a circle so you could hatch eggs while eating dinner. But in previous games, unless you hacked your Pokemon (a no-no), you spent way more time breeding Pokemon than actually battling with them. These final quality-of-life improvements were the last major things preventing people from just jumping into battles right away--which is when you realize just how fun competitive Pokemon is! I really think Sword and Shield have the potential to bring more people into the competitive Pokemon scene, and that has reinvigorated my love for it, too. | Kallie Plagge

A Plague Tale: Innocence is an action-adventure game that flew under many people's radars when it released in May, but this compelling story of two children struggling to survive in plague-ridden, 14th-century-France is not only one of my personal favorites this year but also one of GameSpot's best games of 2019. You'll start out with some simple stealth mechanics--these are children, after all--but as the story progresses and the protagonist, Amicia, grows stronger, she gains the ability to improve and modify her sling as well as craft various projectiles through alchemy, including mixtures that create fire, send enemies to sleep, melt armor, and more.

By the time you have a full arsenal of various projectiles available, A Plague Tale's combat and stealth maneuvers get incredibly interesting, with any number of ways to approach a certain situation. A Plague Tale encourages you to pit your two main enemies--the plague-infected rats and violent Inquisition soldiers--against each other, and as a result, Amicia is able to manipulate their behavior in fascinating ways. Here's an example: Rats are afraid of light, so the Inquisition soldiers often carry torches to protect themselves. If you throw a projectile called Exstinguis on their torch, the flame will go out. Then, if you throw another mixture called Odoris on the soldier, rats will be drawn to the smell and swarm him, opening a path for you to move through.

I can't express just how satisfying this mechanic is, and the game does an excellent job of presenting new challenges and ways to use Amicia's abilities. And because there's no "right" way to proceed, it's incredibly satisfying to plot out your path through a tricky situation and succeed. So if you wrote off A Plague Tale: Innocence as a basic stealth game, give it another shot--you'll be surprised at everything you can do with the tools it gives you. | Jenae Sitzes

You're probably aware by now that we at GameSpot give a variety of awards to the best games each year. Outside of our official best-of list and our Game of the Year, we also have Editor's Choice awards so individual staff members can champion their favorites. In this case, we've compiled our editors' and producers' highlights--the specific moments, characters, and more that really stood out this year, whether the game in question was in our official awards lists or not.

These highlights encompass a wide range of standout features in 2019, from Control's Ashtray Maze to the excellent ping system in Apex Legends. Most of these games in this feature do appear in our list of 2019's 10 best games, but they're separate--this is more a chance for us to get really detailed about our favorite parts of our favorite games this year.

If you're interested in seeing our other editor- and producer-specific feature, check out our Editor's Spotlight awards, in which GameSpot staff each pick a 2019 game that was not nominated for our main awards to shout out. Unlike the Highlights, the Spotlights are more general picks for great games that came out this year.

For more end-of-the-year content, check out our Best Of hub, where you can find all our picks for the best games of the year, console-specific highlights, and more. And be sure to read about why Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is our Game of the Year 2019.

There are many moments in Control that defy understanding, but there's nothing quite like the Ashtray Maze. If you've been there, you'll immediately understand what I'm getting at, but if you're unfamiliar with its secrets, here's your warning: spoilers ahead!

Partway through Control, you're introduced to a series of similar-looking hallways, collectively referred to as the Ashtray Maze. The path forward looks simple enough, but when you approach the end of a hall, the passage you thought you are heading towards will quickly fold in on itself before a new path blossoms open nearby. No matter the direction you take, you will effectively be led in circles, doubling back to where you came before you realize it, making no forward progress "through" the maze.

You might wonder if you're missing something, and perhaps you try to solve the riddle with logic, observing things like repeated photos of hallways that line each wall, or by using Jesse's powers to outrun the animation of a closing passage. No amount of creative thinking can overcome the maze's will--for that, you'll need a little present from the good, odd janitor, Ahti.

Towards the end of Jesse's journey, Ahti will eventually hand over his headphones, and this is your prompt to re-enter the Ashtray Maze. This time, the solution becomes clear: With a driving rock song pumping through your new phones--and, apparently, acting as the key to the maze--hallways fall apart, divide, rotate, slide, collide, and transform, allowing you to charge ahead through a series of dynamically shifting rooms, all the while Ahti's music provides a cathartic release as you fire away at enemy targets that appear.

When it finally opens itself up to you, the Ashtray Maze transforms from a perplexing puzzle into an incredible set piece. It's definitely one of the best-executed moments in one of 2019's best games, and is a personal highlight for the year that I won't soon forget. | Peter Brown

I love many of Remedy's games, but what sticks out in my mind more than anything else is their unusual use of live-action video. Control is a game that continues that tradition; for as much as I love its world, mysteries, and combat, it's the occasional video featuring Dr. Casper Darling that I expect to stick with me long-term.

That's due in large part to the terrific performance by Matthew Porretta (whom I'm still blown away is that dude from Robin Hood: Men in Tights). Darling is--or at least was--the head of research at the Federal Bureau of Control, the secret government agency tasked with investigating and hiding paranormal phenomena. Control is set in the FBC's headquarters, an elusive and ever-changing location known as the Oldest House, and as you make your way through the game, you're occasionally treated to informational videos starring Darling where he discusses basic, fundamental aspects of this world where supernatural things exist and the work he and the FBC conduct.

But these videos serve as much more than an exposition dump or minor distraction on your adventure. They do help to deliver interesting bits of information about things like Objects of Power, but more than that, they help to ground the game in reality. Much like the memos you come across that reinforce the people working at the FBC are very much just office workers operating within a bureaucracy, Darling's videos serve as a window into the mundane day-to-day operations. What would have been like to be an employee at this secret government facility, watching this man enthusiastically prattle on? (You get a glimpse of this with his assistants at times, who no doubt roll their eyes at him on the regular.) The FBC's head researcher is not the cold, passionless individual you might expect, but a man who is positively tickled by the work he does and the prospect of the next discovery.

It's tragic to watch Darling's descent as you see him anticipate the disaster that is to come, but at least we get one final, incredible performance during Jesse's final trip to the motel. Here's hoping we get more of Darling in the DLC to come. | Chris Pereira

Death Stranding's world is harsh and unforgiving, but what always makes it worth exploring is how you never feel alone facing its innumerable dangers. Through the game's unique asynchronous multiplayer Social Strand System, my time spent making arduous treks across a post-apocalyptic landscape was lined with a glimmer of hope. I could always find traces of other players who set up ladders, built bridges over treacherous gaps, and left behind vehicles. I'd frequently find these structures and tools throughout my journey to help make the hard times easier. Whether or not they were placed intentionally, these subtle expressions of aid always impacted me and gave rise to a desire to construct structures for others to use.

The Social Strand System gave me an outlet to assist strangers. Connecting with and loving others is something I prioritize above all else in my life, but I sometimes struggle thinking about those I could never hope to reach. I realize I'm limited, and I can only aspire to support so many realistically. But the Social Strand System allowed me to enact my desire to help people only on a smaller scale, giving me the tools to serve people in virtual space. It's a microcosm of the behavior I strive to express in real life, providing an avenue to look out for other players while motivating me to do so without expecting anything in return. By encouraging you to help others survive its treacherous world, Death Stranding challenges us to look past acting selfishly to do something for the greater good of serving others even when it's inconvenient.

With every stranger I helped along the way, I felt deep fulfillment over the connections I was able to create. I may not know these people personally. Still, our actions and persistent "likes" towards one another spawned an insatiable desire to help others in the game's world if only to make some small, slight difference in their time spent playing. It's what makes setting up a climbing anchor atop an impassable cliffside or charting a safe path through BT territory hold so much weight. I will gladly brave the mountaintops of the Central region to construct a multi-faceted zipline system if it means making another person's journey more comfortable. Death Stranding's Social Strand System is one of its most remarkable qualities, and it's one that I know will continue to resonate with me in its infectious optimism for decades to come. | Matt Espineli

Disco Elysium's most defining characteristic is its writing. The dialogue in and of itself is meticulously detailed, awe-inspiring with its wit, and just flat-out hilarious. But writing achievements aside, it's the flow of the game's dialogue and how conversations unravel that encapsulates how masterfully crafted this game is.

Every choice has a genuine impact on where a conversation leads, sometimes with unforeseeable consequences. What I thought was a comedic choice in an earlier conversation had a pivotal impact on how people viewed me down the line (for better or for worse). Of course this isn't a new thing (especially in RPGs or narrative driven ones alike), but it's how these exchanges intuitively unfold and how deep they go that caught me completely off-guard.

Disco Elysium doesn't grant you the ability to create your avatar from the ground up. Instead, you step into the weathered shoes of a terribly hungover, amnesiac detective. From there, you are presented with an overwhelming amount of choice in what kind of detective you want to be solely through how you choose to speak to others. And given what feels like an endless amount of choices at times, my brain began to spiral out of control when trying to grasp the intricacy of the game's dialogue trees when considering the paths you can take.

To go even further, Disco Elysium features dialogue with your own inner thoughts. Each skill in the game serves as a piece of your character's conscience. How you spec these skills will determine how successfully these inner thoughts can aid you (or completely ruin you) in a conversation, which adds another level to the complexity of its writing.

Disco Elyisum's intricate system of dialogue with characters and inner consciousness has made it unparalleled among other games--and has set a high bar to match going forward. | Kurt Indovina

Resident Evil 2 is an incredible remake because of the way it modernizes the classic game without losing its identity. Simply throwing Leon and Claire into a much prettier version of the Racoon Police Department--with all of the conveniences of third-person shooting--doesn't make for an experience that inspires fear or dread like the originals. Thankfully, Capcom strove for more than that. It made some key changes to its familiar behind-the-back camera perspective to ensure a zombie walking down the hallway towards you is still scary.

It's true that Capcom was conservative with ammo in Resident Evil 2, true to the original, but that's only part of the picture. The Resident Evil developer also created a smart combat system to keep you from running and gunning your way through the Raccoon Police Department.

In modern Resident Evil games, you're able to move and shoot at the same time. The original Resident Evil 2, on the other hand, forces you to stand still while firing your gun. The remake strikes the perfect middle ground. When you move, your aiming reticle spreads out, making it very difficult to land a shot--but not impossible--in those desperate situations. When you stand still, though, your reticle starts at its regular size and becomes more precise the longer you line up a shot. The more patience you exercise, the better chance you have to score a brain-exploding headshot or that crucial leg shot to send them falling to the ground.

Just like the original, the Resident Evil 2 remake rewards patience and thoughtful planning--not only the amount of ammo to use on an enemy but also how to use it and when. | Mat Paget

It's hard to innovate in any genre, but I feel it's hardest to craft a truly great puzzle game. You need a smart mechanic--one that's easy to understand, difficult to master, and ready to be ramped up in difficulty as the game progresses.

Enter Baba Is You's sentence-building. At the top of the level lie the words [Flag] [Is] [Win], explaining your simple goal: touch the flag to win. But it's not just a bit of text on screen. Those words are pushable blocks that can be combined, split, and rearranged. In another level, the words aren't adjacent. [Flag] sits far away from [Is] [Win]. So you push [Flag] up against the other two words, completing the sentence and allowing you to touch the flag and complete the stage.

This is the basis of Baba Is You: rearranging words to change the rules of the level. Need to get past that wall? Simply break up [Wall] [Is] [Stop], and suddenly the rule no longer applies--that wall won't stop anything. Even the game's title can be altered. If you need to control a rock instead, just push [Rock] into [Baba] [Is] [You].

Unless [Rock] [Is] [Not] [Push] is in play, that is. Much like learning a new language, Baba Is You's sentences grow steadily more complex as the game progresses, introducing negative and conjunctive statements. These if/then statements can't always be freely manipulated either--many puzzles involve carefully guiding a word into just the right spot to complete the sentence you need to escape. Sometimes the words even affect the overworld outside of the single stage you're currently puzzling through, and in many cases, you're actively encouraged to "break" the game by devising multiple solutions or finding a method that seems to go beyond the game's constraints.

Baba Is You is a brilliant puzzle game. By asking you to build and break down if/then logic statements using words blocks, it teaches you a puzzle-solving language via increasingly complex sentences. It's simple enough to grasp, but it requires careful study to master. [Baba] [Is] [Win] for sure. | Tony Wilson

What drives you through to see a long video game to the end? The involved story maybe, or perhaps a satisfaction of an ever-increasing power curve. Maybe it's just the visceral satisfaction you get from combating and dispatching each and every enemy. For me and Resident Evil 2 Remake, it was the exquisitely-comprehensive map screen.

Okay, it was the great gunfeel and the fantastic tension and the wonderful technical design as well, but man, that map though! So clear, so easy to read, and I give my thanks to the UI designers on the development team. It did the Silent Hill thing of marking passages that were blocked off or doors that were locked when you encountered that knowledge, and it also showed you what doors needed what keys and which ones you hadn't unlocked yet. It marked items that you may have encountered along the way but didn't have the inventory space to pick up, so you could always run back to grab them later if you wanted or strategically leave them there for emergencies when you were back in the area.

I'm a completionist, and I'm a very systematic kind of player, and the map really was an invaluable tool for me that helped perpetuate my momentum in Resident Evil 2, so much so that it was the only game this year where I dove right back in for a second playthrough and actually completed it again without pause. And then went back for a third run. And then through a Hunk run. And even a Tofu run. What a game, folks. What a game. What a map. | Edmond Tran

The shinobi execution that concludes the Guardian Ape boss fight was one of the coolest finishers I'd seen in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice up to that point, and I laughed with glee as Wolf decapitated the beast with the sword already stuck in its neck. As the music died down, I turned to continue on my way. But then, after a few seconds, I heard a curious sound; something was moving behind me. I twirled around to see what it was and my heart immediately sank.

The corpse of the clearly-he-should-be-dead-because-he-has-no-head ape was standing up, and it then picked up both its decapitated head and sword (that, again, I would like to remind you had just been used to decapitate and kill him) to wield as weapons to keep fighting.

From Software has crafted some demoralizing bosses, but seeing the zombie corpse of the Guardian Ape stand back up is the most soul-crushing moment I've ever had in all of the studio's games. The boss' health bar was gone and its theme music had ended--both signs From Software has used, for years, to signal the conclusion of a boss fight. The message was clear: Shadows Die Twice would subvert Soulsborne fans' expectations, not reinforce them. After hours of trying to defeat the Guardian Ape, seeing its corpse pick up its own head to deliver a scream of defiance so terrifying that Wolf literally died from fright (forcing me to do the entire fight over again from before the decapitation) is the moment that Shadows Die Twice mentally broke me for the first time. I turned my Xbox off and went to bed after that. If any moment perfectly encapsulates the near-constant mental and emotional stress you must endure to play Shadows Die Twice, it's the surprise resurrection of the Guardian Ape. | Jordan Ramée

Warning: Spoilers for Control's ending herein!

The prevailing undercurrent of Control is that nothing is exactly what it seems to be. The corridors and rooms of the Oldest House sometimes shift and change of their own volition, and other times take on impossible forms that defy logic and physics. The place is littered with Objects of Power, common everyday items that give their users incredible capabilities and sometimes become hostile and deadly. Even the Bureau of Control itself is a place where government agents attempt to study and police the supernatural world, without ever really having a good understanding of what they're dealing with.

Control plays into this theme throughout its story and gameplay as well. Navigating the Oldest House, interacting with the secretive and vaguely spooky Astral Plane entities known as the Board, and trying to battle the malignant supernatural infestation known as the Hiss constantly present you with mysteries that are designed to go beyond human understanding, creating plenty of questions but no answers. Reality is fundamentally weird in Control, and that's never truer than at the end of the game when the Hiss finally manage to invade protagonist Jesse's mind.

At a major turning point in the story, the extradimensional entity that's been helping keep the Hiss (somewhat) at bay, Hedron, is ultimately destroyed. In that moment, somewhat abruptly, the credits roll. For what feels like a never-ending moment, it seems that Control has come to an end right at its climax. But like everything else in the game, it's all a misdirection.

As the credits continue, they morph from a list of names to mimicking the Hiss's endless chanting. Then the words start to smear and distort--not unlike the structure of the Oldest House itself--and it becomes clear that making you believe you've hit the end of the game is actually the work of the Hiss's influence on Jesse's mind. With the final chapter of the game, Jesse finds herself locked in a fantasy belonging to her Hiss-collaborator brother, Dylan, where she's an intern in the Bureau and he's the new Director.

It's an amazing moment because of how well Control commits to and executes on the gag, and reminded me of that harrowing scare in 2004's Eternal Darkness that makes you think your console just got fried. More than any other moment in Control, the false credits warp your sense of reality, with the game breaking the fourth wall one last time to put you in Jesse's distorted frame of mind as she battles the Hiss's influence. It's a great moment that perfectly brings the undercurrent of Remedy's game to the forefront: that maybe, you're never really in control. | Phil Hornshaw

No other game this year has gotten me so invested in the process of going from A to B in an open world than in Death Stranding. While Hideo Kojima's weird, anti-open-world game has an incredible narrative, an interesting world to explore, and engaging delivery gameplay, the thing that got me most entranced was the very act of walking. The actual mechanics of general movement in video games are almost as old as video games themselves. Yet, Death Stranding's approach to traversal with its lead character Sam Porter Bridges focuses heavily on actually getting you to feel connected to him.

How Death Stranding goes about it is by ensuring players feel the weight and heft of Sam's movement. Every step you take when exploring the larger world is always felt, and there's never a moment where you shouldn't be mindful of where you're walking, as slight inclines or rough terrain can cause you to lose your balance. All this is especially important when taking Sam on extended deliveries with precious cargo. Due to this focus on character movement and balance, Death Stranding takes a more measured and intelligent approach to the concept of encumbrance.

Unlike other open-world games that treat encumbrance as an inconvenience--letting you freely carry a hodgepodge of items up until an arbitrary carry limit--Death Stranding's approach is more of a consequence. While this can all seem like busywork, it ends up creating this loop of surveying, preparation, and execution for your travels. Some of my highlights from Death Stranding's expansive world came from taking in the sights while carefully navigating the dense terrain with some precious cargo in tow. Syncing with Death Stranding's sophisticated walking gameplay leads to surprising moments of splendor, even though you're exploring a bleak setting. I would never have thought that Death Stranding would be one of the most meditative and engrossing games of 2019, yet that's what happened when I took the time to be mindful of where Sam took his steps when exploring the world. | Alessandro Fillari

The best highlight in 2019 for me in any game was a very particular moment in Destiny 2: Shadowkeep. It occurs early on in the Shadowkeep campaign--you go through the motions in a manner that veterans of the game have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of times, and then an absolute shocker of an encounter unfolds. There were always assumptions and some speculation that in Shadowkeep we would finally come face-to-face with the darkness itself, but no one could've foreseen how Bungie would address this. All the questions I had about the darkness and Shadowkeep's story were swiftly answered in the form of a Pyramid ship, inky black with a faint sinister shimmer, revealing itself to me completely out of the blue.

The composition was spectacular: You first begin to witness the haunted memories of the moon which take the form of spirits floating in the air, dotting the sky where the Earth can be seen in the background, a faint reminder of what you are defending. A few more steps forward as you round the corner and suddenly it's there, in a massive empty area as the air in the room gets sucked out. Here is your greatest enemy you still don't fully understand, biding its time, remaining completely unperturbed at finally being found.

Seeing how the pyramid was revealed makes me optimistic for Destiny's future. Bungie clearly cares about its game's story and is setting a precedent for a lot of lifestyle games that hope to blend together aspects of RPG grinds with the frenetic pace of a first-person shooter. The reveal of the Pyramid was affirmation that Destiny was always more than just a colored engram of loot on the ground or a power level number. Bungie's most ambitious project was always a world first. | David Ahmadi

Apex Legends' ping system is the most brilliant new feature to hit online multiplayer shooters in years. For those like myself who prefer to play online without talking to randoms, the ping system is a revelation. A simple shoulder-button tap marks points of interest, including loot, enemies, and spots on the map you want your teammates to head to. The ping menu expands the system further to communicate actions like attacking or defending areas. You can even use the ping system to request supplies such as weapon attachments or healing items.

What's most remarkable about the ping system is that it's both easy to use and incredibly useful. I've never played a match of Apex Legends where I felt like I needed a mic to work cohesively with my team--the ping system is more than enough. Unsurprisingly, Epic Games quickly added a ping system to Fortnite after it was so well received in Apex Legends.

In addition to being a capable replacement for voice chat, the ping system also alleviates some of the more troubling aspects of online gaming, such as verbal harassment. As a parent of a young child, I'm wary to let my daughter play any online game that relies on voice chat. Here's to hoping more online games start to adapt clever new ways to communicate. | Steven Petite

The first half of Fire Emblem: Three Houses begins innocently, as you learn the ropes of your newfound teaching career and get to know the wide cast of students attending a specialized military strategy school. Though threats are frequent from bandits and raiders, your students mostly engage in war games with each other--honing their skills but safe from any real harm and generally united in their quest to resolve some of the school's mysterious happenings. That all changes past the halfway point, when the houses violently fracture and you're left unconscious. You awake years later to find the world in the midst of tearing itself apart and the students you once trained having grown into battle-hardened adults.

I'd reached the time jump later than many of my friends and colleagues, but even knowing it was coming didn't blunt its impact. That one event recontextualized everything just when I started to feel a little too comfortable, presenting a world I hardly recognized and igniting genuine concern for the students who weren't yet accounted for. The proceeding half of the game presented a mixture of hope and inspiration in the students I had protected, a sense of grief for the ones who fell on the opposing battle lines, and a constant reminder that war devours youth. | Steve Watts

I'm going to try to convey the impact of the greatest moment in Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers without spoiling it. Let's see how this goes.

Shadowbringers introduces so many new, fascinating narrative threads that build upon the already-detailed lore of FFXIV. Even its days as a bad game in 2010, prior to its redesign and relaunch, remain imperative to the ongoing story. However, this expansion seemingly distances itself from the established world by taking you and your companions to an all-new realm, one that's completely separate from, yet intertwined with, your own.

You unravel the history and plight of this other realm, ravaged by a calamity, clinging onto hope, holding off what seems to be inevitable extinction. You dig deeper into who your longtime enemies are and where they came from. And with each story beat comes revelations about your place in FFXIV's universe--none more powerful than the scene that leads into the final boss fight.

The Crystal Exarch, your mysterious but reliable ally, is responsible for bringing you across realms, though much of his work is done in the background. And what he does in this penultimate scene is powerful and stunning not just as the culmination of his work and a way to set a grand stage, but for what FFXIV means as a game outside the confines of the core narrative. It puts so much of FFXIV's lore in a new light, and also shocks you with how, in a swift moment, this being an MMORPG and requiring other players to join you in fights makes perfect sense.

In a matter of seconds, all these narrative pieces fell into place. It wasn't done in through a big lore drop or in a detailed monologue, either. It was an overwhelming moment of clarity. And with the outstanding use of its soundtrack, this scene in Shadowbringers brought me to tears. I usually get emotional about gut-wrenching story beats or saying goodbye to favorite characters, but in FFXIV, it was that overwhelming sense of clarity.

"Let expanse contract, eon become instant," says the Crystal Exarch, befitting the awe-inspiring scene. I also think of it as a cue to the player that this game's long, detailed history is being recontextualized in that very moment. And by showing rather than telling you about its biggest implication leading into the conclusion is nothing short of amazing. Shadowbringers, whether intentionally or not, has affected the past, present, and future of FFXIV, and I'll never forget the feeling it gave me. | Michael Higham

Being a longtime Pokemon fan, it's hard to be surprised by any new entries in the franchise. Game Freak has evolved the series conservatively over the past two decades, refining some rough edges and introducing new wrinkles to the battle system with each installment while still clinging to the general formula established by Pokemon Red and Blue. That is true of Pokemon Sword and Shield as well, but the Switch titles add a few novelties to the mix, most notably the Wild Area--the first open-world environment in a Pokemon game and the most daring addition to the series in years.

The moment I first set foot in the Wild Area and saw its rolling, verdant hills stretch off into the distance, beckoning me to put my Pokemon League aspirations on hold and comb every last crevice, I was taken back to the opening moments of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, when Link emerges from the Shrine of Resurrection and surveys Hyrule in its vast, untamed glory for the first time. Of course, the Wild Area can't compare to Hyrule in terms of scale or density, but it instilled in me a similar sense of discovery. Each of the myriad biomes that made up the Wild Area was rife with items to pick up, berries to harvest, and Max Raid dens to plunder, making exploration constantly rewarding.

More importantly, for the first time since the series' debut, Pokemon felt surprising. Recent installments in the franchise have a tendency to coddle players, but the Wild Area felt as untamed as its name suggested. Wander recklessly and you could run into a wild, fully evolved Pokemon twice your level, adding a thrilling sense of danger to the experience. All of this helped reinforce the feeling that you were a new, inexperienced trainer setting off on a grand journey for the first time.

My favorite part of exploring the Wild Area, however, was discovering all of the different species of Pokemon that made their home there, many of which, you quickly learn, only emerge in certain weather conditions. My friends and I would talk excitedly as we played through the games about which monsters we've encountered and where they could be found. It brought back memories of the first time I played Pokemon Blue back in 1998, when my classmates and I would spend our recesses sharing stories of all the different Pokemon we've captured--and that's a feeling that I don't get too often. | Kevin Knezevic

Up until recently, breeding just one competitive Pokemon from scratch looked like this: You'd spend hours hatching eggs of the Pokemon you wanted. Every time you hatched an egg, you'd have to go to a specific NPC that would tell you the Pokemon's base stats through a coded message. Bad stats you could deal with, but when it had perfect stats and the wrong ability? That was a gut punch. Oh, and sometimes the moves you wanted on your Pokemon could only be passed down via breeding, so if you forgot to do that or didn't plan ahead, you could have a "perfect" Pokemon that would actually not work at all. I've done that multiple times.

The 3DS Pokemon games slowly added new features to help make this process actually doable for more people, but Sword and Shield made the final much-needed touches. Now you can check your Pokemon's formerly hidden base stats from the Box screen, which is accessible anywhere for the first time in a main Pokemon game. If you realized you bred for the wrong nature, you can change it with an item. If you forgot to breed for egg moves like I used to, you can now just put two Pokemon of the same species in the nursery and they'll essentially teach each other the moves.

These might sound like small things if you aren't like me and have never rigged your 3DS to get your character to ride their bike in a circle so you could hatch eggs while eating dinner. But in previous games, unless you hacked your Pokemon (a no-no), you spent way more time breeding Pokemon than actually battling with them. These final quality-of-life improvements were the last major things preventing people from just jumping into battles right away--which is when you realize just how fun competitive Pokemon is! I really think Sword and Shield have the potential to bring more people into the competitive Pokemon scene, and that has reinvigorated my love for it, too. | Kallie Plagge

A Plague Tale: Innocence is an action-adventure game that flew under many people's radars when it released in May, but this compelling story of two children struggling to survive in plague-ridden, 14th-century-France is not only one of my personal favorites this year but also one of GameSpot's best games of 2019. You'll start out with some simple stealth mechanics--these are children, after all--but as the story progresses and the protagonist, Amicia, grows stronger, she gains the ability to improve and modify her sling as well as craft various projectiles through alchemy, including mixtures that create fire, send enemies to sleep, melt armor, and more.

By the time you have a full arsenal of various projectiles available, A Plague Tale's combat and stealth maneuvers get incredibly interesting, with any number of ways to approach a certain situation. A Plague Tale encourages you to pit your two main enemies--the plague-infected rats and violent Inquisition soldiers--against each other, and as a result, Amicia is able to manipulate their behavior in fascinating ways. Here's an example: Rats are afraid of light, so the Inquisition soldiers often carry torches to protect themselves. If you throw a projectile called Exstinguis on their torch, the flame will go out. Then, if you throw another mixture called Odoris on the soldier, rats will be drawn to the smell and swarm him, opening a path for you to move through.

I can't express just how satisfying this mechanic is, and the game does an excellent job of presenting new challenges and ways to use Amicia's abilities. And because there's no "right" way to proceed, it's incredibly satisfying to plot out your path through a tricky situation and succeed. So if you wrote off A Plague Tale: Innocence as a basic stealth game, give it another shot--you'll be surprised at everything you can do with the tools it gives you. | Jenae Sitzes