A year in review, in review

I just finished reading through the Annual and wanted to quickly say bravo to everyone at Edge – the quality of the writing, depth of research and variety of content in these pages is a testament to the great work you’ve all done over the last 12 months. I particularly loved the ‘Eastern Promise’ feature, which was a fascinating look at a huge gaming market I’d never been exposed to at all, as well as the Time Extend feature on Catherine and the collected works of Fumito Ueda.

Since you asked, I wanted to also share a couple of thoughts about The Annual. While I think the idea to highlight the best writing of the past 12 months – as opposed to just supplying a cavalcade of lists – is a great one, I think an exception should be made for reviews of the best games of the year. Simply reprinting the original reviews doesn’t provide the retrospective appraisal that I really love from Game Of The Year roundups, which should be an opportunity to look back and talk about a game’s significance with the whole year in view.

I also think that simply reprinting reviews doesn’t make it clear if they were supposed to be ordered or not – presumably, Zelda was GOTY, but were Splatoon 2 and Yakuza 0, (both awarded 8/10) higher than Nioh because they were printed first? Maybe that sounds pedantic, but I just think a bit more clarity could have helped, or an introductory editorial piece to talk about changing opinions. Also, I presume the only reason

Odyssey didn’t feature was because of deadline cutoffs, but in that case, putting Cappy on the front cover was a bit confusing.

I personally would still like to see fresh pieces on the best games of the year, though I understand there were probably time constraints since the Annual released around the same time as the last regular Edge issue with that incredible Final Fantasy feature (again, good shit everyone). Regardless, Edge continues to be not just the best gaming magazine around, but in my opinion, one of the best monthly publications full stop.

Thanks for this, Stuart (and everyone else who sent similar feedback on The Annual).