2020's best games enlightened and transported Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. 2020's best games enlightened and transported Christian Donlan's games of 2020. Feature by Christian Donlan Features Editor Published on 26 Dec 2020 5 comments Editor's note: Take a breath. We're almost there. 2020's been quite the year, and it's very nearly over. Across the festive break, members of the Eurogamer team and our contributors will be running down their personal top five games of 2020, before we announce our game of the year - and before, of course, we hand over to you for the annual Reader's Top 50. Thanks for being with us this year, and see you on the other side. Where are games travelling? For me, this year, they were travelling inward. Spelunky 2, of course, heading deeper and darker, offering more complexity and more mystery, more dangers to think about down there, and more wonders! All of it driven by clockwork so brilliant that it does not need much in the way of additional complications. Inward for Umurangi Generations, too, a team exploring its own culture to thrilling and generous effect. Never has travelling inwards seemed like so much of a gift. Christian s games of 2020 Before I Forget I Am Dead Paper Beast Spelunky 2 Umurangi Generations Onwards and inwards, though. How do you make a game about the inwards territory of death? If you're I am Dead, you make it anything but sombre. You bathe it in Clarice Cliff colours and send us into a pocket universe armed with a fearsome curiosity. How do the dead feel about the living? A kind of nosy envy, a greediness to understand the people left behind and make sense of their worlds, to touch the surfaces of the world one last time. It helps that being dead sort of turns you into an MRI and allows you to slice through objects to peek inside. But at the most inward point, two games that I will simply never forget. One is Eric Chahi's Paper Beast, which travels right to the centre of this singular man's singular imagination and preoccupations - wildlife and the forces of nature, digital representation, other worlds. You put on a VR helmet to play Paper Beast as it's intended, and the wonder of the man's internal life erupts all around you - cathedral-boned monsters gravely wobble onwards through the desert, deeper, further, seeking the interior. And Before I Forget. How do you explain neurological disease to people who don't have it? Neurological disease, a thing so personal and internal that it seems utterly unshareable? You focus on the person, and you set the disease in the context of a life that has many other things in it. You allow disease its power - it would be trite and misleading not to - but you also put it in its place. That's why Before I Forget is so astonishing, I think. It heads inwards and inwards and inwards, exploring the frightening, personal landscape of the mind, but it leaves you with a sense of airiness, the wonder of human potential and capability. What can we do? We can understand. That's where games are travelling. That's the destination. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More Features Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. 12 Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Feature What games get wrong about horses And what they could do about it. 34 Feature Shout out to all the Overwatch supports - where would we be without you? Merci. 55 Latest Articles Preview Football Manager's new Console edition is the best you'll get without a PC Getting Touch-right. Splatoon 3 Amiibos will be out next month Ink-coming! 3 Fans think Phil Spencer's shelf is teasing the Xbox Game Pass streaming box UPDATE: Xbox confirms old Keystone prototype. 59 Modder dives into Demon's Souls files following PS5 jailbreak, discovers fabled Ring of the Chieftain Who knows what's nexus? 4 Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store