GOTY 2016: Multiplayer

Honourable Mentions

Battlefield 1

As much as people praised Battlefield 1's campaign, telling multiple angles of a story in WW1, a lot of people flocked, as they tend to do, to the multiplayer side of the game, and as with Battlefield titles of yesteryear it became hugely popular. As we said in our review, the best elements of past Battlefields make their way into Battlefield 1, and the new setting makes it a great overall experience.

Among the new features, however, are the behemoths. These giant vehicles, be they a train or an airship, have the capability to change the course of a battle. Forget your day-to-day cars or horses, these hulking vehicles can turn a team from zeroes to heroes with their destructive capabilities, and prevent winning teams from getting too confident in their success. When you're not paying attention a behemoth can and often will turn the tide, and it's pretty intense when one comes along.

In terms of the maps, the scale is pretty big, as Battlefield prides itself on the larger scale warfare, and these environments are varied enough that it never gets too boring, as you can go from a desert setting to forest, and there's even a ballroom. In these maps you can also use a variety of weapons, but part of the charm here is that the attachments are relatively stripped back and bare bones compared to other games, aligning it with the era and making the experience more about how good you are at shooting, not which fancy attachments you have.

To top all this off, EA and DICE have made clear that they want to support Battlefield 1 as a competitive platform moving forwards, including new content, events, maps, and more. If you've enjoyed the warfare of Battlefield 1, then, you have much more to look forward to, and going forward we don't doubt that EA and DICE will bolster this already immersive and visceral experience with even more stuff that fans will be able to savour.

Overcooked
Overcooked provides something we don't often see in games these days: great local multiplayer. In an era where online multiplayer is favoured over local, Overcooked provides a hilariously fun experience for players of all ages, to the extent that it's one of the games that we're seeing played at parties; that's how fun and accessible it is.

The premise is simple; up to four players can control a chef each, and the task is to prepare a meal. Simple, right? Well, not when the kitchen is so chaotic. Layouts change, the pressure starts building, and your job gets harder, making it more and more difficult to make a perfect dish and get all the points. If one chef messes up that can be curtains for everyone, meaning that there's always this balance between the joy of teamwork and the pain of seeing people flounder in the kitchen. Communication is key.

When you introduce all the different variables that can happen, you end up with a really great couch multiplayer experience. Kitchens can take the form of adjacent lorries on a road, platforms of ice, and other bizarre locations, and there's always something going on to throw you and your fellow cooks off your game.

Overcooked can be played single-player, but it really comes into its own when you have a few friends round. They don't even need to be into video games all that much, and you have a laugh taking on culinary challenges together. Even if you're all terrible, Overcooked is so much fun that you won't care, and as we said in our review, the co-op madness is where it appeals.

Overwatch

Taking the number one spot is none other than Blizzard's wildly fun competitive shooter, Overwatch. The unique and fast paced play-style of Overwatch is what makes it stand out above the rest, and no two matches will ever be the same. Giving you 23 heroes to choose from, each with their own style, Overwatch brings MOBA-esque gameplay to the realm of the first-person shooter, and does a fantastic job of it.

Overwatch pits you in a team of six against another team of the same size, and you battle it out in tons of different environments across the world, over three different main game modes. That's not where the variety ends, either; you can choose heroes from four different classes to suit your tastes; Offence, Defence, Tank, and Support. Different team compositions bring so many alternate strategies and ways to play that you'll never get bored.

Another reason we think Overwatch deserves the top spot in this category is because it is easily one of the most polished games we've ever played. Almost six months of solid beta testing with loads of fan feedback are mostly to thank for this, and Blizzard has taken the time to work on the little systems, like menus, that give the game an incredibly nice feel. On top of this, Blizzard are constantly making balance changes in an effort to make every hero equally powerful, ranging from small tweaks to major reworks. The post-release commitment they are showing helps ensure we don't lose interest.

Since release, we've seen three separate ranked seasons for Overwatch, letting the more competitive amongst us flex their muscles. Each season has brought with it an increasingly improved ranking system, helping you play against players of your skill level and making each game feel like a challenge. The fact that a game can be so fun at both a casual and competitive level speaks volumes, and Blizzard has totally outdone themselves with Overwatch, leading us to rightfully name it the best multiplayer game of 2016.