The most ambitious games of 2016

Every year, brand-new gaming hardware and games are revealed, and game developers are constantly creating unique ways to entertain the fickle and passionate gaming community.

2016 has seen the launch of a new hardware generation along with virtual reality, which many are lauding as the future of immersive gaming.

Developers have fully taken advantage of the latest hardware innovations by launching some of the most ambitious titles the gaming world has ever seen.

Let’s check out the most ambitious games of the year, released or unreleased:

Crowfall

Crowfall is a Game of Thrones-influenced massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) which allows players to join and shape the events of persistent worlds.

The game’s highly-ambitious land ownership and player agency systems land it firmly on this list, as the title relies heavily on player investment and interaction in order to provide functional gameplay.

Stellaris

Stellaris is an absolutely massive project by the master of grand-strategy titles, Paradox Interactive.

The game boldly combines the complexity of a grand strategy with the pacing of 4X gameplay, along with delivering its multi-layered, advanced gameplay mechanics in a relatively easy-to-grasp package.

Sea of Thieves

Sea of Thieves signifies a new era of open-world cross-platform gaming, supporting cross-play between Windows 10 and Xbox One users.

This comes as a result of Microsoft’s newly-implemented Play Anywhere program.

Sea of Thieves could be the first decent open-world pirate game in a long time, and it’s cross-platform play presents some interesting balance issues.

No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky has been hailed as ambitious since it was first announced.

The game features an unfathomably massive playable universe which relies on procedural generation.

Players can explore endless space and visit planets seamlessly, with everything in the game’s universe presented to scale.

Despite recent delays, the game is still on track to be released this year.

Overwatch

Overwatch’s core gameplay is not a total departure from the core tenets of multiplayer shooters such as Team Fortress 2, but the project delivers a new, highly polished standard within the team-based shooter genre.

Forged from the ashes of the developer’s failed Titan project, Overwatch was a hit-or-miss for the Blizzard team.

Reaching over 10 million players since launch, Overwatch has definitely hit its mark.

Cyberpunk 2077

CD Projekt RED has become a game development phenomenon, creating revolutionary titles such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and defying conventional gaming industry norms like DRM implementation and development shortcuts.

After working on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt from the relative safety of their established universe, the studio has since boldly ventured into the realm of sci-fi and robotics with the announcement of Cyberpunk 2077.

If CD Projekt RED can deliver the same mature story-telling and well-written characters as it did throughout the Witcher games, CyberPunk 2077 could be one of the best cyberpunk games ever made.

Star Citizen

Star Citizen is the epitome of overly ambitious game development. Created as a Kickstarter project promising every gameplay feature conceivable, the game has been in development since 2012, and is still not approaching completion.

Allowing players to explore a hand-crafted open universe, Star Citizen boasts impressive graphics, seamless transference between planets and space, spacecraft simulation and on-board instances.

We have been keeping an eye on Star Citizen for a while now, tentatively hoping it delivers on its insane promises.