RPG Site Awards 2015: Readers' Choice in Detail

by Alex Donaldson on 03 January, 2016

As part of our 2015 Awards to mark what the biggest and best RPGs of the year were, we also reached out to you, our readers, to find out what you felt the very best RPGs released throughout 2015 were. With thousands of votes cast and counted, the winner was decided extremely closely, as previously featured in our own personal Game of the Year posts.

Our readers' top 3 differs somewhat from the one picked by our staff, which can be found through these links in Day One and Day Two of our full Game of the Year coverage. But what about beyond that? What was the top ten for our readership, and what other interesting facts can be observed in the voting? Here, we'll reveal a bit on all that.

Your Top Ten RPGs of 2015

10. Disgaea 5 - 3% (Nippon Ichi Software, PS4)

9. Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward - 4.3% (Square Enix, PC / PS3 / PS4)

8. Tales of Zestria - 6.2% (Tales Studio, Namco Bandai, PS4 / PS3 / PC)

7. Pillars of Eternity - 6.5% (Obsidian Entertainment, PC)

6. Fallout 4 - 7.2% (Bethesda Softworks, PC / PS4 / Xbox One)

5. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Second Chapter - 8.5% (Falcom, XSeed - PC, PSP)

4. Bloodborne - 9.5% (FromSoftware, Sony Computer Entertainment - PS4)

3. Undertale - 10.2% (tobyfox, PC)

2. Xenoblade Chronicles X - 12.2% (Monolith Soft, Nintendo - Wii U)

1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 12.3% (CD Projekt RED - PC / PS4 / Xbox One)

Additional Facts and Figures:

You are reading that right - only a single decimal place of a percentage point separated first and second place, proving just how blown away you all were by The Witcher 3 and Xenoblade Chronicles X - a true photo finish, and proof positive 2015 was a great year for RPGs.
DeNA and Square Enix's Final Fantasy Record Keeper had a strong run in the polls. At one point the free-to-play mobile FF nostalgia-fest was firmly in the top ten, ultimately only missing a tenth place slot to Disgaea 5 by a single vote. It significantly outperformed the other new FF release in 2015, Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, with around a third more votes than its big-screen sibling.
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate was another narrow miss for the top ten, trailing just behind Disgaea 5 after Record Keeper.
Nintendo featured eclectic placement in the list, picking up the second highest number of votes for Xenoblade Chronicles X and the second lowest number of votes for Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, which picked up just 0.3% of the vote. Xenoblade Chronicles 3D fared a little better, pulling off a full percentage point.
Dragon Quest Heroes polled better than many other spin-offs released in 2015, but still only managed to pick up around 1.5% of the vote.
Indies can still work it. Of the top ten, two major hitters, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Pillars of Eternity, were developed by entirely independent studios and later published by larger traditional publishers. Undertale, of course, is an entirely independent game of another level entirely, practically developed by one man.
In the top-rated games there's still a healthily even split between Eastern and Western-developed RPGs among our audience. The top ten features a 6/4 split, while throughout the rest of the list other RPGs from both sides performed relatively comparably.

This year marks the first year we've done a readers' choice RPG of the Year vote, but it certainly won't be the last. If you want to get involved, be sure to keep up with the site more fully on our various social channels: You can Follow on Twitter, Subscribe on YouTube, or add the site itself to your RSS reader or bookmarks. Soon on the site we'll be showcasing all the major RPGs of 2016 - so stay tuned for that. It's going to be a hell of a year.