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RPG Site Best of 2018 Awards: Readers' Choice in Detail

by RPG Site Staff on 15 January, 2019

Each year we wrap up a year of hopefully great RPG-playing action by polling you, our readers, to find out what you ranked as the best games of the year were, considering both pure-blood RPGs and games that we feel RPG fans would enjoy. As noted over on our staff Best of 2018 Awards, 2018 was perhaps a little strange a year - feeling front-heavy, with most of the biggest RPG releases coming earlier on and a definite decrease in the number of Western RPGs out - likely as many Western games ran scared from Red Dead Redemption 2. Despite that, it ended up a great year - and you all turned out in droves to vote.

Thousands of you voted, and as ever the results are interesting - in places mirroring out staff choices and in places offering a different, alternative take. So... how did you, the great RPG-playing public, vote? Here are the results - the winner is something of a landslide victory...

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Your Top Ten RPGs of 2018

10.   The World Ends With You: Final Remix - 1.6% (Square Enix / Nintendo - Switch)

9.      Sen no Kiseki IV: The End of Saga [Import] - 1.8% (Nihon Falcom - PS4)

8.      Assassin's Creed Odyssey - 1.8% (Ubisoft - PS4, Xbox One, PC)

7.      Yakuza Kiwami 2 - 2.2% (Sega - PS4)

6.      Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire - 2.4% (Obsidian Entertainment - PC)

5.      Valkyria Chronicles 4 - 3.3% (Sega - PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch)

4.      Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna the Golden Country - 7.1% (Monolith Soft - Switch)

3.    Monster Hunter: World - 10.5% (Capcom - PS4, Xbox One, PC)

2.    Octopath Traveler - 14.8% (Square Enix / Nintendo - Switch)

1.    Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age - 30.4% (Square Enix - PS4, PC)

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Additional Facts and Figures

  • Our fourth year of the fan poll sees Dragon Quest XI join Persona 5, Final Fantasy XV and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as our reader's poll winner. (2015 Results / 2016 Results / 2017 Results). It records by far the biggest winning margin on record in our reader polls.
  • While Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna the Golden Country was considered for some commendation awards, it didn't press into our staff top ten - but it places highly here with readers. 
  • Near-misses for the back end of the 2018 top ten include the likes of Kingdom Come Deliverance, Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology and Divinity Original Sin 2 on consoles.
  • The biggest discrepancy in the staff awards is Pokemon Let's Go, which made our staff top five as a great first RPG for beginners but failed to make the top ten from you, our readers.
  • This year's most voted publisher is Square Enix, largely driven by the Dragon Quest-shaped landslide to victory and Octopath Traveler. If you count Octopath as a Nintendo release instead (it was developed by Square Enix, but published by Nintendo), then Nintendo takes the top spot though, combining Octopath, Torna and Pokemon.