RPG Site Best of 2019 Awards: Readers' Choice in Detail
Each year here at RPG Site, we wrap up a year of hopefully great RPG-playing action by publically polling you, our readers, to find out what YOU ranked as the best RPGs of the year. As usual, we allow consideration for both pure-blood RPGs and a few similar style games that we feel RPG fans would enjoy. We already posted our Staff Best of 2019 Awards, which saw an unexpected late release to take our top spot, but we wanted to hear what you had to say.
Thousands of you voted, and as ever the results are interesting. As with previous years, there are places that mirror our staff choices and places which offer a different, alternative take from ours. So... how did you, the great RPG-playing public, vote? Here are the results - and once again, the winner is something of a landslide victory...
Your Top Ten RPGs of 2019
10. Astral Chain - 1.6% (Nintendo - Switch)
9. Dragon Quest Builders 2 - 1.6% (Square Enix/Nintendo - PS4, Switch, PC)
8. Pokemon Sword / Pokemon Shield - 2.1% (Nintendo - Switch)
7. The Outer Worlds - 3.5% (Private Division - PS4, Xbox One, PC)
6. Disco Elysium - 5.1% (ZA/UM - PC)
5. Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers - 6.4% (Square Enix - PS4, PC)
4. Kingdom Hearts III - 8.1% (Square Enix - PS4)
3. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition - 8.6% (Square Enix/Nintendo - Switch)
2. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - 12.6% (NIS America - PS4)
1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses - 32.3% (Nintendo - Switch)
Additional Facts and Figures
- Our fifth year of the fan poll sees Fire Emblem: Three Houses join Dragon Quest XI, Persona 5, Final Fantasy XV and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as our reader's poll winners. (2015 Results / 2016 Results / 2017 Results / 2018 Results). It also records the second-biggest winning margin on record in our reader polls after Persona 5's win in 2017.
- Near-misses for the 2019 Reader top ten include the likes of Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, Monster Hunter: World - Iceborne, and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
- There are two big discrepancies between our Staff awards and your Reader votes. One is SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions, which is our RPG of the Year, but failed to make the top ten from you, our readers. Instead, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III was voted highly from readers, yet failed to make our Staff top ten.
- Astral Chain was a bit of an odd game to cover, as it was not originally announced or described as an RPG, but more and more RPG-like elements became evident as it neared launch. We decided to cover it and include it on our Poll as a selection. Enough of you voted for it to have it grab the tenth spot.
- Code Vein ranked #7 in the Most Anticipated vote for 2019, but barely made the top 20 for this year's RPG of the Year vote.
- This year's most voted publisher is Nintendo, due largely in part to Fire Emblem's landslide victory with help from Pokemon and Astral Chain. Even if you count both Dragon Quest titles as Square Enix games (though they were at least partially published by Nintendo in the West), Square Enix takes the #2 publisher spot with titles like Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers.