Shortlisting the GOTY 2019 - Released

Originally Posted by SirJames
Ahh, what is an RPG? The age old question!

I don't have an answer to that. All I can see is that it is labeled as a Non-RPG in our database. Not having played the game, I have no opinion on whether that is correct or not.

I do see it isn't even labeled as an RPG on Steam. As the tag RPG is used very loosely there, perhaps that is saying something (or perhaps not).

There are some pretty good games after WARSAW and a few crappy games before WARSAW….
-
Kind of odd I would have expected anticipated list to suffer more than GOTY list but it seems inverted in that most of the better games showed up in anticipated using H-INDEX but that did not seem to be the case with GOTY. That's not to say that any of the games below WARSAW would actually win. Still….

Don't sweat it @Myrthos , sekiro was not designed as an RPG, is not referred to as an RPG, had many Souls fans not like it as much as Souls games because it wasn't an RPG, is very confidently an action adventure game with more in common with Thief, Lara Croft, God of War like games than anything RPG. If it hadn't been made by From Software you wouldn't even have heard of it, much like if Jedi Fallen Order wasn't a Star Wars game then we wouldn't have heard of it (on these forums).

Sekiro is referred to as "action adventure" by its developer and publisher. Previous Souls games were referred to as "action RPG" but they intentionally referred to Sekiro differently. Absolutely no reason for RPGWatch to call it an RPG in such a case, even with the very liberal definition here.

Source: https://www.fromsoftware.jp/ww/products.html

yeah, but I wouldn't say Rune II or Surge 2 were more RPG than Sekrio. Or Dauntless, for that matter. Last year Monster Hunter World wasn't included and now Dauntless is?!

It wouldn't hurt to throw a few Non-RPGs in there just to catch worthless votes. In the end people can decide what's RPG with their votes!

The result of a short list is that there are games not ending up on the list, which makes some happy, some displeased and some just don't mind.
So, using various inputs, I have come to the following alphabetically sorted short list:


Borderlands 3
Breach
Disco Elysium
Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest
Dungeon Of Dragon Knight
Element: Space
Fade to Silence
Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark
Forged of Blood
GOD WARS The Complete Legend
Greedfall
Grimshade
Malevolence: The Sword of Ahkranox
Nomads of the Fallen Star
Operencia: The Stolen Sun
Outward
Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory
Phoenix Point
Queen's Wish: The Conqueror
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
Rogue Empire: Dungeon Crawler RPG
Shenmue 3
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Sunless Skies
The Outer Worlds
The Sinking City
Thea 2: The Shattering
Theseus: Journey to Athens
Vestaria Saga I: War of the Scions
WARSAW



This is the list we will go into the GOTY with, next week. If your objections, pleads and whatnot have not been reflected in this list, they are not ignored, but for whatever reason a choice was made for it to be reflected in the list.
I am still open to suggestions for modifications though, until Sunday evening (my evening).