Personally, while this might sound crazy, I think 2020 is pretty high up there. Not just because of the big releases. I just think the year proved how massive the games industry truly is. The pandemic hurt most other industries, but video games just grew. The perfect year for a game like animal crossing to come out as a lot of people who barely or never play games on a console went out of their way to start doing so.

People began to notice how massive the community is and we saw hype for a game like never seen before with Cyberpunk 2077. Again, people who typically never play games jumped along the hype train and even pre-ordered a game for the first time. It's almost impossible to explain just how anticipated this game was both within and outside of the gaming community.

There were plenty of big releases that year in various genres. Some continuations that pushed its own genre like Doom Eternal, but also continuations in series that has been dorment for a while like Crash Bandicoot 4, Serious Sam and Half Life Alyx. New experimental games like Dreams (if you can even call it a game) or My Friend Pedro or Death Stranding. Hype games finally releasing like the aforementioned Cyberpunk, but also The Last of Us Part 2 and Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Other notable games/events: Warzone released and were the first Battle Royale to fully compete with Fortnite. Fall Guys had the biggest spike and fall in the player base. Among Us, while not releasing that year, surprisingly became an internet juggernaut over night (another game that everyone played regardless of whether or not you typically played video games). Ghost of Tsushima released and semented itself as a PlayStation classic. Nintendo released Super Mario 3D Allstars, a remake of the biggest 3D Mario games, but only for a limited time.