2015 is over, so it's time to move on from swooning over The Witcher 3, Rocket League, and that post-apocalyptic one with the mutants, vaults and dodgy lip-syncing. Okay, that's not strictly true. We'll probably keep ranting giddily about the best games of yesteryear for many months yet, but let's try to put them aside for just a moment, and look to the near future to see what brand new potential franchise-starters await us in 2016. Last year was a great year for games, but one thing that was missing was a wealth of solid new IPs for gamers to dig into. The Order: 1886 was a flop, Bloodborne was great but rightly referred to as a 'Souls' game, and many of the AAA big hitters were same-old continuations of existing franchises. Thankfully, it's already clear that 2016 will be different, as both Sony and Microsoft are determined to branch their respective consoles out into new territories, bringing us a slew of new IPs that have the potential to enthral us for years to come.
10. Sea Of Thieves (PC, XBO)
Remember Rare? Once regarded as one of the greatest developers of all time - bringing us the likes of Banjo-Kazooie, Goldeneye and Conker's Bad Fur Day - they were bought out by Microsoft in 2002 and subsequently reduced to working mainly on the flaccid Kinect Sports series. But now, after spending too long in the wilderness, Rare is being resurrected, and in 2016 is set to deliver us its first new IP in years in the form of this buccaneering multiplayer adventure. Not much has been revealed about Sea of Thieves yet, but it has a super-pretty, vibrant visual style, and will entail you banding with a small group of online buddies to seek treasures, engage in naval warfare, and get up to all manner of disreputable mischief befitting of all your pirate fantasies. Rare calls this the "most ambitious game it's ever created", and it'll be exciting to see whether it can be the great comeback of the dormant developer that we've been waiting for.