15 Best Video Games Of 2015 (So Far)

Now that Batman: Arkham Knight is out, can it take the top spot?

By Scott Tailford /

From little-known indie gems to some of the most expansive and technically-impressive titles of all time, 2015 is already leagues ahead of where we were at this point last year. Remember Watch_Dogs? Neither do Ubisoft. Even in retrospect, if you cherry-pick the best titles from the smouldering wreckage that was last year's gaming output (Transistor, Dark Souls II and Shovel Knight, in case you were wondering), the overwhelming consensus from the public at year's end was that of disbelief. Disbelief that so many high profile games could release in such broken states, disbelief that the new consoles genuinely had nothing to show for themselves on a baseline hardware level - and disbelief especially for Xbox One owners that Microsoft quite literally threw up their hands in regards to the Kinect and screamed "We don't know any more!" Come 2015 it was time for a major overhaul in everyone's approach to the industry. Consumers lowered their expectations considerably (now we're all joyously thankful if a game releases in a working state, the rest is a bonus) and the companies pulling the strings elected to actually deliver on the many promises they'd made. It all converged at E3 (which you can read about over here) as a string of new IPs were joined by some genuinely breathtaking announcements (Final Fantasy VII remake and Shenmue 3, anyone?) - although the real reasons to be excited right now are about to be laid out in front of you. What have you found yourself devoting the most time to since the beginning of the year? Let us know in the comments what you think of the ranking, which you'd swap and if there are any you'd lose altogether. Game on.