Editor’s note: Take a breath. We’re almost there. 2020’s been quite the year, and it’s very nearly over. Across the festive break, members of the Eurogamer team and our contributors will be running down their personal top five games of 2020, before we announce our game of the year – and before, of course, we hand over to you for the annual Reader’s Top 50. Thanks for being with us this year, and see you on the other side.
Can you hear that? It’s the sound of video game composers, audio engineers and voice actors having an absolute blast. My favourite games of 2020 all have parts that are wonderful and parts that don’t quite work, but they all have one thing in common: they sound awesome.
Let’s start with Call of Duty: Warzone, which I spent much of the first half of 2020 playing almost exclusively. This isn’t one for memorable music, but it is one for memorable sound. Infinity Ward did a cracking job with the sound of Modern Warfare and Warzone’s weapons. They thunder from the middle of the screen! Sniper rifles boom and crack realistically, echoing across the Verdansk expanse. It’s the zip of fire that races past your head, coming from the rooftop over the hill somewhere. And the footsteps. Oh god, the footsteps. At one point, when I was playing Warzone pretty much every night, I could hear the footsteps as I drifted off to sleep, above me or below me, getting louder or quieter. Warzone is one of the best-sounding shooters I’ve ever played. Solid copy, IW.
