The final year of the 2010s in gaming served up Hideo Kojima unplugged.

Given a blank canvas, free from Konami and bankrolled by Sony, gaming's auteur extraordinaire was free to be his most, well, "Kojima-esque." The result was Death Stranding, one of the most talked-about games of 2019.

There was no shortage of things keeping gamers busy this year, from evading a massive and persistent murderous zombie to motorcycle chases through cities bathed in neon purple and set to a pulsating pop soundtrack. There were Pokemon, petulant geese and even a ghost-sensing fetus in a year that had something for almost everyone.