Best PlayStation Exclusive of 2017 – Winner

The end of the year has rolled around, which means it’s time to sum up 2017 with the Game of the Year Awards. PlayStation LifeStyle is doing our year-end awards slightly different from previous years. We wanted to put more importance on the nomination for each award, so we limited each category to five games. That’s not many, especially in a year stacked with great titles. It took a lot of careful deliberation to come up with each list.

For best PlayStation exclusive, we wanted to keep the category truly exclusive to the console. This meant that it wasn’t just console exclusives, but to appear on this list, games also couldn’t be released on PC. Games like NieR: Automata were disqualified from this list for that reason. We found, however, that there were plenty of amazing PS4 exclusive games that you have to own Sony’s console to play. Persona 5 and its incredibly stylish attitude, Yakuza 0 with its occasionally bizarre, but altogether engrossing world, and the epic Horizon Zero Dawn were just a few that were up for consideration.

Last week, we announced PlayStation LifeStyle’s nominees for the Best PlayStation Exclusive of 2017. Here’s a reminder of what got nominated:

Best PlayStation Exclusive of 2017

Horizon Zero Dawn

I will tell you that it was a knock-down, drag-out, hard fought battle for this year’s best PlayStation exclusive title. We have a diverse taste in games among the staff here at PSLS, and there were some truly awesome experiences that released this year. What we all ultimately agreed on is that while our tastes may diverge elsewhere, we all loved Horizon Zero Dawn. It may not have been everyone’s top pick, but it was the pick that most often appeared in everyone’s lists, and that kind of appeal can’t be ignored.

As Nathan Drake made his exit last year in Uncharted 4, it looks like PlayStation’s marketing is shifting to feature Aloy more and more. Horizon was an incredibly polished open-world adventure that brought a unique “the future is the past” take on the post-apocalyptic world. Coming from Guerrilla, traditionally known for the first-person shooter Killzone games, an open-world featuring robot dinosaurs was an unexpected delight. Horizon will live on as not just the best PlayStation exclusive of this year, but as one the PlayStation classics that will be well known long from now.

The rest of our Game of the Year 2017 award winners will be announced during this week, leading up to the reveal of PlayStation LifeStyle’s Game of the Year 2017 on December 29. This year will go down as one of the greatest in gaming, so we’re very excited to unveil all of our picks!

Of course, we’d also love to hear what you think. Did your PlayStation exclusive of 2017 match our pick, or would you have liked to see one of the other nominees take the award? Stay tuned to find out the rest of the winners this week!

Don’t miss the rest of the announced year-end award nominees and winners.