For Elliot Dodsworth, a game designer and developer, his inspiration to get into accessible video game design was his blind father. "My father has always been interested in what I make," Dodsworth tells WIRED, "but has never been able to experience it for himself." Driven by conversations with his father and other visually impaired players, Dodsworth created Fortune is Blind as part of his final major project at Falmouth University's Indie Game Development Masters program. The UK Games Fund described his mobile game as a "fully accessible binaural AR [augmented reality] action-adventure" which uses haptic and auditory feedback to provide accessibility for visually impaired players. "I have always wanted to make a game my father can play," Dodsworth says.

"Fudge," I remember saying, only I didn't say fudge, I said fuck, a word for adults. I was playing The Last of Us, a narrative video game for adults about a zombie apocalypse, and I had just died for what seemed like the thousandth time in the first room with a "clicker," the game lore's name for a medium-difficulty enemy. These "infected"--it's classier not to call them zombies, and this is a classy zombie-combat game, one with a story--had become misshapen thanks to a cordyceps brain infection, which devoured mankind almost overnight. The clicker was ghastlier than others, because it had lived long enough for the infection to fully engulf its formerly human face, fungal fibers enrobing it, teeth jutting out like barbs. An older infected is a more resilient one.

It's also worth noting: "The Last of Us Part II's" engine, built with accessibility in mind, is right there. The engine allowed "Part II" a level of accessibility unprecedented before in triple-A games, with more than 60 different features ranging from motor options to turn melee combos into holds, navigational assistance and high contrast displays, to various vibration settings and input remapping. It was considered a groundbreaking achievement for accessibility in the industry, and many of these options are being carried over into the "The Last of Us Part I" remake. Sony recently announced the full slate of accessibility options on offer in the remake. In that same blog post, the developer called "The Last of Us Part II's" accessibility features a "baseline" on which it built the remake.

Though "The Last of Us Part II" ended 2020 as the year's most highly acclaimed title, it arrived last summer in a flurry of controversy. In the aforementioned scene, the main character of the first game, Joel Miller, was brutally murdered by a new character and protagonist to the series, Abby Anderson. In a cabin besieged by a heavy snowstorm, Abby reached for a nearby set of golf clubs to deal the fatal blow that left many players horrified, saddened, and in some cases, incredibly angry.

You can attribute much of the PlayStation 4's amazing run of the last seven years to its exclusive titles. While Nintendo remains the most prolific producer of high quality exclusive console games, Sony amassed considerable might during the PlayStation 4′s run, acquiring acclaimed studios that would go on to produce titles that would sweep awards shows. It's why Microsoft has invested in its own studios, including last year's atomic announcement that Xbox now owns Bethesda Game Studios, the creators of the "Elder Scrolls" series. Gene Park: "Bloodborne" was a game so good, it helped me completely get over my last, serious and long-term relationship. It was early 2015, and there were going to be some big changes in our lives. I was looking to move out of Hawaii, while she wanted to expand her local business's footprint. Our relationship was already on the rocks before "Bloodborne" released, and we'd already had some legendary battles and arguments between us, you know, the kind that end in screaming matches and tearful apologies.

While some forms of entertainment like movies and sports were hit hard by the pandemic, gaming actually thrived in 2020. Since we were all stuck indoors, we spent a lot more time in front of screens, discovering new experiences, replaying older classics and a few of us even made a dent in our backlogs, aka the "pile of shame." To that end, the Engadget staff presents a slightly different list of our favorite games of 2020: not just the most impactful titles that came out this year, but also the older games that kept us company during this crazy time. I have already spilled so much digital ink on this game this year that, had you asked me to pick my best of 2020 a month ago, I would have picked something different like Miles Morales or Fall Guys. Animal Crossing is fun, I thought, but I've done everything I want to do in the game and I really should be focusing my critical eye on the fancier, flashier titles from more powerful systems. But then the winter update arrived, bringing with it new holidays and reactions and hairstyles, oh my!

This story will continue to be updated. It's a big night for video games, where the top achievements will be honored at The Game Awards, which will be broadcast live online from Los Angeles, London and Tokyo. Nominated for the top award, Game of the Year, is "The Last Of Us Part II," "Hades," "The Ghost of Tsushima," "Animal Crossing: New Horizons," "Doom Eternal," and "Final Fantasy VII Remake." Among other games that raked in multiple nominations: the Sony PlayStation 4 exclusive "The Last Of Us Part II," released in June, earned the most (10). "Hades," a PC game also released for the Nintendo Switch in September, earned eight, while "The Ghost of Tsushima," released in July, got seven.

The ongoing covid-19 pandemic placed a brighter-than-usual spotlight on gaming in 2020, with an isolated population looking for entertainment they could enjoy from the safety of home. How fortunate then that alongside the year's many maladies, 2020 also delivered some of the most memorable games in recent years. From laid-back life simulators to an anticipated sequel that scrutinized cyclical violence, the gaming world was replete with options for anyone who wanted to get their minds off the consistently grim reality around them. The reintroduction and reimagination of the classic "Final Fantasy VII" highlighted the early spring, while the November debut of the PlayStation 5 ushered in a next-generation hero the gaming world both needed and deserved. Even with multiple delays pushing the much-anticipated "Cyberpunk 2077" beyond our Dec. 1 cutoff for Game of The Year consideration, there was no shortage of worthy contenders for that title.

"The Last Of Us Part II" leads the way in nominations for The Game Awards. The Sony PlayStation 4 exclusive game, released in June, earned 10 nominations Wednesday for the annual "Oscars" for video games. This year's ceremony will be held Dec. 10 and broadcast live from studios in Los Angeles, London and Tokyo. Collecting eight nominations: "Hades," a PC game also released for the Nintendo Switch in September. Another PlayStation game, "The Ghost of Tsushima," released in July, earned seven nominations.

Summer and fall are often the worst time to be a video game fan. Publishers often hold their best stuff til the end of the year, and it's worse this year, because Microsoft and Sony are hanging on to their biggest games until the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are out this holiday season. Still, 2020 has already offered an embarrassment of riches for gamers. Here are the best video games of 2020 so far, to tide you over til year's end: Doom Eternal ripped and tore its way into our hearts at the beginning of the year and hasn't been topped since. What makes Doom Eternal so remarkable is that it managed to improve on its predecessor, and in so doing proved the almost 30-year-old franchise is still as vibrant and vital as it was in 1993.