In gaming circles, "GOTY" is a well-recognized acronym. It's the crown jewel of gaming accomplishments, the proclamation that something is the Game of the Year. Most people who play video games use it as a shorthand to identify our favorite titles. And I usually lose countless hours sweating out my pick at the end of each year. The world is in a golden age of gaming.

Slate has relationships with various online retailers. If you buy something through our links, Slate may earn an affiliate commission. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change. All prices were up to date at the time of publication. The premise of the 2017 video game Horizon: Zero Dawn might sound a little silly to the uninitiated: It's the story of a teenage girl Aloy, an outcast with no parents in a post-apocalyptic world filled with giant robotic dinosaurs known as "machines," which are terrorizing the tribal populace.

While 2017 has generally been an awful year, the sheer number of excellent games has been quite astonishing. PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch have benefited the most from wonderful exclusives, while cross-platform AAAs have been significantly better than last year. After playing through countless hours of video games, The Independent's staff has managed to create an end-of-year list featuring games from across all genres. Of course, there could only be one number one, and a worthy (unsurprising) winner has come out top. Without further ado, here are our 15 best games of 2017.

Our list includes favorites for Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox for kids, teens and adults. Exclusively available for Nintendo Switch, Super Mario Odyssey is easy to pick up but impossible to put down. 'Tis the season to be jolly – and what better way to keep the kids (and kids at heart) happy and entertained than with a brand-new video game? This year saw no shortage of explosive action titles, fantasy role-playing games, and near-photorealistic sports simulations. Here are my recommended discs (or downloads) to make someone's holiday break a merrier one.

There's a big reason why the PlayStation 4 is the best-selling console: It has a smattering of games that you can't play anywhere else. Think: blockbusters like Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Bloodborne. But even if Indiana Jones simulators and massive open worlds where you hunt down robo-dinosaurs aren't your thing, there are still plenty of exclusives to pick from. Whether it's the best baseball video game franchise, a choose-your-own-adventure horror or an engrossing social simulator/JRPG hybrid, there's a lot to play on Sony's latest console. And then there are games from massive third-party publishers like Activision and Ubisoft, along with quirky indie offerings to round out the selection.

Cosplayer dressed as Aloy (left) and Spanish actress Dafne Fernandez present the "Horizon: Zero Dawn" video game on Feb. 15 in Madrid, Spain. Cosplayer dressed as Aloy (left) and Spanish actress Dafne Fernandez present the "Horizon: Zero Dawn" video game on Feb. 15 in Madrid, Spain. There is a certain kind of look I get when I tell people how much I love video games. It lies somewhere between "You're not serious" and "Oh my God, you are serious." And by "people" giving me these looks, I mean adults of a certain age and outlook.

Horizon: Zero Dawn, a massive open-world game set in a lush, post-apocalyptic jungle inhabited by robot dinosaurs, is one of the most anticipated games of 2017. Players take the role of Aloy, a young hunter in a far-flung future, well after most of human society has disappeared in a long-forgotten disaster. Nature has reclaimed the land, with overgrown city ruins giving way to lush forests and plains. But there are still roving bands of robotic dinosaurs of unknown origin to contend with. The last few years have seen a rise in female leads, such as Emily Kaldwin (Dishonored 2) and Evie Frye (Assassin's Creed: Syndicate). That doesn't mean the medium has always been a complete dudefest.

This week is big for fans of video games. On Friday, a new home console enters the market, which is always an exciting industry moment. Meanwhile, Tuesday marks the arrival of an early PlayStation hit. Horizon: Zero Dawn is the latest adventure from studio Guerrilla Games, best known for its work on Killzone. The PlayStation 4 game stars Aloy, an outcast of hunting tribes roaming a post-apocalyptic landscape once seemingly dominated by technology. All that's left of that tech are hidden ruins and machine-like animals lurking in the environment.

On the face of it, a lavish and original fantasy epic set in a wonderfully realised world sounds like a welcome escape from the very real horrors being played out across the nightly news bulletins. Then again, given that Horizon: Zero Dawn deals with the consequences of a megalomaniacal business mogul and sentient robots combining to bring about the near-annihilation of the human race, perhaps you'd be better off with an Enid Blyton book instead. At times Horizon: Zero Dawn, the latest title from Dutch studio Guerrilla Games, those behind the Killzone series, feels uncannily like prophecy rather than escapism. This is a world where technology has all but defeated the human race, where the most powerful inhabitants are robot monsters, and where the lead character is looking to discover exactly what happened to the grand civilisation of the past. It could be a particularly bleak New Scientist article about 2025.