106 PCWorld DECEMBER 2020FEATURE BEST GAMES OF THIS GENERATION
the strength of its story. A few brief monster
encounters break up what’s otherwise a
first-person adventure game, as you explore
the cramped corridors of PATHOS-II, an
underwater laboratory that’s slowly falling to
pieces. It’s slow. It’s moody. It’s oppressive.
Most of all, it’s depressing.
It wasn’t the game I expected from
Frictional, but it’s undoubtedly the one I’ll
remember them for. Soma is an excellent
piece of science fiction (go.pcworld.com/
smrv), and an heir to the existential horror that
made Silent Hill so unique. And sure, I’m
excited to see Frictional develop a proper
Amnesia sequel. They’re masters of the craft. I
just hope there’s also a Soma successor
(spiritual or true sequel) in the works, because
at this point dozens of developers have paidhomage to Amnesia. Some, like Bloober
Team and Red Barrels, have even been
relatively successful (go.pcworld.com/rlsc).
There’s only one Soma though.- CITIES: SKYLINES
Cities: Skylines (go.pcworld.com/csky) is one
of my most-played games this generation.
That number goes even higher if you factor in
the amount of time I’ve spent in the Steam
Workshop, perusing and installing mods. So
many mods.
After the disaster that was EA’s 2013
SimCity (go.pcworld.com/ea13), the city
builder genre was ripe for a new champion.
Paradox and Colossal Order stepped up,
transforming the transportation-centric Cities
in Motion series into a full-fledged SimCity
15.