This year was a terrible year for the planet, but a good year for my own personal nostalgia. Spiritual successors, updates and remasters dominated my playtime, but I also pushed my boundaries in terms of the types of games I typically play. I’m counting that as personal growth.

So, without further ado, here are my top 10 games for 2016, in vaguely ascending order.

Holy hell, 2016 sucks so far. David Bowie and Alan Rickman are dead, bigotry is still ruining the world and Vanilla Coke is disappearing at an alarming rate.

2016 is a strange year in the making. In 2015 games were diverse, they were epic in scope and ambition, they were unique and innovative. They were beautiful; they were ugly in the best way. When all is said and done 2015 might be one of the best years for gaming ever.

2016 already has a different feel. For one thing there are far less ‘big hitters’ looming. I suspect 2016 will be defined by the surprise packages, the games we don’t even know about yet.

Which makes putting together a list of ‘most anticipated games of 2016’ a lot more difficult than I um... anticipated.

Hayley took the limelight earlier this week and when he returns from self-inflicted baby duties, Mark will join in the fun. But in the interim, let's take a break from the open-world RPGs, the torturous punishment of Dark Souls and venture in the weird world of games in 2016 that I'm excited for.

We've already written about the games we're most looking forward to this year, but that small selection doesn't cover the wealth of games that are aiming to release in 2016. So, in posts separated by genre, we're going to try and collect together every single notable game due out in the next 12 months. Today: horror and survival.