Please support Game Informer. Print magazine subscriptions are less than $2 per issue
Firewatch's Sean Vanaman Shares His Top 10 Games Of 2015
On the lead up to Game Informer's Game of the Year awards of 2015, we've invited a number of the video game industry's influential figures to share their favorite games of the year.
Sean Vanaman may be best known for his work as project lead and lead writer for Telltale's The Walking Dead, but the now Campo Santo wunderkind is poised to shake things up in 2016 with the upcoming Firewatch. Vanaman is also known for his contributions on games like Tales of Monkey Island, Puzzle Agent, Poker Night at the Inventory, and Sam & Max. We tracked down the creative director and picked his brain for his top games of 2015.
1. Ori & The Blind Forest: Ori is the rare platformer that I can spend lots and lots of time in. Despite having Meat Boy type difficulty, I find the art, animation and sounds to be so soothing that time will simply drift past trying to complete it.
2. The Beginner's Guide: Davey Wryden's follow-up to The Stanley Parable makes my list because of how thought-provoking it is. I'm not certain it's one of my favorite games but its narrative ambition and design forced me to critique the game in a way that would turn most other games to a pile of mush. I sat around actually thinking about my opinions of the game, which is something remarkable.
3. Tales from the Borderlands: I was lucky to work at Telltale for a while and then I saw the trailer for Tales from the Borderlands and got really mad at how stylish and well-written it was. I was legitimately angry that I didn't get to work on this game and think it's just incredibly stylish, confident and fun to play.
4. Bloodborne: Step one: load up Bloodborne. Step two: press PS button and load up Spotify. Step three: play "Chet Baker Sings & Plays". Step four: play Bloodborne for hours.
5. Fallout 4: I've gone full Animal-Crossing with my Fallout 4 play-through, which is a pretty amazing thing to be able to say about an Action-RPG.
6. Until Dawn: Fellow Campo Santo Olly Moss and I would play this together and have long discussions about the binary horror-movie choices in the game, which probably sounds insufferable to your readers but was actually quite enjoyable.
7. Her Story: What a fresh and exciting game to load-up. I love having my expectations completely rearranged by a game and Sam Barlow's Her Story did just that.
8. Rick & Morty Announcer Pack for Dota 2 This was really just a covert way to say I still love Dota 2 on a 2015 list. I play with this announcer pack because there is nothing more satisfying than getting an Ultra Kill and having Rick and Morty scream about it. Wubalubdubdub! (Tiny Rick!)
9. The Talos Principle: Like Her Story, I had no idea what to expect from The Talos Principle and then discovered a first-person puzzle game that I enjoyed as much as Portal. That's amazing. Everyone should play this game.
10. Lots and lots of Firewatch Builds: This is the honest "most played" answer. Our first-person story-driven mystery-adventure comes out on February 9th, 2016 (PS4/PC/Mac/Linux) and it's really all I play. And by virtue of working with the best people on the planet, I actually enjoy it every single time I hit play!
I’d like to ask you to support Game Informer’s continued coverage of games with a subscription. For less than two dollars per issue, we mail you a full year of 10 print magazines, each with cover stories and preview features filled with exclusive details about the most exciting upcoming games. We profile and interview game creators. We look back on the rich history of gaming, and we celebrate what’s next.
Here on the website, we offer much of our content for free, including game reviews, daily news, videos, event coverage, and more – all with minimal ads.
We do so with a small editorial team, alongside contributing paid writers from around the world – over 65 individuals from 9 countries around the world, just in the last couple of years.
It’s not possible without support.
In a time when game makers and games coverage have faced hard struggles and layoffs, the future of this 30+ year magazine and community is at risk. Our new standalone magazine subscription is the number one way you can keep us alive – and we believe you’ll get a pretty fantastic gaming magazine in your mailbox every few weeks for your trouble.
Thank you.
