USgamer Community Question: Which Fall Game Are You Most Looking Forward To?

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It's September, and that means only one thing to gamers: the start of the Fall release season. Yes! After the traditional summer gaming drought, we're about to get hit by a flood of new releases through the rest of this month, October and November.

And our topical question this week is - which Fall game are you most excited about? Perhaps it's Civilization VI, Final Fantasy XV or Pokemon Sun and Moon? Or maybe you're a shooter fan who's looking forward to the likes of Titanfall 2, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, or Battlefield 1? Whatever it is you're most anticipating, we're interested to hear about it!

Jeremy Parish, Editor-in-Chief

Definitely Dragon Quest: Builders. I like the idea of Minecraft in principle, but I need more, you know, structure. And Builders really nails the spirit of Dragon Quest on top of featuring great gameplay, so it adds that much more appeal. Plus, it's directed by the guy who created Etrian Odyssey, so how can I not want to play it? Anyway, go read my hands-on preview already, dammit.

Jaz Rignall, Editor-at-Large

My most anticipated Fall release would have been Gran Turismo Sport, had the game not been delayed until sometime next year. I'm disappointed, but not exactly surprised - developer Polyphony Digital is renown for missing release dates, and it seems that the latest edition of Gran Turismo is no exception. I'm sure it'll be a great game when it finally does arrive, but when that'll be is anyone's guess.

So instead I'll turn to another racing game - the regular-as-clockwork Forza Horizon. I played a blistering demo of the third title in the series at E3 and I just can't wait to get my hands on the full game. Set in Australia, it's twice the size of its predecessor and features an impressive roster of 350 cars. What particularly appeals to me is that you can create your own races, meaning you can drive what you want, where you want. Combine that with a myriad of challenges, bucket list events, and barn finds, and you have a veritable smorgasbord of racing that looks absolutely fantastic. Fortunately we don't have very long to wait until we can play it - the game is scheduled to be released at the end of this month.

Mike Williams, Associate Editor

AGHHHHHH! It's a toss up between Civilization VI, Shadow Warrior 2, Forza Horizon 3, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Dishonored 2, and Steep. Those are all very different games and asking me to choose just one is like asking for someone to choose between their favorite color of Yoshi. (It's blue. I love Blue Yoshi.)

Since Kat, Bob, and Jaz have covered three of my favorites, I'm actually free to jump to one of the other games. I'll pick Divinity: Original Sin 2, because the first was one of the most surprising RPGs to come out in a while. I didn't expect much of it and came out of the experience having a ton of fun. Yes, there's an okay story. Yes, there's a number of way to interact with townspeople. Yes, there's all the classes, skills, and spells you'd expect from a CRPG.

But finding new spell combinations and using those combination to exploit the NPCs in the game? That's where the magic was. The possibilities were endless and when you found a great one, it was one of those watercooler moments certain games do so well. You just had to share it.

And Divinity: Original Sin 2 is doubling down on everything that made the first game great and I can't wait to tear into it on Steam Early Access. Just like I can't wait to tear Civilization VI, Shadow Warrior 2, Forza Horizon 3, Dishonored 2, Steep, Watch Dogs 2, Endless Legend: Tempest, Cities Skylines: Natural Disasters, Planet Coaster, on and on and on…

Bob Mackey, Senior Writer

Boy oh boy do I love the first Dishonored. At first, it seemed like the riskiest of the three of those late '90s/early '00s "thinky" FPSes. But, in the end, it released before BioShock Infinite and the Thief reboot, and ended up totally kicking their asses in terms of sheer quality. Outside of the recent Deus Ex, there really hasn't been a game like Dishonored since its 2012 release, and I've honestly been keeping myself in the dark in the hope that the sequel will surprise and delight me just as much as the original. True, fall of 2016 doesn't have megahits like Metal Gear Solid and Fallout, but the existence of Dishonored 2 may make up for a fairly lackluster season.

Nadia Oxford, Staff Writer

Look at Jeremy’s answer, put a sheet of wax paper over it, then run a soft piece of graphite over it. There’s my answer.

Playing Dragon Quest VII 3DS has only driven my hype for Dragon Quest Builders to higher levels. I’m beyond plain old “sky-high hype.” Now I’m somewhere near the “Paying rent to the Zenithian Dragon” tier.

It’s a good thing we’re such a polite and controlled group here at USgamer. Otherwise the fight to review the game would climax with Jeremy and I swatting each other at hyperspeed, like an overclocked gif of cats boxing.

Kat Bailey, Senior Editor

It's a tough choice, actually. Looking through the list of games coming out this fall, most of the big titles leave me cold. The single game that I was looking forward to most - Persona 5 - won't be out until early next year. So I suppose that leaves Civilization VI.

I played Civilization VI for a while at E3, and I came away really impressed. I love the new tile art, which features a stylized map in place of the customary fog of war, and it brings with it a lot of interesting new touches. In particular, tile placement is much more important now, as cities will quickly become overcrowded and unable to host, say, Petra or the Pyramids.

My main concern is still that Firaxis will pull a Civilization V and put out an overly simple product at the start; but so far, I haven't seen any indication that will happen. Having apparently learned from last time, it seems like many of Civilization V's key features will be there for the initial launch.

As always, Civilization does perhaps the best job of any grand strategy game of splitting the middle between depth and accessibility. It's easy to get into; and once you get going, it's dangerously addictive. I also like that you don't necessarily have to go to war if you don't want to. The more I play 4X games, the more I realize that I'm happy to focus on science and trade. Civilization lets me do that.

So there you have it: Civilization VI is my most anticipated game of the fall. And I don't think it'll let me down.