Let's just get the obvious out of the way: 2017 was a veritable treasure trove of delight when it came to quality game releases. A new Zelda that drastically altered the series' decades-long formula, the long-awaited Persona 5, surprises like Horizon Zero Dawn, and so much more made 2017 an amazing year for gaming.

In fact, it's because of these releases, and the fact that notable games continued to release all the way up to mid-December (hello, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Finding Paradise) that we gave those last-minute releases time to sink in. We didn't want to exclude anything, not only for our own award purposes, but we also wanted you, the reader, to be able to make educated votes for the full slate of 2017's games.

Once again, we have three key categories in Games of the Year: Thirteen RPGFan editors wrote their personal choices for their favorite games of 2017, and you may be surprised by some of the things people chose. We are also featuring both Retro Encounter's Year in Review podcast, and Random Encounter's Games of the Year show.

And, finally, our overall Category Awards. 2017 brought a few changes: We merged some categories this time to make room for new Best DLC and Best Mobile Game awards. The results are 18 categories of winners and runner-ups based on our staff's votes. Once again, we're also presenting both the winner and runner-up for Reader's Choice in each category, some of which were insanely close races. We hope you like... well, your own choices!