2018 in video games
overview of video gaming-related events during the year of 2018
Numerous video games were released in 2018. Best-selling games included Madden NFL 19, NBA 2K19, NBA Live 19, WWE 2K19, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Marvel's Spider-Man, Red Dead Redemption 2, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Far Cry 5, God of War, Monster Hunter: World, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, and Dragon Ball FighterZ. Games highly regarded by video game critics released in 2018 included Red Dead Redemption 2, God of War, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Marvel's Spider-Man, Forza Horizon 4, Monster Hunter: World, Dead Cells, Return of the Obra Dinn, and Celeste. The year's highest-grossing games included Fortnite, Honor of Kings/Arena of Valor, Dungeon Fighter Online, League of Legends, and Pokémon Go.
Among major trends in 2018 included the explosive growth of battle royale games such as Bluehole's PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Epic Games' Fortnite Battle Royale, the resurgence of Pokémon Go, ongoing governmental review of loot boxes in light of national gambling restrictions, Sony Interactive Entertainment agreeing to allow cross-platform play between PlayStation 4 and other console users, and the entry of Fortnite-related internet memes into popular culture. With Fortnite's success, Epic was able to establish the Epic Games Store for personal computers as a strong competitor to the dominant but criticized position held by Valve's Steam digital storefront by significantly increasing the revenue split it gave to developers. Additionally, with a number of major sudden studio closures, including Telltale Games, there was an increasing call for video game developers to unionize. A nearly year-long freeze on video game approvals by the Chinese government had a major impact on publishers Tencent and NetEase, and was anticipated to impact future revenues in the industry.
Series with new installments in 2018 include Anno, Assassin's Creed, Battlefield, Bloons Tower Defense, Bayonetta, Bit.Trip, BlazBlue, Bomberman, Call of Duty, Darksiders, Digimon, Donkey Kong, Dragon Ball, Dynasty Warriors, Earth Defense Force, Fallout, Far Cry, Forza, God of War, Hitman, Just Cause, Kirby, Life Is Strange, Mario Party, Mario Tennis, Mega Man, Monster Hunter, Ni no Kuni, Persona, Pillars of Eternity, Pokémon, Red Dead, Sakura Wars, Science Adventure, Shantae, Soulcalibur, Spider-Man, Spyro, State of Decay, Super Smash Bros., The Bard's Tale, The Crew, The Walking Dead, Tomb Raider, Tropico, Valkyria Chronicles, WarioWare, Warhammer, Wolfenstein, and Yakuza.
The public source identifies “2018 in video games” as overview of video gaming-related events during the year of 2018. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around video, games and overview.
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This entry incorporates text from “2018 in video games” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.