Picked by Jon Porter, UK Home Technology Writer

“I was entirely prepared for Insomniac’s Spider-Man to steal the show for me. Although the Batman Arkham series is often cited as the series that showed us all how good superhero games could be, I always had a soft spot for the Treyarch-produced Spiderman 2 on the PS2. Away from the grim gothic world of Batman, Spiderman’s colorful cast of characters and web-slinging open-world freedom was always going to be way up my street. 

It might still be a great game, but after Sony’s frustrating decision to restrict the game’s showing this year to purely hands off experiences, it’s tough to approach the game with anything more than cautious optimism. 

With Spider-Man disallowed because it wasn’t playable at the show, it seems unfair to give my personal pick to Metroid Prime 4, whose sole appearance was a logo that appeared slowly over the course of a 40 second trailer (a trailer hilariously still uploaded to Nintendo’s YouTube channel), but this was probably the surprise announcement that had me the most excited at this year’s show. 

All of this leads me to Sea of Thieves, a game that has intermittently been on my radar for a number of months, but that I’d never paid close attention to until I got the chance to play it for myself. 

From the charming art-style, to the intensely co-operative gameplay, Sea of Thieves was the game that had me most excited to revisit it when it’s released. I can’t wait to get drunk on grog with my friends online, and then proceed to fire them out of canons in the vague hope that they’ll make their way onto an enemy’s ship. 

Sea of Thieves was a delight, and it feels like it has the potential to be one of the most joyous and lighthearted online experiences when it’s eventually in the hands of gamers.”