2023 has been a rough year for Xbox, and the growing pressure meant this summer’s Xbox Showcase needed to deliver. Thankfully, Microsoft didn’t just pull it off: They put together what might have beenthe best showcase of the post-E3 era.

After an initial attempt to rank the 10 best games I played this year, here’s the second half of the 2022 Backlog Awards covering my personal top 5 games of the year.

We’re about a month beyond the big, bombastic E3 week I look forward to every year…and I’m still not sure how I feel about the fact that E3 2022 was canceled. It’s been such a reliable part of my summer for so long that June just feels weird without it. But hey, I guess we might as well talk about my highlights from the “show.”

With Sony staying home for E3 2019, all signs pointed to Microsoft pulling out all the stops this year and delivering the company's best Xbox Showcase ever.

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire feels like a game handmade for me. And two years after release, it's still pushing the envelope for cRPG games.

In terms of sequels, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire hits all the right notes and raised the cRPG bar for every other developer in the industry.

Pillars of Eternity is a masterpiece, a beautiful and moving homage to some of the most formative video games of the past 30 years.