Multiple Japanese game developers shared their favorite games of 2020 through Famitsu, with Ghost of Tsushima ending up in pole position. Yep. It's that time of the year again. The Famitsu magazine releasing Thursday, December 24, officially titled Weekly Famitsu Magazine January 7-14, 2021 Issue, will include a traditional end of the year feature. With messages from over a hundred personalities involved with the Japanese game industry. Producers, character designers, directors and developers from SNK, Square Enix, Nippon Ichi Software, Sega, Capcom, Koei Tecmo, Arc System Works, etc. But also personalities linked to the industry such as mangaka and seiyuu (Japanese voice actresses and actors). Through the messages, the Japanese personalities shared their thoughts on 2020 and most notably their top five favorite games.Right now, Famitsu published on its official site the top five games cited the most. The magazine in itself will release on December 24 midnight JST. And leaks from it will be coming as always on Wednesday: early morning for me, and in the middle of the night for America. The following issue of Famitsu magazine will include the same developers sharing their hopes for 2021, and possibly teasing new projects. And I'll have to go through it all...Anyways, in total, 132 personalities shared with Famitsu their impressions on 2020, which included their favorite games. Pooling everything together, here are the results:

Top five favorite games from Japanese developers:

  1. Ghost of Tsushima
  2. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
  3. Final Fantasy VII Remake
  4. Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin
  5. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

For comparison sake, the 2019 top three was Death Stranding, Dragon Quest Walk, and Sekiro. The most appreciated game by Japanese developers in 2018 was Marvel's Spider-Man.

Lastly, for those interested in my Unneeded Opinion™, I must say I'm pretty unfazed. Without going into stereotypical generalizations, Japanese developers largely tend to prefer Western games. So I was definitely expecting something like Ghost of Tsushima or The Last of Us Part II in first place, rather than Japanese games such as Final Fantasy VII Remake or Persona 5 Scramble. With that said, I'm pleasantly surprised to see Sakuna in fourth place. It's incredible a doujin game (a Japanese indie game) initially from Comiket, with a first demo released at C95 in December 2015, managed to reach such heights in both reputation and worldwide sales.