Update: And we’ve got our first official Players’ Choice winner! Monster Hunter World devoured the competition, earning more than 50% of the total votes. Dragon Ball FighterZ mustered nearly 20% of the vote, followed by EA Sports UFC 3 and Celeste.

All in all, a fine start to the year. Thanks to those who participated, and we’ll see you February 28 for the next official Players’ Choice vote! It’s another solid lineup, with Shadow of the Colossus, Secret of Mana, and Metal Gear Survive among some of the higher-profile new releases. See you then!

Hot off our 2017 PlayStation.Blog Game of the Year Awards, we’ve been looking for new ways to recognize the very best games on PlayStation platforms.

So we decided to ask the real experts: you! Today, we’re launching Players’ Choice, a new game-of-the-month award decided by players.

How does it work? On the last day of every month, PlayStation.Blog will open a poll where you can vote for the best new game released that month. Seven days later, we’ll close the polls and announce the winner on PlayStation.Blog. PlayStation Store will also showcase some top Players’ Choice winners will throughout the year.

What is the voting criteria? That’s up to you! If you were only able to recommend one new release to a friend that month, which would it be? In keeping with our long tradition in the Game of the Year Awards, remastered or re-released games won’t qualify. Larger-scale rebuilds and remakes like Shadow of the Colossus and Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy will.

How are nominees decided? The PlayStation.Blog and PlayStation Store editorial teams will gather a list of that month’s most noteworthy releases and use it to seed the poll. Write-in votes will be accepted.

Time to get started! Tell us: what was the best game of January 2018?