2019 was a great year for games full heart-pounding, tense combat and lightning-fast tests of reflex, whether you were playing as a ninja, a cyber cop, or even a big angry ape.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

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FromSoftware’s new twist on its established Soulsborne formula elevates Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice into something both immediately familiar and mechanically distinct. Its mystical and moody world set in Japanese historical fiction and mythology offers an excellent catalyst for new skill-based systems and exploration.Sekiro’s beautiful marriage of lore and worldbuilding with its demanding, breakneck swordsmanship and brutal assassinations is a cohesive new flavor of action-adventure – cementing FromSoftware as one of the best to do it.For more, check out our Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice review These are our nominees for the best action game of 2019.

Best Action Game Nominees 6 IMAGES

Click through the gallery above or scroll down the page for the full list!

Devil May Cry 5

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Katana Zero

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Astral Chain

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Like Ebony and Ivory, Devil May Cry and the action genre live together in perfect harmony. Devil May Cry 5 is arguably the best the series has ever been, with a respectable story, beautiful visuals, and hands down some of the coolest cutscenes of the year.But it’s the combat where DMC5 truly shines, allowing a level of creative freedom that just simply doesn’t exist in most other action games. Add on top of that the variety of having three distinct characters with three distinct playstyles, and it’s a no brainer that Devil May Cry 5 would be in the conversation for the best action game of the year.For more, check out our Devil May Cry 5 review Katana Zero is a 2D action game that hinges on a few simple mechanics: You can deflect bullets, you have a dodge roll with invulnerability frames, you can slow down time, and while enemies can kill you in one hit, you can kill them in one hit as well. Add those simple elements together, and you get a blisteringly fast test of skill and reflexes as you slice your way through hordes of enemies in order to get to the bottom of the main character’s clouded history.In addition to having some of the best action of the year, Katana’s Zero’s story is also told with one of the most fun dialogue systems ever, allowing players to skip dialogue, but having the very act of interrupting what a character is saying actually impact the resulting dialogue.For more, check out our Katana Zero review PlatinumGames regularly delights and surprises with interesting twists on the action genre, and Astral Chain is perhaps the twistiest yet. It’s an action game in which you fully control both the main character and their monstrous weaponized Legion at the same time. The result is an exhilarating combat system that is unlike anything else we’ve ever played.It demands constant multitasking as you balance the standard attacks, dodges, and combos of the main player character, along with the movement, spacing, special abilities, and meter management of your Legion. It’s classic Platinum through and through, and it’s one of their best endeavors since Bayonetta 2.For more, check out our Astral Chain review Ape Out is an intoxicating fusion of percussion and destruction that oozes style from every angle. Blending elements of old-timey film and vinyl with a sharp, bold 2D aesthetic and bucketloads of blood, Ape Out is Hotline Miami on an intense diet of bananas and Buddy Rich records.If you haven’t played this a top-down simian splatterfest set to a superb soundtrack of jazzy drums and crashing cymbals – where you can throw a man at a wall so hard he explodes – you’re missing out on the future of gorilla warfare.For more, check out our Ape Out review According to our readers, Devil May Cry 5 was the best action game of 2019, narrowly beating out Sekiro with 45% of the vote in our People's Choice polling. From our review:The question of which Devil May Cry game is the best has gotten much easier with Devil May Cry 5. The combat is the strongest the series has seen to date, the story does a great job of balancing all three of its main characters and doling out rewarding bits of its mysterious story at an enticing pace, and the unlockable difficulties, sheer number of techniques to earn, and the upcoming free Bloody Palace DLC will provide a ton of incentive for replayability. It’s good to have you back, Dante and Nero.

What was your favorite action game of 2019? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to check out all of our other Game of the Year award winners as well as our picks for the best movies, TV shows, comics, and anime of 2019!

Art for IGN’s Best of 2019 is by Julia Rago, Justin Vachon, Angela Nguyen, and Nicole Cagampan.

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