Resident Evil Requiem is again the best game of 2026, Dethroning Pokopia

We're just a little more than two months into 2026, and we already have two gaming heavyweights battling it out for the title of top-rated game of the year. Resident Evil Requiem claimed the crown only for Pokemon Pokopia to unexpectedly step up and snatch it away. Requiem, refusing to take it easy, has clawed its way back and is once again on top, but only just.

Requiem debuted with a score of 90 on OpenCritic and an 88 on Metacritic, making it the highest-rated original entry in the series since Resident Evil 4. The assumption was that even if these scores dropped slightly, which may happen as more reviews are published, Requiem would hold the top spot for quite some time. Pokopia, however, had other ideas.

Pokopia's reign as the best game of the year was short-lived

Pokopia character with a light bulb above his head.

The new popular Pokemon game sounded like it was going to be good, but I don't think fans of the series anticipated how hot it would be received. It debuted at 90 on Metacritic – and even went as high as 93 at one point on OpenCritic – making it the highest rated Pokemon game of all time. Even now that score has settled at 88 on both sides, it's still tied for that record with Pokemon Y.

But while the slightly lower score hasn't changed its lofty status in the Pokémon world, it has knocked it down a peg in these early stages of the race to be crowned the highest-rated game of 2026. That's because, as more reviews have slowly started to filter in, Requiem has done the unthinkable, climbing all the way back to 89 and on Metacritic back to 9. OpenCritic.

Requiem is the highest rated game of the year again

This means, regardless of which site you prefer to use, Requiem is now once again the highest rated game of 2026. That score averages 139 reviews compared to just 30 for Pokopia, which only makes it even more impressive. There's still a long way to go though, and not only can Pokopia climb back to 90 if it does what Requiem did as more reviews are published, but history dictates that a 90 isn't enough to keep you in first place at the end of the year.

Last year Hades 2 secured pole position with an incredible 95. I finally found my way into the underworld recently and can confirm that Melinoe deserves every single one of those 95 points. Astro Bots 95 made it the top-rated game of 2024, and in 2023 Baldur's Gate 3 topped the pile with an eye-popping 96. A body blow to Tears of the Kingdom, which with a 95 would have had a better chance of taking the crown back to Hyrule had it been released in pretty much any other year.