The 25 Biggest Video Games of Fall 2014
Welcome to summer's end, the season where the air outside seems to sharpen and we're turning lamps on sooner the better to game in the evenings without having to draw the curtains or blinds, naturally. It's also the start of the busiest time of the year for gamers, the most lucrative annual window during which the industry rolls out its multimillions-marketed newcomers and supergroup sequels. This season's shaping up to be about the multi-platform perennials, with exclusives down to a trickle. It's a little unusual, too, because several of the franchise publishers and studios  pilloried in recent years for sticking to the safe and predictable in their fiscally groomed annual rollouts  are trying harder than we've seen in years to do unique things with their respective money-spinners. Before you dive in, a word on the selections fall runs from September 22 to December 21, so if you don't spy a game you're looking for below, you can find it in one of three places. It could possibly be on a second list that'll follow this one and focus on the season's less prominent games. It might be outside the fall window entirely probably bumped to next year, as were Batman Arkham Knight, Dying Light, The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt and Battlefield Hardline. Or it could be in unconfirmed limbo-land, meaning it's listed nebulously as "Q4 2014" and may or may not arrive before the New Year I'm looking at you, Super Smash Bros. Wii U and Ori and the Blind Forest.