Over the last two weeks of December, we are announcing the winners of the Second Annual SwitchRPG Awards. We’ll be announcing new winners every weekday, leading up to a final announcement on January 1st for RPG of the Year!

This is it! Over a month of backroom discussions, a year of incredible gameplay, and a furious few weeks of community polls and award announcements, we’re finally ready to announce RPG of the Year for 2019. This year brought RPG fans a huge number of a high quality RPGs to the Nintendo Switch, with a healthy mix of original titles, ports, retro, and budget titles, across a variety of subgenres. We’ve walked through all these various categories over the last two weeks, getting a snapshot of the very best RPGs to release on Switch this year. It’s all led up to this final day, the first day of the New Year, where we honor what we feel was the best of the best this year. Each of our nominees stand as a testament to the power and impact of RPGs, whose stories, characters, and gameplay have brought shared experiences to millions and brought RPG and gaming communities together.

The Nominees

And the Winner Is…

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Released in a blockbuster period this Summer and taking the Switch playerbase by storm, Fire Emblem: Three Houses was capturing hearts from day one. Leaning heavily into some of the quirkier elements of the series, Three Houses was a breath of fresh air to the franchise, creating a complex party building system, a massive, branching storyline, and improving upon on an already masterfully crafted tactical combat system. With 80 hours of content per campaign, Three Houses offers hundreds of hours of content and endless replayability. Despite facing some of the stiffest competition the Nintendo Switch has to offer – just to get into the nomination phase – Fire Emblem: Three Houses stands as our pick for the best RPG released this year.

Community Pick: Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age

If you had placed odds on what our staff pick would have been this year, odds are most people would have put money on Ni No Kuni or Dragon Quest XI. While Fire Emblem took home the gold, our community’s love for Dragon Quest XI could not be stopped, allowing the game to gain yet another community pick, this time for RPG of the Year. Winning with 54.3 percent of the votes, this powerhouse RPG took the community pick by a strong margin, with Fire Emblem following behind with 30.9 percent. A big thank you to the SwitchRPG community for participating in these polls, and letting us know your picks for the best RPGs of 2019!

Surprised by our pick for RPG of the Year? Did you think another RPG, even one not nominated, was the best you played this year? Let us know in the comments, and get ready for another exciting year of Switch RPGs!