Half of 2026 is gone, and the scoreboard is unusual: only two games have cracked 90 on Metacritic all year, yet the 80s are crowded with genuinely great releases. Here’s how the year actually ranks across the two big aggregators, and the game we think deserves the crown, with our reasoning shown.
The numbers, cr
Black Flag Resynced, one of 2026’s standouts so far. Image: Ubisoft
oss-checked
Scores diverge between aggregators more than most people realise, so we track both. Per OpenCritic and Metacritic, mid-July 2026:
Mixtape, 94 OpenCritic / 85 Metacritic. Beethoven & Dinosaur’s coming-of-age adventure is the year’s most polarising data point: OpenCritic’s #1 by four clear points, yet nine points lower on Metacritic. Aggregator methodology matters.
Dave the Diver: In the Jungle, 92 OpenCritic. The June sequel that made “just one more dive” a threat to your sleep schedule again.
Forza Horizon 6-91 OpenCritic / 92 Metacritic. Metacritic’s highest-rated game of the year, and the only title in the top tier that both aggregators agree on almost exactly.
Mina the Hollower, 91 / 91. Yacht Club’s Zelda-meets-Castlevania throwback, identical on both boards.
Schrödinger’s Call, 90 and Lost and Found Co., 90 round out OpenCritic’s 90+ club.
The high-80s pack: Pokémon Pokopia, Resident Evil Requiem, Mewgenics, Hermit and Pig (89), Esoteric Ebb (88): and July’s Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced (85), the best-reviewed AC in thirteen years.
Our pick: Forza Horizon 6
Not the sentimental choice, the defensible one. Mixtape is the critics’ darling, but a nine-point aggregator split means its 94 tells you as much about which outlets OpenCritic weights as about the game. Forza Horizon 6 is the only 2026 release that tops one aggregator and sits within a point of the top on the other: near-total critical consensus, across the biggest review pool of the year, in a genre where iteration usually breeds indifference. When every kind of critic agrees a tenth entry in a series is the best thing this year, that’s the signal.
Honourable mention: Mixtape, because when a three-hour indie about a last night with your friends outranks every AAA release on one major board, you should probably play it and pick a side.
The PlayTheory take
All of this is prologue. The back half of 2026 has Phantom Blade Zero, Silent Hill: Townfall, and a certain November 19 release that will bend every chart it touches. The interesting question isn’t whether GTA VI scores in the 90s; it’s which of these games still gets talked about in December. Disagree with our pick? The comment section and the PlayTheory Discord are open.
