August 2018 Players’ Choice Winner: Yakuza Kiwami 2

The votes are in, and the Dragon of Dojima has claimed the Players’ Choice crown for August 2018! Yakuza Kiwami 2 earned enough votes from PlayStation.Blog readers to snag top honors for the month, but Kiryu saw strong competition from Motion Twin’s superlative indie rogue-lite platformer Dead Cells and first-person tactical FPS Firewall Zero Hour. Congratulations all around — August was a great month for gaming!

Wow, what a month! I am really looking forward to seeing how these polls shake out.

Will the new installment of industry mainstay Madden NFL earn a ring from Players’ Choice voters? Perhaps the popular new PS VR shooter Firewall Zero Hour will secure enough votes to take the top spot. Or will the crown go to one of the many artful indies (Dead Cells, Guacamelee 2, Donut County, Battle Chef Brigade Deluxe) that released in August? And, of course, it would be foolish to count out the legendary Dragon of Dojima in Yakuza Kiwami 2.

Cast your vote below, and hit the comments to let us know your predictions for September!

How does it work? At the end of every month, PlayStation.Blog will open a poll where you can vote for the best new game released that month. Soon thereafter, we’ll close the polls, tally your votes, and announce the winner at PlayStation.Blog. PlayStation Store will also showcase some top Players’ Choice winners throughout the year.

What is the voting criteria? That’s up to you! If you were only able to recommend one new release to a friend that month, which would it be? In keeping with our long tradition in the Game of the Year Awards, remastered or re-released games won’t qualify. Ambitious, larger-scale rebuilds and remakes like Shadow of the Colossus and Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy will.

How are nominees decided? The PlayStation.Blog and PlayStation Store editorial teams will gather a list of that month’s most noteworthy releases and use it to seed the poll. Write-in votes will be accepted.