We are so back. That's right; Fantasy Critic returns for 2026.
It's the competition where you score points by predicting the critical success of games that are expected to release in the coming year. As ever, the game is open to all boardsies. If you haven't played before, just follow these steps to get started.
- Sign up at Fantasy Critic using the same/similar username as here on boards. Send me said username so that I can add you to our league (The Deacon St. John Memorial Cup).
- Come up with a list of games you think will review well in 2026. If you need suggestions, use the watchlist feature under Player Actions on the league's page - a list of about 10-15 games should be enough for the draft phase. You can even pick games that haven't been announced yet, so long as they're available on Fantasy Critic's database (e.g. Half Life 3).
- When you've been added to the league, come up with a name for your publishing company (essentially your team name for this year's competition).
The Draft
The next phase is the draft, where we add games to our rosters. The FC site will randomly generate the draft order. We use a "snake draft" in our league whereby the person who has to go last in the first round of drafting goes first in the next round. So, if our league were to have 4 teams, the first 9 picks would go Team A, B, C, D, D, C, B, A, A.
In order to save time and much ball ache, I'll enter everyone's picks manually on the site. Therefore, you must PM me here on boards with your list of picks in order of preference by January 15th. Please ensure that all your picks are designated as "Available" on the Fantasy Critic website. In other words, don't choose any games prohibited by our league's specific rules (see Eligibility (tags) below). And it would be a great help to me if you could please use the title of the game as it is entered on the FC database.
To ensure fairness, I'll PM my own list to another player, and provide the final draft spreadsheet in this thread so everyone can verify that their picks were processed correctly and fairly. When everyone's initial roster is complete, we'll choose our counter picks.
Counter Picks
A counter pick is a game from another player's roster, but instead of choosing one that you think will review well, you choose one that you think will either review relatively poorly, or that won't even release in 2026. We'll draft just one counter pick each for this season, with the player who went last in the regular draft getting to go first.
Pickup Games
The remainder of your roster is made up of pickup games, which are chosen over the course of the year. This allows you to add newly announced or overlooked games to your roster. Any player interested in acquiring a new game will place a secret "bid" on Fantasy Critic for said game using some of their annual budget ($100 per player). The game(s) and amount(s) you bid will be private, but our own house rule is that you must immediately announce that you have made a bid in this thread.
On Saturday evenings at 8PM Eastern time (either midnight or 1AM our time, depending on daylight savings), the system will process those bids. The highest bidder for any given game will have the game added to their roster, losing the money that they bid. The other players keep their money but will have to find other game(s) to add to their line-up.
Dropping Games
In order to keep things competitive, players are allowed to drop three unreleased games from their roster over the course of the year. For example, if you find out that a game of yours has had its release date pushed back to 2027, it's been cancelled altogether, or just previewing poorly prior to release, you can drop it and replace it with a different pickup game. The exception to this is if your game has been counter picked by another player, in which case you're stuck with it!
Drops are processed on Saturday night/Sunday morning immediately before bids are. This means that if your roster is full, you can still drop a game and bid on a new one at the same time.
Eligibility (tags)
Tags are assigned to games on the Fantasy Critic website, basically putting them into specific categories. Leagues can then decide which categories they want their players to be able to choose from. These are the tag settings for our league.
The tag system isn't perfect as some games feel like they could be in a different category to the one that they've been assigned to, but we're just going to abide by Fantasy Critic's decisions on this front.
Scoring
Your games are awarded points based on their aggregate score over on Open Critic. For every point above a score of 70 on Open Critic, your game gets you one point in our league. For every point below 70, you lose a point. According to the creator of Fantasy Critic, very bad games won't hurt your score too much - essentially, you can never lose more than 20 points no matter how bad a game is.
If a game doesn't release during the year in question, it is treated as if it scored 70 and therefore scores you 0 points.
Games that score over 90 on Open Critic can really boost your overall score as every point above 90 is worth two points instead of one.
Counter picks work in the opposite way. Any Open Critic score above 70 loses you points, and below 70 gains you points. Targeting games that you think might slip into 2027 is supposedly a good tactic for choosing your counter pick.
Examples of the scoring system at work from FC;
Our League Settings at a Glance
Total Standard Games = 12
- Games to Draft = 5
- Pickup Games = 7
Total Counter Picks (to be drafted) = 1
Minimum Bid Amount for Pickup Games = $1
Number of Unreleased Games You Can Drop = 3
Counter Picks Block Drops = Yes
Bidding System = Secret Bidding but you must post in this thread stating that you have bid on a game!
Bidding Tie-break System = Lowest Projected Points
No Trades
Prizes
1st Prize: €50 to spend on your favourite gaming platform (Steam, PS Store etc etc).
2nd & 3rd Prizes: the friends you made along the way.
If you have any questions, feedback etc, I'm all ears. There's an FAQ on the Fantasy Critic site that's worth checking out too, although bear in mind that we aren't using all available options in our league.
Good luck to everyone except two-time champion Penn, and may God have mercy on our souls.
