The most anticipated games of 2016 - in pictures

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  Courtesy Campo Santo

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  Courtesy Electronic Arts

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  Electronic Arts via AP

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  Courtesy Ubisoft

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  Courtesy Square Enix

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  Courtesy Microsoft

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  Ubisoft via AP

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  Bethesda Softworks via AP

Tom Clancy’s The Division is just one of many games that have the potential to make 2016 a great year for gamers, especially those who like to explore. The line-up includes titles that will send players stumbling through the woods (Firewatch), travelling under the sea (Abzu), scrambling over rooftops (Mirror’s Edge Catalyst), blasting off into outer space (No Man’s Sky) and travelling through time (Quantum Break). There will also be thrilling trips to several islands, including fictional ones in The Witness and Dishonored 2. Here’s a list of some of the most anticipated games:

The Witness

Formats PlayStation 4, PC Release date Tuesday Jonathan Blow, the indie-game pioneer who created the time-hopping platformer Braid is back with his first creation in nearly eight years. Inspired by the 1993 classic Myst, this puzzler strands players on a perplexing land mass, where they are tasked with solving a series of brain-teasers to progress deeper into the isle and story.

Firewatch

Formats PlayStation 4, PC. Release date February 9 Set in 1989 in the Wyoming wilderness, this first-person mystery casts the player as a fire lookout, at the Shoshone National Forest, whose only form of communication with the outside world is a walkie-talkie. The game’s visual style – vividly punctuated by shadows – was designed by artist Olly Moss.

Unravel

Formats PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC Release Date February 9 Move over, Mario. Beat it, Banjo-Kazooie. Step aside, Sackboy. There’s a new adorable platforming protagonist on the scene and his name is Yarny. In this whimsical, physics-based puzzler, players must help the cotton creature overcome obstacles as he traverses a lushly detailed photorealistic landscape.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst

Formats PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC Release date May 24 After leaping onto consoles nearly eight years ago, futuristic free runner Faith is once again vaulting across rooftops of a dystopian metropolis. For her belated second outing, the developers at DICE are letting the parkour heroine loose in an open world, where leaping is more vital than shooting.

Far Cry Primal

Formats PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC Release date February 23 The open-world series travels to the Stone Age for an untamed edition that swaps machine guns and off-road vehicles for spears and woolly mammoths. Primal will add a new “beastmaster” mode, which invites players to tame and call on critters, including wild dogs, sabre-tooth tigers and bears.

Hitman

Formats PlayStation 4, Xbox One Release date March 11 It worked for Lara Croft. Why not Agent 47? Hitman publisher Square Enix is pushing the reset button on its popular sniper series, which rewards players for creatively and stealthily taking out bad guys. This digitally focused instalment will be updated throughout the year with new locales and assassination targets.

Quantum Break

Formats Xbox One Release date April 5 This time-bending shooter from the creators of Max Payne and Alan Wake combines live-action elements with a third-person game in which a gun-toting hero named Jack Joyce (played by X-Men star Shawn Ashmore) can control the flow of time. Cue much The Matrix-style messing around with bullets in mid-air.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Formats PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC Release date August 26 Set two years after the events of the previous instalment of the long-running cyberpunk series, released in 2011, Mankind Divided will transplant players back into the cybernetically enhanced head of Adam Jensen as he uncovers a global conspiracy in a world where mechanically augmented humans have become outcasts.

Dishonored 2

Formats PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC. Release date Yet to be announced The follow-up to the 2012 stealthy steampunk smash will introduce new supernatural abilities and a playable protagonist: Empress Emily Kaldwin, the young heir from the first game. She’s all grown up and fighting corruption alongside her father, the masked bodyguard Corvo Attano.

Also of note

Other titles to look out for include: first-person astronaut mystery Adr1ft; survival saga Horizon Zero Dawn; old-school cartoony platformer Cuphead; ethereal underwater escapade Abzu; space exploration game No Man’s Sky; treasure-hunting sequel Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End; and new editions of The Legend of Zelda and Star Fox for Wii U.

* Derrick J Lang / AP