BattleBit Remastered
BattleBit stands defiantly against the degenerate crimes of modern game design: no battle passes, no microtransactions, no manipulation, no RPG mechanics, no compromising scale for flashy graphics. It brings Battlefield back to its roots, and by doing so unshackles the pure chaotic joy you remember.
Cobalt Core
Best Slay the Spire since Slay the Spire. Wit, charm and a meaningful positional layer atop StS' foundations.
Kryzn, Knight of the Salt Mines
FTL meets Slay The Spire. Adding the movement dimension to the deck builder logic was an inspired choice and adds a lot of depth, as does the ability to build the deck through different characters.Added bonus, a surprisingly good narrative hook that made me try different builds and gives an endpoint
Counter-Strike 2
Honestly, this is here because I've spent hours of my life on surf maps as it was realistically the only thing I could play with a young baby.
Dota 2
Dota is back for me after a 7 year break. The game is at once intimately familiar and radically different, but the main thing is that it remains a good time with 4 pals
Quite possibly the Greatest Video Game of All Time.
Hi-Fi Rush
Jusant
Would probably be my GOTY if I hadn't played a swiss horror game from 2021.
Marvel's Midnight Suns
Really, Midnight Suns is nothing special. It combines the very good combat system of Firaxis's XCOM with a deckbuilding mechanic, Marvel's characters, and a taste of MCU-esque banter. But it executes all of those things well, and is comfortable and fun without demanding too much investment from you.
Starfield
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
Continues to be my grimdark comfort food.
Still a mainstay of our family gaming nights. We haven't dug into the new mega-update too deeply, but it seems like it's now much closer to the game people were expecting at launch.
An aesthetic tour de force and absolute blast with a full group. Somehow the created characters have personalities that shine through thanks to great writing and voice acting, the set piece music is fabulous, and they get 40k looking just right
Citizen Sleeper
I slept on this, but it was excellent. Scifi story about an artificial person who strives to make a living on a spaceship still dealing with the fallout of deposing its corporate overlords. Well-written and atmospheric like no other. Great soundtrack, too.
Dawncaster
I have already spent far too much time poking around in this mobile first Spirelike.
While it is very keen on its own lore, I like how varied the different characters feel, and the different builds they make possible
Kryzn, Knight of the Salt Mines
One of the best deckbuilders I have played, not just on mobile but in general. Optimized for the phone, fair pricing model, and a lot of depth. There are a lot of different classes and builds, and a lot of ways to experiment. Probably my most played game this year.
Diablo IV
Final Fantasy XVI
Hitman World of Assassination
I played HITMAN: Freelancer obsessively until I finally managed to complete a campaign. Fortunately I was then able to put it aside. But I'll be back.
Honkai: Star Rail
Contains some of the most relatable texting, including someone using those roses! A character often acts like your weird stalker but you can absolutely refuse to play along and this mark their quest validly done. Astonishingly critical of the evils of capitalism despite being a gacha game. Also gay.
Pentiment
A great game with the only downside is there are three other games that also need to get recommended ahead of it, because they touch on the same vibes/loops, but better (Night In the Woods, Disco Elysium, and The Pillars of the Earth).
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Street Fighter 6
The smoothest and best balanced launch of a fighting game I've ever seen let down hard by a terrible monetization scheme for a full price game.
An excellent introduction to Street Fighter, especially for new players. I've been told it has a single-player campaign but that sounds like a fib.
I started playing fighting games in January of 2023 with Guilty Gear Strive, which I love but had some technical issues that turned me off a bit. SF6 came out fully formed and completely accessible. This is the first game to get me to go to locals. Great continuation of a classic.
The Case of the Golden Idol
Pretty good puzzle detectiving.
I literally smacked my forehead at a late-game realization of something I missed, which is always a sign of a good mystery.
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
I can't remember why they have to be naked to pilot the giant mechs.
Aliens: Dark Descent
Arma 3
Every Sunday I get to play this with a lovely community of players. I look forward to it every week.
It's given me the chance to be creative and I've been modding in new assets to give us some goofy outfits to wear.
I've been playing ARMA for a few years at this point, and it's still the best multiplayer gaming experience I've had over the Internet. A lot of that comes from the community I play with, but there also just isn't anything like ARMA. It's weird, bit, awkward and wonderful.
Brotato
Cassette Beasts
Chained Echoes
What if a JRPG bent over backwards to be as player-friendly as the genre has ever been? It's also a cool, thought out world, enjoyable characters, and a lot of neat mechanics. A slightly iffy translation is my only serious complaint.
Chants of Sennaar
A wonderful gem of a puzzle game about translating five different languages. A perfect snack-sized, well-scoped game with a great cel-shaded art style and a surprisingly affecting story about religion and connection.
Cities: Skylines II
Coffee Talk
Coral Island
If my GOTY is a farm sim from the 2010s, special mentions to the game that kicked off my nostalgia trip. Coral Island is a great addition to the genre... but it needs another year to cook. Here's hoping 2024 does great things for it.
Cult of the Lamb
I named my cult The Gym and I don't remember why
Darkest Dungeon II
Dead by Daylight
This was the year this game finally "clicked" for me and instantly it consumed me. The best competitive multiplayer experience I've had in ages. Like an extreme game of tag, the fun comes from being chased or from being the chaser regardless of whether you "win" or not.
Deep Rock Galactic
My favorite of the 4 person coop games. This year I started playing it a bunch with an old friend and a new community. Its been great teaching people the game and just hanging out.
Loved it despite playing it objectively wrong - tunneling in the dark with no company but robots, letting one class level and immediately switching to the next, mechanical progression be damned. What a great example of ambient atmosphere and a hilariously good appropriation of the "season pass".
Demon's Souls
After Dark Souls, I picked up a PS3 and Demon's Souls, but never got past 2-1. Until I picked up the remake. The gameplay holds up really well, and the graphical upgrade makes it a joy to look at.
Dwarf Fortress
Elden Ring
I'm playing this vicariously via my 10 y'old son. I am enjoying his "What... what? Is THAT? How?!?!" reactions. Good stuff.
Still great! I've just been playing with friends in a pseudo-co-op campaign, as I've done for years with other soulsbornes. Traversing the open world is a bit of a pain in multiplayer, so we sometimes have to just go from point to point on our own, but it otherwise works pretty well.
Factorio
I can quit any time I like.
God of War (2018)
Hades
Horizon Zero Dawn
Hunt: Showdown
Jagged Alliance 3
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
What a surprise this was. Needs to be bought on sale to feel "worth" it, but plays like a game from an alternate universe where licensed games like this are good, and action-adventure games discovered playfulness.
This is not the world's most ambitious game design, but it's colorful, imaginative, funny, and well written, with a very Guardians appropriate storyline and some real pathos at times. Held back a bit by QTEs (which you can disable) and shallow but at least manageable combat.
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
I played both this year, but this one has a cat in a backpack (also a more compelling cast and the venom subsystem). I never clicked with Spiderman 2 back when, so this is my definitive web-swinging experience. It's in my top few games for movement ever with N++ and Mirror's Edge.
Mechabellum
Metal Gear Solid
Somehow, playing on an emulator after having already played MGS 2, 3, & 5 multiple times over the years, this still feels fresh, new, and innovative. Made with heart.
I played the version from the Master Collection.
The game stands up amazingly for the restrictions of its time, especially the PS1 controller.
As the master collection says it's kinda problematic. Still the story is 50% saying genuine interesting things about world and 50% fighting a cyborg ninja.
Minecraft
Building stuff, still great.
Moonring
PlateUp!
Pokémon GO
Risk of Rain Returns
The original kept me gripped and wanting just 'one more go'. The remake has don exactly the same.
What a blast from the past! I'd long been considering getting Risk of Rain, one of my all-time favorites, for the Switch, and the release of Returns was the perfect excuse. Extremely rewarding to me as an expansion/coat of paint on the original, and now the clear choice for a newcomer or fan of 2.
Sea of Stars
Could have used a little more variation on the combat, but it was a lovely game that felt like a classic SNES RPG lost to time.
Signalis
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Stray
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
An open world game that doesn't feel like one; it somehow manages to turn the usual bullshit fetch quests and tedious crafting grind into something enjoyable, with just an incredible density of stuff to do, all with the customary Nintendo charm.
Timberborn
Building things or dynamiting the map to push the water one way or another to irrigate crops, then building giant towers for beavers to live in so you don't waste the precious green ground is just so much fun.
Titanfall 2
Tunic
Victoria 3
Officially confirms Communism is OP.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey
This was a very risky Kickstarter back - hundreds of dollars to a first-time company doing an insanely ambitious boss battling boardgame full of giant miniatures and an elaborate story full of mythological allusions and one of the most creative settings I've seen. They knocked it out of the park.
Amnesia: The Bunker
Bean and Nothingness
A charming little puzzle game with a satisfying amount of complexity to it. I feel slightly contrarian putting this above Tears of the Kingdom, but frankly, it had the better puzzles, a more engaging story and has the underdog charm of feeling like it was made in a shed by a pair of boffins.
Bobo the Cat
Can of Wormholes
Great puzzles and great hint system.
The game that finally answers the question: what if everything was a worm?
Cruelty Squad
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut
Really blew my socks off. It takes something very special to get me into an RPG, and the photo-negative focus on interiority rather than your party/the end of the world was instantly fascinating to me. Also had a great balance of gaminess in there which felt really well-thought-out.
Dominions 5 - Warriors of the Faith
Dyson Sphere Program
Fallout: New Vegas
Turns out that, even after a decade of humming-and-hawing at the game in your library, trying to work out what alchemical mixture of mods works...firing up New Vegas vanilla is still magical. Incredible writing, and such a sharp logistical world building that draws your right in.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
An all-time strategy game tied to an all-time friendship sim? That you can playthrough multiple times for drastically different stories?? This will also be next year's GOTY when I replay it.
Frosthaven
Hearts of Iron IV: Kaiserreich
I continue to come back to this - the team behind this mod keeps it updated regularly, the world they have crafted gets more and more believable, and the mechanics of HoI4 are catnip to me.
In the Groove
Marvel Snap
Mundaun
Frightening mountain goat petting game.
Nuclear Option
OTXO
Persona 5 Royal
Pokémon Unite
Prey
Project Zomboid
Runescape
Look it's been a busy year and I needed something to do on a second monitor. 20 years later and it's still good! Mostly, anyway... It's aggressively monetised in an intrusive way. But it's been lovely to just have my little character mining away while I do other things. What sunk cost? Shhhh.
Stardew Valley
I'm allowed to put my 23 Dec - 1 Jan hyperfixation game on here. It's valid. Hush. In all seriousness, 2023 was really a year for me to revisit old games that have been quietly updated continually for the past decade, and Stardew epitomizes that.
Super Auto Pets
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The Zachtronics Solitaire Collection
Thief: The Black Parade
Trials of Fire
Really makes my brain go whirr. Has a good balance of choice to keep my brain engaged and randomness to stop things from being stale.
Venba
Void Stranger
Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Expansion Pass Wave 4 - Future Redeemed
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
A Mortician's Tale
ASTLIBRA Revision
Backpack Battles
BattleTech
Bayonetta 3
A game that runs on rule of cool, with the same near-perfect combat system as its predecessors and just enough new stuff to keep things interesting. Who needs Hell when you have trans-dimensional evil?
Blasphemous 2
Bloodborne
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
Caves of Qud
Citra
Yes, the 3DS emulator. 2023 was the year I turned my phone and also my Steam Deck into a full on emulator experience and you know what? The nostalgia's been great. Shoutouts to EmuDeck for the Steam Deck in making everything easy and painless.
Conquest of Elysium 5
Crab Champions
Dangeresque: The Roomisode Triungulate
Nobody does Sierra adventure game pastiches quite like Videlectrix. A Homestar Runner game in 2023 - it warms my heart.
DCS World
Deadeye Deepfake Simulacrum
Dead Space
Deathloop
Death Must Die
Devil May Cry 5
I already finished this on PC, including again as Nero, but now that I have a PS5 I had to pick it up again for the Legendary Dark Knight mode with lots of enemies. Still a joy.
This game understands that sometimes it's more important to look cool than to deal the most damage.
Dishonored 2
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Dragon Dreams: A Taste of Adventure
Dread Templar
Dune: Imperium
eFootball 2023
Elsinore
Erannorth Chronicles
The single most in-depth, crazy ambitious roguelite deckbuilder on the market and probably that will ever be made. Super flexible, super addictive. If it had a cool story (there's just a few bits and pieces) it'd be contending for GOTY. And it's all made by one guy.
Escape From Lavender Island
Escape from Tarkov
Top and tailed the year with this one, it continues to be the only FPS I really want to play long term. High stakes, high adrenaline, high detail, high inventory management
Europa Universalis IV
Everspace 2
Fate/hollow ataraxia
Fear & Hunger 2: Termina
Fights in Tight Spaces
Final Fantasy V (Pixel Remaster)
After realising I had hardly played any FF games earlier this year, I started playing through them from the start (#QuantumFFF on Cohost). I got through five this year. I never thought anything could dethrone IV as my favourite, but I was wrong. Great story, incredible mechanics. Can't wait for VI.
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes
Has absolutely no right being as good as it is - turns out the trick to making a good Dynasty Warriors game is to have someone else do a redux of one of their best stories ever so players can learn even more about the cool kids of Garreg Mach.
Football Manager 2024
Forza Horizon 5
I got gamepass for Starfield, then mostly played this instead.
Forza Motorsport
Frog Detective 3: Corruption at Cowboy County
Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut
Ghost Song
God of War Ragnarök
Gotham Knights
Grow Home
A tasty little dish that I fondly remember
Guilty Gear Strive
Hearts of Iron IV: Old World Blues
A mod set in the world of Fallout. I find I enjoy smaller wars in HOI and this mod has tons of them
Helldivers
I only just got around to trying it this year! I expected a hijinks simulator, but as the difficulty ramps up this is an incredible team action tactics game, with some levels feeling like puzzles. Incredibly dynamic, frenetic and frantic, with that perfect balance between control and chaos.
Hellish Quart
Advance! Retreat! Lunge! Riposte! Slash! Swish! Clink! Clank! (bleed. die)
Hell Let Loose
Heretic's Fork
Hexcells Infinite
Sometimes you just want a game you can fire up, play for a few minutes and be done with, y'know? Something to just reset my mind from time to time.
Hitman: Freelancer
Hogwarts Legacy
Hole.io
HROT
Humanity
Hyper Demon
I Did Not Buy This Ticket
Immortality
Inscryption
Into the Breach
iRacing
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
It's actually quite boring but I need to justify my time investment at this point.
Lab Cat
A fun puzzle game, mostly emblematic of the great time I have had periodically poking through the Pico8 games.
This one is a series of one screen sokoban puzzles
Levelhead
Life Is Strange: True Colors
Linelith
Beautifully simple puzzle game. Teeny-tiny design space but keeps expanding what you think is possible.
Lone Fungus
Solid metroidvania. Hollow Knight but instead of a bug you're a mushroom and it's less pretty. That still leaves a lot of wiggle room for being great.
Magic: The Gathering Arena
I thought I was free from the grasp of MtG, but then they went and made a perfect mechanical representation of that time Treebeard did a song painstakingly listing every living creature [Long List of the Ents] and they went and pulled me back in again.
Mars First Logistics
Mass Effect
I finally finished it! What a great game once you figure out how to fly the ship. A much better game to do a first-run speedrun in than ES: Oblivion, I was very happy that it supported my roleplay of "urgent Shepard" without issue. Loved the broad-strokes worldbuilding.
Mass Effect 2
Played 1, 2, and 3 this year. 2 is, as everyone else knows by now, a tour-de-force of applied nostalgia and efficient character relationship building. Never seen anything like the final sequence and probably never will again.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition
McPixel 3
MechWarrior Online
Metroid Dread
Metroid: Zero Mission
Mirror's Edge
Earlier in the year I had a chance to look at modding the game. I learned a lot and really enjoyed picking apart the assets.
Misericorde: Volume One
Monster Prom
Morroblivion
Playing a remake of Morrowind in the Oblivion engine is very weird but also quite fun. Very excited for Skyblivion/Skywind when those come out.
Mosa Lina
MyHouse.wad
Who knew one of the best modern literary horror adaptations would be a custom DOOM map?
My Work Is Not Yet Done
NEO: The World Ends with You
No Man's Sky
NORCO
Octopath Traveler II
Another game I liked much more than its predecessor. The music and visuals are best-in-class like Octopath 1, but the characters' storylines hit home a lot better, which gave me the impetus to keep playing long enough to really sink my teeth into the combat system. 8/10
OlliOlli World
Ooblets
Lovely comfort game to keep returning to
Orb of Creation
Outward: Definitive Edition
Party Animals
Path of Exile
Patrick's Parabox
This is a pretty straightforward puzzle game. The puzzles are tight and some of them are quite tricky. It feels fresh and inviting--it won't break your brain or get you pulling out graph paper like a Zackitronics game, but it doesn't need to. It's properly tricky and it just works.
Pikmin 4
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire
Pineapple on pizza
Pistol Whip
It's amazing how long Cloud Head have supported this game with great tracks being added this year. The daily challenges keep it fresh and this is a great game for warming up/getting sweaty.
Pizza Tower
Impossibly funky platformer.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
Alright, fine, fun and actually tricky Double Battles from the DLC are actually enough to overcome the bugs and performance problems.
Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator
Perfectly creates the headspace of being an Alchemist, tottering around, trying to pawn off your random potions off the shelf (ones you made during your experiments) before sighing and making the precise potion your customer wants. This will fund your further experiments in the basement at least....
Prestige Tree
I love clicker games. I've played a lot of clicker games. This one is one the best out there. Made by clicker game fans for clicker game fans.
Prime Mover
So it turns out that puzzle games which are complex enough to be Turing complete are exactly my jam. Maybe I'm just in an incredibly narrow target audience here, but it squeezes a lot of fun out of what is effectively a mix of programming and cable management. Pretty cool aesthetic too.
Psychonauts 2
They spent a lot more time trying to sand off the inherent issues with jumping around in someone's mind and permanently adjusting their very way of thinking.
It was fun, I just wish I didn't have to constantly fiddle with which powers I had assigned
Purrgatory
Quake
Quake II - Enhanced Edition
Queer Man Peering Into A Rock Pool.jpg
Rain World: Downpour
Ready or Not
Returnal
Return to Monkey Island
Played some of this over Christmas with my parents and I think it's as charming as the old ones, and pays homage/references appropriately, whilst having a way for new players to know what's going on.
We played on easy mode and it's been nice to have mostly straightforward puzzles. Easy story access
Reverse: 1999
Two factions of magic users war across the 20th century as periods of history are erased by reversed rain. English acting with a lot of using their own languages. Characters include famous dog Pickles, a sword-wielding pair of gauntlets, and an extremely French girl. Gay. Unfortunately a gacha game.
Risk of Rain 2
Rogue Legacy 2
Rollerdrome
Roll Player Adventures
A gripping mixture of dice placement and manipulation and storybook adventuring. Moral choices abound and there are secret artifacts to find through careful exploration. The writing is stellar and the gameplay is consistently exciting and thinky.
Sailing Era
SEASON: A letter to the future
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Severed Steel
Diving, sliding, wall-running, slo-motion single-player FPS that knows exactly what it is and does it to perfection.
Shadows Over Loathing
Shogun Showdown
Slay the Princess
Just a fun, slightly unsettling time. A surprising amount of variation and responsiveness.
Spelunky 2
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Sporcle
Ok it has been a very slow year for games. I almost didn't have 5 picks, but then I remembered that I'd been entertaining myself on slow work days with geography quizzes. Er... it's surprisingly fun?? And hey, now I can recite every country in the world, and every capital city in Europe.
Star Citizen
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
Storyteller
Strange Horticulture
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical
Subnautica: Below Zero
Doesn't have quite the sense of awe and wonder as exploring the seas of the original Subnautica (I have seen a lot of it before, after all), but a more cohesive story, and still lots of cool new discoveries.
Super Woden GP 2
Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga
I also play Tactics Ogre this year--better if still mediocre story, more robust feeling, more grind. Both had bite to their encounters and properly tense turns where I had to let people die. Here, the unit upgrades were compelling and the squad-as-unit layout system was fresh and lovely.
Synth Riders
So many community maps available that have kept me entertained and fit over the year.
System Shock Remastered
Tchia
Tetris 99
Tetris Effect: Connected
The Banner Saga
Finally finished this after several attempts, the storytelling is excellent and the oddity of not wanting to finish enemies off but leave them in a weakened state still makes this feel unique among strategy titles.
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
You feel somewhat bad. You feel somewhat bad. You feel somewhat bad. You feel somewhat bad. You feel somewhat bad. You feel somewhat bad. You feel somewhat bad. You feel somewhat bad. You feel somewhat bad. You feel somewhat bad. You feel somewhat bad. You feel somewhat bad. You feel somewhat bad.
The Invincible
The finest walking sim I've played yet, The Invincible is a respectful adaptation of the classic Stanislaw Lem novel, updating it for modern sensibilities without unduly modernising it. The dialogue between the two main characters is great and the desolate sci-fi landscapes are second-to-none.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie
Confusingly named 10th game that's an extended epilogue and sidestory collection. Follows through on small detail consequences so well it retroactively fixes some of the inconsistent last game. Splits into small groups to avoid the huge cast problems. A new character sometimes says "danger zone".
The Outer Worlds
Thirsty Suitors
Tinykin
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
Valheim
Vintage Story
Just a legally distinct MineCraft? or is it actually good?
It's extremely unfinished but the core gameplay of searching for rare metals, surviving bears and dragging yourself up to steel is great fun.
Wanted: Dead
Warframe
Free-to-play 3rd person space ninja shooty slashy space combat open world mining conservation fishing skateboarding mech game with time travel. 4750 hours says I can't be wrong because the alternative is too painful to contemplate.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e
Wartales
We Who Are About To Die
What the Bat?
I feel like this is a perfect game to use to introduce people to VR. I have only played one session of it, but it hooked me and I kept at it progressing through a lot of the game.
Wildermyth
Word Trails
World of Horror
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight
Yi Xian: The Cultivation Card Game
Kryzn, Knight of the Salt Mines
This pushes all my buttons. A PvP auto-battler deckbuilder. It looked initially like shovel-ware, but especially after the visual update passes it looks quite nice now. The deckbuilding is fun, and the competitive dimension keeps it interesting. Lots of different characters also add variety.
ZERO Sievert
ΔV: Rings of Saturn
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