Don’t get us wrong, 2023 was an all-time great year. We got a novel Zelda and Mario. Armored Core and Baldur’s Gate woke up from their cryogenic sleep. Alan Wake rose from his plot in the Video Game IP Cemetery, while Street Fighter 6 he acted like Street Fighter 5 never happened. But while 2023 was a memorable year for iconic franchises, it wasn’t surprising. No one was underestimating Nintendo, FromSoftware, and Capcom.
On the other hand, 2024 was unpredictable! Our favorite games include a writing-based dungeon crawler, a surprisingly popular sequel in a completely different genre than its little-played predecessor, and a massive RPG where a reformed yakuza recreates Animal Crossing with perversions and garbage dumps.
This is the year for the real weirdos (that’s us, we are weirdos) — the ones who feel their skin tingle and their pupils dilate when they see a “7/10” at the bottom of a review. This is the person who doesn’t want a perfect remake Final Fantasy 7; they want Final Fantasy 7 thrown into a cosmic blender and poured down your throat.
It might be a decade before we see another year like 2023, but that’s OK with us. Without a classic entry in a beloved series released every month, there’s room for the novel, the weird, and the unexpected.
The games on this list will be sorted in reverse chronological order, so the newest releases will always be listed first. We also have a miniature section at the end dedicated to tardy 2023 releases that we didn’t have time to include in last year’s best games list. Our latest update added Shadows of doubt, Astrobot, Tactical Breach Wizards, Star Wars: Outlaws, World of Warcraft: Base Inside, Crimson Diamond, Cat Task III, Fields of Mystery, Elden Ring: Shadow of Erdtree, gesture, Closer distance, Hades 2, Destiny 2: Final Form, Adventures of MinishootAND Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth.
