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Year in Review: Your games of 2023
Reflect on the games you played this year.
Tell us about it.
Important:
- You do not have to limit your discussion only to games released this year. Anything you played this year is fine.
- This thread is much more interesting if you give details and explanations. Please don’t just list titles on their own.
Conversation starters:
None of the below is required, but feel free to use any of it as a jumping off point for what you want to talk about (if needed).
Consider the following categories:
- Your personal Game of the Year
- Highlights
- Hidden gems
- Surprises
- Disappointments
- Outliers (stuff you loved from genres you usually don’t)
Consider the following questions as well:
- What game resonated most strongly with you, and why?
- What did you keep coming back to, and why?
- What games was the most interesting or exciting to you, and why?
- What did your game playing habits say about your year?
- How did you change as a gamer this year?
I'll answer some of the shorter prompts first before I get into my picks for good and bad games I played this year. As far as my habits and how I am as a gamer: I feel like I spent a LOT more time playing games this year than the last few years. It was ultimately a superb year for gaming, but this year specifically had a lot of picks that I ended up loving, so I spent a lot of time playing them. For a while, gaming was more of a secondary hobby to me. I grew up playing games as a primary hobby, but pushed it aside a little bit as an adult for other hobbies like tabletop RPGs, renaissance festival stuff, curling, or whatever else. This year (and some of last year), gaming took more of a primary spot. I think I shifted a bit to be back into singleplayer games over multiplayer games and that helped with the switch. I'd rather sit on the couch for 6 hours playing an RPG than a shooter now. So while I primarily played multiplayer games in the last few years (though I usually played through a handful of good singleplayer games a year), I'm now mostly playing games for myself and by myself and I'm ultimately enjoying games more when I'm on my own time. I'm also finding that I'm enjoying couch and controller gaming more and more over PC and KB+M gaming (I have both a PS5 and a gaming PC, so I have a lot of choice).
Well, I'll start off with my game of the year. Surprising nobody, it's Baldur's Gate 3. Everyone knows the game is fantastic, a once in a generation game. I'd like to at least mention why it's my game of the year, other than the normal talking points. I've played tabletop games for a loooong time; it's one of my main hobbies and some of the most fun I've ever had is rolling dice with friends. However, when trying to get into CRPGs, I would always bounce off, despite me loving RPG video games. I tried Neverwinter Nights, Pillars of Eternity, Divinity, Pathfinder, and others, and nothing ever stuck. It never felt the same to me. Baldur's Gate 3 bridged that gap and actually hooked me. For me, what pushes the game over the edge, is the full motion capture and wonderful voice acting for all the characters. The combat and mechanics of the game are fine. It's a fun system, but I don't think it's revolutionary. But the characters, good lord, the characters are the best I've experienced in a game since Mass Effect 2. I'm generally a fan of "talking simulator" games, so all of the meaningful character interactions made the game world feel real and immersive and that's what sucked me in. Even minor NPCs that have maybe 20 lines of dialogue all felt real. It's one of the few games that can make me care so deeply for a bunch of made up characters and that's why it's my GOTY (really, the best game I've ever played, I think). It's one of the most immersive games I've ever played and really made me feel like I was living in the sword coast, and for that, it's my GOTY.
Another one of my favorites from this year was Jedi: Survivor. I'm a big fan of classic action platformer games and this just iterated on Jedi: Fallen Order and did everything bigger and better (well, mostly everything). The game is just so well refined and silky smooth. The combat is ridiculously fun, there's more force powers to play with, and the game world is so much more open this time around. The characters have satisfying stories and the storyline is a little less basic than in FO. I don't think it's a masterpiece, but it definitely brought back fond memories of all the Star Wars games I used to play as a kid. It just exists as a Star Wars game very well. I do think it fell short in the story and some boss fights a bit (the boss fights in Fallen Order were much more memorable, I thought), but it was just an incredibly fun Star Wars romp.
The biggest surprise for me this year was A Plague Tale: Innocence. I had seen this and Requiem marketed before, but they never really caught my eye. I think I had some misconceptions about what the game actually was. It took a few friends telling me that I would love it for me to pick it up (I think I actually got it free through PS+?). I expected to have a neat little adventure and be done with it, but the world utterly sucked me in. The characters were great (wow, the third game I'm mentioning also has strong characters like the other two, imagine that!), believable, and the gameplay was pretty unique to me. I'm a fan of action adventure games and puzzle games and this was a good light serving of all of the above. The horror elements were also satisfying to me. I'm not a huge fan of horror in general and shy away from actual horror games, but this was creep and slightly scary without being stressful scary. I have yet to play Requiem, but it's definitely on my list!
My timesink of the year is Cobalt Core! This is a super cute deckbuilding roguelike game. It plays similarly to Slay the Spire in terms of the meta game (you advance through nodes on a map and pick up rewards and cards to add to your deck), but the encounters play unlike any other game I've played. Positioning your ship correctly is paramount. Battles are in two dimensions, but you have cards to move your ship (or your opponent's ship) left or right to either make your opponent miss shots or hit armored spots on your ship instead of vulnerable spots. The very unique thing about this game is that you pick three characters as your crew for a run and each character has their own cards that make up your deck, so combinations of all the character give you a lot of replayability. On top of that, the writing is snappy, funny, and cute, and the art design is amazing. I definitely recommend picking it up if you like roguelikes! I thought for sure Endless Dungeon would be my roguelike of the year, but Cobalt Core takes the cake instead.
My main disappointment of the year is Starfield. I'll preface by saying I'm a fan of Bethesda games. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is definitely within my top 5 favorite games and I still go back to it every few months. I also love Skyrim and, while I'm not obsessed with Fallout, I do like New Vegas, 3, and 4. I never thought Starfield would be this revolutionary new thing. I always fully thought it would be a "Bethesda game" and what we got instead was Bethesda's sad attempt to make something even half as good as any of their other games. The game just did not vibe for me. I think the main thing is that the game breaks immersion so easily that it's impossible for me to ever get into a groove. IT'S JUST SO TEDIOUS. I didn't expect the space travel to be like Elite: Dangerous, where it's 100% open, but I expected something better than going through 5 loading screens and doing about 30 seconds of actual flying, which felt like ass. I just never felt like the game wanted me to feel like I was in the game world. I was always keenly aware of how I'm just controlling an avatar and talking to cardboard cutouts. I feel more immersed playing Oblivion in 2023 than I do playing Starfield. I don't think everything in the game is bad. I think they did at least an okay job with the combat systems and some of the environments are cool to explore, but because they made it as hard as possible for me to actually settle into the game, I am going to judge it harshly. This was the biggest waste of $60 I've had in a long while and it makes me nervous for The Elder Scrolls: VI.
My secondary disappointment of the year is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. I recognize that CoD has been steaming garbage for five years now. However, I at least found the multiplayer in MW2019 and MW2 to be fun and I sunk a couple hundred hours into each. I hate how monetized the games are and I hate that the campaigns are literal piles of poop. I hate that the game is 200gb. But the multiplayer was fun, so I kept playing. Going into MW3, I expected more of the same, but I'm just completely fed up now. The campaign was the worst they've ever put out in franchise history, the game is a technical disaster, and for the first few weeks of the multiplayer, movement tech was utterly broken and made the game unplayable. Since then, they did fix some of the issues (Sledgehammer seems to be actually listening to the community on some things), but I just can't anymore. The first impression on the game was so bad that I just can't, but that's okay, I'm free now.
My "I am totally burned out on this game, I want to still love it, but I can't" game is Destiny 2. I started playing this game in August of 2022. Since then, I have about a thousand hours in the game. I got into dungeons, raids, grandmaster nightfalls, the whole shebang. I've basically done everything in the game besides master raids and low-man content (3 person raids, solo dungeons, etc.). I am a huge fan of the game world, characters, and story, but after a thousand hours, I'm just feeling burned out on the combat. I do think Bungie does a good job of offering a variety of content. It's rare for me to play any game for a thousand hours, even an MMO. I do plan on playing The Final Shape (the next expansion) when that comes out, but I think I'm just done with the game for now. I still like where it's at, I just would rather spend my time playing RPGs or something.
As for some miscellaneous stuff, I'm finding that I'm enjoying more "timesink" games than before. This year, I played a bunch of Powerwash Simulator, Euro Truck Sim 2, Hardspace Shipbreaker, Dorfromantik, etc. I'm enjoying fewer multiplayer games and especially shooters. I still play a bit of Fortnite and I am loving The Finals right now, but I'm starting to grow away from multiplayer shooters in general. I'm also finding that roguelikes aren't grabbing me as much as they used to (from like 2015-2018 all I played is roguelikes), but I do still play some, like Cobalt Core, and I do still go back to FTL and Isaac. Mainly, though, I'm just looking forward to more RPGs to play at this point. I just want more Baldur's Gate 3, so wherever I can get a similar experience, that's where I'm looking now.
Oh, I also really enjoyed the Burning Shores DLC for Horizon: Forbidden West! The Horizon games are my two favorite games not named Baldur's Gate 3. Spoilers below:
HFW Burning Shores
The Horus fight was incredible, one of the coolest boss fights I've done. Also, my little gay heart was so happy when Aloy and Seyka hooked up. Aloy is a bit of a role model for me (odd to say about a game character, I guess, but we're both gay women with a similar personality, so yeah)Wow, this was long winded, rambly, and directionless, but it helps to type everything out. So thank you for the prompt and thanks to anybody who actually reads this, ha.
My game of the year is 100% Deep Rock Galactic. I bought it on sale in March, and so far I spent 170h on it. It's now my 4th most played game, behind WoW, Eve Online, and Team Fortress 2. All games that I've stopped playing a decade (or more) ago.
I can't recommend this game enough. It's cheap, can be played solo or with randoms (99% that are non-toxic), and you can tweak the difficulty anywhere between "playing with one hand while watching TV" and "omg we're all going to die".
Runner-up: No Man's Sky. I mostly play it on my Steam Deck, when I want to zone out.
Smaller but notable games I played this year:
My deception of the year is Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. I feel like they took out everything I loved about BOTW, and turned up all the annoyances up to 11. An incredible disappointment.
Runner-up: Diablo IV. At least I finished the campaign, but what a long, boring slog.
That's interesting, you had basically the exact opposite Zelda experience as I did. I played BotW this year and I thought it was great, but not GOATED like many people say. When I played TotK, they fixed all the problems I had with BotW, ha. I don't have a point in saying this, just funny we had such opposite experiences.
Your comment reminded me of how much time I also spent in Dorfromantik this year. It's been a go to chill game for me. You also reminded me that I played through Strange Horticulture and also loved it!
As for Deep Rock, I'm hoping one of the two upcoming new deep rock games will hook me. I played a bit of DRG, but didn't get to the level that you did. It was very fun, but didn't hook me, so maybe the new ones will!
I may also just try it again regardless since my gaming tastes have changed since I last played it.
+1 kinda with the Zelda comment for sure! I liked it well enough, and had some fun with it but it didn't hook me too hard. I did have a trip to Japan right after it released though so maybe that's why.
Deep Rock I feel really depends on your game group! Definitely try to get at least a group of 3 or 4, I think. The new roguelike concept looks great though, I'm really excited for that one too.
Yeah, when I first tried DRG, I had a friend or two do some co-op with me a couple nights, but after that, it was mostly solo for me and I had been coming off some bad gaming experiences regarding voice chat with randos (I'm a woman and I had been playing counter strike around that time too and just got too much toxicity). But since then, I've been a lot more comfortable using voice chat in games (nobody has been weird for at least a year now, not even when I went back to counter strike), so maybe it's time to hop back in. I think I have a handful of friends that still play, too, I could tap into them. (For the record, no DRG player ever gave me shit, I was just nervous in general from other games)
My Steam Year in Review
(Posted this before already but figured it's relevant here!)
My Games of 2023:
Some quick jot down thoughts for the games this year I played that have really stuck with me:
I'll come back and edit more thoughts as I revisit this thread, but it's been nice revisiting my lists and just thinking about this year! Hope to hear your list as well, @kfwyre!
Getting a Steam Deck was a game changer for me. I got it on sale in March, giving me a chance to finally enter PC gaming after limiting myself to a Nintendo Switch. With so many possibilities open to me (aside from being able to purchase expensive, current-year games), my selection of the biggest games I have played in 2023 show me to be more conservative than I would have expected:
The Bard's Tale Trilogy: Because Titanfall 2 exceeds the storage capacity of my Deck, the first game I played as a PC gamer is a remake of a 40-ish-old dungeon crawler from the eighties. I remember now why I stopped playing it halfway, it's tough as nails and merciless in its old-school difficulty. Although it loses its mythic appeal in an Information Age where mysteries have no shadows to hide in, this game still embodies the grind that has shaped my gaming ethic.
Dead Island: Like everything else I played this year, I got it on the cheap (a habit I picked up as a Switch customer). This is one of the games I enjoyed most from the Xbox 360 era, and the upgraded graphics are a treat to see. Can't wait for the sequel to come out on Steam next year or whenever. As a non-online-player, this also introduced me to griefing for the first time.
Resident Evil 5: I was most interested to play this particular game out of the entire Humble Bundle pack to see if it was still as fun and racist as before, and it sure is. Don't understand how gamers have on the whole completely washed their hands of this controversy, or how something like the DnD episode of Community gets censored but this receives no heat. The sharpest awareness gamers seem to show is when the hate for RE5's Sheeva gets corrected to "hate for the AI". Still, my biggest disappointment for the PC version is the removal of all QTE, rendering the big-boulder showdown without a solid foundation to stand upon.
So, unfortunately, there is no Game of the Year nominee from me. But I'm looking forward to trying out all the amazing games listed on this page.
This year I got back into Minecraft.
I bought it in 2010 when it was in alpha. My daughter was a 1 year old at the time. Now she's 14 and has been playing it most of her life while I have just checked it out here and there. She showed me the Create mod this summer and it was what I had always wanted in the game. I had had conversations with friends in the first few years of Minecraft, about how it always felt like the end game should involve tech like automated mining equipment and big factories. Create is pretty much that, with a kind of steampunk aesthetic. its like trying to cram Factorio into Minecraft. It's more clumsy than Factorio for sure, but so much more immersive that it's worth it. And honestly create has way more polish than I expected from a 3rd party mod.
So I fired up a brand new survival single-player world and have been slowly progressing through the tech. I just last week finally got brass which unlocks a whole slew of automation stuff. I had to go to the nether for the first time ever and collect a blaze so I could smelt brass in a special heated mixing basin thing. I'm building all kinds of farms... It's been a huge learning experience not just because Create is such an intricate mod but because Minecraft has added so much over the past decade or so.
As I get older gaming has been so hard to find time and energy for. I mostly just want to do more passive entertainment like movies and books. But this has got me excited to spend hours playing in a virtual sandbox again.
Oh man do I have a video for you. You should check out his entire series, but this episode of TangoTek's Create series blew me away. Pretty much exactly what you described for late game factory/automation.
Also, not sure if you are already aware, but there is a pretty mature Tildes Minecraft server. I've been playing when I have free minutes, and it's been a blast to be a part of the larger community. 🙂
That sounds right up my alley. I have way too many hours in factorio, satisfactory, and various lesser known factory games. Like you I got into MC back in like 2011 haven't played in years. I'm tempted to give Create a try but apparently microsoft recently threw old accounts in the trash without ever emailing about it. I might have an old copy of the jar from a decade ago in one of my backups, don't suppose Create works with that? lol
My Steam year in review. This year I've barely played anything on PC. And half of that is staring at the launch screen of Sim City lol, I open the game and can't remember how to continue with the city.
On mobile I've Polytopia - multiplayer doesn't demand long sessions, short 5-10 minutes around the day is enough to play.
Just an FYI that if you're intending to share your Steam year in review, it says "This account's Year In Review is not shared".
Thanks. :) fixed now
Top co-op: Fortnite
Runner-up: Lego Fortnite
I despise that Epic is being hard-nosed about enabling Linux support. However, Fortnite provides a tight game-play loop and has nice cross-platform play. Lego Fortnite is a recent addition, and is a fantastic kid-friendly open-world survival game. For grownups, it's pretty chill. They get GoTY merely because they're the main facilitators of co-op game night with the rest of the 40 yr old crew.
Top Deck game: Time Wasters
Runner-up: Elite Dangerous
I hadn't gotten into Vampire Survivors, but a friend gifted me Time Wasters and it became my top Steam game for the year. I don't know if it's for everyone, but it's fun figuring out how to beat all the challenges. Elite, while better on a big screen with big speakers, is really fun on the Deck because the portability of the Deck means I can pop on Supercruise Assist and carry it around with me in case of Interdiction if I have a distant port to fly to and I need to accomplish other things IRL.
Best game I haven't finished: Kentucky Route Zero
Runner-up: TIS-100
Man KRO is weird. I don't know if I love it or hate it yet. But it's an experience. TIS-100 is a fun little puzzler that I put down because I got the Deck, and I really want to pick it up again....maybe when there's a work lull again.
I gave up on Signalis last year because I got frustrated by the midgame sequence by being low on ammo, but I'm so, so glad I picked it back up early this year. It had room for another boss fight and the RE tank gameplay has the same problems it's had for years, but the aesthetic is so beautifully cold. I looked up one of the endings after the credits rolled and decided I should work for it because I felt it was so fitting, so I started my second playthrough in the same sitting and enjoyed it a second time all the same. When my wife's water broke I was reading Signalis fanfiction at way too late in the morning.
Speaking of, I basically lost months of my gaming life to my first kid... So shoutouts to the Steam Deck and Vampire Survivors being the thing I could mindlessly veg out to, simultaneously engaging enough to forget my worries yet without feeling my precious minutes of free time between naps were staked on what I was playing. (Zelda was a little too heavy for that, turns out.) The Steam Deck wasn't quite the savior I was hoping it would be, but it is a perfect match for that game.
I didn't think League of Legends would be the relaxing breath of fresh air I'd pounce on once my kid was regularly sleeping, but the first go-around of the Arena 2v2v2v2 game mode was absolutely addicting. I think they messed with the sauce a little too much on the second go, so I'm hoping they stick to tuning it. It's way more engaging than the rest of League, at least to me after all these years. Jumps right to the teamfight without the complete lack of structure from ARAM, and the randomness of augments felt both fresh and a decent excuse not to get too toxic over losses. Plus you only need 1-3 people rather than 4 to queue together in it. Most fun my League group had with, uh, League in a very long time.
Anyway Signalis didn't actually come out this year, so I'll go with Lethal Company. If you have some group of people who make you laugh anyway, go play Horror Looney Tunes with them. It's $10. Make some memories.
Your personal Game of the Year: probably either Star Wars Jedi Survivor or Cyberpunk 2.0 w/ Phantom Liberty. The former had some bad bugs when I played through it, but in many ways it was everything I wanted aside from what felt like a lack/decrease in metroidvania backtracking/unlock mechanics. The linearity of the first game I think made that stuff work better, but Survivor is still super solid. I'm just now playing cyberpunk with phantom liberty, and it's sooooo much better than my 2020 playthrough. I'm on better hardware now, sure, but there are so many new mechanics, the quests feel better, and exploring dogtown is awesome.
Highlights: Starfield was definitely big for me too. I think it's a good game, and it could be an amazing game if BGS takes the time to dump loads more handmade content into it over the years. Specifically developing more regions/cities with people and stories that are interesting. I don't mind if a lot of space is empty and most planets don't have stuff everywhere. I don't mind if I can't free fly everywhere in game (although it'd be nice in atmosphere). I just wish the game felt charming in the way other BGS games do, and that means more personal stuff, more of the world being at least nominally, changed by our actions. More culture. Still enjoyed the game though.
The last couple years I had transitioned to couch gaming. I had mostly been playing PS4 which a year ago I upgraded to PS5. Kinda regret not waiting on that because the current PS5 is so freaking huge and really didn't have many games the PS4 couldn't do satisfactorily. Plus halfway through the year it occurred to me that with my PC just gathering dust I should just connect it to my TV and get a wireless keyboard/mouse/lapboard. The second half of 2023 was spent rediscovering PC gaming. I yet again put some hundreds of hours into Factorio and Satisfactory. Mindustry has very recently become my newest favorite, it has the factorio vibe but a much bigger focus on automated defense rather than building a large factory with waves of enemies attacking. RTS not normally my favorite because I like to take my time rather than rabbit clicking but it does a good job of allowing you to "pause" so you can plan your factory plan while mining/building happens in realtime. Couple other smaller games I liked: Dave the Diver, Tavern Master, Mob Factory.
After getting into PC again I of course ended up feeling the need to upgrade my 2018-ish specs. That started with the GPU. I upgraded to a RTX 3060TI. Last time I upgraded was around when the first RTX came out but availability was horrible so I stuck with AMD then and when Cyberpunk first came out my system couldn't do the raytracing and overall framerate was horrible. After upgrading and Cyberpunk 2.0 coming out I was excited to see what it looked like, only to discover my CPU also badly needed an upgrade. Suffice to say everything is upgraded now besides case and CPU. I can play Cyberpunk with much better graphics now but I've struggled to really get into it again. I really liked it when it first came out, maybe I just miss the bugs?
BG3 like a lot of people was a surprise that took my focus for a good chunk of the year. Played a half-orc bard that min-maxed for charisma so I could silvertongue the dialog. I still want to do a second playthrough with the "dark urge" where I make sure not to kill Astorian during that first night he tries to suck you off. I apparently ended up missing a lot of popular content due to that decision.
My favorite switch game was Pikmin 4. I loved the Pikmin games when I was younger and replayed 3 on switch before 4 came out. 4 lightening up on the time pressure and having those separate game modes for it was really nice. Felt borderline open world and certainly modern while still having the same charm and gameplay I loved as a kid.
My favorite game I played on PS is a game that came out several years ago but I only recently discovered: AC Oddyssey. I had never played an Assassin's Creed game before, I had always assumed they were just stealth games. But it was well written, a nice world, and plenty of gameplay. I never fully finished out the DLCs, I need to cycle back on that eventually.
Starfield: I waited for this from the first couple weeks I got into BGS RPGs a few years ago. It didn't disappoint, exactly, but you have to really like Bethesda's formulae, or have never touched a similar game, to really like it I think. I loved every second until I burned out at the 150hr mark, and plan to play it periodically like I do Skyrim or Oblivion.
Baldur's Gate 3: Another big release, deserved all of its accolades. I bought Pillars of Eternity two years ago and this was what I wanted: a refined, modern take on the CRPG genre that focuses on gameplay experience while still exposing us to and leaving us at the whims of probability and game rules. It is simultaneously "baby's first CRPG" and an excellent, deep take on the genre.
Vampire Survivors: The DLC just does. Not. Stop. I restarted the game to clear one at a time because of there being so damn much, but the progression is still great, and the game is a great way to blow 15-30 minutes.
I tried Deathloop and will pick it back up but am not a big fan od the way Dishonored and similar games feel, mechanically. It was entertaining and fun, so maybe I'll power through and get to the rest of Arkane's games. I play games that either put you fromt and center in a clumsy way like BGS stuff orngames that pull you away from the action anymore like CRPGs or other top-down games.
This year was a pretty mixed bag for me in gaming with incredible highs and shocking lows.
So the big one in Baldur's Gate 3 and while it is spectacular on almost every front, I just can't push through into Act 3. The small irritations like managing party inventory and AI pathfinding started to add up and knowing how buggy the end can be put a pause to my playthrough. I know there has been a ton of good patches with more on the way so I'll wait a while before seeing the story to the end.
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The 2 games of the year for me are Resident Evil 4 and Phantom Liberty.
I think I was lucky when I initially played Cyberpunk because it was a few patches in and it was mostly stable. The game had amazing vibes and aesthetics, fun end game combat and the central stories were well executed. But all the while I couldn't shake the feeling that it would have been better packaged as a more linear immersive sim because the wider world and RPG systems were so lackluster.
Phantom Liberty took all of my expectations for the game and concentrated it into one corner of the map. The reworks to perks, cyberwear and skills made build diversity meaningful. The throwaway side gigs were on par with side quests and both had their fair share of moral ambiguity. And the main story just went wild with stellar performances and it's branching paths. It's also the only FPS game where I went nuts with the fashion system and my character had a look for every occasion. Amazing game and I hope they carry the lessons forward.
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On the other side, I have not played much of the original RE4. I'm well aware of its significance and some of the memes but it was just I game that I didn't have the means and then time to play. However I am a big fan of everything the RE team has made since 7 so expectations were reasonably high.
And I wasn't immediately sold. There was the atmosphere and horror of the opening minutes conflicting with Leon being so... Leon. After the first village fight I'm pulling out my hair trying to figure out why he's not reacting like a normal person. And then it clicked: I've already seen the worst day in Leon's life. Now I'm just seeing a bad day in the office.
I can't comprehend how and why this game works. In isolation, none of these things make any sense. A secret service agent fighting a lake whale in the shadow of zombie Napoleon's castle, right after a dance party at the underground shooting range owned by a cockney weapons dealer that doesn't sell ammo. And that's just act 1.
Also the combat sandbox is a visceral and reactive joy. Mercenaries is my go-to time waster. The economy for ammo and currency seems balanced on a knife edge. And the bosses are fun with the right amount of sponge. And the deceptive verity in enemies and map layouts. And I really love all the side characters. I could gush about it all for ages.
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My 3 year old is very musical so that got me into rythum games like Rythum Doctor, OSU and Rythum Heaven. But HiFi Rush was a real treat with its mix Saturday morning cartoon styling and Davil May Dance Revolution gameplay. Realizing that this was the year of some exelent character writing and acting. Kai was the perfect "head empty, heart full" and the whole tone filled the gap left by lack of meaningful Overwatch storylines.
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Other quick picks would be BattleBit and my new multi-player game. System Shock remake providing a very classic Immersive Sim. Jusant actually evolving climbing systems and Slay the Princess with their take on meta Visual Novels. Still slow playing Alan Wake 2 to savor the experience.
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The big disappointment for me was Tears of the Kingdom. It's nothing to do with the games quality, it's more about my experience of its story and world.
In retrospect its clear that there's was a strongly implied path to find stroy beats, gear and techniques and it was designed from a new player perspective. This design works in something like the original game or fallout new vagas because the player is not equipped with the knowledge and gear to stray too far. But I went in with several hundred hours BotW logic and would constantly brute force my way through the knowledge barriers, only to frustrate myself at the gear checks. It took a while to realize that the game was not trying to be dark souls and the story isn't overly convoluted, I was just in the wrong places. Also, I still see those hands in my nightmares.
I don't really believe there's a "correct" way to play a game but this was clearly the incorrect way and my experience suffered for it.
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Gave plenty of games the pile of shame too. Mostly because of time and but think 2025 will be a slower year. That's Bayonetta 3, Armoured Core, Coccoon, Sea of Stars and a few others.
But there were a few games I did drop or just hard pass on. Starfield, Harry Potter, Destiny, Overwatch, Watrframe, Diablo 4. It's scary how hard it was to drop Destiney in particular, partly because it's been 10 years. Then I realised that they took a lot of my money over that time. And I have considerably less game than I paid for. Maybe 7 full games are"vaulted", PvP is dead, gambit is dead, all of lightfall could have been an item discription, the studio is gutted compromising all future releases. Expansion, ontop of season passes on top of mini passes on top of dungeon keys on top of silver.
The live service model seems to put player and developers in the same space of demanding 100% attention, 100% of the time. Slip up a little and you've wasted that battle pass or you're out of a job.
I played a bunch of games this year. I'm into indie stuff and don't really keep up with current year games (just the fact I played a few this year is a big surprise), but here's what stuck with me:
Best game I played this year: Disco Elysium. This was an RPG unlike any others I've played before, and I absolutely loved it. I wish it offered more replayability, though - I feel like I got to know the world and its characters really well in the 37 hours I spent on this game, and that a different flavour of hobocop wouldn't make much of a difference.
Best couch co-op: WIlmot's Warehouse. I loved organising the little boxes and what I loved even more is that apparently, there's a bunch of different ones I haven't even seen yet. I'll pester my partner for a replay in 2024.
Most underrated: Eternal Threads. The cliffhanger at the end aside, it's a great time-travelling mystery that I enjoyed immensely. I especially loved how new events happen and old ones get erased as you changed the timeline, and how real and fleshed-out the characters felt. I still can't get over how few reviews it has on Steam.
Most innovative mechanic: Heaven's Vault. The game's main mechanic is translation, and it hooked me to the point where I got frustrated with the limitations of how it was implemented. At some point, you find a giant book and I joked that it was the final boss. I only wish I could make more progress with translation without doing another playthrough - yeah, I know the game has themes of cycles and rebirth and blah blah, but it's enough of a time sink that I'm not gonna replay it just to unlock more words.
Honorary mention: Roadwarden. This was such a delightful surprise. It's a really well-executed text-based RPG with meaningful choices and a surprisingly detailed and sprawling world. Super replayable, too - I might do just that in 2024. I loved the entire vibe of it - the pixel illustrations, how vivid the world felt, and the way it made me feel almost nostalgic, even though I don't think I've ever played anything like it before.
Best oldie goldie: GTA Vice City. I played this as part of a challenge to play games I already own more, and was surprised to see it ran on my Deck - and more, that it was actually incredibly entertaining. Yeah, it's janky, the graphics are bad, the controls are only half working, the jumping animation is hilariously terrible, and falling into water instakills you. But at the same time, it has so much soul - all the vehicles, the radio programs (!!!), random comments on the street, the missions you encounter by just interacting with the world. I would probably finish it, too, if it wasn't for the fact that shooting is incredibly frustrating with a controller, and I'm not sure I care enough to switch to mouse + keyboard.
Best board game: Tranquility. To be fair, I'm not as into board gaming as I used to be, but this was a very cute little surprise. It's cheap, simple, beautiful, easy to teach to people who are not into board games, portable, and I don't seem to get bored of it.
Other things I played and loved this year:
Biggest disappointments:
Plan for next year: I bought Baldur's Gate 3, which is pretty much the price of my entire yearly gaming budget (or a good chunk of it, at least). I started it already, but once I'm done, I'll go back to the selection of games patiently waiting in my library. I know for a fact that I have some really good games I just haven't gotten around to playing, so maybe 2024 is the year it happens.
I can’t really explain how playing Disco Elysium as a different kind of cop and making different choices changes the story without spoiling the story, so I’ll just say my unsolicited advice is to come back in a year or two, however long it takes for the game to be “fresh” again for you, and do it all over again. Such a fantastic game. Genuinely some of the best storytelling not just in any video game, but just some of the best storytelling ever.
Honestly I'm super happy to take at your word - it was such a great game I don't need a whole lot of convincing to replay it. :)
I've come over theother thread which has a top comment leading here, so here I am.
I play heavily on Steam Deck and if not then I play on Linux desktop, which means I play almost exclusively Steam games for the ease of use. So I invite you to have a look at my summary.
But you don't want to look at statistics, you want to hear it from me.
Horizon Zero Dawn. The best game I have played this year. It easily makes it to my top games of lifetime list I don't like to say Top10 or Top5 or whatever - I just mean the game had huge impact and I was blown away by how it is made.
I went blind into it, just knew the screenhots, haven't seen even trailer or read any description or anthin like that. I don't play that much action RPGs yet this one was easy to get into and learn all the mechanics of the game. While I consider it a good game in themechanics department and also in graphics, it's nohing when you compare that to the story and setting of the game.
HZD serves you pieces of information about what is going on, what the world is, whe the world is, how it became that machines are more advanced than people etc. You start wondering about the pieces while the game takes you on tour around the game world. And finally you get big pieces that help you put all together and you are in awe of how the story was put together. I have enjoyed uncivering all the pieces and experiencing it through. I enjoyed it that much, that I went back to the game after 10 months and replayed (just the story) it once more and finished all the achievements - something I have done only a few times in my 25 years of gaming. The game is that good!