My Favorite Games of 2024

10 games worthy of your time from 2024

Every year I start these lists with a big preamble about the year in games. This year I’d like to keep it somewhat short. I’ve already said a ton about other games in my “Not-So-Honorable Mentions” article, so you already know a lot about games I played in 2024 and didn’t include in my top ten.

I also like to talk about the games I didn’t get around to or didn’t play enough of in 2024. At least, the ones I think had a shot at making the list if I had finished them. This year, the clear misses for me were Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Shadow of the Erdtree, Tactical Breach Wizards, and Metaphor Refantazio. 

Like a Dragon is no surprise as I’m still making my way through Yakuza Zero and I’m hoping to change the Kamurochō-sized hole in my gaming experience in 2025. Indiana Jones seems really special, but it only just came out in December, so it was a hard one to commit to finishing alongside everything else. Shadow of the Erdtree feels like more, harder Elden Ring, and I’ve enjoyed what I played so far, but it seems like many think it’s even better than the core game. I just haven’t gotten there yet. 

Tactical Breach Wizards seemed fantastic from the Steam Next Fest demo I played, but once again I just didn’t find time for the final release yet. And what I think would have probably been the biggest upset to my current list, Metaphor Refantazio, is simply one 50+ hour game too many for a single year of gaming. I’ve had my eye on that game since the moment it was announced, I loved what I played of the demo, and its inclusion at the top of many others’ GOTY lists has me thinking I’d have it there too. Alas, it will have to be something for next year.

That said, now that you hopefully have a good sense of what I played and didn’t play, onto my top ten games of the year!

10 – I Am Your Beast

I Am Your Beast is the pure distillation of the meme, “I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I’m not kidding.” It is a brilliant bit of design that takes a level-based speedrun score attack core and surrounds it with a wrapper of compelling narrative delivered through excellent voice acting and a simple presentation. 

I can’t imagine anyone complaining about the small scope of this game because the gameplay is so smooth and fast-paced, the narrative is genuinely entertaining, and it probably runs like a dream on any hardware.

My favorite thing about I Am Your Beast is that you can get equal enjoyment out of it whether you play through the entire story in a few hours or spend a dozen hours perfecting your high scores. The game invites you to dabble with its score attack elements by asking you to retry some levels to progress the narrative, but it never feels like the devs strong-arming players to play it “the right way”. We frankly need more games that are 2 hours to finish the main story and 10+ hours for a completionist.

9 – Star Wars Outlaws

Star Wars Outlaws is exactly what the Star Wars fan hivemind seems to be saying it wants. Strong characters that aren’t ciphers for social commentary, a world that looks and feels exactly like the original trilogy, and a story that stays fun and light like Star Wars should, but dips into the seedy underbelly instead of being another Skywalker adventure.

At this point I assume Star Wars fans just want to be angry, because Outlaws was an absolute blast. I got more invested in Kay Vess, Nix, and ND-5 than I was expecting to. It snuck up on me, to the point where one dramatic sequence on Tatooine had me getting a bit choked up and genuinely worried about the fate of the characters, despite knowing full well that this is Star Wars, not Game of Thrones. That isn’t an easy magic trick to pull off.

Ubisoft gets a lot of flack for making the same open world games again and again, but while Outlaws is an open world it doesn’t feel like the same copy/paste formula that the Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed games have. I’m convinced that if Sony made this game everyone would be gushing about it right now. And credit to the team at Ubisoft Massive, who put quick work into fixing the issues the game had at launch. They were entirely overblown issues, but still, it’s an even better game than it was when it first came out.

8 – Indika

Every minute of Indika feels like something you’ve never seen in a video game before. This story of an unwanted nun sent on a mission and tormented by the voice of the devil looks more like an arthouse film than a game. At the heart of the story is Indika, a kind-hearted, good person who is simply in her own head a bit too much for an oppressive world. She is a beacon of light in so many scenes where some of the saddest, most bizarre events are unfolding around her.

The gameplay is simple, feeling a bit like The Last of Us with every combat sequence deleted. You’re mostly traversing and puzzle solving, with some flashbacks in the form of 2D pixel-art sequences. Over the course of a few hours the game bounces from one new idea to the next, focusing on novelty rather than depth of gameplay. It’s a linear, short ride that tells a story using video game language, but isn’t interested in challenging the player too much.

It’s the kind of game I see myself replaying again and again over the years. For one, because it isn’t long, but also because it tells such a rich story full of impressively weird imagery and unexpectedly artful cinematography. I just hope that, like so many other Unreal Engine 5 games, it runs a little bit better next time I decide to replay it.

7 – Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

A game so stylish that I’m a little sad I chose the Nintendo Switch to play it on, The Lost Crown is basically the Hollow Knight of Prince of Persia games. The combat feels a bit like Smash Bros.—which might sound like a criticism—but in a single player adventure that means it has a surprisingly amount of fighting game-like depth. Parrying attacks and countering into a series of air juggles, then rolling it all into a screen-filling super attack might be one of the most satisfying bits of gameplay in a game this year.

That it pairs some really exciting combat with equally thrilling platforming, exploration, and puzzle-solving secures this game’s spot as one of the best Metroidvanias ever made. Saying all that, it almost has me wondering if the game should be higher on my list.

But for as flashy as the game can be, it’s aesthetically a bit generic. The story is just okay. We should all be gushing about this game endlessly but I think it lacks that little bit of extra special sauce that caused games like Hollow Knight and Symphony of the Night to explode in popularity. Still, if you put that aside this is easily one of the most satisfying games to play that came along all year.

6 – Silent Hill 2

If you told me after the release of The Medium that Bloober Team would be responsible for a thoughtful and tasteful remake of Silent Hill 2 I wouldn’t have believed you. I’ve liked a few games out of this studio, but their whole bread and butter seemed to be somewhat thoughtless and tasteless horror games filled with cheap scares and ill-conceived messages. I don’t know what changed with Silent Hill 2 other than the pressure of such lofty expectations, but the result is truly incredible.

This remake of Silent Hill 2 carefully improves a 20+ year old PS2 game in almost every way, without stripping away any of the special sauce that made it so profound in the first place. The voice acting and character performances are miles better than the original, and yet they retain that awkward, clunky delivery that made it clear that everyone in Silent Hill was a bit damaged.

Each area is longer, rebuilt with better puzzle design and shockingly good combat mechanics. Silent Hill doesn’t have to be fun to play to be a good game—it never really was before—but it’s a nice change of pace to play a game that’s simultaneously fucked up and impossible to put down. My sessions with this game were LONG. A lot of horror games can be easy to shelve because they’re both scary and unpleasant to play, but this remake of Silent Hill 2 was every bit as scary as the original and I couldn’t stop playing it.

5 – Crow Country

A lot of recent indie horror games are going for a low-poly aesthetic reminiscent of PS1 games and I’m all for it when it’s done well. That said, Crow Country is special because it brings a completely unexpected visual aesthetic to a Resident Evil-style survival horror game: the pre-rendered backgrounds and stout, colorful character models of Final Fantasy VII. It gives Crow Country a vibe unlike any other horror game, and it’s the perfect look for a game taking place in a haunted amusement park. Imagine the Golden Saucer with zombies and shotguns and you have an idea of what’s going on here.

I think they’ve released more challenging difficulties since launch, but one thing I appreciated about Crow Country was that at the Survival Horror difficulty it feels more like a nice entry point into the genre than a response to grizzled veterans asking for a greater challenge. I had plenty of ammo, I never died, and yet I still had a great time. I already have Resident Evil and Dead Space to appreciate for their unforgiving challenge, so this felt like a breath of fresh air.

Crow Country is ultimately more about the vibes, puzzle-solving, and world-building. There is a dark, intense story at the heart of this game. There are twists and surprises, and it wraps up in a satisfying way. You also keep a log of all the documents and notes you find around the amusement park, which gives a fun layer of challenge to the puzzles. A note won’t necessarily make sense when you first find it, but it’s ultimately a clue to a puzzle in a room you just haven’t found yet.

4 – Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

My biggest issue with Final Fantasy VII Remake (part one of this trilogy) was that it was an incredible 15 hour game hidden away in a 40-hour slog with too much filler. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth doubles down on the filler, the minigames, and more than doubles the previous game’s length. Logically I should hate it. But, against all odds, I loved nearly every minute of this gigantic detour of a game.

The big difference is that Rebirth is truly about the time you spend with this ever-growing cast of misfits. The minigames are more fun. The open world is a bit stiff but gives the game a sense of endless adventure. The whole idea here is that you’re spending quality time with your found family, learning more about them, and sort of intentionally putting off the inevitable.

I also kind of can’t stand the storytelling style of Kingdom Hearts, so the multiverse-ish-ness of this remake story shouldn’t work for me either. Here though, it all comes down to how good the character moments are. Aerith knows more than she should, and you can see a bit of sadness behind her pleas to spend extra time at a resort or an amusement park or any of the other 10 billion diversions this game has. It’s that haunting depth, and the pain the characters cause each other over the course of this silly story that left me reeling instead of rolling my eyes.

3 – 1000xRESIST

1000xRESIST plays out like an interactive sci-fi novel in the best way. I can’t help comparing it to one of my favorite books: Harrow the Ninth (the second of 3 excellent books by Tamsyn Muir). Much like that book, 1000xRESIST makes very little sense early on. It borders on frustrating. But if you have a little patience and pay attention the whole thing will feel like a magic trick, and your perseverance will be rewarded.

Developed by a small team, the game pulls off some beautiful moments with janky-looking character models and backdrops. It looks good when it matters most, but it’s miles away from the visual extravaganza of triple-A and even a lot of indie games. It’s a notable thing about the game, but more so in how little it matters when the story is firing on all cylinders and you’re locked in for the ride.

1000xRESIST is about a lot of different things. It’s the sort of teenage angst of being singled out and misunderstood combined with themes of immigration, protest, deception, and even the COVID-19 pandemic. To blend all of that together and simultaneously make it mysterious and effective is a massive accomplishment. No wonder many are calling it one of the best sci-fi stories of all time.

2 – Balatro

Balatro is a game design masterpiece. It is the kind of game that baffles me because, even on paper, the math and game design chops needed to make this all sing the way it does seems impossible. I’ve stopped and started Balatro mostly out of necessity—I had to step away and forget about it so I could play other games—but every time I come back I’m blown away by how fresh and exciting every new run is.

I’m nowhere near feeling like I’m bored or had my fill, but what’s so beautiful about Balatro is I never feel that overwhelming compulsion for one more run. I’m not sure that’s a universally experience, but I’d like to think the developer, LocalThunk, would love to hear that. After all, they’ve been pretty vocal about their stance against gambling and not wanting Balatro, despite its Poker-aesthetic, to be associated with an unhealthy addiction.

Instead it’s a game I play simply because it’s ingeniously designed, endlessly fun, and no two runs are alike. I suspect I’ll be playing this one for years to come. I’ll probably rebuy it on a dozen more platforms before I die. Hell, I already own three copies.

1 – Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

The latest from Sayonara Wild Hearts developer Simogo is a huge departure from that game and a display of this team’s impressive range. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a puzzle adventure game set in a creepy, survival horror-inspired hotel with a haunted past. 

This is one of those puzzle games that requires a real-life notebook. A lot of the gameplay is happening in your head as you piece together an ever-growing log of documents and clues, which you tie together to solve various puzzles around the hotel. The game reveals itself in layers, opening up in complexity as more locked doors become unlocked, and your character’s handbag fills with items. I wouldn’t want to spoil the later secrets of this game, but needless to say some really, really cool stuff happens.

The puzzles are quite challenging, but the reward for solving them is a beautiful game with a story that is itself a bit of a puzzle. Simogo clearly loves horror games, and they made something that is spooky without ever distracting from the puzzle-solving.

Puzzle games like this don’t come around too often. The best of them (The Witness, Tunic, even this year’s Animal Well) tend to come along with some caveats. Here, that isn’t the case. Lorelei is oozing with style, tells an awesome story, AND it’s one of those once-a-year-at-most puzzle games that I absolutely treasure.

It’s not for everyone by any stretch. After all, a hardcore pen-and-paper-required puzzle game with horror elements is going to turn away a pretty large audience. But that’s also what makes it my favorite game of the year. Rather than trying to appeal to anyone with a wallet, Simogo is making art for freaks like me, and I love them for it.