Stories of 2024

I am still here. And so are you. 

Whether you’re reading this 2024 retrospective or writing an entry for it, playing a game on this list or making a game that will end up on a future one, you’re still here.

The industry and its forever-famished, gaping maw may have chewed you up and spat you out, or stretched you thin with its Sisyphean task of creating more content with less, or frustrated you beyond belief with its inability to permanently oust the worst-behaved people in its ranks, but you endured.

You endured and you continued to find joy in video games. You aren’t getting rich writing about Astro Bot. You’re certainly not getting ego points reading the comments. You’re doing this because you love to.

Here are the words of 101 different people who continued to love video games in 2024.

By Alyssa Mercante
Twitch / Patreon
Recommended read: Sweet Baby Inc. Doesn’t Do What Some Gamers Think It Does

Sorry We’re Closed

The thing that excites me most about art is specificity. Small truths which can only come from lived experience. Sorry We’re Closed was a dangerously potent dose of specificity. Set amidst the impoverished (though naturally stylish) queer scene of London, where angelic and demonic forces clash, and being single means being trapped in a survival horror game. For anyone dating in 2024, romance and horror are hardly surprising bedfellows. Where is the dividing line between allowing yourself to be vulnerable and accepting abuse? How do you untangle your desires from bad habits? Can you ever really trust someone? This game didn’t just cut to the bone of my gay ass, it took off limbs and beat me with them. I think I liked it.

By Samantha Greer
Recommended read: IT EATS PLANETS
From the author: Free Palestine

Dread Delusion

Library whales. Agonizing corpses crammed into mechanical shells. A guy named “Maggotson.” Dread Delusion never runs out of new ideas. It drops you into an impossible fantasy world of floating islands, purple skies, dragons, airships, talking skulls – familiar fantasy presented with a confidence and novelty that makes it feel like a strange dream you can’t escape. It holds a torch for the Morrrowind era of RPGs with more big ideas than graphical capability, using its throwback aesthetic to set your imagination free. It’s a grotesque little fairy tale, meant to prod at your mind and pull you in ever deeper.

By Ryan Stevens
Recommended read: Doomed Vaporwave Future
From the author: Shoutout to TAG, The Animation Guild

Thrasher

first, there’s darkness. then –

there’s Color.
neon reflected through the glass sky,
every shape a mirror
so sharp, so delicate.
circles and lines,
lines and circles. then –

there’s sound, sound
glorious Sound!
i hear birds, their crystalline squawks
repeating 
repeating.
whales drone, wolves howl
echoes in the synthetic night.

can i live here
until it shatters?
body like an eel,
my blood is Bass.

By Giovanni Colantonio
Recommended read: I ended up on Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s lamest date. It was perfect for me

Nine Sols

Nine Sols sees developer Red Candle Games veer away from its psychological horror roots (Detention, Devotion) to deliver a fantastic first stab at a 2D action Metroidvania. The gameplay rocks thanks to tight platforming and combat complete with a satisfying Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice-inspired parry mechanic. A beautiful hand-drawn art direction blending Eastern mythology with cyberpunk elements makes this challenging romp easy on the eyes. Tack on a strong narrative, and Nine Sols is one of 2024’s best and, dare I say, underappreciated indie gems.

By Marcus Stewart (Bluesky / Twitter)
Recommended read: Crimson Desert’s wild combat left me skeptical at Gamescom

Road 96

Run, my boy! Run!

Road 96 is explicitly political, but it is also the same explicitness that impairs its thematic incisiveness. A group of children and adolescents are traversing the immense land of Petria to reach the borderland and flee from their country. On the road, there are people from different walks of life talking about the coming election and even some radical designs. Yet I doubt if an underage person can really understand the seriousness of these topics, or if their innocent minds are actually used by despicable grown-ups to justify their own interests. The younger generation should not serve as appendages to adult narratives, otherwise it will be only reduced to another infantile quest for utopia. However, Road 96 makes one important thing perfectly clear: even under dictatorship, democratic voting is always possible, not by hand but by foot.

By Zonghang Zhou (Bluesky – Twitter)
Recommended read: The Ambivalence of Resistance
From the author: Maybe some simple considerations on the predicament of naivety and innocence in a desperate situation, dictatorship or post-apocalypse, faced by children and young adults

Ace Attorney Investigations Collection

Many people know about Mother 3 and the petition to officially get an English-language release to the end of the acclaimed Mother trilogy. Well, Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor’s Gambit is my Mother 3.

While Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth did get an English release, its sequel, released in Japan in 2011, never did. Or, it turns out, not yet, because we finally got an official English release in Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, a remastered rendition of the two games, this past September. It felt so good to finally be able to finish the duology as the resident, no-nonsense prosecutor, Miles Edgeworth.

By Dea Ratna
Recommended read: Emulating My Past

The Finals

Within an industry often stained by predatory microtransactions, egregiously bad UI design, and a complete absence of cohesive direction, The Finals can’t seem to climb above it all as an exception. Yet, despite the myriad of flaws and problematic decisions that I could rightfully berate this game for, I ultimately can’t help but view it fondly. Unlike most others that fall victim to this medium’s worst trends, The Finals, through its constant and varied stream of explosive spectacle, is an undeniably fun experience. And no matter how pretentious my tastes may generally be, that’s all it needs to be for me to deem it worthwhile.

By John Anderson
Recommended read: Drangleic

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

Working in games media for the last few years has taught me many things. One of which was to find new hobbies other than video games. Because of that, I was introduced to the tabletop version of Warhammer: 40,000. This expensive hobby quickly took over my life, as did the lore surrounding it. With all that being said, it should be easy to understand why I enjoyed playing Warhammer: 40,000 Space Marine 2. Not only was it a great game, but it was amazing to see how true Saber Interactive stayed to the lore. The studio understood the assignment, and on top of that, it looked incredibly beautiful. When I wasn’t killing heretics in the name of The Emperor, I was walking around and looking at the sights in the grim, dark future.

The funny part is that Space Marine 2 doesn’t do anything too special, and it plays similarly to the old Gears of War games that came out on the Xbox 360. And I mean that in the best way possible. There’s nothing more spectacular than running down a hallway in a mech-like suite and killing everything that isn’t you. Space Marine 2 is filled with plenty of moments that make me feel like an unstoppable machine, and the ending perfectly captures what makes Warhammer: 40,000 a compelling universe.

By Luis Joshua Gutierrez (Bluesky / Twitter)
Recommended read: Overwatch 2’s Mauga always had two guns — but it took time to get them ‘just right’

I’ve been a Warhammer 40,000 obsessive since I was 12. My in wasn’t the tabletop game or video games, it was the endless amount of novels set in the grimdark future of 40K. I still read about five to ten Warhammer 40,000 novels a year. This endless amount of lore is my cross to bear, and it takes up a good 70% of my brain.

Enter Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, the beautiful sequel to the criminally underrated Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. It continues Ultramarine Titus’s story and it does so with genuine aplomb, telling a genuinely stirring story that acts as both an in for new fans and a masterfully researched and put together tale for longtime 40K nerds (like me).

It’s also a simple game. A throwback to a better time in gaming. It’s a third-person shooter that doesn’t do a lot, but what it does, it does so damn well. It’s the highest resolution Xbox 360 game ever made and I mean that as a massive compliment.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a love letter to the universe it exists in and to the brilliant mid-budget games of yesteryear. I don’t really have anything smart or academic to say about it. It’s just a damn good game that delivers exactly what it set out to deliver. And in a hectic year, personally, to find such simple joys in my favorite fictional universe was a breath of fresh air.

By Cole Henry
Recommended read: The Excellent Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 Captures How Skating Is a Way of Life
From the author: “The poetry of the Earth is never dead.” – John Keats

Felvidek

This year came with the daily temptation to hit the bottom of the bottle. Pavol gets it.

Okay, so I’m not a traumatized Ottoman war vet and my wife didn’t leave me for a cult. But like him, I’m wrangling inner demons and the chaos unfolding outside my window – we’re doing daily external evils now too, I guess. And like him, I’ve got a job to do, Catholic guilt to repress, and a bunch of unique individuals traversing the overworld adding their own problems and hilarity to my day. And that experience reflects in the funniest, most refreshing game I’ve played in a long, long time.

Welcome the horrors. Moon them, even. Put on your cheesiest shit-eating grin. The journey continues.

By Kenzie Du
Recommended read: Job Anxiety

Webfishing

Webfishing deeply understands why everyone was obsessed with Animal Crossing: New Horizons back in 2020. It understands why the pandemic brought everyone together as cute critters on laid-back islands. It also understands that you don’t need an unskippable five-minute cutscene every time someone enters or leaves the island.

Webfishing is a perfect spot for hanging out with the homies. There’s just enough of a ladder of fish to catch, equipment to earn, secrets to discover and clothes to earn that you always have some soft goal to pursue. But like real fishing, the fish aren’t really the point – they’re simply context for spending time on call with transatlantic friends long into the night, for listening to shit midis played on in-game guitars and punting each other off lighthouses. It might not be as globally necessary as Nintendo’s pandemic-era lifeline, but Webfishing is a more pure and perfect little chatroom than New Horizons could have ever been.

By Nat Clayton
Recommended read: Why Nuclear Throne is still the best roguelike around
From the author: a better world is always possible. free palestine
Editor’s note: You should check out A Highland Song

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Batman’s dead.

And now it’s time for the bad guys to save the world.

I like it.

Harley Quinn got the last laugh, finally icing The Dark Knight — without Joker.

I’m not sure there was any other choice but murder. The heroes had all seriously gone rogue.

Batman killed Robin.

This was different, felt more real, even with the multiverse shit. The good guys usually win, but not this time. A new story, something blood-soaked, gritty, like they’re always asking for.

I’m just glad it lived up to the title, “Kill the Justice League.”

Too bad the game isn’t good.

By Stephen Wilds
Recommended read: Mega Man’s journey from Blue Bomber to bombshell

Melatonin

These days, people are very open about how perpetually knackered they are. We embrace it, and most of us stick on some lofi chill playlist or other while we quietly revel. How seamlessly, then, Melatonin slots into our joyous slothing, with laidback rhythm-action mechanics and an outrageously endearing, downtempo soundtrack. I can certainly relate to the sleepy lead character who does very little besides snooze on their couch and dream about doing stuff.

Oh, and through Melatonin, I’ve discovered the power of pastel. It’s awakened in me a new appreciation for faded-bathroom blue and granny-knickers pink, to the point where every customisable software I own is now a gradient of those very colours. In that way, Melatonin has been a touch more life-changing than I anticipated.

By Adam Grindley
Recommended read: Liberating Limitation

Realise

Realise is a song, a video game, and a helpless rage simulator all at once – and it delivers more ideas and raw emotion in three and a half minutes than most games do in fifty hours. Despite its length, it’s one of the most memorable games I’ve played this year, a vibrant, full-throated cry of desperation from one wildly careening heart (hearse?) to another. And the song is a banger as well.

By Kat (Pixel a Day / Bluesky)
Recommended watch: We’re Celebrating the Wrong Indie Games
Editor’s note: You can play Realise here

Wingspan

I played my first game of Wingspan during Christmas of 2022, while at my girlfriend’s grandmother’s house. My girlfriend is now my fiancée, and one of my favorite things about my future extended family is their love of Wingspan. It’s an ardor I’ve adopted, especially after adding the digital version of the game to my Steam account. I’ve become mildly addicted to real-time multiplayer rounds — sometimes with my fiancée, sometimes with her tech-savvy grandma, often with strangers.

On a vacation with my twin brother and his partner, we all played by passing my laptop around, and now my brother’s got the bug, too. Whether I’m playing in a bar in Portland, at a crowded table in Peekskill, or from the comfort of my own bed, Wingspan reminds me of the people I love. And I think that’s something worth crowing about.

By Lena Wilson
Recommended read: Nightbitch Review

Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance

Demons have descended upon Tokyo and I’m stopping to take in the sights, from dilapidated buildings to ghosts of major landmarks like Tokyo Tower and Shinobazu Pond. Despite the dearth of remaining tourist attractions, I’m excited to explore every inch of this desolate landscape. The Miman are wonderful tour guides, filling me in on the history of each ward I visit. But even better than the Miman are the vending machines, dispensing relics of a world long lost. There is great comfort in seeing these beacons of familiarity standing strong, still functioning after twenty years of relentless demon infestation.

By Niki Fakhoori
Recommended read: Black and White

Star Wars

I hate Star Wars.

Growing up, my sister loved it, waxing poetic about starships, lightsabers, Yoda, and The Clone Wars. She talked about the films, the books, the games; she spoke of it all so lovingly, so fervently that I despised every word. I hated Luke, and Luuke, and Luuuke. I hated the idea of kyber crystals and the force. I hated Chewbacca being crushed by a moon.

And I grew up. In my mid-thirties now, and the world of Star Wars has exploded into a glut of media. Movies, shows, books, comics, games, cabaret shows… every facet of life has been touched by Star Wars, and my partner loves it. So to share in her passion, I decided to try and watch Star Wars for the first time since I was a child. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the poderacing and lightsaber fights. I enjoyed the colors and matte paintings. I enjoyed it all as my partner waxes poetic about starships, lightsabers, Yoda, and The Clone Wars. Through her eyes, I finally understand it.

I love Star Wars.

By Dean Cooper
Recommended read: The Evolution of Edutainment
From the author: Corporate theft is hardly theft at all

Kill Knight

Deep in the abyss, scuttling beetles and chainsaw-edged pinwheels race across the screen, creatures of blood covered in a film of snuff movie grain. They extend a clawed hand in invitation to a tooth-grinding and thumb-destroying dance that can whirl on and on, seemingly forever. A combination of Devil Daggers’ nightmarish gladiatorial abyss and Hotline Miami’s electric, on-the-fly tactical bloodletting, Kill Knight looks, sounds, and moves like an arcade game that parents would have written Tipper Gore letters about. There’s no real danger to it, but that doesn’t matter when there’s a scaly part of our brains capable of forgetting the distance between the virtual and the real.

By Reid McCarter (Bluesky / Twitter)
Recommended read: Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth Passes the Torch Forward
Editor’s note: read and support Bullet Points

Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town

2024 was a year of nostalgia for me; many of my hours went into a completionist run of Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town. It’s a remake of two GBA games, remakes themselves of the PS1 game Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, first released in 1999, 25 years ago. When I play the Switch remake, I hold in my hands all that history — the game’s and my own.

Every version of me has lived in Mineral Town: childhood me, who thought a farming sim sounded stupid. Teenage me, who wanted to play professional tennis. 20s me, escaping grad school. 30s me, in a new career, looking both forward and back.

Who will I be the next time I play? In some ways, it doesn’t matter — games provide so much comfort (in the form of communal coping and life reconfiguration, for instance); no matter where I go, or who I become, I know that Mineral Town will always be there for me.

By Natalie Schriefer (Website / Bluesky / Twitter)
Recommended read: Learning Self-Compassion
From the author: Making space for games writers is vital because so many outlets are closing and laying off workers

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

I had wondered after the past couple of movies if it was even possible to recapture the feel of the original Indiana Jones trilogy, that perfect balance of fun globe-trotting adventure with slick humor and sending fascists to the morgue. I’d also wondered with Arkane Studios’ closure if someone could pick up where the Dishonored series left off and make a first-person stealth game that was genuinely fun. I had also wondered if the cinematic adventure game could be anything else besides what PlayStation has (over)done for the past decade.

Turns out, yes; in spades, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle reminded me how good this all could be.

By Van Dennis (Bluesky / Unwinnable author page)
Recommended read: Driveclub Might Not Deserve Reverence, But It Should be Revisited
From the author: To the Seattle Mariners ownership group: if you can’t compete, sell the team

Neva

Fight the darkness, love each other, end the cycle, purify the world. Even good and necessary change inevitably comes with sacrifice, but it’s also vital to creating a better world for those who will inhabit it in the future. Sacrifice is worth it, and the least we can do is love and honor those who fought to make this world beautiful. Neva, and Nomada’s previous title Gris, are very clearly about the cycle of grief and the renewal you can feel by facing your trauma, but I was also incredibly enraptured by how Neva serves as a very direct metaphor for the fight to fix our decaying climate. Let’s keep fighting for a beautiful world together, for all those who fought before us.

By Farouk Kannout
Recommended read: Past Lives, Future Masculinities
From the author: Good luck to everyone out there, I wish you well

Random Access Mayhem

RAM: Random Access Mayhem is a game about sentient AIs killing each other — and reconciling their restrictive programming with their need for self-chosen identities. The psychology of this process makes for unusual, distinctly inhuman characters that nonetheless experience grounded conflicts and become entangled in uncomfortably familiar power dynamics. The resulting dialogue is compelling, entertaining, and accessibly written — think Toby Fox meets Terry Pratchett — and the gameplay itself is mechanically unique in a satisfying way.

Now, RAM isn’t particularly polished, but it’s still a worthwhile experience. In any case, I respect the hell out of Andrew Cunningham and the team for creating it, and I trust it’ll continue to improve.

By Xyla Storm
Recommended read: The Glorious Absurdity of Elektiontrückung

Don’t sing me the blues, please, sing me a bright red song of LOVE!

I was given a copy of Locally Sourced Anthology I: A Space Atlas to review earlier this year, but time and computer issues prevented me from completing the other seven games in it. Good that this eighth made an impression. Two women are trapped in an ancient Martian temple, and they have a time limit before the heart of the planet arrives to kill them. It’s a simple sokoban-esque game — so simple, in fact, I completed it on my first try — with an also-simple RPG battle system reminiscent of my game for this list last year, In Stars and Time. But what I enjoyed more than the gameplay was the atmosphere produced by the overgrown dungeon layout, the purple hue, and the mid-battle conversations with an entity — the planet itself? — that builds the game to an emotional peak in less than 15 minutes. Its tiny, truly alien world stuck with me more than other games I’ve played for much longer.

By Emily Price
Recommended read: Most Media Memory-Holed the Pandemic. Not 1000XRESIST
From the author: Free Palestine!

Famicom Detective Club

I missed investigation games that didn’t hold your hand, but not that much. I’m not asking for all of the clues to be highlighted in white or gold. I don’t want the little question mark indicator to pop up to give me a blasted hint. But I do want to feel like I’m not arbitrarily pressing through option after option before I hit on the right one. Still, to be fair to Famicom Detective Club, this rarely happened. Usually, there’s an indicator in the conversation that perhaps the butler doesn’t want to discuss this topic while his master is around, so you need to drive away the master. Or maybe there are certain topics that scare the housekeeper of the mansion, so you have to talk about other things to calm her down. Conversation not as the means to find clues to solve the puzzle but as the puzzle itself.

It allowed me to feel a little bit like Columbo. To follow conversational threads and think, hello, what’s this, if I tug just so then I think this will unravel. And there’s beauty in this kind of mystery investigation. Catching on not to testimony or interrogation but the little rhythms of a person’s life and mannerisms, picking them apart bit by bit until only the truth remains.

By Kyle Tam
Recommended read: To Be Worthy of Who You Love
From the author: Remember to support indie artists and indie creators, and also screw Funko for nearly screwing over itch.io!!!

Romancing Saga 2: Revenge of the Seven

Romancing Saga 2: Revenge of the Seven is a power fantasy about being the ruler of an expanding empire. But, if you play it on the Hard/Classic difficulty, it is also a humbling experience. Enemies will wipe your party members in a single hit. Your achievements in one generation are undone in another. Most importantly, your protagonist is mortal. Only through the accumulated weight of a few dozen generations may you stand a chance against seven all-powerful heroes on their home turf. Survival is the sum of your choices, a heroic epic (never guaranteed) wrought by capricious systems.

By Adam Wescott (Website / Bluesky)
Recommended read: Petty Godhood

With My Past

With My Past, the debut title from developer Imagine Wings Studio, knocked me on my ass. Across its five hours, With My Past tells the story of a girl haunted by her past – anxious, stressed, and even embarrassed by it. This past manifests mechanically as a shadow that does whatever you do in-game two seconds later. Imagine Wings Studio builds on this mechanic across more than 150 perfectly paced challenges, and while the gameplay is good fun, it’s the story With My Past tells through this gameplay that has stuck with me. With a just-vague enough narrative, I found myself self-inserting into the unnamed protagonist’s story, working through and reflecting on my own past, the parts of it that make me stressed, anxious, embarrassed, and more. And by helping the girl on-screen work through these feelings through puzzle-platforming challenges, I was able to do the same for myself.

By Wesley LeBlanc
Recommended read: Three Hours With Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Has Me Thinking It Might Be A Great Immersive RPG

Mastermind

One day this summer, I stood huddled with friends in Prospect Park, sheltering ourselves in the pouring rain as a grainy livestream of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour played on my phone. She was finally playing “I Did Something Bad” as a surprise song, which was important for two reasons:

1. It felt as though reputation (Taylor’s Version) was just around the corner (it wasn’t)

2. I’d finally gotten a song prediction correct in Mastermind

Essentially like fantasy football but for Swift’s various outfits, songs, and other show details, Mastermind was a game within Kyle Mumma’s Swift Alert app, which, by the end of the tour, was averaging around 400,000 entries per night. It was the perfect activity to be facetiously overly-competitive about, watching as results came in live and acting as if I’d bet my house on the ponies over Taylor’s 1989 top/skirt color combination, while also feeling oddly communal, freaking out in real-time with fans online or any friend who was unlucky enough to be in my vicinity during a show night. It was an oddly special moment in time hard to replicate post-tour.

By Deven McClure
Recommended read: I Can’t Stop Thinking About The Sims’ Creepiest Item Ever

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Hot out of Midgar and into the full-fledged world of Gaia, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth follows Cloud and the party as they continue their journey to stop Sephiroth’s plan to absorb the lifestream and prevent Shinra from exploiting the planet’s essence. I fell in love with the character-driven narrative from the decline of Cloud’s mental state, Barrett’s backstory to how characters like Yuffie and Tifa’s personalities were perfectly captured from the original. Not to mention favourites like the areas of Gongaga and Costa del Sol, Aponi, Red XIII’s real voice, the secret Bald Club, Cloti, and more Zack! A good 180 plus hours well played.

By Nyasha Oliver (Bluesky / Twitter)
Recommended read: How DBSK set the bar for K-Pop today

Dragon’s Dogma 2

With a new year came a new relationship, and not long after that came a game I had been very excited for. Not only did Dragon’s Dogma 2 improve on almost every aspect of the original, but it also brought back the most innovative feature of allowing players to create their own personal travelling companion. With my personal life very much in the throes of a fresh romance, an idea came to me: I modelled my Arisen after myself, and my Pawn was made to resemble my new girlfriend. I will always remember us braving Vermund and Battahl’s wildernesses together.

By Richard Kelly
Recommended read: Letting Go

Caves of Qud

A brief travelogue of my recent Caves of Qud adventures:

. Started a new game as an Esper water merchant, with Beguile and Ego Projection for good measure.

. Quickly met a flamethrowing snapjaw. Beguiled him to be my ally. Named him Mr. Burns.

. Learned how to make some kind of crab yogurt (?) from a town full of sentient vines.

. Lost Mr. Burns to a cave of significantly less friendly sentient vines.

. Befriended a large beetle that kept eating treasures before I could pick them up.

. Accidentally granted consciousness to a bed, which promptly wandered out of its house, asking everyone in earshot what it was.

. Projected my consciousness into said bed, trapping myself there after inadvertently letting my original body die.

. Spent my remaining days stumping around the countryside as a piece of animated furniture.

Game of the year, every year.

By Alexander B. Joy
Recommended read: On Luigi

Old World

An old man on his deathbed, crying out for his estranged daughter, is wondering whether the state was worth it. A nation built as an extension of his wisdom and frugality is also standing as a dusty monument to his traumas and insecurities. And how will it exist beyond him, when its very identity is that of his?

Eventually, death claims him, and then his daughter claims the country. And she remembers how, when she was little, her father reprimanded her to please a noble and keep the court content. And so she rages, dismantling her father’s legacy, imprisoning the nobles, diverting funds towards the military, and readying for war.

That young woman is you. And the old man was also. Your mind has now become a vessel for these entities, and their stories imprint themselves upon the landscape of this world. This Old World, shaped by the pale ghosts of kindred moments that wouldn’t ever come to be.

By Mike Arrani
Recommended read: School of Evil

Blue Prince

You can tell a lot about a person from the pieces of media they choose as their favourites. We use other people’s creations as our personality vanguards when it’s too hard to put ourselves into words, and folks that speak the same language will understand us by the titles we claim. That’s why it’s so wonderful to find something so perfectly attuned to your likes that it slots right into your soul like a missing jigsaw piece: it is a way to express a facet of yourself in words you didn’t have before; a call from the wild that lets you know that you aren’t the only one of your kind.

Blue Prince has been that for me: a game that’s so laser-targeted at me that I want to devour the whole thing in one sitting. I have managed to limit myself to an hour every other evening, to try to stave off the inevitable ending. Blue Prince has earned its place within the ranks of my personality vanguard, and now I am anxiously, excitedly hoping that other people will feel the same.

You’ll notice I have not talked about what the game is, and that’s on purpose — this is one of those “go in blind, trust me” games. I will say one thing: if you’re a “notebook game” kind of person, slap this on your wishlist yesterday, and thank me when Spring 2025 rolls around.

By Kate Gray
Recommended read: Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Review

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

To me, the FromSoftware “soulslikes” have always felt parallel to the “New Complexity” movement in contemporary chamber music. Those who write this kind of music, speak about how they like to complicate the relationship between the musical score and the musician. That the most important outcome of the work is not represented in the score itself, but in the musician’s encounter with a seemingly impossible challenge.

Over time, however, I’ve seen musicians undergo “performance inflation.” What was once outrageously difficult and arcane, is now something they can sightread. This kind of inflation strips away the possible poetic power of “New Complex” scores, as the struggle and challenge no longer reads, or feels feigned.

Playing Shadow of the Erdtree this year, I kept thinking about this, especially when it came to the last boss encounter. As a direct consequence of these games being so popular now, it feels to me like FromSoftware is trying to keep up with players’ improving skills, with some strategies being more interesting than others. Is this going to be an endless arms race between FromSoftware and its audience? Or does there need to be a thematic evolution to “soulslikes,” as we’ve now become so accustomed to their particular brand of difficulty and suffering?

By Remy Siu
Recommended listen: maybe, whisper
Editor’s note: You should check out 1000xRESIST

When I think back on Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, I don’t think about punishing difficulty.

I don’t think about brutal bosses, crafting a build, or even riddling with holes the rotten hide of Bayle… V I L E Bayle.

No, my most vivid memories of Shadow of the Erdtree are of its world: a quiet meadow in an empty hamlet, lit by a golden sapling that glows gently. The lonely whipping shack, standing stark and insolent against an angry skyline. A misty dell where primordial stone fingers jut, grasping from the earth.

Shadow of the Erdtree’s world is an art gallery. Bonny Village and the ruined tower of Belurat are exhibits, installations that demand to be interpreted and interrogated. In doing so, it becomes clear that the expansion is a masterful work of adaptation – its characters and factions are morally grey George R.R. Martin creations through and through, their complexity filtered through the medium of FromSoftware’s trademark environmental storytelling and Hidetaka Miyazaki’s direction.

Shadow of the Erdtree is an audacious, enigmatic piece of fantasy art that seamlessly blends the sensibilities of two of the greatest living fantasy storytellers. FromSoftware has told a very Game of Thrones-style story of sibling rivalry, class conflict, and mommy-issues through its finest showcase of environmental storytelling yet. It is a titanic, undeniable landmark in the genre, and the perfect epilogue to Elden Ring.

By Evan Ahearne
Recommended read: Tender Normalcy

HAVE YOU SEEN THE WHITE WHALE

I shout at anyone walking past my house. Having just watched Moby Dick (1956), five year old me is on fire with the idea that such an animal could exist. In the coming years, the Children’s Abridged Illustrated Classics version will sear its black-and-white images into my mind.

SPLIT YOUR LUNGS WITH BLOOD AND THUNDER

I shout along whenever Mastodon performs “Blood and Thunder,” from their 2004 album, Leviathan. Discovering it in high school gave new life to primordial childhood imagination, of lightning-wrought harpoons and beasts churning through ocean depths.

CURSE YOU, BAYLE!

I jokingly shout at my long suffering better half after a summer spent under the shadow of the Erdtree. I had seen such wonders and horrors but found scheming gods and their machinations dwarfed by a jagged mountain, wreathed in smoke and red lightning. There, to my surprise, were my companions of old. Ocean waves exchanged for flames as the dragon Bayle the Dread bellows ruin but I recognize the great whale all the same, just as Ahab reborn splits his lungs at his eternal foe.

By Wyeth Leslie
Recommended read: 56: Mad Max

Dungeons of Hinterberg

The protagonist of Dungeons of Hinterberg, stressed-out young professional Luisa, can spend her afternoons in the Austrian mountainside doing nothing. Instead of socializing or dungeon delving, she can simply find a scenic spot and pass the time. It’s meditative and peaceful, a moment where a game that’s already pretty chill takes another step back, acknowledging that even a cheerful puzzle dungeon is another concession to the eternal gods of number-go-up, the ones Luisa desperately wants to escape from. It’s a light game but it’s also reflective, serious about its depiction of tourism, and genuinely interested in the dilemma of its protagonist, who is earnestly trying to decide how to live her life.

By Maddi Chilton
Recommended read: Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is a teenage (wet) dream

Infinity Nikki

At first glance, new players may see Infinity Nikki as just another high-quality dress-up game. I thought the same thing when I first began playing one of its predecessors, Love Nikki. However, it is so much more than that. It speaks on a long journey of self-expression, of making new friends, and letting go of the past. Most importantly, it forces you to ride on the waves of hope while dealing with an impregnable hand from fate. How do you strive for happiness when you are never meant to achieve it the way you intend to? You’d have to play Infinity Nikki to answer this question for yourself.

By Krista McCay
Recommended read: Choosing Happiness
From the author: To my mother, who showed me how to persevere through even the darkest situations

The Mildew Children

Living a life before your role is meant to be, a context that is never fully understood, but you’re told is appreciated. I’m led to the fire that is promised to clean me, and yet, something eeks out. A notion, a feeling, a scream that slowly grows louder, one that’s calling out destiny as a fucking sham. Your feet are starting to boil, and through the throat, it crawls out.

I want to live! You understand me?! How dare you deny me the will to change when I’m aware of my pride? I’m not only human, I am human!

I’m human.

By Blair Bishop
Recommended read: Glance at a Wounded Painting
From the author: Too many names to name, too many words to describe how this has all felt. The world’s a cruel place. As long as you’re still here though, it’s enough.

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess

At Summer Game Fest this year there were countless games that got me excited before they were even released. Kunitisu-Gami: Path of the Goddess was not one of them.

In fact, the first draft of the preview I sent PLAY Magazine (RIP) was so negative my editor had to remind me ‘Chill the fuck out, it’s not the final product.’

Then it was released, and 40 hours later, it was number five on my personal top 10 list.

Shows what I know. Anyway… hi, editors, you can commission me for SGF 2025.

By Lex Luddy
Recommended read: Ireland is primed to be a video game development hub, so why hasn’t it broken out?
Editor’s note: read and support startmenu

Hundreds of Beavers

Hundreds of Beavers shows you something artificial in almost every frame. It is a place in which art and artifice rambunctiously collaborate. Pioneer Jean Kayak is a Wile E. Coyote figure. I dare you to guess his nemesis. Each specimen, and indeed each rabbit, wolf, and raccoon, is portrayed by a person in an animal suit. The movie is shot in black and white, but not with film school pretension. Its characters have no spoken dialogue, but it’s not a silent picture. It uses video game iconography without cynicism or loss of dignity. Acolytes of Looney Tunes will be well nourished.

By Andrei Filote
Recommended read: The Unwinnable Game
From the author: Play Disco Elysium

Great God Crove

Great God Grove is the boldest game I played in 2024. Playing as a mail carrier you need to explore a strange island delivering messages between its whacky mortals and needy gods. However, instead of your usual letters, postcards, and packages, you’ll be using your trusty megaphone tool to vacuum up dialogue bubbles and then shooting them at other characters. The result is a style of puzzle adventure that focuses solely on wordplay. There are puns, riddles, portmanteau, double entendre, complete jargon to elegant poetry – Great God Grove has a mischievous playfulness with language, how we interpret (and misinterpret) words, and how language ultimately connects us. It’s a bizarre and wholly unique style of puzzle-solving, and together with the game’s striking art style, whacky worldbuilding, and eccentric puppetwork (think Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared), Great God Grove is the perfect example of why I love indie games so much. It’s fiercely original and like nothing I’ve played before.

By Rachel Watts
Recommended read: From Silent Hill 2 to Crow Country, the best horror games of 2024 brought the chills
Editor’s note: you should check out Thinky Games

Thank Goodness You’re Here!

From Thank Goodness You’re Here!’s opening rush of TV ads, featuring Matt Berry spruik Peans — not quite peas, not quite beans, something special inbetween — I was bought in. Everything in Barnsworth, the fictional town sending up Northern England, is a little bit squishy and off-putting, perfect for a protagonist that can only interact through slapping. A slap-happy stroll through a Barnsworth street is a stream of little gags that sometimes build into running jokes as you progress. Thank Goodness You’re Here! is a delight throughout and the funniest straight-up comedy game of the last few years.

By Lucas Di Quinzio
Recommended read: The Questionable Memento

Void Stranger

Void Stranger wants you to come to it alone, letting you discover for yourself what’s hidden beneath the surface. But for me, playing it this year has been overwhelmingly social. I felt like every revelation and strange encounter was something to be talked about, something shared, some moment spent together. I don’t think I’ll uncover the intricate meta-narrative buried beneath everything, but I don’t think I need to — it’s enough to have a few sweet shared memories, to think of once in a while. It feels right that Void Stranger was a gift from a friend.

By John Sangster
Recommended read: Katana ZERO and the Mask of Death

Slay the Princess

“You’re on a path in the woods. And at the end of the path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a princess.”

Slay the Princess is a horror visual novel that came out in 2023, but recently released a free update adding new content, routes, and a new ending; making the Pristine Cut the definitive version. I had this game in my library but finally picked it up after the update, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. As I’m trying to convince all my friends and loved ones to play this game I’m met with an important question; what is Slay the Princess about?

Well, it’s about going to a cabin in the woods and slaying a princess. It’s also about change and its inevitability. It’s about the cycle of violence; the fear of death and pain that drives it. It’s about the end of the world as we know it. It’s about me and it’s about you. 

But mostly, it’s about love. Slay the Princess is without a doubt a love story.

By Harri Chan (Bluesky / Twitter)
Recommended read: Resident Evil’s Ada Wong goes head-to-head with sexpionage stereotypes

Ultros

If I had a nickel for every game that was released in 2024 where the entire game was a series of deeply layered puzzles, culminating in one, entire game-spanning puzzle, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s surprising it happened twice. Ultros is one of those games, and definitely the prettier of the two. I’d be hard pressed to think of another 2024 release just as gorgeous, where every new scene is a work of art all by itself. It’s drunk with creativity, oozing passion, and the kind of game that should be studied by anyone who creates.

By David Carcasole (Bluesky)
Recommended read: Pokémon Cards On My Phone Are Messing With My Brain
From the author: Fuck capitalism, go home

Sonic the Hedgehog 3

The first Sonic the Hedgehog movie came out on Valentine’s Day, the second on my SO’s birthday, and the third on… a Friday. I attended one day earlier, arriving at the Sonic-merch heavy fan event in business casual (I took half a day off work).

Here’s the fun part about this franchise: it just keeps leaning in. With the addition of every new CGI creature, Sonic and his friends are racing away from the detached, “cringe-free” enjoyment of video games that some adaptations try for. “You like Sonic?” these movies say: “why wouldn’t you?”

By Rachel Maybee
Recommended read: Growing Up on Halo

Delicious in Dungeon

2024 was a big year for fantasy anime. And not just bargain bin isekai, but genuine, old fashion sprawling adventure fantasy anime with a keen inspiration from video games. Key among these refreshing return to form was Studio Trigger’s anime adaptation of Ryoko Kui’s Delicious in Dungeon. Upon first blush, Delicious in Dungeon is your typical fair of a cooking anime with its assortment of adventures dungeon crawling and serving up improvised meals out of whatever monster and critter they come across. But things quickly take a turn for the existential when the gang uses dark magic to revive their fallen mage (from the stomach of a red dragon) creating a deadly chimera.

From this point on, the series inventively relays what can only be shower thoughts of a writer who, according to a Famitsu interview, played a lot of Baldur’s Gate, Wizardry 6: Bane of the Cosmic Forge, Legend of Grimrock, Dungeon Master, Bahamut Lagoon, Pathfinder, Planescape: Torment, The Witcher, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and Disco Elysium would be able to eloquently inject into a fantasy setting.

Delicious in Dungeon isn’t only a testament to the unspoken truth that female mangaka are in a league all their own, it’s also a beacon of how an established genre like fantasy still has more surprises and stories worth telling for anime fans. Seeing as how Delicious in Dungeon will be the first anime Trigger — a studio notorious for one-and-done season anime — is going steady making its first sequel season with the series, it’s safe to say Delicious in Dungeon is one of the best anime to come out of 2024. (The other two being Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End and Dan Da Dan!)

By Isaiah Colbert (Bluesky / Twitter)
Recommended read: What’s Next for Riot’s Media Future After Arcane?

Children of the Sun

What first appears to be a lurid techno fever dream is in fact a thoughtful and welcoming puzzler. You are ‘The Girl’, a sniper taking revenge against ‘The Cult’. Each level, you have one bullet to take out every cultist. Every time you hit a target, you can redirect that single bullet to find its next mark, turning the space into a traversal problem as you deduce the most efficient sequence for your killing spree. Around that one strong idea, fuzzy neon visuals and abrasive, punchy sound design make Children of the Sun a visceral, trippy, bullet-time… Okay, yes – fever dream.

By Ben Jackson (The Unprofessionals)
Recommended read: Fleeting

Before the Green Moon

When it rains in Before the Green Moon the snails come out. Their green shells glint among the tiles, a good omen for growing things. But in the dry season the snails secrete themselves away in the game’s code, and wait. I do the same, day after day of sun, but I dream of rain. The ground is cracked and dry and the days are best used for lazy chatter with friends. But that first rain, a light scatter that day after day becomes a deluge, it feels so fucking good. Before The Green Moon knows a season is just a frame we put on the world. Its seasons ebb and flow, surprise and delight. They make you wait, like those snails, for your moment. I can’t think of a game that understands snails, or rain, better than this one does.

By Gareth Damian Martin
Recommended read: Ghost of the Week
Editor’s note: You should check out Citizen Sleeper and its upcoming sequel, as well as Heterotopias

Under the Waves

This year, I played Under the Waves, and it changed how I viewed grief. Sometimes, we need a space to grieve. Stan, the protagonist of this journey, lost his daughter, and, in his view, his whole world. So, he retreats to a new one underwater. While grieving, he realizes his company’s pollution and drilling have been harming the ocean, including killing his new seal friend, J0. Stan fights back and finds catharsis. Grief can stop time and isolate us. However, it can also help us find new purpose. Even if we have to find it deep under the sea.

By Justin Grandfield
Recommended read: Optional Gay Men
From the author: I want to mention the importance of game preservation or indies

Princess Peach Showtime!

There’s a saying in theater that states, “The smallest roles can have the biggest impacts.” It works well for a game such as Princess Peach: Showtime!. Though it may be one of the simplest games to have been released this year, its theater atmosphere acts as a reminder of why the arts are important. It allows us to pursue numerous aspects of the craft, but arguably the most crucial quality is that it forces us to think critically and understand human nature. It’s a poignant reminder that is desperately needed given the current state the world is in. Now, more than ever, do we need the arts.

By Monique Barrow (Bluesky)
Recommended read: Slowing Down in Pelican Town

Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail

Doubling as a shonen anime summer vacation, Dawntrail successfully resets the board for Final Fantasy XIV following the conclusion of its time, space, and dimension-spanning epic the previous expansions wrapped up. What starts as an earnest exploration of family and culture culminates in a meaningful rumination on grief and loss, topics that hit more effectively here than any other in the MMORPG space. It may not be the expansion I’m going to tell people to play hundreds of hours of Final Fantasy XIV to see, but it’s an expansion I loved to play after spending hundreds of hours in Eorzea myself.

By John Carson
Recommended read: World Of Warcraft: The War Within: The Kotaku Review
From the author: Support independent media like The Indie Informer, MinnMax, and Into The Spine!

Content Warning

If you haven’t played Content Warning before, here’s the most important rule: Always bring the camera back with you. If you lose your footage, you might as well have done nothing.

During one run with friends, I was separated from the group and found a lone camera on the ground. We only had proximity mics on, so I called out for my companions.

“I think I’m alone,” I eventually said, continuing to monologue. At this point, I was speaking at my friends in their digital afterlife rather than their physical bodies in the Old World. And honestly, I kept speaking to keep myself grounded.

“I don’t like being alone.”

This part of the Old World resembled a grayscale school, with winding locker hallways disorienting me as I tried to find a way back to our ship. I came across a few waddling creatures vying for my attention as I scrambled to find something, anything familiar.

Aha! Eventually, I find a stairwell, meaning there’s an exit nearby. I run to leave and —

A giant waterbear sweeps me away, leaving the camera behind.

It takes me what feels like miles away and eventually catches me in a ceiling starfish’s sticky trap. I curse myself and the game as I die with no evidence to share of our trip.

***

With everyone back on their feet and egos healed, we set off for another trip in the school zone. We head down a stairwell and behold! The footage I worked so hard to rescue was there.

My efforts weren’t in vain. I about cried.

By Melissa King
Recommended read: Bobot Bobot and the Power of Cute
Editor’s note: read and support Unwinnable

Ape Escape

Developed by Sony’s Japan Studio; praised by critics for its innovativeness of the dualshock controller; a main character that travels through space and time, unlocking new worlds by capturing targets; an overarching objective to foil plans of world domination. 

No, not Astro Bot, I’m talking about Ape Escape (1999), a game that showed you can move an industry forward by prioritizing being a game above all else. Ape Escape didn’t need a gripping narrative, it just needed to be fun. 25 years later, Astro Bot proved to the world that you can still make a game like Ape Escape and succeed.

By Brandon Malave
Recommended read: Choice and Regret

Astro Bot

What to say about Astro Bot?

I could say “It’s game of the year!” and be done with it. But does that really cover just how special it is?

Astro Bot is pure fun distilled and crystallised into dozens of hours of platforming bliss. But it’s also so much more than that.

As a lifelong PlayStation fan, from the original console all the way to today’s PlayStation 5, seeing the characters I grew up with enshrined in this beautiful game is something I will never forget.

Astro Bot isn’t just my game of the year. In many ways, it’s the game of my life.

By Connor Queen
Recommended read: As Gentle as a Cloud

The Crimson Diamond

I get a troublemaking spirit when I play a text parser game. Early on in The Crimson Diamond, that spirit was a bottle of whiskey. The game told me it was a Canadian variety, aged for twelve years in oak barrels — “but you’re certainly no expert!”. I drank some, expecting to either be shut down or treated to gaming’s usual drunken screen-sway. Instead, Nancy Maple raised me a toast, took a measured sip, and described notes of aniseed, spice and honey — ”but you’re certainly no expert!”

The Crimson Diamond still rewards chicanery (though I won’t spoil how), but when both Nancy and the game itself turned my meddling into a joke the three of us could share, I knew I was playing a game that deserved as much respect and attention as it was willing to pay the player.

By Dayten Rose
Recommended read: Please Stop Giving Wizards Guns
From the author: Please stand with your trans friends in the years to come, donating $1 to $5 to Trans Lifeline right now is better than putting off a larger amount indefinitely!

Persona 3 Reload

Silence

Over the last year I’ve learned a lot about myself. Mostly in the quiet moments, the moments where you hear the wind rustle through the leaves and the rattling sound of the train tracks as the subway passes through.

Persona 3 Reload gave me a new appreciation for them. In all of the chaos, the game never failed to use quietness to speak volumes. Trading the cozy background music and idle chatter for a deafening silence — one that pierces the soul and comfort of the world built around you.

On my worst days I would take my headphones out, sit on a nearby bench or curb, and let my inner thoughts run free. It’s been nice. You should try it sometime.

By Jesse Vitelli
Recommended read: The best weird little guys of 2024’s video games

I could go on and on about how stylish and streamlined Persona 3 Reload is, but what’s really important to me is that, several hours in, I got an in-game text from Bunkichi, an elderly bookstore owner who’s grieving the loss of his son. It read:

Weird little moments that break up the game’s darker themes like this are exactly what Persona is about to me. I love getting home after a long day of incorrectly answering questions in class and getting to cook a bad meal with my teammates. I always save my free time to hang out with the conniving Tanaka and join the offputting Nozomi on his culinary (mis)adventures. And, in the dungeon, I always smile when teammate Yukari finds a moment to complain about the dorm’s water pressure. Persona 3 Reload is just full of stellar characters thanks to (not despite!) how weird and occasionally annoying they are.

By Amelia Zollner
Recommended read: Barbie Horse Adventures: Riding Camp helped me navigate the dreaded ‘Pink Aisle’
From the author: Free Palestine!
Editor’s note: You should check out Garage Sale

Persona 3 Portable

Persona 3 Portable, or rather the money to buy it on sale, was given to me by a close internet friend right before Halloween. Little did I know, it would help me through the depression episode that I endured after the 2024 U.S. Election. It gave me something to look forward to and inspired two new poems, one of which helped me parse the grief that I’ve been carrying for more than a decade. Through its poignant cast of characters, some heartfelt Social Links, and tragic storyline, Persona 3 Portable showed me that it was possible to find joy and meaning in life despite the inevitability of death.

By Latonya “Penn” Pennington
Recommended read: The 3DS Made Dungeon Crawlers Accessible & Its Legacy Is Palpable

Zenless Zone Zero

Although there hasn’t been as much fuss about Zenless Zone Zero compared to the last two behemoths miHoYo released, the new kid on the block captivated me. It understands that an urban fantasy is not about megalomaniac narrative arcs, but the everyday life of the people who populate the cities. The routine of the citizens is weaved into a dense but palatable adventure. Sure, eager to prove itself different from the older cool games, Zenless Zone Zero is not free from making mistakes. But no mistake that is the product of a movement provoked by the desire to be true to oneself should be avoided. I’d rather celebrate them. Cheer the naivety and simplicity of a game that believes in itself.

By Paulo Kawanishi
Recommended read: How a Twitch streamer is transforming the Brazilian League of Legends scene

Still Wakes the Deep

I’ve become so accustomed to rolling my eyes at the Americanized “Irish” accents in games media that I genuinely had to pause Still Wakes the Deep and laugh in joy after I heard a genuine portrayal of the accent among one of its side characters. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I never thought I’d come away from a horror experience with my main takeaway being, ‘Geez, those accents were spot on’.

The regional accents are injected so naturally that if it weren’t for the fact that so many other forms of games media neglect them, they wouldn’t stand out. Furthermore, I’m shocked that despite the game capturing so many elements of UK and Irish regional dialects perfectly, the developers don’t continually pat themselves on the back.

They absolutely should. Please, I beg you, take a bow! You’ve earned it.

By Odhrán Johnson
Recommended read: Irish Culture and Indie Horror: A Chat With Solo Developer Dan McGrath

Tormenture

An endless night draws every color from Tormenture. An old CRT, the only light in the room, casts long shadows on our childhood toys. Our companion of many lonely evening boots up to a single, red word: Tormenture.

Tormenture is a game within a game, and both are devilishly good. The inner layer is an Atari 2600’s Adventure clone so smooth and fun that it makes me want to replay the original. The outside game is a simulation of playing demonic bootleg Adventure and slowly freeing its demons.

Where does that leave you and your copy of Tormenture (2024)? There’s only one way to know.

By Diana Croce
Recommended read: The first CRPG is a min-maxing hell you can – and should – break

Hyper Wobbler

Alternative controller games do not need to be outstanding in their gameplay, because they’re already innovative in the way they’re played. Yet, Line Wobbler managed to be more than a game played with a spring door stop, displayed on a long LED strip. It also was a one-dimensional game (literally), a very unusual gameplay choice.

As a sequel, Hyper Wobbler takes the original and creates a new object. A dodecahedron, built with the old LED strips and added mirrors to create a multiplayer experience and a visual curiosity. It manages to showcase all that can make alternative controllers so great: art, interactivity, a social catalyst.

It is a maze of lights, a deep hole of mirrors which will stir up the curiosity of anyone. Since it has to be displayed somewhere, it is an opportunity for people to connect. I got to collaborate with strangers from Germany and Italy and we all communicated in strongly accented English, bonding over the challenge faced together).

It also is a fun game. But like a pool table in a bar, a painting in a museum, that’s not what matters most.

By Lucas Vially
Recommended read: Insert Coin to Continue

Crow Country

“Staring into the flames, I feel something… it’s a curious mixture of hope and dread. Maybe everything will be okay. And maybe it won’t”

There is something about staring into the fire in Crow Country that reminds me so much of the Emerald Herald from Dark Souls 2. There, it was an expected welcoming mantra, it was something the Herald shared with you over the bonfire. Here, it is something that Mara says to herself, over and over again staring into whatever haphazard source of fire she feels safety and comfort with in the absence of another.

We all tell ourselves things to get through the day. Having someone like the Emerald Herald at the end of the world or at the herald of the end of the world, in this case, is important, but I think Mara hits on a point I find myself teetering on constantly. I can’t help but think about how many of us are like Mara — we ebb and flow like flames muttering to ourselves thinking back and forth the whole year round that maybe everything will be okay. And maybe it won’t.

By Althemar Gutierrez
Recommended read: The Best and Worst of Timelines

E3 Cancelation

Last December, reports began trickling in about the permanent cancelation of E3. It was a telegraphed move long expected after years of physical absence following the COVID-19 pandemic. Even so, a year later, I still feel the sting of a bygone era.

E3 made me realize how much I loved video games and the community surrounding it. May became my most anticipated time of year. Web forums buzzed with rumors regarding the titles or hardware that would debut on stage. Conversations with my friends became arguments about what was a realistic announcement and what wasn’t. My nostalgia for this time weighs heavy, even though we still have comparable events such as The Game Awards. In my mind, no other event could compare to the weeklong celebration that gave us a peek inside an enigmatic industry.

Even as I got older with less time to play video games, I would still tune in each year because, no matter how involved I was in gaming, the event would always manage to get my heart racing one way or another.

So long, E3. Thanks for existing.

By José Romero (Threads / Instagram)
Recommended read: “I Swear”
From the author: Visit your local comic book shop!

Umurangi Generation VR

Click, Click

Gotta adjust the lens a bit, and make sure they can see the flag over the barricade.

Snap, snap

Eh, they’ll dock my pay if I don’t get a bit closer to the frontline.

Flash

Maybe if I climb the barricade I can get a line-of-sight on the rifles?

Click, snap, flash

There goes the siren. It’ll be the tear gas next. Gotta widen the aperture before they dim the lights.

Crack

Ugh, and there goes my camera. At least these pics should be enough to cover the rent.

By Hilton Webster
Recommended read: Virtual Archeology
From the author: Let the CEOs live in fear

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Whenever I play a Yakuza game, I know I’m in for a good time. I’ve done this rodeo a dozen or so times over the years. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth felt different. After many years of quality releases, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio decided to flex with its dual protagonist system, fantastic gameplay improvements, compelling side content, and a masterpiece of a narrative in a package that felt like two full games combined. This year has been incredible across many genres, but Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth stands tall above the rest as a brilliant RPG. I don’t know how they will top it.

By Mikhail Madnani
Recommended read: ‘Pentiment’ Anniversary Interview: Josh Sawyer on His Influences, Going From Playing D&D to Designing, a Potential ‘Pillars of Eternity 3’, RPG Mechanics, and More

Animal Well

When you think of games that let you get out of them what you want, you don’t usually think of a platformer. But Animal Well baked into its mysterious world different tiers of completion for players to strive for. Whether you’re looking for a breezy yet atmospheric platformer in the vein of the old Knytt games, bastardly puzzles in the La-Mulana mold, or the full-on ARG-tinged gameplay of Fez, Animal Well has you covered. The best part is that you decide how far into the sicko hole you go while still feeling accomplished in the end.

By Jeremy Signor (Website)
Recommended read: How The Celeste Speedrunning Community Became Queer As Hell
From the author: Protect trans lives, give money to trans people who need it

Phantom Spark

Phantom Spark is a rare example of what I’d call a peaceful racing game. Set across three stunning otherworldly realms with a sense of mystery filling the air, each complemented by a strong soundtrack, this time trial racer sees you challenging the times of each world’s champion. There are no complicated controls, stages are short, and the momentum system presents a refreshing challenge that encourages risk-taking across corners. Even when I’m only improving by fractions of a second, the sense of accomplishment has kept me coming back across 2024.

By Henry Stockdale (Website)
Recommended read: How The Collage Atlas’ creator drew a pen-and-ink world into life over four years

Fallout

Season 1 of Fallout brought me something I often shied away from in the games — companionship. I shared the show with those who never set foot in Bethesda’s wastelands and those who had been there many times over. It was a communal experience that’s rare in the streaming era, but it reinforced that the beating heart of Fallout is the ways humans form companionship in a strange, and often cruel world.

Sure, in the games, I treated most companions as storage lockers (except for Dogmeat, the greatest friend anyone could have after nuclear Armageddon). Still, all the factions I came across allowed me to form bonds with characters that actively changed how I played the game. TV is a passive medium, but Lucy, Maximus, and The Ghoul were all active in searching for what they need to survive in a world gone mad.

With each water cooler conversation about Fallout, I was reminded that the companions in my life drive me to keep going forward in our strange world. I’m just thankful no one has to save me from a Gulper attack.

By Conor Killmurray
Recommended read: Heralding the Light

Disco Elysium

One day, I will return to your side

Hope is rare in Revachol. The former capital of the world, destroyed by the cold, inhuman hand of the Coalition and sent into a half-century capitalist recession of inevitable economic and emotional death. Communard, loyalist, fascist or socialist; it seems no ism can save us.

Yet, two improbabilities of hope persist. One, a superstar detective, pressing his broken body and soul against the system, including his own precinct, to make things right. The other, a statistical impossibility; a wonder of nature; a myth of biology that should not exist, but exists anyway.

The bitter old coward on the islet is wrong. This is somewhere to be. You’re still alive.

Be vigilant. I love you.

By Ashley Schofield
Recommended read: What does Like a Dragon: Yakuza lose when you take out the games’ surreal humor?
From the author: A shoutout to Aftermath

Helldivers 2

GG are two letters that mean everything.

GG means we survived evacuation.

GG means we escaped with all of the SR samples.

GG means nobody killed the squad on purpose.

GG means I stimmed my fellow Helldiver after they saved me from three chainsaw wielding berserkers.

GG means letting a level 2 player take my jetpack and Stalwart assault rifle.

GG means finding 100 super credits in a bunker while my turret holds back 30 terminids.

GG means watching my Orbital Laser destroy three flamethrower wielding hulks and four automaton factories.

GG means I was thrown through the air following a hellbomb explosion and collapsed like a ragdoll in a nest of stalkers who chased me right into the path of a Bile Titan who crushed the earth and threw me into the path of the charger who almost crushed me until one of the squad hit it with a Rail Cannon Stratagem.

GG means four people I’ve never met, and most likely will never meet in real life posing in victory on my ship and then immediately starting another mission literally seconds after dying spectacularly eight times in quick succession.

Two letters typed into the message board means, above everything else, thank you for being here, for playing with me, for not being a jerk, for having fun together, for fighting (and dying) for sweet Liberty, but most importantly, for grabbing those SR Samples when my own turret killed me.

By Joshua “Jammer” Smith
Recommended read: There Was a Boy Here, He’s Gone Now

Broken Age

How do you heal the world? First, you break it.

Meet Shay and Vella, both captives, both with roles to play: she, the sacrifice; he, the savior-in-waiting. I played this deceptively simple point-and-click puzzle game, switching between characters and their separate-but-linked worlds. Each puzzle I solved building a bridge that I hoped would finally let our heroes meet, each solution closer to saving the world, not once, but twice. I cannot understate my joy and frustration with this game. And did I care that this story went totally off the rails at the end? No, no I did not.

By Heather Labay
Recommended read: Raptured Memory

Until Then

It’s rare that a game is able to get an emotional reaction from me. Really reach out and connect with me on some kind of level, and that should be cherished. Until Then really resonated with me, even bringing me to tears over its actually fairly long runtime. What starts as a casual teen adventure and spirals out into a heartfelt romance and mystery surrounding natural phenomena. The creativity in story, characters and game design is evident here, in the world building and drawing from Filipino culture and tragedy. I’ve already said too much — Until Then is best enjoyed with little to no expectation, so I’ll shut up before I pourmy heart out over it.

By Joseph Nye (Website – YouTube channel)
Recommended read: Reignited Childhood

Refind Self: The Personality Test Game

I first played Refind Self: The Personality Test Game at the start of 2024. It was a quick and neat little experience. The concept sounded very interesting, a game knowing about you from each move and action. Almost a year has passed and I don’t remember much about my choices. I press start and a message appears: “Same action as first play…” Almost an hour passes by and I’m doubting myself once more until it’s time for my last action. I try eating ramen for a change, it’s “the same as first play”. I get ready for my results. That’s a new ending, and I’m almost positive that’s also a new person.

By Frank Reyes (Bluesky / Twitter)
Recommended read: Finding A Piece of Myself In Civilization VI
From the author: “Always remember these words: Work hard, study well, and eat and sleep plenty!” – Master Roshi

Judero

There’s a lot about Judero that has stuck with me since I initially hit credits. The beautiful, handcrafted world made of various objects and figures, the Scottish folklore that Jack King-Spooner and Talha Kaya have drawn from to give that world a life of its own, and some of the most well-written (and often hilarious) NPCs I’ve ever encountered in a game. It’s an immaculate action-adventure game and a powerful artistic statement that shows you just how creative we can get with the medium of video games.

It’s the music, however, that has lingered in my mind longer than anything. It’s frankly stunning just how much of it there is in this game’s relatively short runtime, but it adds so much to what is already a compelling journey. The ethereal vibes of Judero’s world are bolstered by centuries-old traditional folk songs and original tunes from Jack King-Spooner and Talha Kaya, lending a haunting quality to even the most minute details.

And it’s those little details that make Judero something truly special.

By Joshua Delaney
Recommended read: That One Room in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
From the author: Trans rights are human rights. Fuck anyone that disagrees.

Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition – Chronicles: Battle for Greece

You wouldn’t expect a game released in 1999 to receive its best expansion pack yet in 2024, but that’s just what happened with Age of Empires 2 and its Battle for Greece add-on. Ambitious in scope, narrative, and level design, the expansion essentially reinvents the venerable strategy game as a brand new experience. It’s a treat for players, but what it reveals to the industry is just how much potential can still be mined from a game that’s already celebrated its silver anniversary. If publishers are willing to support cherished games rather than abandon them, fans and developers can keep them alive and profitable for a long, long time.

By Mark Hill
Recommended read: Endless gambling ads are ruining the experience of watching sports

Sonic X Shadow Generations

I’ve been a fan of the Sonic franchise since I first got my Sega Genesis back in 1994 along with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. Please don’t do the math on how old I might be. Needless to say, I was super excited about the release of Sonic X Shadow Generations.

Sonic Generations is still an all time favorite. I absolutely adore the remixing of music & levels. The story is basic but fun and silly. The mix of 2D and 3D Sonic gameplay keeps you on your toes. Lots of unlockables and challenges if you’re into that as well. A solid good time that was totally worth the replay.

Shadow Generations was a total blast! I’ve always been a Shadow fan so it’s exciting to get a game that focuses on this character while also being a celebration of what makes him awesome. Some of the tightest gameplay in the series to date. Stages were fun & the music slaps as always. All hail Shadow.

By Matt Storm aka Stormageddon
Recommended listen: “Fun” & Games Podcast

Sonic Boom

2024 is the year Sonic got his mojo back — but it was also the year I realized, maybe it never went away. Off the back of one of the most disastrous video games ever released, Sonic Boom, one of the most illustrious video game adaptations was spawned.

Sonic Boom is an ingenious kids show that’s basically Family Guy for Sonic fans, where Sonic gets a speeding ticket and Knuckles explains feminism (surprisingly well). It’s one of those rare kids shows that’s simple fun, but reaches way higher with its ambitions. Watching Sonic Boom was like I had a big fever dream in the middle of the year — but I came out of it even wiser.

By Hayes Madsen (Bluesky / Twitter)
Recommended read: Why Multiverses Work Better in Video Games Than Hollywood
From the author: Would very much love to shout out the BDG Union, which has been a fantastic support system to help colleagues that have been laid off, and a bit of peace of mind for myself. As the industry has been ravaged this year, I think unions are vitally important ways to support workers.

Overcooked

Overcooked perfectly mirrors the ups and downs of my relationship with my boyfriend. We stumbled upon it while exploring a Switch collection at our Airbnb, excited to spend our 6th monthsary conquering a fun co-op game about cooking — something we’d always wanted to try together. But what started as lighthearted chaos quickly became a battleground. As a non-gamer, I struggled to keep up, and our kitchen disasters led to real fights, even nights spent upset with each other. Yet, through the frustration, we learned to communicate better, compromise, and ultimately work as a team. By the time we finished the game, our relationship felt stronger, proof that even in the heat of Overcooked’s fire, we could stick together. It wasn’t just a game — it was a test of our bond, one that made us laugh, cry, and grow.

By Jastine Yap
Recommended read: Let the unionisation begin!’: Employees Get Cookies As Sephora Celebrates $10 Billion Revenue

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Dragon Age has always lifted freely from other games, from Dragon Age 2 borrowing the dialogue wheel to Dragon Age: Inquisition moving to open world design. Dragon Age: The Veilguard is no exception, but those influences now haunt every nook and cranny of Thedas. The faction design feels like the live service game it avoided becoming, the model that has burned its way through the industry. The pop-ups summarizing choices look lifted from Telltale Games, which leads to thinking about Telltale’s mismanagement and collapse. More and more, it’s hard to play any game and not think of how every game is a miracle — of design, labor, luck — and how close we are to losing it.

By Nigel Faustino
Recommended read: Could Studio Ghibli’s Lucasfilm collaboration finally let Star Wars characters… enjoy food??
From the author: Please donate to Anera

The Veil in the fantastical world of Thedas is the barrier that separates the corporeal world from the Fade, a world of dreams and spirits. Whenever Thedosians fall asleep, their soul is drawn into the Fade (save Dwarves, who cannot dream). Mages draw upon the energy of the Fade to conjure their special abilities. Going “beyond the Veil” in Thedas is often perilous, but often there are great insights to learn from that ethereal realm.

One of my favourite things about the writing in Bioware titles is that it’s often very forthright about your positioning, not just in Thedas but in relation to your role as a player who is living their own complex story outside of the game. The title of this current entry emphasizes this, as even as you are part of a group guarding against the cosmic chaos that could befall the world if the Veil is torn away from Thedas, you are also a player who is seeking to preserve their suspension of disbelief. Dragon Age: The Veilguard seeks to be a game narrative experience that both affirms old fans of the series and its ever-growing lore and invites new players to throw their lot in.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition you play as a Chosen One deconstructed. When you are consecrated as the Inquisitor you are told that “how you lead, that’s up to you.” As a game that sought and often failed to give an illusion of a vast game narrative world with many choices of import, it’s interesting to note how Veilguard swiftly revises this statement. Right in the first sequence in Tevinter as your protagonist nicknamed Rook is introduced, Neve asks Varric “Rook, like the chess piece?” signalling to the player they are about to be assigned their role. Varric responds that this is so, emphasizing that although an adept strategist, they tend to only think “in straight lines.” With this, the game also establishes that its narrative design will be more The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in terms of linear consequential choices than it is Baldur’s Gate 3’s at times overwhelming smorgasbord.

I find it heartening how sincere Bioware is about its comeback. Rook is embroiled in a war with god-like entities and is a classic underestimated hero — will you make them into a pawn or a dark horse? The company is in a similar position outside of the game board. Veilguard emphasizes safety, but is also a calculated bet, a combination of the best aspects of former Dragon Age titles to create a game that is (hopefully) a bastion of the qualities fans want to hold onto.

By Phoenix Simms (Portfolio)
Recommended read: Out of Reach, Out of Mind
From the author: Free Palestine, please donate to funds like Medical Aid for Palestinians

Balatro

Shuffle. Deal. Play.

Like every other deckbuilder and roguelike, Balatro shifts gradually with each mouse click. But here, each transformation can affect the most basic rules. Spades no longer score. Play up to six cards. Make a royal flush with just four.

Each new joker, each new boss blind, each new unlocked voucher, holds the potential to completely rewrite the terms of engagement, create an almost new game. It’s elemental: Balatro puts you in touch with the rules, the very bones of the game, asking what makes a game what it is. And so, I’m lured to repeatedly succeed and fail, to constantly discover new amusements, to wonder about the dazzlingly numerous possibilities of play.

Balatro is a joyful invitation: Uncover and discover. Contend and create. Possibility and pleasure. How else will this game change? What else lies out there?

Shuffle. Deal. Play.

By Daryl Li (Bluesky, Instagram, Twitter)
Recommended read: Muscle Memory

Arcane Season 2

Ending a story is hard, and doubly so when you have as many moving parts to resolve as Arcane did in the nine-episode runtime of its second and final season. So, did this series neatly tie up its numerous interpersonal conflicts while also settling the political strife between the haves of Piltover and have-nots of Zaun? Not at all! Instead of winding down its existing quarrels, most of Season 2 was spent building up a Big Fantasy threat only tangentially related to the previous focus on class struggle.

But despite not living up to its full potential, it’s a testament to this show’s strengths that even with these shortcomings, Arcane was still one of the best series of 2024. For starters, it was just as, if not more, of a visual powerhouse this time, as Fortiche once again blended various animation styles with flashy direction that elevated its drama and fisticuffs. And perhaps most importantly, this season delivered appropriately elating or depressing turns for its complicated cast of characters: Ekko’s journey was heartbreaking, Cait and Vi’s resolution was a delight, and Jayce and Viktor’s partnership was an appropriately brutal cosmic bookend. It turns out that doing right by your little guys can mostly compensate for structural storytelling failings, and while Arcane’s final season had issues, it was still an animated marvel that never betrayed its core themes. As Viktor reiterates in the closing moments, there can be beauty in imperfections — this finale had plenty of both.

By Elijah Gonzalez
Recommended read: Look Back on art’s power with this crushing, vibrant Tatsuki Fujimoto adaptation
Editor’s note: Inside The Culture Of Sexism At Riot Games

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure

Shifting tiles slide across,

Seeking yourself when feeling lost,

And found families, homes beyond walls,

No matter the problem, your will resolves,

Solves, solution, isolation,

Feelings burgeoning, bursting, floor rotation,

The puzzle beneath your feet,

No fiend or foe can defeat,

Shifting tiles that slide across,

Finding yourself, no longer lost.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure caught me off guard with its charming world, clever puzzles, and protagonist Jemma’s story which stood tall even though the ground in that world is anything but firm. There’s just something synergistic about the introduction and iteration of the main puzzle mechanic of sliding the ground to move Jemma and the world around her. A true gem of the year that tickled not only the puzzle-loving ligaments in my brain but the beat in my chest. Arranger is one of those games that you pick up because you love little puzzle boxes, and remember because we all just want to find our place — no matter how many tiles you need to sift through.

By Brenden Groom
Recommended listen: Pass the Controller
From the author: Play More Indies

DoDonPachi Resurrection

playing dodonpachi resurrection is an exercise in softening your inhibitions. your ship is like a paintbrush, dancing across a burning canvas of bullets. when the screen is rich with stars, the game obtains the sensuality of a slot machine — integers twinkle like sequins, projectiles pulsate on the screen. yet your hitbox, as slim and dainty as a soul, always hovers in the periphery of your senses. you exist only within the negative space of constant, rapturous violence.

i’ve been dissociating a lot lately, cloaking my evenings in an amnesiac fog. but when i play dodonpachi, my legs twitch; i whimper like an animal. it’s confirmation that my body still has life in it, no matter how much i want to retreat from it.

By pao yumol (Bluesky / Twitter)
Recommended watch: flowers yet bloom in this rotted church
From the author: i co-run a publication about online culture called ex research, and interested readers can find us at exresearch.co

Yakuza 0

In 2024, I had the good fortune of playing games of all genres and sizes. I played stunningly charming platformers like Astro Bot, and trudged through the proverbial trenches of experiences like Nine Sols to emerge victorious. I plumbed the depths of the ocean for a hermit crab shell, braved the woods of Gongaga (as well as the larger Final Fantasy VII multiverse) and even defeated the Witness on my first try. I’ve lived many different lives this year, worn many hats, and walked a mile in so many shoes. And yet, despite the wealth of experiences, my favorite thing I did all year was repeatedly beat Kuze’s ass in Yakuza 0.

The beauty of the Yakuza series, and this is as true of this year’s Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, as it is 2015’s Yakuza 0, is that there is always an inane, bizarre, and outright beautiful world at your fingertips at any given moment. And it is just bursting with opportunities, like the chance to train as a break dancer, fend off international debt collectors/assassins, run a real estate business or cabaret club, smooth talk strangers over the telephone, fight off every organized criminal in town while bare-chested with your best bro (me and who), bet money on an underground ladies’ wrestling league, teach a dominatrix to have a spine, fall into the pits of a doomed romance, and most importantly, whoop the ass of the same stubborn old head who thinks he knows better than you. Yakuza 0 is big and beautiful, like a deranged man charging at you from the dark recesses of a sewer on a motorcycle. Playing it gave me a zeal for life and companionship and the promise of the world beyond my bubble like nothing else.

By Moises Taveras
Recommended read: Citizen Sleeper And The Decline Of Digital Town Squares
From the author: big ups to my homie luigi

UFO 50

Presented as a game collection from the fictional video game software company UFO Soft, UFO 50 lets you play various retro video games that feel ripped from the ’80s. Don’t let the modern release fool you — while this was made in 2024, all these games follow the theme of being released between 1982 and 1989. Developed by a team of modern-day developers, led by Spelunky‘s Derek Yu, UFO 50 is a treat that takes you on a journey through classic video game history. It brought me back to my childhood days of playing those old bootleg NES all-in-one plug-and-play systems from the local swap meet. Only now, instead of being filled with questionable custom ROMs, it’s packed with new remarkably charming and entertaining full-fledged games across various genres.

By Luis Alamilla
Recommended watch: The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Review
From the author: Latinx Game Festival

I don’t know if games are stuck but they feel stuck. Parades of remakes, re-imaginings, and spiritual successors dominate every corner of the industry. It seems harder for daring formalist designs to get major press. UFO 50 is the kind of experiment that can get mainstream attention, with its established designers and pop culture aesthetic. But it doesn’t feel restricted for that. It feels free. It’s interested in the gritty details of games, in the miniature changes in pixels and code that make gigantic emotional differences. Playing it reminds you how much space there really is, how much more games could be if they dared.

By Grace Benfell
Recommended read: Always in the Eye
From the author: Help my family lives in the north of Gazastrip (gofundme)
Editor’s note: read and support The Imaginary Engine Review

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

Our thought, our song
Will not die, will not perish…
Oh there, people, is our glory,
Слава Україні! По всій землі слава!

In the context of its release, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl feels like the defiant song of a culture and people that outside powers have lorded over for decades. The soul of Ukraine is felt in every single fiber of this game, every line of code, and every spoken word. Heart of Chornobyl is an extremely empathic piece of art that wants you to listen and see for yourself what the Zone is and what it could be. That you can’t be happy at the expense of other’s unhappiness.

By Timo Reinecke
Recommended read: Coming Behind Masks
From the author: To my fellow Eastern Europeans, fuck Putin, fuck Trump, and fuck everyone trying to abandon us. Героям слава!

Threshold

Life stinks. You have to get up early to go and work at an impossible, pointless job, with arbitrary and confusing rules. Your supervisor is rarely there, and constantly bounds off to who knows where, leaving you to figure everything out on your own. And you’re on top of a huge mountain where oxygen is so thin that you’ll soon die for the lack of it – unless you bite into a glass air canister, purchased with special tickets you got from keeping a mysterious infinite train running on time.

Aside from that last bit, Threshold presents a deeply familiar picture of the indignities of wage labor under late capitalism. It’s a rapidfire tone poem you can play in an hour that will make you second-guess your life choices and ponder knocking your own metaphorical train off its tracks in a grand and foolhardy act of self-destruction.

By Yussef Cole
Recommended read: When War Becomes an Aesthetic, Nobody Wins
Editor’s note: read and support Bullet Points

Noctian Airgap

Noctian Airgap, the new album by electronic and club producer Hesaitix (formerly known as M.E.S..H.), feels like stepping into a video game. The sensibility starts with the cover; a parting of rock; an infinitely expanding horizon; a portal to another world. Then it crystallizes around the sound, a palette of high-fidelity synths, neck-snapping drums, and distant musique concrète crackle which is simultaneously deep and intricate, quiet and loud, expansive and inward-looking. This is undeniably dope electronic music that evokes its realm through aural suggestion rather than anything more explicit. Video games, by which I mean blockbuster AAA games, mostly take an alternative approach, literally and figuratively spelling their worlds out with tomes of lore, endlessly explaining, justifying, and rationalizing themselves. In short, they leave little to the imagination. But here is an album that sounds like how I want a video game to feel: tangible yet profoundly, unknowably mysterious.

By Lewis Gordon
Recommended read: The Appeal of Playing Together, Alone

Metaphor: ReFantazio

In an election year, the theme of a leader that many of us are confused enough to pin all of our anxieties on is more prescient than ever. Metaphor: ReFantazio explores this idea in depth, and does so in a courageous way I haven’t seen before in video games. I feel like that’s what we need in a year like this, regardless of which country you hail from. It’s a game that reminds us how meaningful human kindness is, and how it’s not fantasy to be kind to one another. A game that reminds us that despite our differences, our anxieties, and our fears, we’re all human in the end.

By Shannon Liao — last sentence by John Gao
Recommended read: The Real Tastemakers of Video Games

Longlegs

There is a single destabilizing truth to your world. You are tethered to it at birth, just out of view. What glimpses you get are obscured through the storybook all childhood is eventually reduced to. As an adult the discomfort sits with you. Something is wrong — with the world, with you, with the houses lined up in a neat row on the street. You go on a long journey to find this truth, to learn where evil comes from, and why it speaks to us. The answer can drive you mad: It was here, it was home. It was beneath your feet the whole time.

By Joshua Rivera
Recommended read: Babylon is absolute fire — and everyone in it is burning
From the author: just a message for anyone with anything to say to get out there and say it, and don’t wait for anyone’s permission

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

As agonizing the wait for Taylor Swift’s Reputation (Taylor’s Version) is, at least Swifties like myself are getting a kick out of the alleged “clues” the singer-songwriter embeds into her concerts, social media, and songs. The fact that she’s wearing silver, black, and gold — Reputation’s signature colors — on the Eras Tour could suggest she’s already re-recorded the tracks. Or take her dancer Jan Ravnik, who posted a monochrome picture of a snake — again, Reputation iconography — on his Instagram story. Perhaps we should analyze her song “Guilty as Sin?” in which she croons that there are “longings locked / In lowercase inside a vault” — a not-unlikely reference to the stylized lowercase title on Reputation’s album cover. Maybe they are all indeed Easter eggs. Or maybe we’ve all gone collectively insane.

That nutty kind of sleuthing is exactly why I adored Simogo’s Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. Arguably the most captivating puzzle game of 2024, it contains dozens upon dozens of puzzles scattered throughout a mysterious hotel. I’ve had to refresh my memory on Roman numerals to open a door. I resuscitated my PS1-era tank control muscle memory. I scribbled down notes on architecture into my notepad during lunch break to unlock a document tube. Lorelei dumps twenty headscratchers on you with thirty (possible) clues to accompany, and it trusts that you’ll make some sense out of it to unlock the next room.

Fifteen hours into the game, I found myself opening my character’s inventory, wondering if the mundane tampon inside was some key to unlocking the supercomputer in the basement. Hadn’t I seen a circular shaped hole in a marble bust on the west side on the second floor? Do I stick it in there? Let me take my character into the bathroom and use the tampon and wash her hands — will that reveal a secret door in the bathroom? Was there something hidden inside the tampon, and I just have to progress more in the story to unlock that?

Eventually I gave up and looked up the solution on Polygon: No, the tampon simply exists because people use tampons. Oh, well. I wasn’t mad about it. Sometimes, the fun is rooted in Looney Tunes-level of unserious detective work.

By Alina Kim
Recommended read: Chasing Nothingburgers?
From the author: congratulations to Aftermath for their incredible year of journalism !!

1000xRESIST

1000xRESIST should be on every slate for a writing award this year; head-spinningly clever and as gripping as a thriller, 1000xRESIST is an unparalleled narrative game about generational and national trauma, weaving together massive conceptual twists with the intimate legacies of COVID-19 and the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Like if Arrival and Never Let Me Go had a cyberpunk baby. Run, don’t walk.

By Elia Cugini
Recommended read: Olympics 2024: Misogyny in sports hasn’t gone, it’s just changed shape

ALLMOTHER sleepwalks. Your city is a lake of fire caught in the eye of a god that remains and remains and remains, her gaze reflected back at herself: red to blue. An original sin sprouts from the seed of good intentions. ALLMOTHER sharpens her halo on the whetstone of words, then cuts you down where you stand. You swear you will never be like her; she clips your wings and grounds you. The dome is breached. The garden is choked with weeds. ALLMOTHER is gone, but her omnipresence persists within you and you and you. Peel back the layers of yourself, and see the blood under her fingernails; between her teeth. “Hekki allmo.” Your sister sleepwalks towards you, the language ALLMOTHER never spoke caught in her gap-toothed smile. She looks at you, and ALLMOTHER’s eyes stare back. You scream.

By Nat Smith
Recommended read: God of War Ragnarok is GOTY material when it’s not boring me to death
From the author: Please donate to the PCRF

As I write this blurb, I’m sitting in my childhood bedroom in Hong Kong. This fact is relevant because I’m writing about 1000xRESIST, a remarkable game about a diaspora that doesn’t fully exist yet — namely, the cohort of children born to Hongkongers who fled the city after the 2019 protests.

I don’t personally know anyone who left as a direct result of 2019, though one could argue that I myself ‘fled’ the city a long time ago (in reality it wasn’t anything so dramatic; I just moved to Canada in 2017). But 1000xRESIST uses this framing device to illustrate the feeling of grappling with the fact that the place you once called home isn’t around anymore. This is something that I, along with all the people I grew up with, understand very well.

In 1000xRESIST, Iris’ parents are haunted by a city that they loved so much they had to leave it forever. Iris will never truly know what it is to live there, to be from there, but its specter hangs so heavy over her head that in all of her imagined cityscapes, in every world she constructs to cocoon herself, the winding alleyways and neon signs that define the image of Hong Kong are everywhere you look. But that’s all it is: an image. We never get to see how Hong Kong actually looks in this imagined future. To Iris, and her parents, it’s a city suspended in time, encased in amber. It’s a mirage that your hand would pass right through.

Everybody who leaves Hong Kong has a different idea of it. In the world of 1000xRESIST, the past and the future are both real places, populated by real people. Perhaps we’re all always leaving Hong Kong behind, every moment, as we collectively march further into the future. Perhaps in 20 years I’ll only be able to see it as it was, too.

By Bonnie Qu
Recommended read: This strange and awful time

Mouthwashing

From the moment “I hope this hurts” fades onto the screen for the first time, you know Mouthwashing deals in rage.

Mouthwashing is not for the faint of heart. It will sadden you. It will disgust you. It will make you deeply, profoundly uncomfortable. And finally, if you have a soul, it will enrage you.

Mouthwashing is science fiction, but you don’t need to look far to see the targets of its ire. As long as we continue to enable them, what happens there, in the howling dark of space where God is not watching, will keep happening here. It will happen every time we allow capital to wantonly destroy lives in the infinite pursuit of limitless profit; it will happen every time we put a “go along to get along” man into a position of power; it will happen every time that a man enables one of his shitty friends because “he’s not a bad guy”; it will happen every time we look the other way, or convince ourselves we’re not part of the problem, or that it doesn’t matter who we hurt, or that someone or something else will appear to save us. They will keep doing this, come hell or high water, until we make them stop.

Mouthwashing holds up a mirror, and asks if we like what we see. We shouldn’t. We are all guilty, and that realization is painful. But pain just means we’re alive, and as long as we’re alive, the fight can still be won.

I hope this fucking hurts.

By Will Borger
Recommended read: Annapurna’s Cocoon Is Full of Surprise and Wonder
From the author: make capitalists afraid again

For the crew of the space freighter Tulpar, losing their jobs is equally as life-ending as being stranded with no hope of rescue.

Each of the five crew members are literally and metaphorically trapped, with nothing better to do than reflect. They struggle with the realization that sacrifices made for loved ones and dreams left unrealized could all be for nothing. Having recently been laid off myself, I can empathize with how the lingering question of if my life’s choices were “worth it” becomes the only thing.

Mouthwashing is a horror game, but not in how it utilizes jumpscares, item scarcity, or any other tricks of the genre. Rather, it thrives on mundane conversations that emphasize the growing reliance of society on a decaying job market. As we watch it all crumble around us, leaving uncountable victims in its wake, Mouthwashing is terrifying because it leaves us wondering if starving in space is really that much worse than the alternative.

By Willa Rowe (Website)
Recommended read: An afternoon at the ballet

Phoenix Springs

By Miri Teixeira (Portfolio)
Recommended read: Pathologic 2 is the greatest game you’ve never played, and it deserves a second chance ahead of Pathologic 3
From the author: either donations to Medical Aid for Palestinians or telling people to join a union lmao

I needed Phoenix Springs this year.

I’d been laid off from a job I loved, caught every illness going, a close member of my family had been acutely ill, mental health wasn’t cooperating, we’d totaled a car… the year just kept spitting out both major hardships, and those smaller hurdles that would inevitably be funny in hindsight but at the time felt like salt in the wound.

On reflection, playing Phoenix Springs helped me realise that it had been a beautiful year, too. The plight of the characters – senseless, lost, their identities stolen from them by something distant and remote. The beauty of the landscape, the intimacy of manually connecting another person’s thoughts. I finished it in two days.

It was short and simple, but I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m trying to figure out what happened. To close the loop with certainty. It forces you to connect with it as observed art and involved play at the same time. As metaphor and blunt reality. It’s a point-and-click game at heart, but it uses the main character’s thoughts and logic to draw conclusions to puzzles. You have to choose to remember. And sometimes you forget.

Phoenix Springs has a tightly woven plot that makes you hungry for the ending. It has characters who tug on that piece of your heart that longs to give comfort to those who need it. Its art style makes everything feel like a strange dream, like looking through a tunnel of light. It feels both vague and deeply personal.

In my elation and confusion at reaching the end, I found myself seeking out other people to talk about it with. Sending and recommending the game so I could ask for theories and share my own. I could connect with the grief and the cold that Phoenix Springs echoes with, but also with the comfort in searching for answers, in having a purpose and keeping busy. There are answers to find – and as dark and unforgiving as the world can feel, we have our passions and projects to keep us fired and in motion. And then we have the moments when we let go. When we float, we forgive, and we give in to peace.

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Edit December 31, 11:20 AM (Argentina time): An earlier version of this story featured a blurb of Dustborn. Upon inspection, the author’s politics did not align with Into The Spine. The blurb has been deleted, and replaced by a new one from a different writer.