2023 has often been called one of the best years for game releases, and I can’t help but agree. I have played more new games this year than any year in recent memory, and there are so many games still in my backlog that I want to play in the future.
For my list, I have only selected 5 games, not because these are the only games I enjoyed this year, but because these are the games I feel I have invested enough time into to properly rank.
There are several games, including Dead Space Remake, Baldur’s Gate III, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Diablo IV, Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty, and so many more that I have played but have not put enough time into. The games listed below are games that I feel confident enough to rank and thus made my Game of The Year list.
5. Halo Infinite (Season 5)
Everyone knows the story of Halo Infinite at this point, and it is one that many similar games have gone through. The game was incredible at launch but lacked a sufficient post support road map, meaning the games live service ambitions initially failed, which led to mass layoffs and dwindling player counts. With Halo Infinite Season 5, after nearly 2 years of post launch support, 343 has officially turned it around and delivered what is my opinion the best multiplayer shooter on the market.
The amount of content in the game today is immense, and new content is added on a consistent basis. It is a shame that this isn’t the game that we got when the game launched in 2021, but I am happy that 343 and Microsoft stuck with the game to continue supporting such an incredible game.
4. Ghostwire: Tokyo
Ghostwire: Tokyo is Tango Gameworks first attempt to move beyond The Evil Within series while still staying in the horror genre, and the results comprise of a game that has incredible highs with a few notable lows.
Tango Gameworks rendition of Tokyo is one of the coolest settings I have ever played in any game. While exploration can be limited, the spaces you can explore are fully detailed and exciting to discover. The combat is one of my favorites of the year featuring first person spell binding combat that looks stylish and feels great to execute.
The story is engaging, and the writing is great and even genuinely funny throughout. The game does suffer from a bit of open world fatigue, some quests feel like busy work, and it does take quite a bit of an adjustment to make the game feel good on a controller. Even with these low points, the setting and gameplay are so exceptional that it is easily one of my favorite games of the year.
3. Alan Wake II
Alan Wake II is the rare sequel that is a step up in every conceivable way from its predecessor. Alan Wake II released 13 years after the Xbox exclusive Alan Wake, and for a variety of reasons, developers Remedy were unable to make the sequel they desperately wanted until now.
Fortunately, the wait was well worth it. Remedy delivered a game that honors the original while tieing in their other games and tackling a new genre in Survival Horror, making it the culmination of everything this studio has been doing for the last few decades. After years of being a studio that was always a little overlooked, Remedy delivered a game that hopefully pushes them into more mainstream adulation.
2. Hi-Fi RUSH
With HI-Fi Rush, Xbox owned Tango Gameworks went from a studio that made cult classic games in The Evil Within to making one of the best games ever made in their first attempt at a true action title.
Hi-Fi RUSH is simply one of the coolest games to release in recent memory and mashes up the rhythm genre with a slick and beautiful third-person action game to make something that is simply special and a must play for anyone.
1. Starfield
Starfield is something of a flawed masterpiece, one I have put close to 100 hours into and played during any and all of my free time possible during the first month of the games release. The game has an addicting loop of completing quests, tinkering and flying your own spaceship, exploring planets to look for and gather resources, and much more.
Like a lot of highly anticipated games, a very loud section of the gaming discourse has spent way too much time trying to convince anyone who will listen that the game failed to meet any of its promises. When I sift through the angry discussions and forum level discourse surrounding the game, I can agree with some of the sentiment about the games failings in seemless exploration and a variety of issues with the tried and true Bethesda formula.
Even as I acknowledge these flaws, there still isn’t a game I’ve spent more time with this year that hooked me to the point of near addiction. No other game had as many jaw dropping moments this year, including discovering that enemy ships will take off from a planets surface into orbit while you’re still aboard, or finding out that the New Game Plus mode is amongst the most inventive in any game I’ve ever played.
Starfield is a game that means something different to a lot of different people. With mod support, post launch updates, and DLC arriving in the coming months and years, Starfield will only improve. For me, that means turning something great into something even greater.
