The 50 Best Games of the 2020s So Far

The 50 Best Games of the 2020s So Far

The first half of the 2020s has been a rough one for the games business. More than any new developments in game design or the success of any single game, the defining story of the last five years has been the massive amount of layoffs, mergers, and studio closures within the industry. Since the start of just 2023 almost 25,000 game developers have lost their jobs, and the resulting loss of experience and knowledge is incalculable. The corporate game world has long been fundamentally broken, with employees exploited with constant crunch, new anti-consumer trends regularly being forced onto the market, and ballooning budgets leading to completely unrealistic sales expectations that make even multi-million selling hits into financial failures. Like the music business since the ’80s, the best games out there generally aren’t being made by the biggest companies. You’ll still see a lot of games from the major players on our list of the best games of the decade so far, but you’ll find just as many by small teams, independent studios, and even individual developers; although most of them depend on the hardware publishers to varying degrees (computer releases can help cut out the corporate middle-men, but when it comes to getting your games onto consoles, you still have to make nice with Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo), the independent games scene has pretty much been the only thing keeping our interest in games going the last several years. There really are a lot of similarities to the music world in the ’80s, with increasingly prominent independent studios making far better games than the big names; the big difference is that the record business was raking in money hand over first back then, unlike the major game companies today, who are largely all floundering at the moment.

Before we get to the list, here’s a quick note on methodology.  Over a half-dozen Paste Games editors and contributors submitted personal ballots of their picks for the best games of the 2020s, which made up a first draft of the list. I took that first draft and compared it to our year-end lists and our highest-scoring game reviews, maybe putting my thumbs on the scale a bit here and there, and then my assistant games editor Elijah Gonzalez did a quick once-over to make sure I wasn’t missing anything too glaring. And what came out the other end is the list you’ll find below: the best games of the 2020s so far.—Garrett Martin

50. Stray

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4

Stray absolutely understands what it’s like to be a cat—at least from a human’s perspective. This cat will scratch on rugs, walls, and furniture. This cat will nonchalantly knock glasses, vases, and even open cans of paint off shelves. This cat will get its head stuck in paper bags, hang out in empty boxes, or idly swat balls back and forth, if you want it to. This cat will even jump onto a table in the middle of a game of dominoes, knocking the pieces all over the floor. It’ll also purr and meow, rub itself lovingly against the legs of those it likes, and even snuggle up against a robot as it takes a nap. Stray captures the mischief, aloofness, and sweetness of a cat, while also uncannily recreating the way they look and move. The cat gets the hype, but it’s the cat’s robot friend that ultimately makes the biggest impression. If B-12 was just a typical guide—a hint system and blinking arrow in character form—Stray wouldn’t work. B-12’s journey of self-discovery is the main emotional through line in the game, the wire upon which the entire experience hangs, and even if you can tell where that story is going before the drone can, it’s told with a clarity and forthrightness that adds to its power. The cat game might be less about the cat and more about the existential crises facing mankind and the artificial intelligences that will be left behind, but at least there’s a dedicated meow button—Garrett Martin

 


49. Drainus

Platforms: PC, Switch

Originally released in for PCs in 2022, Drainus made its console debut on the Switch in early 2023, which is where I first played it, and that’s close enough for me to have included it on a list of my top 10 games of 2023. Drainus is a smart shoot-’em-up (or shmup) with a clever central gimmick of “draining” your enemies’ fire and returning it at them, as well as a weapons upgrade system with a lot of customizability and flexibility. On top of that is a well-told and genuinely touching story about estranged siblings working through their grief over the loss of a parent in very different ways, wrapped inside the kind of cartoonish sci-fi framework you expect from shmups. Veteran shoot-’em-up fans might not find it challenging enough, or might nitpick it for technical reasons that most players wouldn’t even notice, but it’s highly recommended for both newcomers and casual shooters who remember the genre’s 20th century heyday alike.—Garrett Martin


48. Hi-Fi Rush

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5

Hi-Fi Rush is my dream game come true. I’ve always been a sicko for action and rhythm games, but have admittedly only excelled at the latter since music was a significant part of my upbringing. And though I’ve always heard the analogies about combos in action games being rhythmic, few games have ever taken the actual step towards visualizing that in the way Hi-Fi Rush does, or made it as simple to understand. That is just the first in a long string of things that the game gets right. Setting players up against a metronome that’s brought to life in the world around you makes the game feel magical, and by extension you are magic for harmonizing with it. I loved, for example, during one particular combo that needed me to hit the light attack four times with a rest breaking it up into two segments, that the rest was realized in the character model, clearly delineating when it was time to continue. Because of the constant visual and audio aids, slapping enemies with your magnetically assembled impression of an electric guitar to the beat has never made it simpler to execute short but satisfying combos, only made better by many of their flashy finishes, which also demand accuracy to land most efficiently. I swear the game will have you counting beats, and I often caught myself head banging ever so slightly to Hi-Fi Rush’s impeccable score while wailing away at enemy encounters.—Moises Taveras

 


47. Dragon’s Dogma 2

Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Although its story centers on a monarch trying to reclaim their crown and all the power that comes with it, Dragon’s Dogma 2’s greatest delights come from accepting you can’t control everything. You can’t influence inclement weather or the sun disappearing over the horizon as unsettling monstrosities burst from subterranean layers. You can’t blink across the world without paying for it, and instead, must take long journeys where the only cure for dwindling strength is rest. Sometimes, you can’t even get up a particular cliffside, its steep terrain forcing a different path. And most of all, you can’t always control who lives and dies (although there is a hilariously arcane process to resurrect the dead, for a price, of course). It’s not challenging in quite the same way as FromSoftware’s output, like Dark Souls and Sekiro, although I can see why those comparisons are made. Here, the toughness is less about learning to dodge-roll at the right time and more related to preparation and countering weaknesses. Dragon’s Dogma 2 also isn’t some entirely avant-garde, player-hating thing that rejects “fun” outright. It feels really good when you shield bash a guy, weaponizing the same inertia that’s sent you slipping down slopes to make a foe do the same. After hitting an off-balance enemy with a follow-up attack (aptly named “Empale”), the immaculate thud of the ensuing audio cue is music to my ears. It’s damn satisfying whenever things line up perfectly, like cutting a bridge out from under a charging Cyclops or sending a boulder ripping through an army of Saurians. But what makes these moments truly pop is that you don’t have fine control over when they arrive.—Elijah Gonzalez


46. Cult of the Lamb

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Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One.

From the very moment Cult of the Lamb begins, players embark on a rollicking, deceptively cute, but ultimately sinister journey through the lands of the Old Faith, and it never lets up. Within seconds of gaining control of the game, the player is executed for being a potential vessel for The One Who Waits, a god who’s been bound by chains. This fallen god saves the player before charging them, a literal sacrificial lamb, with taking up a crown and restoring them to power. From there, players engage in a lot of frankly dubious behavior, indoctrinating dissidents of the Old Faith into a cult and deciding how best to exploit them.

Cult of the Lamb’s greatest strength might be its honesty. Action games are about this absolute physical dominance over other things and people around you, and management sims have always been about pulling on threads and watching systems big and small do your bidding. In a sense, Cult of the Lamb is this wholly self-aware marriage of two distinct, but intrinsically tied, genres about the order of things, and just immediately inserts you at the top of that hierarchy, laying it all bare. It drops all pretenses and weaves conquest and violence of various forms (spiritual, physical, and systemic) into its systems and simple story very satisfyingly. At the end of the day, your cult leader is little but an avatar for destruction masquerading as a hero. How much more of a videogame could you be at that point? And for that frankness alone, Cult of the Lamb is more than deserving of high marks.—Moises Taveras

 


45. Death’s Door

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Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, PlayStation 4

Death’s Door implicitly argues something the entertainment world at large needs to understand: Nostalgia doesn’t have to be shameless or oppressive. It doesn’t have to be the summation of a game’s (or a movie’s, or a TV show’s) ambition. It doesn’t have to be splashed all over the cover and title screen, or the full extent of the marketing campaign. Death’s Door deeply evokes the spirit of some of the most beloved games of all time, and does it well enough that anybody familiar with those legendary games will no doubt recognize and appreciate it. And it does all this with a context and presentation that makes it feel new and vital and not just like a calculated imitation of the past. It takes so much of what made the original Zelda and A Link to the Past into timeless classics, but makes them into their own. Nostalgia can be part of the package, but it shouldn’t be the whole point, and Death’s Door’s cocktail of mechanical nostalgia and narrative creativity is something we don’t see enough of in today’s IP-crazed business.—Garrett Martin

44. Nier Replicant ver1.22474487139

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Over the last two decades, Yoko Taro has become one of gaming’s most elusive developers. His work is known for its singularity—they’re particularly dark while maintaining a morbid sense of humor, gleefully fuse together multiple genres that pique Taro’s interests, and, until Nier: Automata, were known as nearly unplayable. Of these, Taro managed to achieve a cult following for his work on 2010’s Nier, a game that, like Drakengard, was not destined for mainstream success at the time but, thanks to its idiosyncrasies, managed to shine and foster a dedicated fanbase. It popularly became known as a “good story, bad gameplay” game, politely leaving the conversation until Automata’s surprise success in 2017.

Nier Replicant ver1.22474487139… is, in many ways, the perfect reintroduction. With a revamped visual design that rivals Automata, the game’s setting is a stunning world of shock and awe worth getting lost in. The combat system has been lightly retouched, still echoing Nier’s unique identity when compared to Automata’s 2B but feeling more weighty and purposeful than hollow and repetitive. But does all this necessarily make ver1.22.. the “definitive” Nier experience? All things considered, the game is its own beast, and Yoko Taro understands that—it’s a “version upgrade” and not a remake or a remaster, after all. The fact remains that all three versions of Nier offer a worthwhile journey, even though only one was intended to exist at all. Overall, I feel optimistic about ver1.22.. and the legacy it may leave behind as a still-flawed upgrade to a divisive game from a defunct developer. It’s peerless in many ways, but also the same old story—an auteur nearly swallowed by the industry manages to get out his masterpiece after the smash success of his more palatable work. I, for one, am happy it happened. —Austin Jones


43. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

Platforms: Switch, PC

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a game with vision. It wraps intriguing puzzles in a digital gothic framework. It makes the most of its chosen medium as it forces us to navigate the tenuous details of this backdrop. Just about every layer of the experience is creatively risky, from its fragmented narrative to its uncompromising barrage of challenges, but these gambles largely pay off to deliver something with purpose and direction. Crafting this kind of maze isn’t easy; it takes a combination of subtle guidance and faith in your audience. But despite these challenges, Simogo never loses sight of how to stoke curiosity about what’s lurking around the next corner, whether it’s a treasure you’ve been seeking or, conversely, something horrible lurking in the dark.—Elijah Gonzalez

 


42. Neon White

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Platforms: PC, Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, PlayStation 4

Neon White is pure motion. It might look like a first-person shooter—it’s in first person and you shoot a lot—but it’s all in service of the constant heedless rush at the game’s heart. Almost every time you shoot a demon it’ll be to acquire whatever kinetic ability it gives you, which you will almost immediately use to jump a little higher or rush forward a little faster or to literally grenade yourself dozens of feet into the sky to reach the next platform. You’re not here to shoot, per se, but to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, and the shooting merely facilitates that. When you fully tap into its flow Neon White is about as exhilarating as videogames get, becoming an extension of your own nervous system as you effortlessly string moves together while trying to shave microseconds off your best time. And on top of its mechanical excellence it also has a story and cast of characters so well-written that I’m able to overlook its unfortunate reliance on an aesthetic and character tropes right out of anime. Neon White combines arcade elegance and extreme replayability with a genuinely thoughtful and surprising story, making it almost the best game of 2022 so far. It’s the only game that finally, fully broke Elden Ring’s hold over me; I haven’t set foot in the Lands Between since my first time sprinting through Heaven.—Garrett Martin

 


41. Venba

Venba

 

Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox One

This short, bittersweet visual novel / puzzle game hybrid examines the immigrant experience through the crucial cultural bedrock of cooking. Set across three decades in the lives of an Indian family who’ve resettled in Canada, Venba is yet more proof that games have the unique capacity to engage us emotionally in ways that other mediums can’t. Like the best meals, Venba ends too soon, but it’s so rich and fulfilling that it’ll leave you satisfied.—Garrett Martin


40. Dungeon Encounters

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Platforms: Switch, PlayStation 4, PC

Dungeon Encounters might be the greatest dungeon crawler of all time. Bringing together veteran Final Fantasy director Hiroyuki Ito (creator of the Active Time Battle system), rockstar composer Nobuo Uematsu, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance artist Ryoma Ito, this game is an ATB love letter to Original Dungeons & Dragons. Throw together a party of a Panther-man, a single mom with a medieval shotgun, a golden retriever, even a robot, and go exploring actual graph paper mazes littered with hexadecimal encounters. Dungeon Encounters is the genre stripped to its bones, and made to dance with charm, mirth, and the sharpest approach to combat the genre has ever seen.—Dia Lacina

 


39. Super Mario Wonder

Super Mario Bros. Wonder

Platform: Switch

As a big fan of platformers, I have a somewhat blasphemous confession. Although many 3D Mario titles rank highly among my all-time favorites, the series’ 2D entries have rarely resonated with me in the same way. Maybe it’s the long shadow of the repetitive New Super Mario Bros. era, but up until now, I would have taken a twitch platformer like Super Meat Boy or Celeste over the mustachioed plumber’s side-scrolling outings almost every time. However, despite this bias, I was utterly smitten with Super Mario Wonder. At its core, it feels plucked from a parallel universe of game design. While most releases from big publishers attempt to monopolize your time by building out increasingly massive worlds filled with repetitive tasks, by contrast, this one prioritizes hand-crafted novelty above all else. In any given area, I wasn’t sure if I’d be subject to a musical number, genre-shifting shenanigans, or whatever other psychedelic daydream, resulting in playful, out-of-the-box sequences that left me entranced. It’s probably the most condensed fun I had with a game in 2023 and a rare case where I was compelled to reach 100% completion.–Elijah Gonzalez

 


38. If Found

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Platforms: PC, iOS, Mac, Switch

If Found isn’t a happy story. It’s an honest one. There’s a good chance you will cry, perhaps more than once, but there are also moments of joy, love and triumph. Despite the artistry of its presentation, and despite a recurring sci-fi metaphor that adds a bit of depth to the story but never quite fully connects, this is a low-key, modest, human affair. Its observations about family and relationships are touching, grounded and real, avoiding melodrama or outsized pronouncements about human nature. Much of it is universal, sure, but the focus remains on its lead character Kasio and how her merely being who she is can disrupt her relationships with her family and the world around her. It’s a character study of a specific person in a specific time and place, but whose pains and struggle ring true throughout the ages.—Garrett Martin


37. Animal Well

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Platforms: PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PC

You’ve probably seen many of Animal Well’s components in isolation before. Its structure is at least partially inspired by games like Metroid, its style of puzzles bear a lot of resemblance to Fez, and its retro aesthetics call to mind a whole host of older games and contemporary works. But the way these parts come together is nothing short of uniquely enrapturing. Its smaller puzzles are rewarding, and its larger ones are so satisfying that things can quickly spiral into outright obsession, something made more captivating by this well-realized setting that is charming and disquieting in equal measure. At its core, Animal Well profoundly understands how to encourage and pay off curiosity, which is probably why, even after digging into and solving many of its mysteries, I still need to know just how much deeper this rabbit hole goes.—Elijah Gonzalez

 


36. Ultros

Ultros

Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC

Playing Ultros is gaming in a cloud of color and confusion, a perpetually exciting state of being that evokes the earliest days of videogames while still feeling ahead of its time. Between your constantly shifting relationship with your surroundings, the cryptic goals and hallucinatory interactions, the structure and action of Ultros is as psychedelic as its music and art. And that’s genuinely shocking, as few games are as fiercely devoted to the psychedelic aesthetic as this one. The bright, brilliant artwork by El Huervo channels the twisty chaos of comics legend Brendan McCarthy (who might be better known today as the co-writer and designer of Mad Max: Fury Road), uniting the abstract and the visceral (literally—guts are an omnipresent symbol throughout Ultros) to create an art style unlike any other in games. Meanwhile Ratvader’s original score captures the yawning, dramatic stillness of Popol Vuh, the ambient German rock group who soundtracked several Herzog films. El Huervo’s art and Ratvader’s music are the most obvious psychedelic signifiers in Ultros, but the game itself lives up to their mind-altering ambitions. It’s one of the best games of 2024.—Garrett Martin

 


35. The Making of Karateka

The Making of Karateka

Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, PlayStation 4

This interactive documentary painstakingly tracks the design of the classic 1984 computer game Karateka. It shows, in exacting detail, how Jordan Mechner created the kung fu fighter, exploring Mechner’s work on both Karateka and his unpublished earlier games through contemporary video interviews, original design notes, correspondence, and multiple iterative prototypes. It reveals the give-and-take between Mechner and his publisher while showing how the then-college aged Mechner’s vision and mindset changed throughout development. Originally released for the Apple II in 1984, Mechner’s game was a bestseller that broke ground for cinematic technique in games, with a clear storyline, cut-scenes, an original score (written by Mechner’s father, Francis Mechner), and editing and cinematography inspired by films. It’s also an early influence on the fighting game; it consists of a series of one-on-one karate fights, similar to Karate Fight and Yie Ar Kung-Fu, which were also both released in 1984. Karateka is like a playable ‘70s kung fu flick, complete with a shocking twist ending if the player isn’t careful. This playable documentary is a brilliant piece of work, and a must-play for Karateka fans and anybody interested in game design. It might sound weird to call an almost 40 year old game one of the best games of the 2020s but The Making of Karateka is far more than just a reissue.—Garrett Martin

 


34. Tunic

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Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch

You know what’s just full of respect? Andrew Shouldice’s Tunic. That’s what. This one-man adventure jam doesn’t go easy with its puzzles, having faith that its players will be able to think their way through every tricky scenario presented to them. It also has a deep and overt respect for ‘80s Nintendo games, specifically the original Legend of Zelda; that’s evident not just in the game’s isometric view and general environment, but also in its in-game manual, which isn’t just some mystic, sacred text the adorable fox hero has to seek out, but also a recreation of an NES-era instruction booklet. Tunic sifts through the shared experiences of our gaming past to create something new and unique enough to exist outside the easy allure of nostalgia.—Garrett Martin


33. Spelunky 2

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S

With most videogame sequels you expect the three “-ers”: bigger, badder and better. At least that’s what the standard marketing boilerplate drones on about at every E3 press conference. Spelunky 2 can scratch off that “bigger” tag, at least—it has more worlds than the first game, although its branching structure makes sure that you don’t see them all during a single playthrough. There are multiple tweaks throughout that marks this as its own unique game, and yet despite those changes the ultimate experience perfectly recaptures how it feels to play Spelunky. It’s less a sequel than a continuation, or some parallel dimension’s version of what Spelunky has always been.

The genius of Spelunky 2 is that it somehow adds new possibilities to a game that already had endless possibilities. That’s legitimately impressive. And that’s why I’m sure I’ll be playing this for as long as I’ve played the original, both games coexisting blissfully together as one of the absolute best parent-child pairs in gaming.—Garrett Martin

 


32. Metroid Dread

Platform: Switch

The first entirely new side-scrolling Metroid game in almost two decades captures what makes Super Metroid such a timeless classic, while also introducing something the series hasn’t seen since the very first NES game: a palpable sense of fear. The almost unbeatable E.M.M.I. sentries are even more terrifying than the metroids you face at the end of Metroid. Every E.M.M.I. encounter punctuates the game’s sterling design with genuine dread, eliciting an emotional and physical response rarely seen in games. Metroid Dread is about as good a return to classic Metroid as anybody could ask for.—Garrett Martin

 


31. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Tears of the Kingdom

Platform: Switch

Tears of the Kingdom looks like Breath of the Wild, sounds like Breath of the Wild, and even plays like Breath of the Wild, and yet it’s so fundamentally different that it’s almost impossible to confuse the two. The sequel to our favorite game of the last decade expands greatly on the original’s map, introducing both upper and lower levels to trek through, and also introduces an Erector Set-style construction toolset that gives you an extreme amount of freedom to experiment and explore. Many love it more than Breath because of that freedom, while others (uh, like me) think it overcomplicates the elegant, immersive beauty of Breath just a little too much. Still, it’s an absolutely amazing Zelda, one of the best games for the Switch, and a clear-cut favorite for one of the best games of 2023.—Garrett Martin

 


30. The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow

Platforms: PC, Switch

Horror games basically have two common modes. They either disempower players to watch them struggle or they overload them with sensory material that they can, often, fire a double-barrelled shotgun at. If you pick a random horror game, you’ll get one of these, and if you’re lucky you’ll have an opportunity for both. The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow doesn’t have any shotguns, but it does strike a balance between these two modes due to how it is put together. Point and click games are by their very nature frustrating, and they lean into disempowerment through that frustration. Playing as Thomasina, a young archaeologist who is following in her father’s footsteps excavating barrows in the English countryside, you end up wandering all around a small village trying to figure out how to find a contact who will lead you to the damned barrow that you’re meant to investigate. In fact, a huge chunk of the game is spent just trying to do puzzles, bit by bit, in order to access the short hillock presumably put together by ancient peoples. At the same time, Thomasina has a conceptual shotgun in that she, and therefore we, have a pretty awesome power of empirical reasoning. The point and click genre gives us access to a very clear set of rules that proceed us through the world, and discovering how those rules interface with one another makes each puzzle surmountable. I never would have thought that I would play a game and think “well, I hope this solution does not work,” but Barrow gave me several instances where my dread about what was happening was fighting with my interest in proceeding. It is a shotgun by way of a slow burn, but it is nevertheless an agential way of carving through obstacles.–Cameron Kunzelman


29. Immortality

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5, iOS, Android

Sam Barlow has created his own micro-genre of games built around mundane video sources. First it was the police interrogation videos of Her Story, and then the video calls of Telling Lies. With Immortality, Barlow and his team go fully cinematic, presenting a mystery about a forgotten actress from the late ‘60s who disappeared after her three starring roles went unreleased. The footage from those lost films resemble different styles of film from two different eras, and the interface is set up like an old Moviola editing desk. You’ll sort through her short film career looking for insight into why she vanished, clicking from one clip to another, including outtakes and talk show appearances. Over time the mystery takes an unsettling turn into horror, but Immortality doesn’t lose site of its themes—voyeurism, the power of sex, the inherent exploitation of movies, the specific exploitation and power dynamics of the director/actor relationship, etc.—in chase of scares.—Garrett Martin

 


28. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

Armored Core VI

Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC

Most of what happens in From’s mech game Armored Core VI happens because something needs to. This is not a complex story, the themes are direct and unadorned. There are bits and pieces, information is withheld, endings leave room for speculation. But this is not a game for deep epistemological work. Etymology is explanatory, but not revelatory here. Rubicon has meaning in that From Software has at least done cursory reading of Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars. One of the first real challenges you’ll face is an unhinged, violent AC pilot named Sulla. Does this have any deep hidden meaning? No, not really. You can google it and learn all about Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix if you want. But it won’t truly deepen your understanding of Armored Core VI like every other piece of media, there is no “unlocking” done by understanding the origins of every term. Mostly things are named what they are because it suits a general theme, things need names, and some names just sound more badass than others. Rubicon, for instance, has plenty of historical significance, but mostly people invoke the word “Rubicon” (a truly uneventful river named because of the iron saturation of the riverbed) when they want to either let you know they think they’re being hard as a motherfucker, or they want to call upon the YOLO or Live Más mentality. You know what also sounds pretty hard? “Let us go where the omens of the Gods and the iniquity of our enemies call us. The die is now cast.” That last sentence is actually the translation for the third ending achievement. There. Saved you a trip to Fextralife.—Dia Lacina

 


27. Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Platform: Switch

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a worthy addition to the franchise, one that succeeds in its mission as a culmination of the Xenoverse so far, and one that, despite building on top of pre-existing systems with even more of them, manages to streamline itself enough and in enough ways that it wouldn’t be a surprise for it to become the best-selling title in the series. It turns out you can sell philosophy to the kids, so long as that philosophy also has mechs. Monolith has come a long way since Xenogears and Squaresoft, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is evidence they’re still going to have places to go without needing to find a new developmental process or bosses, too. Whether it’s the “best” Xenoblade or not doesn’t matter as much as the fact that it fits in wonderfully with what already existed, and ensures that we should be looking forward to whatever those next steps for the series end up being, too.—Marc Normandin

 


26. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Platform: PlayStation 5

The first real reason to own a PlayStation 5, Rift Apart is an embellishment on a formula that’s worked for 19 years. It’s splashy and charming. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it absolutely will dive into talking about trauma and disability, and tackle questions of belonging and imposter syndrome in ways that are simple enough to speak to children, but honest enough to resonate with adults. And at times, it manages to be surprisingly funny despite being entirely predictable, knitting trope to trope in a tapestry wrapped in more tropes. It’s a simple but surprisingly earnest and compassionate game. What carries this big flashy sci-fi romp along and helps elevate it from a simple farce is this charm and humanity. Rift Apart has the heart that Guardians of the Galaxy could never find.—Dia Lacina


25. Street Fighter 6

Street Fighter 6 Is Shaping Up to Be the Future of Fighting Games

Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4

All long-running games eventually have to figure out how to attract new players without disenchanting their fans. It’s even tougher with fighting games, and especially one as old, beloved, and rich in history as Street Fighter. Street Fighter 6 has figured out how to cater to its massive following while still welcoming new players, and then providing both with the innovation of a surprisingly deep RPG on top of the core fighting game. Whether you’ve been mixing it up in those streets for decades or never even reeled off a single hadouken before, Street Fighter 6 should be on your fight card. It’s the new standard in fighting game excellence, and one of the best games of 2023.—Garrett Martin

 


24. Umurangi Generation

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Platforms: PC, Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Quest 2, Quest 3

Does this sound familiar? A city’s in lockdown after a crisis, its citizens wearing face masks for their own health. Heavily armed cops patrol streets rife with anti-cop graffiti. Institutions have violated their compact with the people, and those in power came down hard on those who rose up against them. It’s real life around the world right now, but it’s also the setting for Umurangi Generation, a beautiful photo game that contrasts the peacefulness of taking photos and making art with the fear and violence of a police state, and which came out a week before the protests inspired by George Floyd’s murder went global. The societal issues that people are protesting are timeless, sadly, and embedded at the very foundation of our culture, which means a game like Umurangi will always be timely—at least until society is transformed to the point of being unrecognizable. Playing Umurangi over the last few days can be taxing, especially if you turn to games simply to shut out the world around you and ignore what’s happening. The added context of the last week also makes it exhilarating, though, and in a way that leaves me feeling a bit guilty and shameful—like a tourist who, instead of documenting real life oppression, is living in a fictionalized version of it. The events that inspired Umurangi’s crisis are environmental—designer Naphtali Faulkner’s mother’s house was destroyed during the bush fires that raged through Australia last year, and the game’s dark red skies hint at a different kind of trauma than the one currently happening in America and elsewhere. It’s one that still looms above all of society, though; if we don’t tear our own cities down first, the worsening climate problem inevitably will. Despite the different disasters, and even with its futuristic, sci-fi trappings, Umurangi Generation is a vital, current, powerful game that uncannily captures the mood of its time.—Garrett Martin

 


23. The Banished Vault

The Banished Vault

Platform: PC

Much of The Banished Vault plays out on a map that resembles an Atreides’ war table one might expect to find in early concept art for David Lynch’s Dune. Everything vibrates with a dull warmth. Dimly glittering starfields are inscribed with precise and ritualistic Utopian geometry. The pathways between planets themselves are marked with scalpel-straight alloyed-gold lines that break with efficient angles. At the bottom of every map, a giant throbbing star, and at the top the Auriga Vault, her four Exiles, and their interplanetary transports, which resemble little brass plumb bobs as much as they do spacecraft.

Between maps, Exiles hibernate through an occult ritual with a substance called Stasis, a rare resource that must be produced (not extracted) from more common extracted resources. Each map is its own puzzle to first determine if it is even possible to produce Stasis with the available planetary resources, and then to do so efficiently by navigating your Exiles to build little micro-settlements, ferrying resources between them, while avoiding hazards (narrative crises which play out with skeuomorphic dice rolls based on each Exile’s dwindling Faith stat), within the 30 turns allowed. It looks very easy, it sounds very easy, and it is absolutely a fucking nightmare. Few games have made us this sweaty-frustrated in a long time, but The Banished Vault is the brutality of space simulator we needed.—Dia Lacina


22. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

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Platform: Switch

Originally Animal Crossing applied almost no pressure to the player. You could pay off your house, or not, and that was pretty much it. Much has changed since 2002, though. Almost everything you do in New Horizons has the residue of productivity on it, even if you’re trying to be as aimless as possible. Instead of playing games within this game, the only way to not accidentally be productive is to literally do nothing—to sit in a chair, or lay on a hammock, and put the controller down. To sit quietly with your own thoughts—thoughts that exist fully outside of your Nintendo Switch.

The fact that you can do that, though, is an example of the confidence within Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Nintendo might have ramped up the numbers and the to-do lists, all the tasks and chores that make New Horizons feel like one of the last outposts of whatever notions of normalcy we might’ve once had, but you can still tune that out and live within your own head for a spell. That head might naturally drift towards the hellishly contorted world we live in, and not the delightfully cartoonish one of Animal Crossing, but escapism is overrated anyway. I’d rather worry about every aspect of modern living while quietly reflecting on the rhythmic roar of a videogame ocean than while sitting slackjawed in a living room I won’t ever be able to leave again. Give me these New Horizons—rigid, commercial, and staid—over the chaos of the last decade.—Garrett Martin

 


21. Thirsty Suitors

Thirsty Suitors

Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS, Android

Thirsty Suitors is a rich narrative that carefully and truthfully deals with culture, family, LGBTQIA+ issues, relationships, and self-expression. You meet and interact with a diverse range of characters in terms of race, personality, and gender and sexual identity, and each are developed and dealt with in their own unique ways. The plot introduces a number of different stories for Jala Jayaratne to unearth and resolve. When you’re trying to repair familial relationships, save Timber Hills’s skateboarding scene, and reconcile with exes, it’s hard for each of those stories to develop in complex and evenly-paced ways, but Thirsty Suitors does its best by giving every story its own focused element that defines it and supports the other stories.—Maddie Agne

Jala is the cool and alternative skater girl I dreamt up when I was younger and wondering what my type was. She’s a vision. She also eschews many of the tropes of romantic characters in games, who are sometimes flattened by the need to be appealing to players by being the multi-faceted protagonist of the story. Sometimes Jala is even unlikeable, lending her dimensions that make her feel like a real person. Rather than turn me away from her, it only solidifies the crush I’ve developed on this character who skirts the line between reality and fantasy wonderfully.—Moises Taveras

 


20. Wordle

Platform: Browser

Wordle is only available once per day. This is something I absolutely hated at the start, because I’m a sick digital content addict, but now that I have the availability to play Wordle-like games all the time, I simply do not. By limiting it to once per day, creator Josh Wardle makes his game an event, something to be discussed and compared and contrasted and over-analyzed. Part of the reason he did this was to leave you wanting more, and the scarcity effect works, but I’ve come to really appreciate the simple fact that I do this one time each day, it takes two minutes, and then I’m out. It’s ideal, and it feels like it took a bit of courage for the creator to stick to his daily schedule and enforce a non-deluge policy. Wordle asks nothing of me, and I love it.—Shane Ryan


19. El Paso, Elsewhere

El Paso Elsewhere

Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, iOS

El Paso, Elsewhere does something exceedingly difficult: it’s an action-first game that still focuses heavily on its story, and pulls everything off with a consistent level of care and quality. It’s an intentionally “weird” game that doesn’t owe too much to overly referenced cultural touchstones like Twin Peaks or hoary conspiracy theories, and it’s also blatantly indebted to turn-of-the-century gaming without feeling cliched or unoriginal. (Think Max Payne or PS2-era shooters—that’s what El Paso yearns to evoke.) It invites all manner of comparisons and references, and yet defies almost all of them across its 50 chapters. It stirs a lot of echoes, yet makes a sound that’s entirely and unmistakably its own. It does the job and does it well, with the kind of cohesion you rarely see in games: an expertly calibrated suite of mechanics that interconnect flawlessly, combined with a smart, well-written story and an intricately interwoven soundtrack.—Garrett Martin

 


18. Baldur’s Gate 3

Baldur's Gate 3

Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Much has been made of how the Dungeons & Dragons-based videogame Baldur’s Gate 3 adapts its tabletop origins, but what’s most interesting about it comes from its videogameness. One of the things that is so thrilling and strange about tabletop to me is that it is negotiable. We can discuss everything, the course is far from set. A videogame, by nature, is bound to its code. There’s unpredictability, sure. But even in a game as big as Baldur’s Gate, there is a single course that all players must chart. There may be hidden secrets, oft-discarded paths, but the general arc of the game is recognizable and familiar to every player. It’s unwise to characterize Baldur’s Gate 3 as a tabletop sim for exactly that reason. It has limits that friends around the table do not have, but that also means it cannot be negotiated with.—Grace Benfell

 


17. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Was One of the Best Games of 2020 and 2022

Platforms: PlayStation 4, Switch

13 Sentinels is a tactical real-time strategy game featuring mechs that’s also a massive role-playing adventure game with an enormous cast of protagonists, each with their own fleshed out stories and motivations—which are often conflicting with each other. They also often overlap, so it turns into a game of seeing various perspectives surrounding the same events, and it’s all done in an illuminating and highly engaging fashion, too. What makes it all the wilder is that the game takes place across multiple eras, and sometimes concurrently: you’re all battling together at the same point in time even if in the more narrative-driven sections everyone is scattered, but even within the narrative this can occur. Multiple characters are ripped out of imperial service in World War II and dropped into a future where the war has been lost, and the influence of the west and the United States is felt in every facet of Japanese society in that “present.” There’s a moment where you’re playing in 2024, then it cuts to a new location with the same characters and says “Six months later: 1985” and somehow that cut makes sense. Eventually, anyway.—Marc Normandin


16. Psychonauts 2

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4

Psychonauts 2 feels like a game made by real people who care about real people. Many games have come down the pike the last several years with a focus on the psychological state of its characters, and thus its players, but too often they lack any tact or any legitimate insight into how people think and feel. They use sorrow and violence as shortcuts, relying on cheap scares and easy provocation. It’s like they’re made by machines, or the board room, or some algorithm that slightly rearranges previous AAA hits into something that’s supposedly new. Too many of these games fall into that witless trap of thinking something “serious” and “important” must also be humorless and dark, unrelentingly grim and fatalistic. Psychonauts 2 reveals that for the nonsense that it is, showing that you can more powerfully and realistically depict emotion when you use warmth, humor, humanity—the whole scope of emotions that make us who we are. Psychonauts 2 asks “how does it feel to feel?”, and then shows the answer to us—and the games industry at large—in brilliant colors.—Garrett Martin

 


15. Vampire Survivors

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Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS, Android

I blame it on the garlic, which obliterated enemies that dared step to me, and made me feel invincible. Of course I wasn’t, and fell mere minutes later, but that taste of what it might mean to utterly dominate the indomitable was more than enough to hook me on Vampire Survivors. Even as I write this blurb, my eyes are darting over to the game’s icon on my desktop, and I can almost hear it calling me. Vampire Survivors is a game that pretty explicitly digs its claws into everyone who plays it, but you have to be willing to embrace the cacophony that follows to be really happy with it. Inside that madness is a wonderful roguelike—an alchemical wonder, if you will—that obscures its depth and secrets with simple graphics and overwhelming odds. It is the easiest game to pick up and the hardest to let go of and, whoops, I’ve begun another run.—Moises Taveras

 


14. 1000xRESIST

Platforms: PC, Switch

1000xRESIST is many things, but it’s not a game that holds back any gut punches. It refuses to fit into any one box. It’s a walking simulator for a few hours before switching to a side-scroller. The third-person perspective suddenly shifts to a top-down view. It’s a visual novel but also you’re lunging between different nodes on a wide map. It’s a time puzzler and, at times, survival horror. It’s wholeheartedly committed to furiously surprising you again and again and again, and it undoubtedly excels in this mission from beginning to end. It’s the kind of game that can leave you feeling transformed. Few are the games as bold and brave and brilliant as this one; throughout its 15 hours, there’s a palpable eagerness to take the risks that many other teams would shy away from, especially considering this is Sunset Visitor’s debut game. 1000xRESIST is a dazzling testament to the stories this medium has yet to tell; an exemplification of the best that small yet ambitious teams can create; and a gateway to a future in which more videogame narratives have the courage and soul to tackle the ideas that it executes with equal precision and grace. It’s simply triumphant in everything it sets out to do.—Natalie Flores


13. Signalis

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Platforms: PC, Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

While Signalis fits into a larger trend of games that emulate PSX-era survival horror, its bold aesthetic choices and spellbinding storytelling help push it past its influences to create something singular. Its gameplay successfully channels some of the usual suspects like Resident Evil(2002) and Silent Hill 2 as your forage for keys, avoid Crimson Head-esque reviving zombies, and repeatedly backtrack to solve puzzles. However, its greatest selling point is that it has one of the most compelling videogame narratives of the year, its ruminations on death, identity, and accepting loss conveyed through cryptic symbolism and recurring cycles of pain. By constantly switching settings, artistic styles, and perspectives, it creates a disorienting headspace that emphasizes the confusion of its protagonist, slowly revealing the meaning of its recurring images until the horrible weight of it all comes crashing down. It’s a brainworm of a love story that I can’t get off my mind.—Elijah Gonzalez

 


12. Pentiment

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Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, PlayStation 4

On every level, Pentiment’s illustrations, storytelling choices, and most clearly people are a mirror for the manuscripts that shape its characters’ lives. Whether they read or not, everyone is a repository of history, with their own verbal handwriting, quirks, and opinions on what the town of Tassing’s legacy should be. These human texts open up genuinely insightful questions about authenticity in art and what it will come to mean centuries later, as well as what to do when your history has been lost to you. It is a beautiful portrait of history that doesn’t limit itself from commenting on labor inequity, parental loss, or artistic hopelessness, all things the medieval and early modern art it draws from portrays so vividly. In bringing some of those stories to us today, Pentiment accomplishes the remarkable goal of being both clear-eyed about the medieval period’s faults, and sincere about its masterpieces.—Emily Price

 


11. Thank Goodness You’re Here

Thank Goodness You're Here

Platforms: PC, Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4

Thank Goodness You’re Here, a surreal puzzle-platformer where comedy takes precedence over everything else, is a game like none other. Imagine if peak Monty Python somehow made an Adult Swim show in the 2000s, except it was a game and not a show, and featured Matt Berry giving another impeccable Matt Berry performance. The “puzzles” are less about challenging you and more just a framework for bizarre little comedy sketches, pretty much all of which are absolutely hilarious. And it smartly ends well before it starts to wear out its welcome, after only two or three hours. It’s basically a perfect game if you share its sense of humor, and if you don’t share its sense of humor, you’re probably a bit of a bore. (Sorry.) It’s one of the most purely enjoyable games I’ve ever played, and I’m thinking it will be as fun to revisit again and again as the great comedies it echoes.—Garrett Martin

 


10. Live a Live

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Platform: Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC

Live A Live still has it. Takashi Tokita led a young team of fans at Historia, Inc. to create a version of a classic as vibrant and exciting and crucially unique in Square’s catalog today as it was in 1994. Released between Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger and passed over for translation due to its technically less impressive sprite work compared to its flagship siblings, it shines today as the celebration of a cult classic, with a worldwide legacy and influence as an important milestone in an entire alternate history of RPGs. Live A Live is the exact opposite of the unique masterpiece that’s so good it ruins other games: it is a heartfelt tribute to everything there is to love about the RPG format, and will leave you invigorated and excited not just to play more RPGs, but to watch more Kung Fu movies, more Westerns, more classic Sci-Fi. If you’ve even a passing interest in the genre, it is simply a must play.—Jackson Tyler


9. Astro’s Playroom

Platform: PlayStation 5

Is this a perfect game? I can’t find anything to criticize in Astro’s Playroom, the short but endlessly enjoyable platformer that comes installed on every PlayStation 5. Judged on both style and substance, Astro’s Playroom is an ideal pack-in game. It’s fun, beautiful, deeply entertaining, and also elegantly introduces the major new features of the PlayStation 5’s controller. And with its meta concept of playing entirely within the new system, while also tracking down art and items from the 26 year history of the PlayStation, it pays tribute to the company’s past and present without getting too schmaltzy or nostalgic. If you’re getting a PlayStation 5, this should be the first game you play.—Garrett Martin

 


8. Balatro

Balatro

Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS, Android

As someone who would rather play virtually any board game than a hand of poker, I was pleasantly surprised by Balatro, a roguelike deckbuilder that transforms this card game into something else entirely. Some elements are what you’d expect; you begin with a standard 52-card deck and score by putting together traditional poker hands like pairs, flushes, and straights. However, where things get interesting is that over the course of a run, you can augment your deck by replacing certain cards with others, upgrading them, collecting passive upgrades that amplify your score, and more. Instead of playing against opponents like in Texas Hold ‘Em, your goal is to build hands that score enough chips to get you through an increasingly expensive series of antes. Like any successful deckbuilding game, decision-making matters in both assembling your deck and playing it. Instead of just going by traditional poker hand strength, points are calculated by multiplying the base amount of chips your hand is worth (chip count corresponds to the card rank, i.e., 9, 10, J, Q, etc.), with the particular multiplier associated with that hand (for instance, a two pair has a x2 multiplier while a three of a kind has a x3 multiplier). Where things get busted is that you can upgrade the multipliers associated with specific hands or cards, and passive abilities add to your multiplier, which can eventually dramatically boost the number of chips you earn. You can gear your deck around certain hands, suits, or passive abilities to increase the odds of hitting big. Outside of the deckbuilding, you’re given a wide array of options and information that makes it feel tactically deep. The game counts cards to let you know the odds, has the option to discard and redraw, allows you to change the order that passive abilities activate, and has consumable items. Good deckbuilders feel fair and like they offer meaningful decisions while constructing and playing your deck. Balatro does all that while also letting you blast apart the rules of poker.—Elijah Gonzalez

 


7. Kentucky Route Zero Act V

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Platforms: PC, Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, iOS, Android

Kentucky Route Zero’s final act finally came out early this year, and capped this brilliant game off perfectly, with the same combination of mystery and mundanity that has always been its hallmark. Kentucky Route Zero is one of the slipperiest, most subtle games ever when it wants to be, and thuddingly, powerfully upfront when it needed to be, turning the classic point-and-click adventure framework into an existential Southern Gothic allegory about work, art, life, and everything else. Despite the seven years between Acts I and V, Cardboard Computer somehow never lost the thread along the way, with all its digressions and discursive plot points contributing to its magical realist explorations of life. If you haven’t played it before, it’s the perfect time to jump in, now that it’s finally finished.—Garrett Martin


6. UFO 50

Platform: PC

If the concepts for the 50 games in the fictional ’80s compilation UFO 50 sound inspired, well, that’s one of the things that makes it so great—probably too great to be a genuinely realistic fake ‘80s collection. There’s no laziness here, no hack jobs or quick cash-ins; every game has a cool or quirky angle to it, both narratively and mechanically, that puts them more in line with the kind of smart, retro-style independent games from the 2000s and 2010s that UFO 50’s designers are known for than the often limited and uninspired fare that even the best studios cranked out in the ‘80s. It took Mossmouth almost a decade to make UFO 50, which was originally aiming for a 2018 release; that roughly matches the amount of fictional time covered by the game, but I can’t think of any real studio or group of designers in the ‘80s who created a body of work as varied, thoughtful, substantial, and consistently interesting as UFO 50. Designer Derek Yu and crew don’t just evoke the most seminal decade for videogames here; they one-up it at almost every turn.—Garrett Martin

 


5. Citizen Sleeper

Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, PlayStation 4

You can think of Citizen Sleeper as a sort of digital board game set in a sci-fi dystopia beset by end-stage capitalism and all the rampant dehumanization that entails. It’s a game about work and death where the only levity comes from the relationships we make with others—yes, the friends we made along the way, but not nearly as banal or obvious as that sounds. It questions what it means to be a person in a system that inherently subjugates personhood to corporations and wealth, and it probably won’t surprise you that the answers it lands on aren’t always the most optimistic or uplifting. Here at Paste Cameron Kunzelman described its “melancholy realism” as part of a trend alongside other story-driven games that are largely hostile to the dominance of capitalism, and it echoes the impossibility of thinking seriously about this medium, this industry, and, well, every aspect of society today without discussing the impersonal economic system that drives it all. It’s a heady RPG that respects your time and intelligence, and one of the best games of the 2020s.—Garrett Martin

 


4. Elden Ring

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S

You’d be forgiven for thinking Elden Ring was the only game that came out this year. For a solid three months it seemed to be the only thing anybody talked about, wrote about, or even played. From Software blew its signature RPG formula up into one of the largest open world games in memory, which makes it more accessible than their earlier Souls games, but also even more mysterious and unsettling. Its massive, secret-filled world is clearly influenced by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but with the brutality and subtle approach to storytelling you expect from a Souls game. It might be a little too big, and devolves into a bit of a slog in the late game, but Elden Ring remains an almost unthinkable achievement. I’m dumped over 170 hours into it and still occasionally pop in again to look for any caves or ashes I might’ve overlooked. Elden Ring has a way of setting up camp inside your head and refusing to leave that few games can match.—Garrett Martin


3. Hades

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Platforms: PC, Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS

What makes Hades so great—and what elevates it above other roguelikes—is how it creates a consistent sense of progress even as you keep dying and restarting. Part of that is mechanical—although you lose all the boons bestowed upon you by the Greek gods after a run ends, along with other power-ups acquired during your journeys through the underworld, there are a few things you do hang on to when you return to the game’s hub world. More important than that, though, is how the game’s narrative unfolds between runs, driving you to keep playing through whatever frustration you might feel in hopes of learning more about the game’s story and characters.

Between every run in Hades your character, Zagreus, returns to his home—the palace of his father, Hades, the God of the Dead. Yep, he’s another rich kid who feels his first bit of angst and immediately starts slumming it. Here you can interact with various characters, upgrade the decor, unlock new permanent perks, and practice with the game’s small arsenal of weapons. Every time you return the characters who live here have new things to say, slowly unraveling their own storylines and deepening their relationships with Zagreus. And given that the writing in Hades is as consistently sharp and human as it’s been in all of Supergiant’s games, getting to talk to these characters alone is a reason to actually look forward to dying in this game.—Garrett Martin

 


2. Norco

Platform: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

As a Southerner I don’t really trust anybody to write about the South unless they, too, are from here—or at least have lived here long enough to truly understand what makes it great and awful in equal measure, and how the ways in which the South is actually fucked up often diverge from the ways in which outsiders think it’s fucked up. Norco, a smart narrative-driven game about the unique ways in which institutions like religion and big business have exploited the South, its people and its land throughout history, is clearly the work of people who understand this region and its fundamental defects. It’s an unflinching, occasionally surreal glimpse into an only slightly exaggerated version of Louisiana, with its mythical and allegorical flourishes only highlighting the aimless mundanity and real-life degradations of the modern South. If you only play one game from this list, make it Norco.—Garrett Martin

 


1. Alan Wake II

Alan Wake II

Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5

Sam Lake reaches the apotheosis of his postmodern kick with this sequel to one of 2010’s most interesting videogames. The Remedy Entertainment head has long tried to break down the barriers between games, film, and literature in a knottier, more avant-garde fashion than the many major studios making “cinematic” games, influenced as much by Pynchon and Twin Peaks as noir or horror movies, and with Alan Wake II he’s crafted another impressive combo of commercial blockbuster and trippy experimentalism. A survival horror game that explores notions of free will, destiny, authorship, and ownership, Alan Wake II doesn’t come close to answering all of the questions it asks, but it raises them with such style, confidence, and confusion that you’ll realize the answers don’t matter. It’s far from a perfect game —the investigation mechanics are inelegant, and Lake’s big narrative swings don’t always connect—but  Alan Wake II does more than any other game to undermine the bullshit dichotomy between “AAA” and “indie” games. Just because a game has a budget and a large team doesn’t mean it has to be a safe, hackneyed, overly familiar genre workout.— Garrett Martin 

 
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