Elijah Gonzalez’s Top 10 Games of 2024

Elijah Gonzalez is Paste’s assistant editor for the Games and TV sections. Today he shares his personal picks for the top 10 games of 2024.

It’s hard to say anything new about how this year went for the videogame industry, so I’ll keep it brief: it was a period of unprecedented layoffs where thousands of talented folks lost their jobs, many of which will probably never make games professionally again. It was a year that saw a shockingly small number of well-received AAA games produced outside of Japan as budget size and development time continued to balloon. Basically, it was another 12 months of brain drain and general dysfunction.

However, to take a slightly different tact, there were also a few things that left me hopeful for the future. For one, the relative shortage of big budget output likely encouraged many players to check out projects made by smaller teams, ideally helping them realize there’s always plenty of new creative, challenging, interesting games if you know where to look. Furthermore, the game industry being pushed to the brink of ruin seems to have been a catalyst for further unionization efforts, with a growing number of workers who make games gaining leverage in their workplace. And as always, games this year provided a wide range of experiences: dumb action fun, grimy horror, thoughtful story-first experiences, and everything in between. Anyway, here are ten games that stood out most in this dumpster fire of a year, little beacons which reminded me that no matter how bad things get, people will still create art worth celebrating.

10. Shogun Showdown

Roguelike deckbuilders are a crowded genre, and it’s to Shogun Showdown’s credit that the words “Slay the Spire” never crossed my mind as I cut down countless foot soldiers on my way to the titular big bad. Honestly, Into the Breach is a much better reference point for what’s happening here because, just like that tactically rewarding experience, this one melds strategic depth and straightforward math to make every battle feel like a well-designed puzzle. The turn-based action takes place on a 2D grid as you maneuver your little ronin and play cards to have them attack. Much of the standard genre stuff is here: you draft cards, navigate a map with nodes, and collect items that help round out your build.

However, a compelling point of differentiation is the relative lack of randomness compared to many other deckbuilders. Specifically, when you use a card, it goes on cooldown instead of cycling back into your deck, meaning you always know when you will be able to use it again. On top of this, enemies’ attacks are telegraphed a turn in advance, so you’re always given the intel to succeed. While Shogun Showdown lacks some of its peers’ near-infinite replayability, these strategically rich battles scratched my brain in all the right ways.

9. Helldivers 2

Helldivers 2 has had a bit of an up-and-down journey this year: it was an unexpected breakout hit, then drew ire for its temporary PSN linking policy and balancing decisions, until finally mostly ending up back in players’ good graces after a few extensive patches. The result is that this exercise in interstellar jingoism is more engaging than ever, with a huge arsenal of stratagems and ordinance that will almost inevitably accidentally turn your allies into mincemeat. This increased range of viable options results in much more varied “liberating,” with tons of tools that can be the right one for the current job. Although this increasingly empowering game balance squares awkwardly with all its glib anti-fascist satire, Helldivers 2 remains a brutal co-op shooter that demands teamwork if you want to avoid completely biting it. Well, that will probably happen even if you’re all well-coordinated veterans (again, that’s sort of the point considering the Starship Troopers inspiration), but that steep challenge makes for an oddly satisfying experience that will keep you and your friends marching toward certain doom.

8. Mouthwashing

Lo-fi horror went to some interesting places in 2024, from the chart-topping death sport of Buckshot Roulette to Sorry We’re Closed and its demonic dating woes. But of these, Mouthwashing is the one that keeps buzzing in my mind, a game that’s uncompromisingly bleak, darkly poetic, and oddly enough, occasionally quite funny. Here, the crew of the Tulpar, an interstellar cargo ship, is stranded in deep space where no one can possibly find them. As they grapple with their imminent doom, the story jumps back and forth across time in a fragmentary daze, playing with perspective as we slowly discover ignored truths.

Mouthwashing isn’t scary like games typically are: there aren’t ghosts that will give you a jump scare or zombies to shoot in the head. It’s frightening in a more piercing way, delving into the psychology of selfishness, as an abuser deflects personal responsibility and drives their companions towards ruin. It’s about moral rot, examining how a single terrible individual can cause tremendous harm to those around them. And most interesting of all, it’s about the type of mental gymnastics this brand of awful person performs to keep going, as they twist reality to suit their narrative. It all leads to the slow realization that you’re not running from a monster; you’re playing as one.

7. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

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.

6. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

While Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree may simply be more Elden Ring in some ways, I won’t complain about getting more of one of the best open-world games ever made. What makes both the base experience and this expansion special is how they realize fantasy worlds full of genuinely staggering discoveries, most of which are entirely optional or quite obscure. You may stumble on an impossibly blue coastline, a subterranean bog, or a mountain backlit by red lightning, each area blending into the next to create a believable space with a real sense of history. Basically, FromSoftware has so thoroughly mastered the art of crafting memorable vistas that although Shadow of the Erdtree has less “stuff” crammed into its open world than many of its genre peers, the percussive impact of each major find clarifies that a single memorable sight is worth a million forgettable map-clogging side objectives. And while there are still a few disappointing battles (the last one is a stinker), the DLC’s best boss fights well and exceeds the base game’s lineup. Elden Ring was a phenomenon, and Shadow of the Erdtree is here to remind us why.

5. UFO 50

UFO 50 is nothing short of an anomaly, an extended homage to ‘80s console games that captures the breadth of that specific era by delivering 50 full, fun, original videogames for the price of one. And the most shocking part is that most of these are very good. We’ve got horror adventure games, arcade score chasers, several metroidvanias, proto-deck builders, tactics puzzlers, 2D platformers, an idle game, and the list goes on. Each combines retro flavor and modern design principles to arrive at novel creations, from the sacrificial platforming of Mortol to the car-based shmupery of Seaside Drive. It’s a compilation I’ll be returning to for some time because, despite sinking in 40 hours, I’ve only scratched the surface. I still don’t quite understand how UFO 50 exists, but I’m very glad it does.

4. Astro Bot

You wouldn’t think a game about a cute little robot would ignite so much contentious discourse, but Astro Bot did just that. For instance, many pointed out how Team Asobi’s latest joyful project drew attention to Sony’s shortsighted decision to shut down its predecessor, Japan Studio. Others argued that the game was essentially an extended PlayStation advertisement that had hoodwinked players with empty nostalgia. And a handful balked at the notation of a mascot platformer beat out their Serious Games For Big Boys at award shows and on year-end lists. I won’t humor the third point, but as for the second, while there are times when the game’s reverence for the PlayStation brand lapses into corniness, for the most part, its inventive platforming speaks for itself. Fan service becomes an issue when it subsumes creativity, mining halcyon memories instead of attempting anything new or original.

Despite its barrage of references, Astro Bot sidesteps the pitfalls of nostalgia by delivering clever level design and viscerally enjoyable power-ups that feel unique and vital, each area a tightly designed digital playground that makes rare use of the DualSense controller to give every Chicken Boost and Twin-Frog Glove haymaker and extra punch of gratifying feedback. In a gaming landscape where 3D mascot platformers have fallen by the wayside, Team Asobi’s output leaves me naively optimistic the genre may be on the verge of a comeback. And more than this, the seeming success of the Astro Bot games makes me want to believe big publishers will finally start bankrolling adventurous mid-budget projects like this again instead of only financing projects that cost as much as a skyscraper. Maybe we won’t get there, but regardless, this little robot did good.

3. Balatro

Card games tend to be very mechanics-focused: dozens of keywords to learn, long lists of complicated cards, intricate deck optimizations, and more. And while Balatro certainly has that kind of depth, its greatest innovation is something different than you may expect: its immaculate vibe. The woozy OST, tie-die backdrops, and VCR scanlines combine to create a psychedelic casino where it’s hard not to play another hand. There are just so many minute touches that make it feel good to play, from how the score multipliers light on fire when you rack up a massive stack of chips or how the tally gets faster and faster as your card combo gets longer, the numbers accelerating so violently that it seems like your Nintendo Switch is liable to explode.

And while its presentation is what sets it apart, it does all this while still offering plenty of room for the card sickos to go off the deep end, with countless clever Joker combinations and ingenious strategies that continue to blow my mind. Given the state of the game industry, it’s easy to imagine all this slickness being weaponized for evil (i.e., to make us spend real-world dollars), but the only threatening thing about Balatro is its knack for demolishing free time. Anyway, I’ll get back to this list in a second; just one more run…

2. Metaphor ReFantazio

Metaphor ReFantazio takes the best parts of the Persona games, extracts the overplayed high school shenanigans, and replaces this with a weighty journey about building a multi-ethnic coalition to shatter systems of oppression and injustice. In short, it rules man. As a succession crisis looms, you and your lovable band of misfits set out to change this world for the better. While its writing exists in the vicinity of earnest anime, where it’s not out-of-place for characters to start talking about the power of friendship and whatnot, there is also a surprising degree of nuance to how it portrays complicated issues, like the specifics of prejudice, failings of liberal democracies, and more.

If all that dense storytelling goodness wasn’t enough, it also happens to be one of the most strategically rewarding RPGs in recent memory, encouraging you to engage with its systems, like type advantages and turn manipulation, instead of just spamming your most overpowered spells. And being from the Persona team, it also happens to have the coolest menus you’ve ever seen. I have a hard time thinking of many games that deliver this much style and substance.

1. 1000XResist

1000XResist is a genuine magic trick. It delivers a grandiose, century-spanning sci-fi narrative that thoughtfully delves into approximately 8 billion different themes and topics— revolution, protest, how authoritarianism takes root, classism, policing, religious imagery, reparations, cloning, pandemics, alien invasions, factionalism, etc. Not only does it successfully weave together all these ideas, but it also melds these birds-eye-view concepts with intimate pathos, portraying complex characters tied to a specific cultural context. In particular, the game is very much about the pressures of being a first-generation immigrant, portraying the weight of parental expectations and the sense of being pulled between multiple cultures with uncomfortable precision. This story is about alien invasions and the end of the world, but the stakes still feel personal, in part because of how its thoughtful shot compositions, score, and dialogue firmly ground this cast of flawed characters. It may not lean into its “game” elements in a traditional sense, but it uses interactivity to endear us to the extended cast and make us complicit in impossible choices, pulling us further into the brutal turns of its narrative. 1000XResist is a masterpiece, and I don’t use that term lightly.

Elijah Gonzalez is an assistant Games and TV Editor for Paste Magazine. In addition to playing and watching the latest on the small screen, he also loves film, creating large lists of media he’ll probably never actually get to, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Twitter @eli_gonzalez11 and on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.