In terms of gaming this year was outside my expectations. At the beginning of the year there was a decent list of games that I was hotly anticipating e.g. Granblue Fantasy: Relink, Persona 3 Reload, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Black Myth Wukong, Final Fantasy 16’s PC Port, Metaphor Refantazio, etc. However, not only did I not play any of those games I didn’t even buy any of them (if you are thinking, “No shit, why would you buy a game you weren’t going to play straight away?” then congratulations on not having a Steam library). Instead the majority of my gaming time was spent on playing new content for older games I owned or getting absorbed in new indie games that hadn’t even been on my radar.
My spending on games held steady around the same total its been for the last few years, averaging roughly one full priced game a month. In terms of expenditure and play time, the vast majority of both was on PC which was up from previous years. Apart from game selection the fact that most gacha or mobile games now have native PC clients is the primary cause of that in my opinion. Also with few exceptions my gaming seems to be very “feast or famine”. I’ll play a game heavily for a week or three and then drop it and move on, even if the game is a MMO or GAAS game.
I tried out quite a few new (to me at least) games in total this year. But I’m only including the ones I played “enough” here. While it annoys me not to have a top ten I simply didn’t enjoy enough games to make a top ten I was happy with. I suppose I could cheat and split off the Diablo seasons into separate entries. But that would probably irritate me more which is why I didn’t do it. I also haven’t included Marvel SNAP on either list even though its probably my most played game of the year. That’s because I find it fine but impossible to recommend as the barrier to entry for new players who want to be even borderline competitive is insane. Also while the core gameplay is as fun as ever I also feel maybe I’m playing it by wilfully ignoring the sunk cost fallacy
With the preamble out of the way I present the best games of 2024. The order is simply the order I initially played them in during 2024.
Best Videogames of 2024
Palworld
(Steam | Metacritic)
For a long time all I knew about Palworld was that “It’s that Korean Pokemon knock off where you can make your pets work in a weapons factory.” Well turns out only one of those two things is true and even then, not really. The game is in fact developed by a Japanese company and it is much more of a survival game than it is a monster training game, despite Nintendo suing them for being the latter. Survival games are a genre that I tend to get very into and then get very out off, they also have the problem of being very samey. They rarely have a truly unique unique hook. The monster catching, taming and breeding/collection work very well to give Palworld a unique hook that I found very addictive. The “catch em all” mechanic is my favourite aspect of every monster raising game. I often don’t give much of a shit about battling and whatnot and that was the case here.
While my brother regaled me with tales of his exploration and fighting of tower masters and so on I bored him with tales of how I had added an extra floor to my base so I could fit in more pens for my Pal breeding project. I spent almost as much time alt-tabbing out to breeding calculators as I did actually playing the game. The exploration and combat and so on are fine. The base building is a little rudimentary and once I’d caught them all I did put the game down. But I’m looking forward to seeing a few more updates pile up so I can jump back in.
Balatro
(Steam | Metacritic)
It feels like there isn’t much to say about Balatro that hasn’t already been said. It is a masterful hybrid of video poker and deckbuilding. The former I have little interest in but the latter is probably my favourite genre these days, both in computer games and in boardgames. Balatro easily sets itself apart from common deckbuilders by bucking the near universal idea that the best deck is a thin deck. While most deckbuilders have options where thicker decks can win the nature of it makes a thin reliable deck a distinct advantage. Starting with a 52 card deck makes that very hard to do in Balatro (though not impossible). The real “deckbuilding” honestly takes place more in your Joker selection (generally 5 cards) than with the deck proper and the Jokers are my favourite part of the game. They are primarily additive and/or multiplicative ways to increase your score but the rarer ones offer up more outre powers and start to feel like “cheats” and I love that feeling. It’s a perfect marriage of the feeling of getting your engine online that deckbuilders have with the combo popping off feeling you get from traditional TCG’s. If you like deckbuilders definitely give it a go (though I imagine you already have) and if you don’t it might still be worth trying as the poker framing makes it very approachable for a more casual audience.
Space Marine 2
(Steam | Metacritic)
Sometimes you order something and you get exactly what you’d expected and that’s satisfying if unexciting. That to me is Space Marine 2. It was exactly what I expected. The story hit all the plot points and tropes that I expected it to have. The enemies did what I expected as did the guns and powers the player got. And you know what? That was fine and fun. I enjoyed playing through the story, even though the AI companions are frustratingly dogshit on higher difficulties (which has been patched I believe). After I finished the story I enjoyed grouping up with randoms for the PvE sorties, I think I maxed out two of the five or six classes and got two others to the 18-20 range (out of 25). I unlocked a good few weapons and skins and barring some matchmaking issues it was solid fun. Hell I even tried PvP initially, though I dropped off fairly quickly. PvP isn’t something I enjoy or am good at in games like these.
Was it perfect? No. There were bugs, AI issues, annoying encounters, etc. But I don’t really remember them. I remember that one mission where I clipped a Hive Tyrant with a headshot just before he wiped us, or where we seamlessly held back the hordes of Tyranids at the refinery, or blew chaos marines away with the multi-melta. The games combat feels good and looks great. Saying that it never surprised me is true, but it isn’t really a huge detriment, the game was a solid, if unexciting, seven out of ten.
Vampire Survivors
(Steam | Metacritic)
I picked this up back when it was in early access but only played it a little. I also missed the wave of hype around it during the pandemic. I honestly can’t remember why I decided to check it out again. It could have been random whim or someone said something about it that intrigued me. Whatever the reason I did check it out and I got every into it. I played it obsessively until I unlocked and beat nearly everything. One thing that has certainly changed for me is that I no longer care about “completing” a game. Once it becomes more hassle than fun its gone.
Vampire Survivors stayed on the fun side of that for a long while. It certainly isn’t visually impressive but the gameplay is just so engaging. I didn’t really think it at the time but looking back it perfectly captures the addictive gameplay loop of games I grew up with. Marrying that to the interesting series of unlock and meta rewards more common to modern title really elevates the game.
Crusader Kings 3
(Steam | Metacritic)
I played this back when it originally came out. But after that initial foray I never went back to it. Mainly because the upfront investment of having to relearn the game was always off putting to me. Then later its because I snookered myself by buying the original game but not the complete edition but buying the DLC I was missing cost as much as buying the complete edition and the thought of having a wasted copy annoyed me. Don’t try and understand me! Anyway, I was looking for something to play before the Diablo 4 expansion came out and a timely sale let me snag a good chunk of the DLC for the game and I dived back in.
I’m honestly not sure if a year or two of patches and expansions had smoothed it out or I was just building it up in my head but getting to grips with it was honestly easy and soon it had me hooked. The game certainly felt beefier than before and while the same events did repeat it was much better with the expanded pool. The systems added by the expansion were by and large pretty flavourful and fun to do (I dont own the most recent well regarded expansion). But, as is usually the case, once the founder of my dynasty died I largely felt that I was “done”. The way inheritance works and the marriage system means that its rarely a clean succession when you move to one of your descendants and it sort of takes me out of the game. While the game is in theory a story about your dynasty it always feels like a story about an individual to me. Still, very addictive and much improved.
Diablo 4 Season’s 4-6 & Vessel of Hatred
(Homepage | Metacritic)
I was honestly surprised how much Diablo 4 I ended up playing this year. To the point that I was so entirely ARPG-ed out I didn’t even bother checking out Path of Exile 2’s early access. There really isn’t a huge amount to say here. Every Season of Diablo improved the game in major ways and with lots of minor and quality of life improvements in there as well. Season 4 reworked loot and itemisation which the game was in dire need off, Season 5 added a cool Horde mode, Season 6 was vestigial and dogshit but it released alongside the games first expansion which added a new area and a whole new (very fun) class among lots of other stuff. I literally forgot it added mercenaries until I was typing this up.
In some ways I probably shouldn’t be surprised. I’m a big ARPG fan and a big Diablo fan. I think it was the fact that I normally drop in and out of games with seasonal content. But here each season offered compelling improvements. Not that I think the game is flawless but it also seems churlish to fault it in the fact of constant improvement. Even today Season 7 launched, and while I’m not in the mood for an ARPG right now, it still added some great changes and improvements.
Warframe (v37)
(Steam | Metacritic)
I played a lot of Warframe, like a lot a lot, for several years at that. Then I dropped it entirely for several years and went back to it for a month or so two years ago. Then a month or two ago I got back into it again. I was honestly very pleasantly surprised as some real improvements had been made in areas that I thought would never be touched, because they’d been left to linger for years. The games perennial issues still exist, such as isolated content islands, a crazy grind (worse in some ways) and a truly dogshit story (I find it baffling that people consider it anything better than mediocre). But the core gameplay was fun and I had a lot of frames and weapons to collect. Sadly no-one I used to play it with was interested in getting back into it so it was randoms or solo all the way. After a month or so I had all the frames I’d missed, other than some ones that are miserable to grind, and full “meta” load outs and I felt my interest starting to fade. The core gameplay is fun but I am inevitably tired of it. Sadly my interest flagged before the Warframe 1999 patch released and the prelude to that was fun. So I’ll probably return in 2025. This may sound overly negative but I really did enjoy my month with it and the balance and direction of the game looks solid so it deserves its place.
The Bazaar
(Homepage)
I got obsessed with the idea of this game a month or so ago. I managed to get a key to get into the closed beta but then ultimately ended up buying access, admittedly I regretted that almost instantly when I realised I misunderstood the value proposition. I only mention this because now I longer regret paying that money. I have played this game a crazy amount over the last month, and when I wasnt playing it I was thinking about playing it. The game is fun and crazy addictive. Now I will admit my zeal has faded, I now might only do a run or two a day (though a run stretches from ~25-60 minutes). A lot of this is due to the rather stagnant meta as the devs made some questionable balance changes and went on holidays for the month. The dominant builds are warping the meta and closing down viable builds especially in ranked. But even with that the game is still very fun. I don’t know how widespread its appeal will be but if you enjoy rougelikes and engine building you owe it to yourself to check it out as it distils the pure elements of both down to their addictive essence.
The game isn’t perfect, its very much a beta, there are bugs, theres a memory leak so you have to restart every run, the balance is all over the shop, the lead dev comes out with worrying shit about their plans and other stuff. But even if the game went to complete shit I’d feel the money I spent buying in was well worth it. It’s supposed to go F2P later this year so if you don’t fancy buying in or getting a beta invite, give it a go then.
The Rest
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
2024 felt so incredibly long to me that I would have entirely forgot I played this if it wasn’t for the Steam wrap up. Monster Hunter World is my favourite Monster Hunter game. I even bought it twice, once for its initial release on PS4 and then again on PC. Needless to say I have played it a lot. But I held of on getting Iceborne for several years, until I was in the mood to play the game again and it certainly was enjoyable. But, and you had to be expecting that as it didn’t make the top games section, it was ultimately a mixed bag. The new quality of life features helped but it didn’t really do much to address some of MHW fundamental weaknesses, which had grated more and more as I played. The new monsters and area were great but as I pushed on through Iceborne the monsters were reaching a level where the grind to get setup to fight them was off putting and ultimately that killed my interest in finishing it. The new mechanical additions, mainly the dragon claw, I could take or leave. It was a bit fiddly to use depending on the weapon. Speaking of which Iceborned did push me to use weapons I hadn’t used much in the vanilla game which was cool. Sadly even in the icy tundra the problem where a lot of the female armour sets are too sexualised persists. I think ultimately what I wanted was more stuff, but Iceborne is as much “harder stuff” as it is “new stuff” and I really wasn’t in the market for that.
Riichii City Mahjong
This is honestly probably my favourite electronic version of Riichii mahjong. But all the gacha trappings eventually drove me away because I find it hard not to engage with them and they are inherently tedious.
Helldivers 2
Meh is my honest feeling about this game. Leaving aside the truly disastrous launch the game feels like a one trick pony and I just got bored of that trick (fairly quickly). Once the appeal of the gameplay dimmed a lot of my issues with the game (e.g. purposefully obfuscating weapon stats, the terrible balancing passes, the questionable fascist satire, etc.) just drove me away. Did I get my moneys worth? Yeah probably. There was some fun and some great moments. But I feel they are arguably common to any multiplayer game and I’m not sure if Helldivers 2 enabled it better than any other multiplayer first game.
Troubleshooter
Troubleshooter is a game I keep coming back to, restarting and then drifting away from again. This is going to sound weird but the game just has too much fucking content. While its a bit rough around the edges it’s easily one of the best SRPG’s ever made. But I also think I will probably never finish it.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
Easily my biggest gaming disappointment of the year. I think this expansion actively makes the game worse. I replayed Elden Ring in the run up to the expansions release and I fell in love with it again. So I was very hyped for the expansions release. The initial bits of it were fine but the more I played the more I disliked it. The expansion is completely siloed off from the rest of the game and unless you cheese it you can only get there in the late game. This makes the game, which I already feel is too long, even longer. More bafflingly the gear you can get in the expansion is worse than gear you can get in the mid to late game vanilla version. Some bits of the expansion are great. But on the whole the weird gear scaling, the sloppy boss design, the giant entirely empty areas, the performance issues, the lack of integration etc. left me happy to be done with it. As it stands I’d never recommend it to people.
Death Stranding Directors Cut
I was very interesting in Death Stranding. But I knew it was coming out on PC and wanted it on that platform. I came up with a cunning plan. I would buy it on launch on PS4, play it and then trade it in to CEX for nearly the full price a month later. The game hooked me in a big way. I got really into it. But then I got very sick and several weeks later I couldnt get back into it (and later still I forgot to trade the fucking thing in). The main flaw of Death Stranding to me is that it’s two different stories at once that are nominally supposed to be the one story. To liken it to the Old West (which is clearly an inspiration) what you actually do in the game, the gameplay, is like what actually happened in the Wild West. But the story of the game, the (very) long cutscenes, are like a Western movie made about the same events. The connection between the two is anything but seamless.
Anyway, several years later I picked up the Director’s Cut on PC and this summer I felt the urge to play it. But as it turned out what I wanted to play was the game part and the actual story part, the “movie” if you will, became more and more insufferable to me. But I couldn’t skip it. I don’t mean you can’t do it in game I mean I couldn’t do it. So I eventually stopped playing because I knew I’d have to sit through another cutscene and I just really did not want to. Also I feel the Director’s Cut changed one of the games music tracks that I really liked. But I also couldn’t find said track on the OG versions soundtrack so maybe I was pining for a song that never existed.
Deep Rock Galactic Survivors / Twilight Survivors / Halls of Torment
I got very into the “Survivor” genre after getting addicted to Vampire Survivors and these are the three I played the most of. All three are still actively getting content and one is still in Early Access so its hard to make a categorical judgement of them. That said I’ve listed them in order of quality. DRGS is definitely the most polished of them but it’s also just sort of boring in a hard to define way. None of the upgrades feel “Wow” and the difficulty is probably tuned a bit high. I also personally feel space dwarves mining to be very boring. TS is very visually polished but it feels a bit shallow. I don’t want to blame that on the fact it’s also available on mobile but when you’re playing it’s hard not to think it was mobile first development. HoT is fine. I’ve nothing particularly objective to complain about it I just don’t like it’s whole aesthetic and vibe.
AFK Journey / Wuthering Waves / Astra Knights of Veda / FF BE War of the Visions
While the exact specifics of why I dropped all these gacha games may be slightly different the core reason is that I got bored. They didn’t offer enough interesting gameplay or story to keep me hooked and their daily missions took too long or were too annoying. I may go back to them at some point but historically I have rarely returned to dropped gacha games.
Conclusion
Well there you go. My top picks from the games I played in 2024. I meant to post this two weeks ago but forgot (I wish I had some cool reason here, but it is what it is). There’s some cool looking games coming out this year and I picked up one or two in the January sales but whether any of those will end up on next years list I honestly cant say. Like, comment and subscribe, whoops, wrong medium.