At the end of 2018, I made two end-of-year lists. One was for the new games that actually came out that year, with games likeRed Dead Redemption 2,Celeste, Dandara, Unavowed,God of War, andSpider-Manmaking the list. But the other list — the one I was actually more passionate about making — was a rundown of the ten best games I played in 2018… that came out in 2017.
2017 was the first year I made a GOTY list and, at the time, I didn’t quite realize how good I had it. I mean, Ikind ofknew. I lovedThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild,Horizon Zero Dawn, What Remains of Edith Finch, Dream Daddy, andDishonored: Death of the Outsider. Between triple-A heavy hitters and indies doing things I’d never seen before, I knew that I was playing something great basically all the time. But then 2018 came around, and despite some highlights, I mostly waited for something to really love. I ended up spending a lot of my time playing games from the year before as they got ported to new systems.Night in the Woods,Hollow Knight, andWolfenstein 2: The New Colossuslaunched on Switch, andDivinity: Original Sin 2came to PS4, and those new-to-me releases dominated my time.
As I look ahead to the 2024 calendar, I can’t help but feel that I’m in for another 2018. There are games I’m excited to play, likeVampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, games I’m willing to give a chance to, likeSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and plenty of indies I haven’t yet heard of, but expect to enjoy along the way. By and large, though, it looks like 2024 will be the fallow period between an all-timer year in 2023, and GTA 6’s release in 2025.
Instead of looking forward to much in 2024, I expect to look back to 2023. That will start off early in the year, as I wrap up the games I loved but didn’t have time to roll credits on.Baldur’s Gate 3was my GOTY, and one of the best games I’ve ever played, but I just didn’t have the time to wrap it up by New Year’s, and didn’t want to rush through the last 20 hours. In January, I’ll finally see it through to its much-hyped conclusion.
There are other games that are in a similar spot. I fully plan on finishing upDead Space,Octopath Traveler 2,Pikmin 4, andStar Wars Jedi: Survivorin the early months of 2024. I may even make time to head back toStarfieldif the year starts to feel really barren.
But the games I’m most excited to get to are the ones I didn’t even start in 2024. I’ve hadJusanton my PC for a month, but haven’t had time to make the climb. Dordogne is sitting right next to it on my home screen, and Thirsty Suitors is occupying a similar space on Xbox. I heard great things aboutChants of Sennaar, but didn’t have the money to spend on it at the end of the year, so that’s also going on the list.
I’ll knock those indies out quickly, but the 2023 game I anticipate spending the most time with in 2024 isAvatar: Frontiers of Pandora. I fully expect it to be this year’s Marvel’s Midnight Suns — i.e. the big Disney IP game that got overlooked because it released in December and finds a devoted following in the new year — and I suspect a sunny trip to the floating mountains will be just what I need to shake off the gray boredom of winter.
And, even if it isn’t, I’ve got dozens more 2023 games to pull from. 2024 is about to be a movie (in which I play a bunch of video games).
