Games

The Forest and Sons of the forest. Haven't been happier playing this - unique as hell and gave me similar vibes as Subnautica. :)

Vampire Survivors completely drew me in this year.

A couple of years ago, I was having dreams of designing train lines in Cities Skylines. A couple of days ago I was having a dream of weapon combos in Vampire Survivors. That's how you spot a good and influential game.

Pretty easily Hunt Showdown with honorable mention to Remnant II, Northgard, and Age of Wonders 4

I finally picked up Exanima after years of being put off by the early access, but damn what a unique and engaging experience. Reminds me of the first time I played Oblivion or Demon's/Dark Souls.

It's a game where your own experience as a player is your greatest asset. I highly recommend it for anyone into slow dungeon crawling and looking for a challenge unlike anything else.

It's hard to pick. None really stand out that much from the rest but probably Ghost of Tsushima or Chivalry II.

Gartic phone has been the most consistently entertaining game i played this year, but that is probably because i only ever played it 3 times(3 gamemodes) yesterday.

I also played Celeste this year, which was really fun

I finally finished Zelda II this year and really enjoyed it.

Chants of Sennaar. Thought it would fun, turned out to be probably my favourite thing I played this year.

BG3, TOTK, and Vampire Survivors are all very up there as well. Really great year for games.

I put about 300 hours into No Man's Sky this year.

Hard to pick. I would say my favorite new game is Slay the Princess. My favorite game I've returned to, and I returned to a lot this year, is Deep Rock Galactic. Rock and stone, brother.

Throughout the year I played:

-Secret of Mana (haven't played in 15 years or so. Game still holds up)

-Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (and the Torna DLC). The main story is fantastic. A bit quantity of quality with all the Blades.

-The Legend of Zelda: TOTK. This game is great. Ultra hand blows this game wide open

-Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Finish this one up now and about to start the DLC. Story IMO is the poorest of the 3 games. But they took the best of the first two game's battle mechanics and improved that system.

Probably XC2. It was a lot of fun.

Kerbal Space Program! Sunk 20 hours into that one over the last two days alone!

There's been a lot of great games this year, but BG3 just barely beats the competition for me. Alan Wake 2, TOTK, Hi-fi Rush, and Lethal Company have all been great experiences as well though.

Really enjoyed valheim. Not sure it was my fave but really enjoyable. A game I can just keep going back to.

Roadwarden

Spider-Man: Miles Morales got its Steam release in November of last year, but I didn’t get to it until after New Years. The Steam Deck handled it really well, which just makes me pissed that Insomniac signed a PlayStation exclusivity agreement for Spider-Man 2.

A Plague Tale: Requiem.

Perfect Tides.

Xenoblade 3: Future Redeemed

I'm a huge fan of the series and this is one of the best entries, even though it's a DLC campaign.

Well Tears of the Kingdom ate up about 4 months of the year for me. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was a game I had been waiting 20 years to play. So that was really nice. I just wish there was more of it to be honest haha.

Resident evil 4 remake and Bloodborne were my next favorites.

Lingo. It tickles my brain in wonderful ways. I'm currently working through the custom level Liduongo, sequel to an earlier map named Duolingo, and I continue to be surprised, delighted, and utterly perplexed.

It's a rules-based puzzler that doesn't tell you the rules buried in a confusing labyrinth. The only downside is that it requires a strong grasp of English, limiting its audience.

Absolutely Hi-Fi Rush. I loved many games this year, but Hi-Fi Rush was so fun, so wholesome, so loveable that the music it used carried me through some insanely hard times. It is very obviously a passion project made by incredible creators, and I legitimately cannot find a single issue with it (which I can't say of any other game this year).

I still feel swells of emotion listening to the music from that game. Absolutely incredible.

Baulders gate 3 for sure. I mean in a few months it's already more than half the hours of my most played game. I love the characters and the way I can effect the outcome of different events, and I love exploring it all again with different character combos.

Probably a toss up between Hi-Fi Rush, Doom Eternal, and Guilty Gear Strive. I suck at fighting games, but I love learning all the unique mechanics of the characters.

Probably Remnant 2 although Hi-Fi Rush is close behind.

From this year: BG3

From before this year: Dwarf Fortress