The best games of 2024 feel like misfit masterpieces. Maybe that’s because they are products of a bad environment. In case you didn’t know, the video game industry is not doing so great. Hey, who is? Bad investments into outdated ideas have led to mass layoffs. Meanwhile, the anti-culture of gaming descends into a never-ending spiral of discourse fueled by nutrient-deprived shouting heads who seem to know exactly how the world should look despite the fact they have not been outside in a very long time.
At a time when it feels like we are circling the drain, perhaps it should come as no surprise that the best games of 2024 all feel a little…different. Yes, some are remakes, sequels, or variations on a genre or theme, but in each of them, we find a concentrated effort to do something at least a little bit different. Here is Den of Geek‘s ranking of the best games of the year.
16. Animal Well
Several smaller games were battling it out for the bottom spots on this list (such as Crow Country and 1000xRESIST). If something separates Animal Well from the pack, it’s the ways this game takes nothing for granted.
Though it is most easily described as a Metroidvania title, you can’t put Animal Well in a genre box quite that easily. To fully explore this game’s puzzle-filled labyrinth, you’ll need to reconsider how you acquire items, how you interact with environments, and even how you browse the internet. Unlike other puzzle games which sometimes make you feel inadequate for not seeing beyond the doors of perception, Animal Well’s magnificent pacing, wonderful score, and fantastic style will leave you feeling like every moment is a wonderful discovery. That’s because they so often are.
15. Thank Goodness You’re Here
Truly great comedy games are a rare beast. Not only is comedy incredibly subjective, but it’s difficult to make a comedy game that is fun to play without compromising the timing that great jokes require.
That’s what makes Thank Goodness You’re Here quite special. Nearly every interaction in this game is meant to both move the adventure forward and offer at least an audible chuckle. Unless you are entirely opposed to very British humor, you will likely find much to love in this quaint little adventure game that pokes fun at the endless monotonous tasks video game protagonists must endure. Some comedy games are barely more enjoyable than suffering through your friend’s stand-up routine, but the consistent charms of Thank Goodness You’re Here recall the joys of settling in with your favorite sitcom.
14. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
The Like a Dragon (formerly Yakuza) franchise has become a masterclass in how to evolve a series over time without alienating your core fans. Fundamentally, Like a Dragon offers many of the same pleasures you’ll find in previous series installments. It features the turn-based combat seen in the last Like a Dragon title rather than the real-time action of the previous Yakuza installments, but it’s still full of big characters, elaborate plots, a ton of minigames, and that underlying sense of weirdness that helped make this franchise a cult classic in the first place.
Infinite Wealth refines those fundamentals while showcasing developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s willingness to keep trying new things. An almost Animal Crossing-like resort management minigame highlights the refreshing decision to move these games out of Japan and explore new scenarios. Is it the best game in the series? Truth be told, it’s difficult to say simply because these titles keep offering unique charms while delivering what you expect based on the name on the box.
13. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Earlier this year, Ubisoft decided to disband Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’s development team due to the game’s reportedly poor sales. It’s a sad story that exemplifies the tragic state of the modern gaming industry. There are times when even “great” doesn’t seem to be nearly good enough and when the biggest studios seem terrified of letting smaller ideas organically grow into something bigger.
If you can, though, push all of that aside long enough to enjoy the modern Metroidvania masterpiece that is The Lost Crown. You don’t need to be a Prince of Persia fan to appreciate how this game exemplifies that pure sense of adventure that we so often seek in these types of games. The love that went into this title, and the ways it so cleverly evolves this genre and the franchise, will carry the weight for you.
12. Tekken 8
It’s not easy to be a great fighting game these days. We’re far removed from the mass market appreciation of the genre that defined the arcade era, which means that a few franchises are often left to battle for the attention of dedicated players while trying to court new fans. So where does Tekken 8 fit into that market melee? Well, it just may be the best overall 3D fighting game in the world.
The fluidity of Tekken’s gameplay shines in this masterful sequel that somehow improves upon nearly perfect combat. If you’re not familiar with Tekken’s style, you’ll especially enjoy the many modes this game offers that allow you to dip your toes in the water without feeling like you’re lingering in the shallow end. Perhaps the Tekken series is still missing that little something that grabs the attention of the masses in the same way that the Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter franchises have. Then again, to play Tekken is to love Tekken.
11. Dragon’s Dogma 2
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is sloppy at best and arguably broken at worst. It often feels like a series of concepts rather than an entirely finished product. It’s the incredibly curious case of a sequel that seems to retain many of the technical flaws of a predecessor released 12 years ago.
Yet, so many of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s bugs feel closer to features. Dragon’s Dogma 2 encourages you to constantly explore the nuances of your character, equipment, party, environment, and combat options more than many such titles would ever dare to. Does that occasionally result in something odd or awkward occurring? Yes, but there is something magical about an RPG that allows you to consistently carve such a unique role for yourself, even if the game you’re playing doesn’t seem entirely sure what the consequences of your actions will be.
10. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a lot of game. It offers a ton of optional activities spread across a plethora of elaborate environments and strung together by a bold story that will often infuriate and delight in equal measure. It’s rare to see a studio use such ample resources and a legendary franchise name as an excuse to just go for it and try to make so many big ideas work.
That’s what ultimately makes Rebirth so easy to admire. For some, it will deliver an endless series of thrills across a massive adventure. But even if some of the things in this game don’t entirely work for you, you’ll likely find that the elements of Rebirth that do work are so plentiful and work so well that you’ll end up looking at other great games and finding them to be wanting.
9. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Echoes of Wisdom raises the old argument that we hold the Zelda franchise to an impossible standard. We expect every new Zelda game to shake the industry because they often do. So we understand why something like Echoes of Wisdom may get lost in the upper echelon of the awards shuffle this year. We certainly don’t think its impact will be more substantial than what you get from playing it.
Strangely, that’s also the game’s greatest strength. The Echoes of Wisdom team almost seems to have used Zelda’s starring role as an excuse to let themselves loosen up and just play with a few new ideas. The best of those new ideas—Zelda’s ability to summon echoes of objects to overcome various challenges—recalls the way the first Legend of Zelda made everyone rethink how they interacted with video games. Much like the handheld Zelda adventures gone by, it feels vital to recognize the joys of this game now before it ends up on a list of games we took for granted later.
8. Helldivers 2
Helldivers 2 is a purely joyful gaming experience. Then again, so was the original Helldivers. Both bless you with the opportunity to use an absurd arsenal of weapons to eradicate an army of creatures with a little help from your friends. It’s a classic formula for a good time.
But by moving from an isometric view to full 3D, the Helldivers 2 unlocks the incredible intensity at the heart of that original experience. It’s one thing for scripted gaming battles to feel appropriately epic, but in Helldivers 2, every bullet fired, every ability used, and every teammate revived is like sipping from an adrenaline cocktail with a dopamine kicker. While the game has struggled to make the most out of its ambitious live-service, galaxy-spanning war mechanics, those occasionally botched attempts at bold ideas do little to diminish the pleasures of playing this shooter. Hey, if you were willing to forgive that teammate who threw that grenade at your feet, you can forgive Helldivers 2 for its misfires.
Developer Atlus’ Persona series has long attracted a passionate following with its undeniable style, refined JRPG combat, and fascinating combination of high school dynamics and dungeon-crawling demon hunting. However, some have always struggled to connect to the high school relationship/drama elements. With Metaphor, Atlus essentially transported many of those mechanics to a new setting: a fantasy kingdom desperately searching for its next ruler.
The results are incredible. Granted, Metaphor is so much more than Persona in a medieval fantasy world—it combines elements of many of Atlus’ previous series with entirely new ideas—but that simple summary helps capture so much of what makes this game so special. Palace intrigue and feuding kingdom factions prove to be an appropriate substitute for high school social shenanigans. Crucially, those relationships help tell a story that delivers so many vital messages across significant thematic ground without ever taking the focus off its incredible characters and their compelling conflicts. It’s a complete JRPG triumph from a studio that often seems to be in a league of its own.
6. UFO 50
The word you keep hearing when UFO 50 is discussed is “value.” It’s undeniably an appropriate word to use when you’re describing a game that offers 50 unique games of varying—though often substantial—length for $24.99. The problem is that the word “value” has been corrupted over the years by brands that use it to sell inferior products that we often turn to when better alternatives are just out of reach.
That is not what UFO 50 offers. It is—to quote the game’s Steam description—a throwback to “the experience of going to a friend’s house and perusing their game library.” You will certainly find a few favorites in this genre-spanning collection of games that could have easily been standalone releases, but that’s only part of the joy. The greater joy comes from loading that menu, staring at those icons of possibilities, and recalling—or perhaps experiencing for the first time—that feeling of seeing a wall of cartridges and just knowing that there is something magical waiting for you.
5. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Indiana Jones and The Great Circle is more than a “love letter” to the Indiana Jones franchise. Oh, it’s certainly that, but it’s so much more, too. By aspiring to get every aspect of Indiana Jones right, developer MachineGames has delivered one of the most robust and satisfying AAA action-adventure gaming experiences in recent memory.
Essentially an immersive sim (think Deus Ex and Dishonored), The Great Circle functions as both an incredible Indiana Jones film and the Indiana Jones simulator we could previously only dream about. Few doubted MachineGames’ ability to craft a cinematic, Nazi-punching epic (that’s what they do), but the ways this game allows you to live your Indiana Jones fantasies within a new story worthy of the character’s greatest adventures make it a treasure so beautiful that you’ll start to wonder if you should be looking directly at it.
4. Silent Hill 2
Like a letter from your dead wife asking you to come to the town you once visited, people looked at the Silent Hill 2 remake and saw nothing but red flags. The publisher currently best known for making pachinko machines asked the developers responsible for sometimes formulaic horror games to remake one of the most unique creative expressions in gaming history? Good luck, babe.
But few games have cut through so much cynicism as quickly and eloquently as the Silent Hill 2 remake. What developer Bloober Team essentially did was take the original Silent Hill 2 and mold it into something that improves on the dated original in almost every way. Not since the original Resident Evil has a horror game received a remake this good.
3. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
We get the debate over whether or not Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree should qualify for game of the year discussions given that it is a piece of DLC. In some ways, that debate acknowledges that allowing DLCs to be represented in that way will take away spots from entirely new—and probably smaller—experiences. However, that debate is rooted in hate for the greedy history of DLCs rather than what Shadow of the Erdtree actually delivers.
There’s a good chance we’re not getting Elden Ring 2 anytime soon (if ever). Shadow of the Erdtree is the studio’s way of not just revisiting that world in a reasonable timeframe but allowing themselves to test the boundaries of their creation by making it more mechanically complex, more structurally ambitious, and, yes, more difficult. By doing so, they deliver one of their best experiences yet as as well as a game that will undoubtedly propel them to new creative heights moving forward. As for those Game of the Year concerns…well, if a $40 DLC is offering more than $70 games, maybe some of those $70 games should be put under greater scrutiny.
2. Astro Bot
For the last decade or so, developer Team Asobi has been hard at work making Astro Bot the next great gaming mascot. The problem was that their efforts always came with an asterisk. So far, Astro Bot has been limited to VR titles, cameos, and elaborate pack-in demos. In an industry where it sometimes feels impossible for small projects to be pushed to the next level, Astro Bot seemed destined to become a throwaway representative of the bigger PlayStation franchises that have been grandfathered into the upper echelon.
That’s part of the reason why 2024’s Astro Bot triggers reactions of pure joy that border on primal screams. Yes, it is filled with loving and clever throwbacks to various PlayStation properties woven organically into an otherwise original experience. Yes, it may be the best 3D platformer of the last 15 years or so that doesn’t star Mario. More than all of that, Astro Bot is an undeniable declaration that the beating heart of gaming lies in talented studios with original ideas that just need a slightly bigger budget and a little faith to deliver the next great game. It ignites hope that love, talent, and opportunity will not be kept quite as far apart as they have in recent years.
1. Balatro
Since the indie game boom, many years have brought us games like Balatro. Not exactly like Balatro, mind you—how many poker-like roguelike deck-builders could there be?—but rather smaller games that steal our hearts and occupy our time. We’re talking about games like Stardew Valley, Super Meat Boy, and Vampire Survivors. The love that went into them is often as undeniable as the hours we put into them. Come awards season, though, there still seems to be this hesitation to put them above those bigger games.
2024 is the year of Balatro, though. Quite possibly your favorite game developer’s favorite game, Balatro is a frighteningly addictive experience that lures you in with a concept that could have been included in every Windows 95 machine (a solitaire version of poker) before gradually revealing incredible new layers of depth. Every turn reveals new cards, every new card reveals new strategies, and every new strategy encourages yet another run of joyful experimentation.
It’s about more than that, though. The AAA gaming industry is currently eating its tail in the homeless pursuit of infinite growth. Those “too big to succeed” projects fail, studios are closed, and livelihoods are lost alongside the ideas that those “laid off” individuals could have gifted the world if only this industry even pretended to care about them. In a world on fire, we return to Balatro. If there is going to be a future, we need to celebrate its brilliance in the present.
What are your favorite games of 2024? Let us know in the comments!