And with that, 2024 comes to a close. Not a moment too soon, many may argue, and understandably so! Wherever you live, whatever you do for a living, it often felt like there wasn’t much to get excited about, to say nothing of 2025 creeping around the bend. But with that New Year comes an occasion for hindsight, and with rose-tinted glasses equipped, I found there was actually an abundance of great games which dropped over those 366 days. I didn’t have a chance to make my way through some folks’ favorite titles, like Metaphor: ReFantazio or FFVII Rebirth, but among those I did, a select set stood out as especially exciting, addictive, or otherwise unforgettable. These are…. my Top Ten Games of 2024.
#10) Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 [Campaign]
If you were to program an interactive museum of everything broken about American pop culture—obscene production budgets, gambling disguised as loot boxes, stories whose moral starts at “might” and ends at “makes right”—it’d look like Call of Duty. Having long since mutated from mere shooter franchise to something like a jingoistic Fortnite, I conscientiously objected to the last couple CODs, if not for their ethics then just for what a hassle it is to dig any given story mode out from beneath layers of launcher menus and juvenile DLC promos. But then a certain subseries reemerged from the shadows—with an unprecedented same-day Game Pass drop, no less. I don’t do multiplayer or Zombies, but for however brief a time, the campaign for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was my guilty pleasure of the year. The lifelike graphics, the taut controls for a suite of combat options, the reckless delirium of positioning serious real-world events alongside tinfoil-hatted sci-fi, the globetrotting level design with setpieces to rival Naughty Dog… like it or not, this is what gaming looks and plays like when the resources of the U.S. military and Activision-Blizzard combine. I wouldn’t call it art, and it’s got nothing to say about politics that might interfere with selling Nicki Minaj costumes, but if you like action media, period, then you owe it to yourself to go dark and accept this mission.
#9) Silent Hill 2
On paper (a stained note lying in an abandoned diner, one must imagine), Silent Hill 2 2024 was going to be a disaster: a remake of one of the most acclaimed titles ever, published by the company that canned a new entry to focus on pachinko and developed by a studio known for tacky rip-offs? Purists indeed scoffed, dismissing the result as too conventional, too fixated on aggro gross-out moments in lieu of the source material’s subtler, more evocative torment. I sympathize with such critiques, and yet it’s been a while since I played a horror game which had me so glued to the red-drenched screen. Calling upon the camera and graphical overhauls by which Capcom modernized Resident Evil 2 through 4, Bloober Team breathe new afterlife into the misty burg while still retaining the pathos and surrealness which distinguished the 2001 original. Combat is responsive yet appropriately haphazard, riddles are tricky yet intelligible, and while I’ve never been all in on Akira Yamaoka’s rock-meets-ambient score, the music remains a nightmarish feast for the ears. There’s just enough familiar to revel in its retooling, and just enough new to keep you on your toes. In my restless dreams, I still see… well, usually me forgetting some nonexistent task at work, but the mystery and metaphorical monsters of that town remain ever-haunting.
#8) INDIKA
I studied Japanese for a year in college, after which I had to stop when my GPA couldn’t withstand fumbling through a new language. In so doing, I reached a point where I could look at some words and, thanks to the symbolic nature of certain kanji, understand what they meant even if I couldn’t understand what they said. In a way, I feel the same about INDIKA: I think I know what this game is about, but I’ll be damned if I can explain what happens in it. The story of an Orthodox nun booted from her convent to journey across a wartime snowscape, INDIKA whorls walking sim, retro platformer, and horror-puzzler into an experience that’s brief, bizarre, and mature in the truest sense. Grotesque impossibilities, like a factory line of whale-sized fish or our heroine praying to literally fix the world while Satan bullies her, pass by with nonchalance between sober dialogues about faith and human frailty. With an openly irrelevant “points” system and Adult Swim-style asides like a little dancing guy emerging from someone’s mouth, INDIKA’s tone is as inconsistent as its gameplay… but for the few hours it took to complete, I was a believer in its sermons.
#7) Balatro
If there’s two genres I don’t care for, it’s deck-builders and roguelikes: I don’t like installing software only to pretend to move paper around, and I don’t like banging my head against a wall of randomized assets instead of traveling through a bespoke, immersive world. Consider me shocked, then—even after a whole casino’s worth of outlets heaped awards upon it—that this next entry captivated me so much, so fast, with just days left in the year. “Poker meets solitaire” may be the superficial pitch, but Balatro pulls so many tricks that a physical deck just couldn’t: in addition to your standard 52, there’s the multiplying effects of Tarot cards, Planet cards, Spectral cards, Vouchers, snazzy variants like foil and gold cards, and a whole DC Multiverse worth of Jokers, all in service of one goal: lay down the best hand possible, cash out, and then ante up. Add in a catchy main theme, nostalgic CRT-style visuals, and sound design that eggs you on like a slot machine for just one more run, and you’ve got a game that draws a line from millennia-old gambling to contemporary mobile titles, all without a single microtransaction. It may be more about serotonin than storytelling, but when the chips are down, I’m just straight flush with praise for this one.
#6) Animal Well
The Metroidvania: Obtuse name notwithstanding, it’s among the most prolific of indie subgenres, where smaller studios can do a lot with a little by focusing on labyrinthine side-scrolling in lieu of photorealism. It takes pizzazz to stand out in the scene, then, but solo dev Billy Basso made a name for himself and YouTube goof Dunkey’s new publisher Bigmode this year with Animal Well. With vintage art design enlivened by dazzling lighting effects, and both literal and figurative hidden depths, Animal Well foregoes spectacle in favor of mystery and quiet revelation. Every room is either a captivating fork in the road or a chamber to be cleared by your growing arsenal of endearing tools, from a frisbee to a bouncy ball. As nods to classics like Startropics and Super Mario Bros. 2 acknowledge, Basso knows that color and wonder made the 2D era great, but unlike in the ‘90s, uniting with other players to crack every secret is far more feasible! Can’t say I’m keen to hop on a Discord to literally piece together certain Easter eggs, but the added appeal to community is just one more reason why Animal Well is, well, great.
#5) The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Granted, The Legend of Link doesn’t have the same ring to it, but isn’t it weird how few games set in Hyrule let you play as the character whose name is on the cover? That was until 2024, when Nintendo—fresh off of taking six years to release a Breath of the Wild expansion pack—put out The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom! Combining the toylike style of 2019’s Link’s Awakening remake with the anything-goes summoning powers of that last installment, Echoes of Wisdom places players in the shoes of the Princess herself, who must set out with a tiny sidekick to quell the supernatural blight which has ensnared the Hero of Time and much of her land along with him. Per usual, most people and places are remixes of somewhere else in The Timeline, but combining the layout of classic Zelda with modern open-world features like fast travel and mission markers makes this iteration of the kingdom a joy to venture through. The summons menu can be a hassle to navigate, but the sheer number of ways to tackle each puzzle is a marvel of design, and means every player will have a unique journey (me, I often relied on either a staircase of beds or projectile armadillo). I’ve got great expectations for Nintendo’s next full-3D Zelda, but in the meantime, offering this cozy, creative throwback entry was a wise decision.
#4) The Plucky Squire
The Plucky Squire is just plain cute. Many have dabbled in mashing up genres and graphical styles before, but developer All Possible Futures lived up to their name in this debut, where the stars of a children’s book leap off the page after they discover their fictional nature—and the evil wizard who seeks to exploit it. In some levels, you’ll be watching top-down, swapping physical words and flipping pages to proceed like a combination of Baba is You and the home video scene from Spaceballs. In others, our hero will emerge into full 3D, hopping over stray pencils and books to trounce the foes who’ve invaded the bedroom of his biggest fan. In-between it all are hilarious minigames like a Punch-Out-esque boxing match with a badger, a rhythmic duel with a metalhead troll, and a shoot-em-up segment played out around the circumference of a plastic mug. The art design is a cheery delight, the humor is self-aware without ever growing tiresome, and the game never stops adding new, clever ways to interact with your surroundings. With Devolver Digital to rep for them, here’s hoping APF are plucked from obscurity and can produce many more wholesome adventures to come!
#3) Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
Yes, it’s a new game—if AAA slop like Concord can hit shelves as a standalone title only to expire faster than a prepackaged salad, then dozens of hours of engrossing new world design, lore, and battles aren’t disqualified just because they’re behind a “you must git this gud to pass” gate in their predecessor. With that out of the way, Shadow of the Erdtree is FromSoftware’s greatest follow-up content ever, literally filling huge gaps in Elden Ring by transporting Tarnished to a realm hitherto obscured, where the seeds of conflict that’d doom the Lands Between were sewn. A new leveling system centered on scattered collectibles caused some diehards to fuss, but I never minded, because as with my Top Game of 2022 on which it expands, Shadow of the Erdtree isn’t just about dying twenty times to some mournful, mutated madman—it’s about exploration, improvisation, and jolly cooperation. A coastline glittering with neon-blue flowers, an abyss clotted with giant coffins shaped like ships, the Blair Witch-grade horror of stumbling upon an abandoned mansion in the woods… every area competes with every other area as one of the most memorable in not just this game but in any game. Even if I gave up on beating Promised Consort Radahn (though we’ll see about that nerfed version), I adored the dozens more hours I sunk into setting out, sword in hand, to see what treasure or terror awaited over the crest of that hill or at the bottom of that chasm. Now more than ever, Elden Ring is just one of the greatest pieces of fantasy media ever.
#2) Black Myth: Wukong
In the centuries since it was penned, Chinese novel Journey to the West has inspired innumerable epics, from Dragon Ball Z to at least one Andy Serkis side gig—even if Westerners themselves may not know it by name. Latest among these adaptions was Black Myth: Wukong, the long-brewing sophomore effort of developer Game Science, which transforms the tale into a gorgeous, high-energy Soulslike. As one does, you’ll be planning a path through gauntlets of foes and tweaking loadouts at the last rest stop after getting bodied by another relentless boss, but far from the measured, stoic brawls which define peers like Elden Ring, Wukong’s simian star yelps, swerves, and unleashes magical beatdowns with the stylish, rapid-fire brutality of Kratos or Dante. The outlandish bosses are massive in size and quantity, yet with so many alternate routes and equipment caches in even the most linear of levels, rare is a moment of boredom or despair. It’s a nice change of pace, too, from the bevy of medieval England or Feudal Japan-inspired action games for one steeped in another culture’s art and mythos… which you’ll then bash to bits with a flaming staff. As with Shadow of the Erdtree, I must confess I didn’t see credits, but no matter—Game Science has cracked the formula for a great cinematic action-RPG, and when the rumored sequel drops, I’m ready to go ape all over again.
#1) Astro Bot
Why are we here? Why are we even doing this? Not life in general, although I think we can all agree this year often raised the question. No, I mean gaming—what’s it all about? Escapism? Exploration? Strategy? The empathy afforded by embodying someone from another country, another species, another planet? Or is it just about… fun? Not the fleeting rush of spending funny money on a new emote or hat, nor the primal release of sending a bullet through a foreign-looking opponent, but the sustained, childlike joy of navigating an environment like the playgrounds of old: shiny, inviting, full of noise and obstacles but in a way that’s invigorating, never truly painful or discouraging. To that end, the PS5 stepped off its high horse of narrative-driven prestige in 2024, and by that metric, Astro Bot could be the most fun I’ve ever had with a game. Team Asobi taps into the console’s power like never before, honoring old-school platformers while also not letting a second pass without something to make the DualShock rumble, jingle, or veer in your hands. There’s always a cool trinket to uncover, always a grin-inducing gimmick to a given level that’ll make you eager to come back again—no trouble at all, given how fast everything loads and how beautiful everything looks. True, it’s also a parade of PlayStation IP that pats the brand on its back harder than a choking victim, but with as much as I’ve enjoyed Super Smash Bros. over the decades, I’d be a hypocrite to deduct points for self-congratulation. In fact, after experiencing so much awe and merriment in a single package, my bar for the next Mario game has been raised rocketship-high. It’s silly, thrilling, charming, challenging, and full of nods to us Millennials who’ve been gaming since the 1900s. When I turn on the TV and sit down on the couch, that’s what I’m here for. What about you?
Notes&Sketches 