2023 was a wild year for games. It will undoubtedly go down as one of the biggest years for releases in the history of the medium. There were just too many good games put out over the last 12 months. I played a wider variety of new games this year than I think I ever have prior, but I still missed several titles that I probably would have rated at least a 9 out of 10.

Here is a selection of some of the games that I didn't get a chance to load up, which probably already looks like a lot of people's top games list:

As for what I did play, I booted up 36 new releases in 2023. Here are my favorites:

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- Spellmasons

A tactical rougelike where you can really feel like you're getting powerful. There are a lot of different spells, all of which can be combined which can mutate them in very interesting and and unexpected ways. It doesn't take long to get to the point where you're nuking half the screen one turn one and it's never not satisfying.

Booting this up with friends adds a lot to the game itself, increasing the chaos and complexity. Friendly fire is on, so you have to be a bit more careful with your targeting (or not. Sometimes a little sacrifice is in order).

- Pineapple on Pizza

A tiny experience that "accurately describes getting pineapple on your pizza". It's free and takes like 20 minutes to complete. Just go do it.

- Boltgun

I love the Warhammer 40k setting, but I'm always hesitant with new games set in the universe. Games Workshop will give a license to pretty much anyone, which leads to a lot of slop. So when I saw Boltgun announced, I had to keep my expectations in check despite loving boomer shooters and space marines.

Luckily, I was quite pleasantly surprised when I loaded it up for the first time, and it ruled. It's fast, violent, and feels amazing.

I don't think it's necessarily doing anything new in the space, but that's kind of the point of the genre, I suppose.

- Dredge

Dredge caught me a bit by surprise. I wasn't expecting this mix of tone and genre to grab me like it did, but once those eldritch tentacles had me, they had me.

Mechanically, the game is very simple. You move your boat around, find fishing spots, and complete a little mini game to grab your quarry. Where it really shines is the atmosphere, dialog, and the way the darker elements of the story are slowly revealed to you as you progress.

There are some parts of scavenging that can feel a little monotonous, which should stand as a testament for how good the rest of it is, since my patience for grinding is basically non-existent.

- Lethal Company

These days it feels rare for a rouge-like to eschew any sort of meta progression, and just let each run be it's own thing but that's exactly the genius stroke in Lethal Company's design. By not having any real consequence for failure, you're encouraged to be fully immersed in the comedy that each of your many deaths will bring. And when I say comedy, I really mean it. This is one of the funniest games I've ever played.

On it's own as a single player experience, Lethal Company would be a 1/10 at best, but when you get your friends hired on to the company, it catapults the title to a 10/10 game.

I don't know about the longevity of the game, or if it will keep it's amazing core all the way through its 1.0 release, but right now this is a masterpiece.

- El Paso, Elsewhere

What's not to love about a game where a neo-noir detective must battle through the underworld to stop his ex girlfriend (named Draculae) from performing a ritual that will bring the end of the world? The gameplay, mostly.

It's not really bad, per se, just slightly repetitive. And the bullet time that was added to solidify the Max Payne of it all doesn't work for this game like it did in the originator.

I wanted to quickly get the negative out of the way so I can gush about everything else. The writing is perfect. The voice acting, especially that of James (done by the developer himself) is top notch. The visuals suit this game so well. Lately I've been getting a little tired of the indie dev does ps1 style of visuals, but here it really pops against the wonderful lighting work.

Cheesy at times, it can also be just as touching in its narration. El Paso, Elsewhere is a game I can see myself revisiting throughout the years.

- HiFi Rush

A stealth dropped comedy rhythm game with cartoon aesthetics by the team that made The Evil Within. Just a ridiculous combo that ended up being an early highlight to the year.

Any rhythm game that can cater to my inability to keep any sort of beat is a welcome change. I was able to play this and have a great time despite missing more than a few hit timings because of the excellent decision to reward good timing with a boost, rather than punish bad timing with a debuff.

The art and animation are so good here. I don't think I've ever seen a 3D game that's able to make every frame look like a hand drawn animation cel, but Tango Gameworks pulled it off.

The game could use a little less platforming, but everything else in this package comes together to produce a polished, funny, well balanced experience that I think (and hope) will be emulated soon by other studios.

- Chants of Senaar

A game about using context to parse together the meaning to a strange language in a strange land is something that is entirely my jam, and Chants of Senaar doesn't disappoint.

Puzzle games, for me, always seem to fall into a trap where you feel like you're dumb right up until the moment when you get to the answer, and (hopefully) feel like a genius. This never felt good to me. Senaar manages to fix this by keeping me feeling like I'm always right on the verge of discovery, and I just need to keep it up a little longer until I get my 'aha!' moment. It moves the motivation from just purely solving the puzzle to the discovery of how the puzzle fits together, and I love it.

It's the best abstraction of language that I've ever seen, in a game or otherwise. Now, to be fair, I've not seen many but that shouldn't take away from the accomplishment here.

- Baldur's Gate 3

I didn't finish Baldur's Gate 3, but any game that I'm able to put 60 hours into and still want to continue with is going onto the year end list. I assumed from the outset that I was going to bounce off of BG3, just like I did Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2. CRPGs are cool, and I loved them when I was younger, but today they just never seem to keep my interest.

BG3 is different in a way that I'm having a hard time describing other than "it just hits different". The writing, voice acting, setting, quests, companions, everything, all just comes together into such a cohesive whole. It felt like anything that I wanted to try to do, I could, and the game took everything into account. I'm sure this isn't true, but it feels like a game that's almost impossible to trick or to do something that the game itself can't handle or make up for.

The level of design at play here is truly staggering. I honestly have a hard time comprehending how they were able to make every strand of this web mingle and accentuate every other strand. The game deserves every GOTY that it's winning this season, and I hope it manages to set a new bar for other AAA studios to work towards.

- Alan Wake 2

It's a much more horror focused game than its predecessor, which I enjoy a lot more than the somewhat frantic and actiony tone of the first game. Combat is slowed down, and each enemy feels more like a threat. You get smaller hordes you have to fight at once, but each set seems more deadly still.

The technical mastery on display (which I assume is a credit to the in house Northlight engine) allows for artistic decision that I can't pin down how they made it work. The level transitions, the swaps between 'scene' areas in the dark place, even just the way the maps are lit is a wonder.

And speaking of the artistry, I don't have enough superlatives. Everything in the game is beautiful, and every inch of the world has been touched by someone. Anywhere you look, you're going to find something relevant and rewarding.

Remedy may be my favorite studio working today, and Alan Wake 2 is Remedy running on all cylinders. It's weird, it's ambitious, it's beautiful, and it works. They swung for the fences, and hit it out of the park.

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Even after gushing about the quality of the games this year, I would be remiss if I didn't at least touch on the inverse human costs associated with this stacked lineup. It was one of the worst years for the industry that I can remember. Between the crunch, the layoffs, and the baffling corporate decisions game dev (especially at the AAA level) seems to be careening towards an unsustainable future, and I have a sinking feeling that it's going to be getting a good deal worse before it gets better.

On the bright side though, 2023 was the year that the industry lost Kotick and Riccitello, so maybe we are on an upswing.

Here's to 2024.