While we’re more than happy to tell you which games we think are best, we value the voices of other outlets too. As such, we’ve checked over two dozen lists, run the numbers, and put together a meta list of the most-loved games from this year.
Below, you’ll find small snippets from the lists of various outlets, and we wholeheartedly encourage you to click through and read their lists. They put a lot of effort into them, so let’s show them some love.
We looked at data from Gamespot, IGN, GamesRadar, Golden Joystick, The Game Awards, The Ringer, AV Club, Time, Slant, Vulture, DualShockers, CNET, Complex, The Guardian, AP, Rolling Stone, Inverse, Bloomberg, Game Informer, But Why Tho, GQ, Maxim, Esquire, TheGamer, and both Grant and Jared‘s lists.
We weighted the games higher on the lists heavier than those toward the bottom of the lists, made some small tweaks for edge cases (like unranked runners-up), and then simply counted the score for each game. If you don’t like the results, take it up with the concept of math. These are just cold, hard facts, bub.
Close Calls
As far as the numbers go, there was a pretty decent gap between the tenth spot and those that didn’t make the list. It wasn’t really a squeaker this year. Still, it’s worth letting you know which other games were in play:
14. “The Roottrees Are Dead”
13. “The Séance of Blake Manor”
12. “Kingdom Come: Deliverance II”
11. “Despelote”
10. ‘Dispatch’
“Dispatch” absolutely rules. From a stellar cast to incredible animation to fantastic writing, it hits on all accounts. The story, focusing on a down-on-his-luck hero working in a superhero dispatch company, is engaging and hilarious, while also wearing its heart on its sleeve. The supporting cast is as important, filled with massive and memorable personalities.
9. ‘Split Fiction’
Sci-fi… and fantasy?! What will these kwazy kooks think of next? Building on the co-operative spirit of Hazelight’s previous game “It Takes Two,” “Split Fiction” goes bigger in every way. Longer levels, greater time with each mechanic, more impressive set-pieces, and a far more high octane story that takes us to an array of settings. Strangely for a game all about writing, the storytelling is a weak spot, but there’s more than enough magic here to make up for it.
[TheGamer]
8. ‘Ghost of Yotei’
Atsu’s story of revenge against the people who took her family from her when she was a child is not an unfamiliar one within the samurai genre (or even other Sony games), but it is so expertly executed that we quickly became fully invested. Moving back and forth between Atsu’s past and present to understand how her childhood experiences shaped the adult she became is moving, and seeing her journey unfold is heartbreaking, satisfying, and exciting.
7. ‘Silent Hill f’
“Silent Hill f” is about a lot of things, but for me it’s about taking back control from expectations thrust upon you. Sometimes, in order to take that control, you have to reinvent the very idea of who and what you are. And like the series itself, a series with an expectation of what it’s supposed to be — a foggy town, a brooding psychological horror, and a world that decays into a rusty and dilapidated hellscape — “Silent Hill f” defies those expectations to become something whole and new, even if it means alienating some of its closest supporters. But hey, that’s what growth is all about.
[GameSpot]
6. ‘Death Stranding 2: On the Beach’
“DS2” expanded the complex narrative layers of the original, adding broader ideas while gracefully giving bittersweet payoffs to existing characters. An overall cathartic tale that’s quieter, more mournful, and more confrontational, while also not backing down from showcasing the harrowing sides of isolation, grief, and parenthood.
5. ‘Blue Prince’
Here’s a video game that will stick with me for the rest of my life. “Blue Prince” is a strategy game hiding a puzzle game hiding one of the best novels of the year. The premise is appealing enough — you’re sent to explore a mansion where the rooms change every day — but the real joy of “Blue Prince” is what’s under the surface. Slick, marbled foyers and ballrooms mask a world of fascist turmoil, political zealots, giant turtles, secret royalty and learning how to let go. As one hand-scribbled note in the manor wonders: “Does it never end?”
4. ‘Hollow Knight: Silksong’
“Silksong” excels in virtually every way a game can, introducing a painstakingly realized, gorgeous world full of quirky characters, mysterious lore, and haunting music. Bopping about the kingdom of Pharloom, which harbors surprises around every corner, feels exhilarating thanks to tight controls and snappy movement mechanics. Each of the visually arresting biomes is distinct but similarly grounded in the game world. The game’s collectible crests and the trinkets that slot into them offer an enticing level of creativity and customization. There are a dozen or so absolutely unforgettable bosses in “Silksong,” only two of which I recall weeks later with unbridled, seething rage. Fuck you, Groal the Great. Not so great now that you’re dead, are you?
3. ‘Hades II’
The creative juggernaut that is Supergiant Games likely could have simply recreated its 2020 roguelike hit, Hades, with just a few mechanical upgrades and still received critical acclaim. And, on the surface, that’s what “Hades 2” appears to be. It takes just a single scratch to reveal the truth about this incredibly ambitious sequel, though, which smartly rethinks and remixes many of its predecessor’s fundamentals. Yes, this is still a game in which you battle as far as you can through the branching routes of a dungeon until death forces you to start all over again, but new protagonist Melinoë’s quest to kill Chronos, the Titan of Time, takes place along two opposing routes.
[IGN]
2. ‘Donkey Kong Bananza’
It’s a game that prioritizes what you might want to discover by punching your way through every surface, even if it means some ugly camera angles that aren’t staged and Photo Mode-ready. It gives you ample opportunity to destroy everything around you, only truly constricting you not in its main game, but in its roguelike DLC that shows off even more of a “Splatoon” connection than the game already possessed — and there, as with any good roguelike, those constrictions are the point.
[AV Club]
1. ‘Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’
An extravagantly French role-playing game in which a band of depressed people from a ravaged Paris set out to kill a supernatural painter, who wipes out a generation of people with a few strokes of her brush each year. It is surreal, exciting, melodramatic, sometimes self-indulgent, and strangely hopeful — a breath of fresh air even in a genre that’s hardly starved of stylish, thematically ambitious games.
Image credit: “Silent Hill f,” “Donkey Kong Bananza,” “Hades II,” “Dispatch”
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