This year was supposed to be a slow year for gaming, and a gap year between major releases before the big game launches in 2025. But in hindsight, 2024 is going to be a great year for video games, with some great games on all platforms. From Helldivers 2 and Palworld becoming multiplayer phenomena, to Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree and Black Myth: Wukong lighting up the action RPG category, the past 12 months have seen great launches across all genres.
It’s also been a great year for indie games. Balatro is a poker-inspired roguelike deck-building game developed by an individual and has been nominated for Game of the Year at the 2024 Game Awards. There are also some excellent remasters of older games. Silent Hill 2 and Persona 3: Reloaded recreate classic games in a modern way. There were so many great games this year, and with 2024 coming to an end, it’s time to pick our favorites.
It’s also worth noting that there are several critically acclaimed games that we didn’t play this year and therefore don’t belong on this list. These include games such as “Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth”, “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle”, and “Metaphor: ReFantazio”. Our list includes our Our favorite game picks did Play in 2024. Here are the best video games of 2024 across all platforms (in alphabetical order):
astronomy robot
Sony didn’t launch any major first-party games this year, but some surprising exclusives helped the PlayStation parent company weather the storm. The best of them come from the most unexpected places. Team Asobi’s Astro Bot is the sequel to the free PS5 game Astro’s Playroom, and it appears like a splash of color on an otherwise bland page. This family-friendly, Nintendo-style 3D platformer looks and plays differently than other PlayStation exclusives. You play as Astro, PlayStation’s lovable robot mascot, traveling across the galaxy with his robot companions before Nebulax intercepts your PS5-shaped spaceship. The spaceship crashed on a strange planet, and the robots were scattered and lost in several galaxies.
Then, as you explore over 80 vibrant levels across multiple galaxies, you’re tasked with gathering all your friends and repairing your ship by finding its missing parts. There are Easter eggs to discover, special VIP robots to collect, and hidden planets to discover. Filled with PlayStation memorabilia, Astro Bot is essentially a museum showcasing the brand and its historic journey.
In addition to being a fun collectathon, Astro Bot features colorful levels, each with a unique theme and style. There’s a planet made of candy, another designed to be a construction site, and yet another a tropical beach paradise. Moving around these levels using Astro’s modest movement settings is fun and responsive, especially with the excellent tactile feedback on the DualSense controller. Gameplay doesn’t have the depth of some of the other games on this list, but the variety of creative abilities adds a fresh feel to each planet.
With candy-colored visuals, creative level design and fun-focused gameplay, Astro Bot stood out in a year full of great action-adventure games, winning four trophies including Game of the Year at the 2024 Game Awards.
Astro Bot review: Team Asobi’s Nintendo-style platformer is a PS5 classic
animal well
“Animal Well” is developed by Billy Blasso and is a metroidvania platformer that emphasizes exploration and atmosphere. There’s no tutorial or prompts to guide players through the ever-expanding maze, and there’s no combat. Instead, players are encouraged to be curious and creatively approach the game’s challenges.
Well of Animals puts the focus on its puzzles, as each part of the map requires creative thinking to complete. The maze-like levels are filled with weird animals that sometimes help players and sometimes hinder them. The game can be disorienting at first, with multiple branching paths and no clear way out. The early parts of the game can feel like you’re stumbling around in the dark with your arms outstretched, trying to feel your way out. But then your eyes get used to the darkness and you start to see the way forward.
While you can stick to the golden path in the game and rush past the main objectives, curious players will discover hidden areas and increasingly complex puzzles. Equipment items discovered during the game also become the key to unlocking the maze. In addition to rewarding platforming and puzzle-solving, Animal Well’s dreamy visuals and pixel art style deliver a hyper-realistic, immersive experience you won’t find in any other game released in 2024.
The intricate maze of the Animal Well is filled with animals and spirits
Photo credit: Shared Memory
Balatero
At this point, there’s not much more to say about Balatero. The indie roguelike deck-building game, also developed by a guy who goes by the pseudonym LocalThunk, became this year’s breakout hit across all platforms. The game has sold over 3.5 million copies, and it’s easy to see why. Balatro seems simple, but becomes increasingly complex and addictive. The object of the game is to play your best poker hand to beat the blinds – small blind, big blind and big blind, escalating the difficulty by introducing new challenges.
Each blind consists of several rounds of playing the hand until you run out of cards or reach a target score. You can also use special cards with buffs to turn the round in your favor by twisting the rules. As the name suggests, the Joker card is crucial in Balatero. They have unique, game-changing effects that can help you reach your goals.
Balatro received five nominations at The Game Awards 2024, including Game of the Year. It ended up winning the categories of Best Indie Game, Best First Indie Game, and Best Mobile Game. It’s available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and mobile platforms, and with an Apple Arcade subscription. But be aware that downloading Balatro on your phone may carry the risk of addiction to its cycle.
Balatro is available on PC, Mac, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch and mobile platforms
Photo credit: LocalThunk
Hellraiser 2
Who knew shooting insects with friends could be so much fun? “Helldivers 2” enters a saturated multiplayer game market, and new live service games have difficulty retaining players. But with its frenetic PvE action, unique sense of humor, and stellar visuals, Hellraiser 2 stands out in a field filled with imitations and iterations. In Arrowhead Games’ third-person shooter, you are recruited as a mindless soldier of Super Earth’s fascist government and thrust into an endless war against Terminators and robots. As a foot soldier of the Empire, your goal is to follow orders, kill targets, and die in service to Super Earth. But rather than outright militaristic intentions and jingoism, the game is full of biting satire that pays homage to Starship Troopers. Helldivers 2 constantly pokes fun at its own premise, bringing a comedic self-awareness that helps achieve its over-the-top goals.
There’s no PvP element in Helldivers 2, so its PvE battlegrounds are perfect for collaborative and rally online matches, even if you’re playing with strangers. The action itself is pretty epic. You land on occupied outposts on distant planets and find them crawling with giant bugs. As you slay the scurrying insects and blow up their nests, you’ll also have to complete a series of objectives to get the maximum reward before flying out.
To aid in your elimination efforts, you’ll gain access to some of the most explosive weapons ever seen in a video game. While you start out with standard attack weapons and can later call upon special weapons through your strategy, your largest arsenal is the Orbital Strike. These strikes can flatten everything in front of you in uncanny ways and become blockbuster moments in fast-paced matches.
Helldiver 2 review: Democracy right
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
Prince of Persia is a beloved and legendary game that lay dormant for some time before Ubisoft Montpellier, the makers of the excellent Rayman games, decided to give the series a new direction. The Lost Crown reimagines Prince of Persia as a metroidvania action platformer with intense boss battles, intricate level design, and tons of puzzles. In The Lost Crown, you play as Sargon, a member of the Immortals tasked with rescuing a prince who has been kidnapped and taken to Mount Kaf.
The mountain becomes a maze where the game’s branching levels are located. As you explore different parts of Kraft Mountain, you’ll meet its inhabitants and villains, discover its hidden secrets and find buried treasure. Along the way, you’ll face threats from the environment and enemies that stand in your way. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown contains some of the most difficult platforming sections of this year’s games, requiring precision and patience from the player.
Its dynamic combat emphasizes parrying incoming attacks and counterattacks within the right windows, with a steady curve that escalates in difficulty. As a result, The Lost Crown feels challenging, but never unfair. Some sections may tire you out eventually, but the developers made sure these areas remain optional. There have been some excellent Metroidvanias over the past few years, and The Lost Crown borrows clever ideas from each of them, but the resulting adventure is still distinctly Prince of Persia.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown review: The prince’s bold new path
Senua’s Legend: Hellblade II
We’ve talked about platformers, deck-building games, action games, and shooters. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is an action-adventure game, but it’s also uncompromisingly focused on cinematic visuals. The game only runs in a widescreen aspect ratio, and it features beautiful, almost photo-realistic visuals and core performance that rivals some of the best games in cinema this year.
As a video game, Senua’s Saga doesn’t offer much; it can be completed in about six hours, and its gameplay systems are intentionally shallow. But this game incorporates a huge amount of detail and care into its narrative and visual presentation, delivering an unprecedented immersive experience in 2024. From the binaural audio that attempts to capture Senua’s insanity in a realistic way to the industry-leading facial animations, Senua’s Legend is a technological powerhouse.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II review: Ninja theory has flaws, but uncompromising sequel is a cinematic achievement
The game utilizes Unreal Engine 5 to present evocative natural landscapes. The walk through desolate, jagged hills and Norse ruins helps convey a sense of isolation that reflects Senua’s state. Her determined forward spirit is reflected in the game’s strictly linear levels. Some action-adventure games tell an emotional story while delivering a deeper gaming experience that allows players to define their own playtime in their own way. But the goal with Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II was to create a unique experience that was exactly what the developers intended. It’s an admirable approach for a medium that’s always ready to bend to the will of its players.
