The Button Prompt End of Year Wrap-Up 2024: Top 5 Games of The Year

It’s difficult to define the state of the video game industry at the end of 2024. As far as the AAA space is concerned, it's been a rough year. There has been little in the way of flagship franchise releases and the continued decimation of the employment landscape (almost 15,000 jobs lost just this year) paints a dour picture of the industry’s current trajectory. That doesn’t mean it's been a light year for games in other spaces, however. 2024 has seen the release of some truly outstanding Indie and AA video games, with small teams and even solo developers making the use of the space that AAA has left open this year. 

Experiences like Animal Well, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes and Balatro brought magic and mystery to our screens, with the latter taking hours of productivity away from millions of people. Bigger games did have some representation this year, with the likes of Metaphor: Refantazio and Astrobot shining through. Of course, I’ve not played everything that was released this year - I’ve still yet to play 1000xResist or the Silent Hill 2 remake, among many others - but I’ve played a few and this is going to be a list of my 5 favourites from this year.

Thank you for reading, and happy holidays!

SPECIAL MENTIONS:

1. METAPHOR: REFANTAZIO, Studio Zero

Metaphor was one the year’s biggest games, and rightly so. It’s a distinctive and expansive RPG that brings the gameplay design of Persona to a medieval fantasy setting. Its art style alone would have been enough to keep me coming back but the narrative’s subject matter - such as political division, racism, and inequality - and its endearing characters are what really captured me in the end. The only problem is… I haven’t finished it yet. It’s a really long game and between work and writing, I just haven’t managed to hit the end yet. I felt it would be unfair to include it in the top 5 without having done so! 

2. ALAN WAKE 2: THE LAKE HOUSE, Remedy Entertainment 

Returning to Alan Wake 2 this year was a delight. It was one of my favourite games of 2023, and The Lake House DLC was as unsettling and meta as I’d come to expect. It highlights the versatility of the universe Remedy is building in how it can approach genre and character in ways that might come across as corny anywhere else, but feel right at home in the pulpyness of Alan Wake’s horror novels. It’s a fantastic experience but between Alan Wake 2 releasing last year and the sheer magnitude of some of the games I played this year, It didn’t quite make it in! 

3. POKÉMON GO, Niantic

I got back into Pokemon go with my partner at the end of last year so 2024 has been my first full year with the game for a long time. We tried to take part in as many events as we could, go out for each community day and really engage with the game every day. It’s become such a part of my daily routine when I’m out for walks and it's been wonderful to meet people and collect some of my favourite monsters. The nature of Pokemon Go, though, as an ongoing game made it difficult for me to categorise and I’ve decided to not include it in this year’s list - I felt it still deserved a special mention though for taking over my year like few other games did!

MY TOP 5

5.  ANOTHER CRAB’S TREASURE, Aggro Crab

Filling spots four through one of this list was quite straightforward for me - they just fell into place. Number 5 proved quite difficult though. I’ve tried to find a balance between my favourites and what I think is the best game of 2024. Spot 5 is taken, then, by a game I had a great time playing and haven’t stopped thinking about: Another Crab’s Treasure. It delighted me from beginning to end with its colourful take on the Souls-Like formula and its relentless stream of fishy puns. It managed to capture everything I love about the genre while delivering a traditional narrative as well as constant, unending laughter. Playing it on the Steam Deck OLED made all its wonderful colours pop even more and I think Aggro Crab have outdone themselves with their crab-like souls-like.

4.  BALATRO, LocalThunk

Lots has been written about Balatro this year - from the productivity-sapping power of its addictive, rogue-like structure to LocalThunk’s modest ‘Card Game’ file system. Its well documented ability to take over your life made me apprehensive to play it, so I only got around to checking it out this last month. I can happily say, waiting until the work year was almost over was the right idea because: It. Took. Over. Balatro’s simple appearance hides a tremendous depth, revealed through a constant process of learning, improving and ultimately… failing. It’s a pleasure to lose in Balatro, just to get to go again. One of the year’s greatest gaming experiences reminds us that to pass that time, you don’t need anything fancy - sometimes all it takes, is a good deck of cards.

3.  ANIMAL WELL, Billy Basso

Animal Well, like Balatro, was a solo developer affair that showed the power of a clear vision. A beautiful platform-puzzler that, like its name suggests, is a bottomless well of magic and mystery for you to discover. It is a world that begs you to explore it, offering moments of discovery with every step and creating some of the most intense ‘Aha!’ moments I’ve experienced In a long time. Billy Basso has created a masterpiece of curiosity driven exploration - perfectly balancing intricate, often difficult, puzzles with an enticing landscape that never feels at risk of pushing you away. It all culminates in one of my favourite puzzlers in recent memory, as well as one my favourite gaming experiences of the year.

2.  ASTROBOT, Team Asobi

In their Game Of The Year acceptance speech, Team Asobi made a point of thanking Nintendo for both paving away for, and keeping alive, the 3D platformer. Astrobot takes cues from the best of 3D platformers, evoking the feeling of playing Super Mario Galaxy for the first time, and applies those ideas to a host of colourful, exciting, and nostalgia coated levels. It might not always break new ground, but it always hits the mark it aims for, delivering an experience that both plays and sounds delightful. It approaches every aspect, including its Sony history cameos, with the same level of care which all leads to a package that feels full of love for the games that came before it, and reminds me why I started playing them to begin with.

1.  HADES 2, Supergiant Games

Hades 2 is the most fun I’ve had playing a video game this year. Even though it's in early access, it provides a gameplay experience that is incredibly polished and both as mechanically and environmentally dense as its predecessor. Melinoe stands alongside Zagreus wonderfully, bringing her own skills, fighting styles and relationship history to the, once again, gorgeously realised underworld. At the same time, the new cast of gods and monsters are as petty, and gorgeous, as any we were introduced to the first time round, and the returning cast all have wonderful new voice lines and portraits to discover. 

In their first sequel project, Supergiant Games have taken an already incredible package and managed to make it feel new, exciting and just the right amount of familiar, all at the same time. The road out of early access, like the road to hell, is long, but Supergiant have already created one of my favourite games to play, and my favourite new release of 2024.