We’ve now reached the halfway point of the 2020s (and yes, that’s a revolting fact to have to come to terms with). Throughout the last few years, we’ve seen the world stabilize from the chaos brought about by COVID-19 at the turn of the decade. With that stabilization has come a return to normalcy in development cycles and release schedules for video games. Somehow, the games industry has managed to keep delivering high-quality experiences from indie and AAA developers. But this isn’t to say that all is perfect in game development.

2024 alone saw over 14,000 layoffs in the video game industry, a trend that’s only been growing over the last few years in what is an unprecedented loss of talent. Moreover, the year hosted some severely underperforming releases from major live-service titles that surely spell certain change that may be coming to the overall games landscape. But ultimately, what matters most is the games themselves, and the effect that they have on people. In this post, I want to celebrate what video games have accomplished this year and how, against all odds, this year still managed to bless us with incredible video game experiences, many of which will be sticking with me for decades to come. This is Derek Ex Machina’s definitive list of the top five video games of 2024.

Going into the year, many predicted 2024 to be a “lighter year” for games following the juggernaut that was 2023. With massive titles like Baldur’s Gate III, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom populating the year, it was hard to imagine that the following year could compare at all. And yet, through all odds, 2024 went on to become a shockingly stacked year for games, featuring some incredible experiences from larger and smaller developers alike.

As a fan of JRPGs, it’s hard to argue that 2024 was anything but a phenomenally generous year, with many of the best Japanese developers coming forward with extremely polished titles that were worth the wait, including many from the likes of Atlus, Square Enix, and even Nintendo, who enjoyed a surprisingly busy year full of smaller, experimental or re-release titles ahead of the looming anticipation for the eventual Switch successor. 2024 was a great year to be a fan of Japanese publishers, to say nothing else. It was equally a phenomenal year to be an indie game fan, with numerous surprise releases that took the world by storm, either critically, commercially, or both. All this is to say that the year had no shortage of fantastic releases that demanded your attention throughout the year.

With so many dense and/or long games to experience throughout the year, there comes an inevitable consequence: many games slip through the cracks. Indeed, I have yet to get to what were some of my most anticipated titles of the year. Some games that I greatly looked forward to sadly had to go straight to the backlog as games fought for my attention throughout the year. I few of these titles include:

• Animal Well

• Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake

• Famicom Detective Club: Emio, the Smiling Man

• Granblue Fantasy: Relink

• Mario & Luigi: Brothership

• The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak

• Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

• Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven

• Unicorn Overlord

• Visions of Mana

• Ys X: Nordics

  
  …and the list goes on.

I’ll be spending much of 2025 playing catch up on a lot of these releases. Moreover, when I wasn’t playing brand new games, I spent much of 2024 getting through my already-existing backlog, on top of working full time, writing a novel and independent game, and generally surviving. That said, these are some of the most meaningful games that I played throughout the year in spite of leading an increasingly busy life.

5. Balatro

bal-AW-tro, BAWL-uh-tro, Bal-AT-tro - lots of people are going to disagree on how to pronounce this game, but what people won’t disagree on is how much Balatro is capable of taking over peoples’ entire lives. Indeed, Balatro employs one of the most deceptively brilliant gameplay loops packed in a tight package that will only ever see runs go for at most 20-30 minutes once players get completely familiarized with the mechanics of the game. There is an undeniable learning curve to Balatro’s systems of crafting poker hands to reach point thresholds to make as much as in-game currency that can then be spent on ways to further increase the multiplier for points as the thresholds gradually get larger and larger. Any player’s first few runs in Balatro will likely crash and burn as they try to wrap their heads around how to make effective builds and navigate the game intelligently. Once the player understands the game’s rules and completes their first run, they’ll get hooked on completing more runs with other decks and in-game challenges.

And Balatro ensures that it’s very difficult to not get hooked on it - the amount of Jokers and build variety here is rightfully marketed as limitless. Any roguelike game aspires to make every run feel unique to it. Balatro not only makes every run feel completely distinct from the last, but the “one more run” mentality that defines the gameplay loop of so many roguelikes is at its arguable best in Balatro because of the game’s unique relationship between having a simple goal and incredibly in-depth options given to its players.

Put simply, there’s a reason why Balatro has garnered so much praise from critics and players and has swept so many awards - it’s a rare example of a game that can genuinely anyone can play thanks to its availability on every modern platform and premise that’s easy for anyone to understand. Moreover, it’s a game that hits the perfect difficulty for what it strives to do. Despite what the utilization of poker hands may suggest, Balatro is an entirely skill-driven experience that tests players’ ability to adapt, theorize, and implement ways to synergize their Jokers, Tarot Cards, use of Celestial Packs, and more to complete Antes. How successful players are in Balatro is purely dependent on their ability to make the most effective build for what Jokers and Card Packs are made available to them - with the right level of strategy, any run is winnable and that’s what makes Balatro so enduringly addictive. It’s as pure of a video game experience as you can possibly get, and in an era where many video games, particularly in the AAA space, try to emulate the feel of movies, it’s fabulously refreshing to see a video game be incredibly “video game-y” and see incredible success because of it. Moreover, the fact that Balatro was developed by a single person and saw infinitely more success than many games this year that had 200+ developers working on it is an essential reminder that good games don’t require corporate funding and design-by-committee development - all that it takes to realize a good video game is a great idea and someone that works hard to realize that great idea. LocalThunk greatly achieved just that.

The only aspect of Balatro that keeps it from the top of the list for me is the fact that Balatro is the perfect game to play for less than an hour. While Balatro consistently keeps me returning to its addicting gameplay loop for a few runs at a time, the following games kept me coming back for longer periods of time.

4. Tekken 8

The modern fighting game scene is flourishing in a way that would have been unfathomable ten years ago. It’s no secret that the 2010s were a rough period of fighting games. The genre was doubtlessly struggling with visibility and accessibility. Niche franchises like Guilty Gear struggled to see success beyond the hardcore fighting game community (FGC) and legacy franchises like Street Fighter struggled to grow and impress audiences. Games like Street Fighter V and Marvel vs Capcom Infinite struggled to make a splash with audiences because of their stripping of gameplay mechanics to make their respective franchises more accessible to a broader audience. These games were also victims of rushed development cycles that led to a poor variety of content at their respective launches.

Tekken 7 initially suffered a similar fate. Upon its arcade release in 2015, Tekken 7 failed to turn many heads thanks to a small roster and lacking visuals that didn’t feel like much of a departure from Tekken Tag Tournament 2. It would take an eye-popping two years before an improved version of Tekken 7 would get ported to consoles and PC. Like its biggest competitors, Tekken 7 had underwhelming single-player content and didn’t have a ton of things to do outside of versus battles and training. The game was even poorly tutorialized, making newcomers have to rely on external resources to learn more details about the more in-depth mechanics of the game like countering throws and low-parrying. But the core of Tekken 7’s gameplay was excellent - so much so that Tekken 7 was able to grow to become the best-selling game in the series despite its shortcomings. While the gameplay and final roster of Tekken 7 is fantastic, there was certainly room to refine the overall game to make for an unmatched experience.

In that respect, Tekken 8 succeeded with flying colors. Released nine years after the initial version of its predecessor, Tekken 8 improves upon the flaws ofTekken 7 in almost every way. Tekken 8 includes a more in-depth story mode that follows the game’s actual characters instead of an unseen narrator. The game features “Arcade Quest”, a mode that is practically a five-hour-long tutorial disguised as a secondary campaign that does a phenomenal job at teaching players about some of Tekken’s more nuanced mechanics. There are ending cutscenes for each character’s Arcade mode that tells a bit of their story (which, yes, was somehow absent in Tekken 7 despite being a series staple feature). There are even dumb side modes out of the box in the form of “Tekken Ball”, a volleyball minigame that returns from Tekken 3 - a stark contrast from how Tekken 7 added “Tekken Bowling” as paid DLC.

As an overall package, Tekken 8 is an undeniable improvement and course correction for the franchise. While it felt like Tekken 7 found success in spite of its issues, Tekken 8 is already seeing incredible success because of every step it takes forward. The addition of chip damage, recoverable health, and a universal meter mechanic in the form of Heat, Tekken 8 introduces a lot of new mechanics in its fighting - making for the most complex game in a series already notorious for being incredibly complex. The numerous additions to Tekken 8’s fighting mechanics were introduced with the intention of making this game far more aggressive than Tekken 7 - a game whose meta became hyper defensive by the end of its life. Thanks to options that incentivize and reward aggression, Tekken 8 hits the perfect balance of feeling completely different from what has come before in this franchise, while still feeling like Tekken.

The roster of stages, characters, and the amount of moves per character make for incredibly varied and numerous gameplay situations that make every match feel as distinct as it does fast and adrenaline-pumping. Tekken 8 is bold, exciting, and incredibly rewarding. While it still employs a ridiculous learning curve to become skilled with even a single character, it’s impossible to deny that it feels good to win matches and climb the ranks online. I’ve spent over 200 hours in Tekken 8 this year and will no doubt be spending more time with the game in the coming months and years. Out of the all of 2024’s new releases, this is the game I have spent the most time with, and I foresee Tekken 8 as being one of the games I spend the most time with this console generation with overall.

As much as I’ve loved my time with Tekken 8, I can’t deny that Bandai Namco’s monetization of the game has left a sour taste in my mouth. On top of being a $70 game with paid DLC characters, Tekken 8 also features a paid Fight Pass and microtransactions for in-game cosmetics - it all feels overmonetized for my liking. That doesn’t detract from the game’s overall quality and thankfully doesn’t impact the competitive integrity of matches, but it’s still something that serves as an unwanted distraction from an otherwise masterful sequel and incredible fighting game.

3. Metaphor: ReFantazio

2024 may be remembered as the greatest year in Atlus’ history. They released four titles this year, all of which were phenomenal RPG experiences that delivered some of their most polished and addicting experiences to date. The best of the bunch, though, is their new IP courtesy of Studio Zero, led by Shin Megami Tensei and Persona veteran Katsuro Hashino: Metaphor: ReFantazio. Initially announced in 2016 as “Project ReFantasy”, Metaphor has been a long time coming, perplexing and intriguing longtime Atlus fans over what this new IP would entail. Despite having been announced almost eight years before its release, Metaphor landed on its feet and came out as an incredibly refined JRPG that feels like the culmination of everything Atlus has learned over the last twenty years.

Those unfamiliar with Atlus’ history may reductively brush off Metaphor as “fantasy Persona”, but in truth, Metaphor combines aspects of multiple Atlus franchises and combines them in a fantasy setting that’s unlike anything seen in the video game market. There’s a grunginess to the world that Metaphor depicts that, in spite of the brutality seen therein, never feels hopeless or cynical because of the game’s optimistic, idealist heart that underlines even the most tragic scenes the game has to offer. The result is a game that feels equally dark yet hopeful, mundane yet captivating, complex yet inviting. What helps the game achieve this is its fantastic writing and localization. Metaphor rivals the likes of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy with regard to having the best, most well-developed cast of characters to make up its party in any game. Every single character that joins the protagonist’s quest is an endearing, memorable, well-written one and has a significantly valuable contribution to the overall direction of the story.

Beyond its stupendous writing, Metaphor is a refinement on much of what Atlus has done before. The Press Turn system first seen in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne in 2003 has been iterated on dozens of times in the past two decades, and its implementation in Metaphor is a masterclass in not fixing what isn’t broken. Exploiting enemy weaknesses to gain more turns in battle never ceases to make combat satisfying - what elevates satisfaction even further is the amount of build composition that the player needs to take into account with the game’s deep Archetype system. Archetypes effectively serves as Metaphor’s version of classes or jobs, meaning that each party members will have unique skills and strengths that they can use to gain an advantage in battle, while also bringing with them weaknesses that can and will be exploited by enemies when possible. This makes smart party composition and Archetype diversity essential for seeing success in Metaphor’s surprisingly numerous tough fights. Overcoming Metaphor’s most challenging battles gave rise to some of the most memorable video game moments of the year for me.

With combat that borrows from Shin Megami Tensei, Metaphor also borrows the social-simulation elements from Persona in the form of the Follower system and the in-game calendar that necessitates the player to wisely manage their time. Leveling up followers gives gameplay benefits that allow for more build variety and gameplay opportunities, creating a symbiotic relationship between dungeon-crawling and navigating life outside of dungeons. The game even borrows certain elements to Atlus’ excellent dungeon-crawler series, Etrian Odyssey in a way that, without spoiling anything, made for a video game moment I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Indeed, Metaphor is a celebration of how far Atlus has come over the years. What was once a company that made small-budget, underdog JRPGs that rarely got released outside of Japan is now a company putting out some of the most celebrated releases of the year. While Metaphor is a melting pot of many winning formulas and ideas from previous Atlus efforts, this game is so much more than that. It’s a smartly constructed JRPG that brings forth incredible amounts of player freedom that leaves room for experimentation in putting together builds. Metaphor also contains one of the most thought-provoking stories in any game this decade and should be on the radar of anyone that wants to see how distinct video game storytelling can be from any other medium.

Barring some lackluster dungeon design, Metaphor: ReFantazio is one of the most tightly crafted JRPGs I’ve ever played and is easily a contender for one of Atlus’ greatest games ever produced. Any fan of RPGs, regardless of their cultural and geographical origin, owes it to themselves to play Metaphor.

2. Astro Bot

Words fail to do justice for Astro Bot. In many ways, it’s a special game that is a reminder of why I love video games in the first place. Anyone that plays Astro Bot for even a second will feel the labor of love poured into making Astro Bot one of the most rewarding, polished, and enjoyable platformers ever made. I’ve talked before about how games like Astro Bot that employ a fun-first design philosophy are more important than ever, and that claim holds even more weight in the wake of the game’s accolades this season, including winning Game of the Year at The Game Awards. Nicolas Doucet, director of Astro Bot, made it clear in his GOTY acceptance speech then that Astro Bot would not have existed if not for the legacy of platformers in the early years of PlayStation and, of course, Nintendo’s deep portfolio of platforming masterpieces. Astro Bot was designed as both an homage and successor to the incredible legacy that platformers have had throughout the medium’s history, and this game masterfully succeeds at doing just that. Astro Bot is a special 3D platformer that will doubtlessly be remembered as one of PlayStation’s best titles ever released, in spite of shipping in what was one of the platform holder’s worst years to date, optically speaking.

It would be easy for Astro Bot to lean on the nostalgia of its PlayStation cameos to lighten the hearts of its older players, but the genius of Astro Bot is that its delightful character designs, impeccably crafted levels, rewarding boss fights, and diversity of mechanics make for an adventure that entirely stands on its own while being a game that can truly be enjoyed be anyone, regardless of age or skill level. Levels hit the perfect balance of being short enough to be completed in just a few minutes, while also being long and dense enough to give completionist players a myriad of objectives to complete in each level and feel like they’re getting their money’s worth. Moreover, Astro Bot has virtually no downtime - every minute in Astro Bot is spent navigating its creative levels, fighting bosses, or completing small navigational challenges to unlock more Bots, Puzzle Pieces, or levels. In a genre that’s somewhat notorious for having filler content, sometimes with adding gimmicky mechanics for the sake of adding runtime, Astro Bot is devoid of this shortcoming, making for a phenomenally well-paced experience that feels like it’s truly the perfect length for what it aims to accomplish.

Astro Bot features a moveset that’s relatively simple, making for most of the platforming on display here to be seemingly basic - but Astro Bot excels in getting the most out of the simple, accessible toolset it gives players while injecting the right amount of diversity into its game design. Some levels feature alterations to Astro Bot’s core moveset, such as a monkey that can climb surfaces, a dog that lets Astro perform dashes, or through some of the game’s more involved crossover levels that see Astro use a butterfly net to catch monkeys a la Ape Escape or a Leviathan Axe to cut up enemies a la God of War. These levels are spaced apart from each other enough to be a consistent thing to look forward to while also not overbearing the game with their presence. It’s the restraint, diversity, and polish of every level that makes journeying through the game’s five worlds fly by in the best way possible.

This is to say nothing of the actual collection process, Astro Bot’s primary method of having the player proceed through the game’s story. Put simply, Bots and Puzzle Pieces are hidden in levels in a very Nintendo-like fashion - that is, every collectable rewards curiosity and experimenting with options available to the player at any moment while never feeling like anything is too hidden from the player. Whether you’re plowing through the game or stopping to collect everything that the game has to offer, you’re bound to have an infectiously fun time exploring every level that Astro Bot has to offer.

On top of the game’s incredible pacing, level density, and content variety, Astro Bot is just a cute game, and I think we should appreciate that more often. The game has an overwhelming charm to it, whether it’s from the cheeky descriptions of the Bots dressed up as other characters, to the way recovered Bots dance in the hub world, to the way Astro waves at the player when he faces the camera. Astro Bot is the incarnation of fun and charm, and the fact that the game accomplishes that so warmly should be celebrated.

Astro Bot is a game that is so good that I hope it sparks a revolution within the games industry. I firmly believe that more games should be made be smaller teams to make way for more direction, creative risk-taking, and ability to efficiently present a labor of love to players. I want to see more 3D platformers in the world beyond just Nintendo’s efforts and the occasional indie. Astro Bot is the very type of game we need to see more of in the world, and the awards and praise it has garnered is hopefully the first step towards just that.

In most years, Astro Bot would easily cinch my Game of the Year slot. However, 2024 saw one more release that was somehow carried the same level of charm, variety, and love as Astro Bot and somehow preserved it in a 140-hour-long experience.

Honorable Mention: Persona 3 Reload

Persona 3 FES is a very important game to me and I became overjoyed at the prospect that the PS2 game would be preserved and made available to a new generation of players through a from-the-ground-up remake. I wasn’t able to play Persona 3 Reload at launch thanks to Tekken 8 and the game in the top slot, but when I circled back around to Reload later in the year, I was met with a great remake that is a case study on how to optimally trim the fat when remaking a game while preserving the overall experience.

Persona 3 Reload is Atlus’ second title ever developed with Unreal Engine, after 2021’s Shin Megami Tensei V, and it is a contender for Atlus’ best-looking game to date. With the company’s industry-leading UI and strong re-recorded soundtrack, Reload is a remarkably pretty game to look at and listen to. More than that, Reload speeds up combat and provides incredible performances for its characters, even for Social Link characters that were unvoiced in previous versions of the game.

I’ve gone more in depth about my overall thoughts on Persona 3 Reload, but I wanted to include it here as an honorable mention for being an incredible JRPG that barely missed my personal top five games for the year. There’s been bubbling rumors throughout the year that Reload may be the blueprint for what future Persona games may look like - both for brand new games and remakes to come. If that’s the case, I greatly look forward to the future of this franchise, as Reload delivers one of the slickest JRPG experiences of recent memory. This is a game that many people may have missed because of 2024’s crowded February - for those that missed out on this game because of that, Persona 3 Reload is one of the best 2024 releases to give a shot while waiting for some of 2025’s slew of RPGs to come.

1. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

In 2020, Square Enix had everything to prove with Final Fantasy VII Remake. Their decision to separate the highly anticipated remake of Final Fantasy VII into three parts was a bold, controversial one that frustrated some players. The game had a somewhat troubled development cycle that saw the game switch developers from CyberConnect2 to in-house at Square Enix on top of taking nearly five years to release after its initial announcement. Despite everything, though, Final Fantasy VII Remake was an incredible experience that expertly merged the action-style combat of more recent Final Fantasy titles with the turn-based ATB system of the original Final Fantasy VII to create one of the best hybrid combat systems in any RPG. Moreover, Remake nailed the world and characters of Final Fantasy VII and proved that the writers and developers of Remake deeply understood what made the original strike such a chord with audiences in 1997. No longer were characters boring husks of their former selves like they were in Advent Children and Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII Remake was a fantastic return to form for Final Fantasy VII.

That said, Remake’s ending was controversial in the statement that it made about the direction of the story. Without spoiling anything, Remake firmly states that things are changing in this retelling of Final Fantasy VII. Events will not play out similarly - new things may happen, some things may change, and certain elements of the original game may not happen at all. It was a bold move for Square Enix, and I, myself, was initially opposed to their decision to make Final Fantasy VII Remake, what is undoubtedly Square Enix’s most requested title of all time, toy with its audience by being willing to make significant changes. That said, I gradually harbored an open mind to the idea, as did many other Remake players. It would take until the trilogy’s second part, Rebirth, to see if Square Enix’s decision to make significant changes to the game would be warranted. This admittedly created a level of excitement and anticipation for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth that likely would not have existed had Square Enix played this remake straight - but would this overall gamble be worth it? Would Square Enix be justified in splitting this remake up into a trilogy and definitively stating that big changes could happen to the story of Final Fantasy VII?

When Final Fantasy VII Rebirth released in February, it all became clear: Square Enix is aiming for this remake to not only be a faithful recreation of every major moment in the original game now realized with stunning production values and polish, but Square Enix is also positioning this trilogy to be one of the greatest video game trilogies ever crafted. Remake was a phenomenally refined game that featured a relatively small portion of the original game, but made up for it with incredible production value. Rebirth represents a far larger portion of the original game, yet somehow applies the same level of polish, production value, and fun across the entire 100+ hour experience.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a massive JRPG that improves upon the first installment of this trilogy in every way. While Remake was understandably linear, Rebirth takes off the training wheels by giving players exponentially more freedom with a dense world filled with meaningful things to do. Side quests, ostensibly one of Remake’s weakest qualities, have been massively improved here, with every single diversion from the main story giving ample opportunities for characters and the world to be developed even further than they are in the main quest. Beyond rewarding exploration, challenging boss fights, and vastly improved side quests, Rebirth also contains an abundance of minigames that are as plentiful as they are enjoyable, with the card game, Queen’s Blood, deserving special mention. Queen’s Blood has more depth than some entire games, and could easily be released as a standalone package - it may stand as one of the best minigames in any JRPG thanks to its fun side-story and unmatched level of depth in its gameplay.

All this is to say nothing of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s primary gameplay. While it’s ultimately a refinement of Remake’s gameplay, Rebirth builds upon Remake’s base just enough to turn a fantastic hybrid action/turn-based combat system into one that’s arguably one of the greatest combat experiences in any JRPG. The addition of Synergy Skills gives each character more maneuverability and offensive options, including giving melee-focused characters ranged attacks for aerial enemies - a smart solution to Remake’s clunky aerial combat for certain characters. Using ATB charges to perform actions builds meter charges that can then be used to perform new Synergy Abilities, which on top of being strong attacks can lead to buffs like allowing for stronger Limit Breaks, temporarily giving infinite MP for casting spells, and letting characters have three available ATB charges instead of two.

The synergy system is a fantastic addition to combat that makes Rebirth even more enjoyable to play on top of making every character distinct and fun to play as. Every character, both returning from Remake and new characters Red XIII and Cait Sith, fill unique combat roles, which makes way for fun party compositions and build crafting. Beyond that, Rebirth features a combat system that never ceases to be fun and challenging. With the blend of fantastic combat, much improved side-questing, and fantastic diversity of content, Rebirth also tells a story that lands nearly every beat it tells. There were numerous moments in Rebirth where I couldn’t imagine original scenes from the original game being realized any better - a testament to how much expertise and confidence that Square Enix has placed in themselves for this project.

The only exception to the positive changes to storytelling, similar to Remake, it with regard to its ending that makes me, a veteran Final Fantasy VII player, have genuinely no clue where the third part of this remake is going. Similar to my takeaway to the trilogy’s first part, I have gradually garnered an open mind towards the unknown future of this remake, but with a game as unbelievably fun as Rebirth, I have a comfortable confidence in Square Enix that they can stick the landing with whatever they’re trying to do with this trilogy. I eagerly look forward to what the future holds for this remake project, but I also look back on my time with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth with flabbergasted joy as I simply can’t believe how much high-quality content has been stuffed into this 140-hour-long experience.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is so immersive, so fun, so thought-consuming that it baffles me how such a game can even exist. Rebirth entranced me for nearly two months this year, and I’m already looking forward to experiencing that special feeling again in future replays of this title. No other game made me think about it as much as Rebirth and no game kept me trapped in its world without wanting to leave it as much as Rebirth. There’s no other way to describe Final Fantasy VII Rebirth than an incredible video game experience that needs to be played and appreciated by as many people as possible.

I find myself walking into 2025 incredibly grateful for the great video games that positively enriched my life throughout 2024. As I write this, I’m between contract jobs and am desperately looking to develop video games that can leave an impact on people in any way like the games mentioned in this list have impacted me. Every year, fantastic video games enter peoples’ lives and stay with them for the rest of their existences - it’s the very games that accomplish that inspire me and give me hope that I can realize my dreams of crafting unforgettable stories and games through the power of writing.

The journey towards realizing that dream is a long, difficult one, and sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of why I want to work in video games in the first place, especially given the state of the games industry right now. But then, I find myself looking at games such as the ones mentioned in this blog post and remember why it’s all worth it. Video games are beautiful things and deserve to be celebrated for the unforgettable effect they have on us. I greatly look forward to seeing where the future of games go, and eagerly anticipate games in 2025 that I won’t want to end. Here’s a brighter future for games - one where all of us will experience that wonderful feeling.

And hey, if nothing else, Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition is releasing in 2025, so there’s at least going to be one game that will consume my life for the year. That’s already a lot to look forward to.

Thank you very much for reading! What are your personal favorite games of 2024 and what games do you look forward to playing in 2025? As always, join the conversation and let me know in the comments or on Bluesky @derekexmachina.com.