The best video games of 2024 so far (2024)

Games are weird again!

Don’t get us wrong, 2023 was an all-timer. We got new Zelda and Mario. Armored Core and Baldur’s Gate woke up from cryogenic sleep. Alan Wake rose from its plot in the Video Game IP Cemetery, while Street Fighter 6 acted like Street Fighter 5 had never happened. But while 2023 was an unforgettable year for iconic franchises, it wasn’t a surprising one. Nobody was underestimating Nintendo, FromSoftware, and Capcom.

2024, on the other hand, has been unpredictable! Our favorite games include a gun-wielding Pokémon parody, a surprisingly popular sequel in a totally different genre than its little-played predecessor, and a massive RPG where a reformed yakuza recreates Animal Crossing with perverts and garbage dumps.

This is a year for the real sickos (it’s us, we’re sickos) — the ones who feel their skin tingle and their pupils widen when they see “7/10” at the bottom of a review. This is the person who doesn’t want a pitch-perfect remake of Final Fantasy 7; they want Final Fantasy 7 tossed into a cosmic blender and funneled down their gullet.

It may be a decade before we see another year like 2023, but that’s OK by us. Without a classic entry in a beloved franchise released every month, there’s room for the new, the weird, and the unexpected.

The games on this list will be sorted in reverse chronological order, so the newest releases will always show up first. We also have a short section at the end devoted to late 2023 releases we didn’t have the time to consider for last year’s best-of list. Our latest update added Cryptmaster, Arranger, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, Duck Detective: The Secret Salami, Still Wakes the Deep, Buckshot Roulette, Rimworld: Anomaly, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Remake, and Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess.

The best games of 2024 so far

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure

Image: Furniture & Mattress LLC

Where to play: Mac, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows PC

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure is a refreshingly well-rounded game: The story is compelling and told through vivid, comic-like artwork; the music is beautiful; and the puzzle mechanics are like nothing you’ve played before. Move around the grid by shifting tiles, which loop around in rows and columns so you can traverse big areas at once and navigate around enemies and roadblocks. You’ll spend hours shifting the world around, finding paths and pushing items towards the end of each level — most of which are decently challenging, but don’t worry if you get stuck; you can always skip. —Zoë Hannah

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess

Image: Capcom

Where to play: Game Pass, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X

Capcom turns the clock back to its mid-2000s creative heyday with this very original action-strategy game located in an ornately illustrated, haunting zone of Japanese folklore. You play as a swordsman protecting a priestess as she dances through mountainside villages defiled by demons, performing a ritual to cleanse them; you also rescue and command villagers to help you tackle the oncoming horde of gloriously weird, shambling monsters. Kunitsu-Gami will remind you of games like God Hand and Okami whilst being as individual as they were; it’s a total one-off in terms of both its gameplay loop and atmosphere. They really don’t make them like this anymore. —Oli Welsh

Still Wakes the Deep

Image: The Chinese Room/Secret Mode

Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X

Still Wakes the Deep takes place on an oil rig staffed by blue-collar Scottish workers in the 1980’s. Corporate greed strikes again, and the rig drills too deeply, unleashing... something. Still Wakes the Deep is a masterclass in narrative horror, with a sympathetic cast of survivors and a hideous, Lovecraftian antagonist. The game remains on rails, and the AI can be dodgy, but I was so terrified that I was afraid to push on any of the guardrails the game put up.

This is a game that succeeds based off vibes — an incredibly detailed and well-realized environment, great voice acting and direction, and the fleshy and nefarious shapes of the monsters chasing protagonist Caz McLeary through the rig. This is a short experience, coming in at about four hours, but Still Wakes the Deep is utterly unforgettable. —Cass Marshall

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami

Image: Happy Broccoli Games

Where to play: Mac, Nintendo Switch, Windows PC, Xbox Series X

To put it simply, Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is an absolute delight. It’s got it all: Cute characters and art, a totally goofy story, surprisingly complex mysteries to uncover, and it’s got a dedicated button to make the Duck Detective quack. Duck Detective plays out like a detective movie, when the down-on-his-luck Duck Detective wakes up from a rough night. He’s got no money and can’t pay rent, so he’s got to take on some jobs. And the first up is a lunchroom, workplace mystery: Who stole the salami? In your investigation, you’ll unlock words that can be used to fill in the blanks of said mystery, which gets more and more complicated as time goes on. Think Case of the Golden Idol or Overboard! if you need a comparison. Duck Detective is a charming, silly little game — it runs about three hours — that’s perfect for a cozy afternoon. —Nicole Carpenter

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Remake

Image: Nintendo

Where to play: Nintendo Switch

Paper Mario is the weird alternative version of Mario that gets to do anything. Paper Mario solves a train mystery and becomes a professional wrestler. He gets the fun theater of combat, the complicated, satisfying timing-based attacks, and to be an object of affection for a mouse, a ghost, a goomba…. All of these weird quicks already made Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door joyful.

Even if you can recall the GameCube version perfectly, TTYD’s gorgeous 2D sprites will look better than you remember them. Many of the game’s rough edges have been smoothed over, and some of its jokes are even tighter than before. But its Switch remaster reminds me all how truly special — and even risky — this game is, and also how we haven’t seen another Mario title like it since. —Chelsea Stark

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

Image: Simogo/Annapurna Interactive

Where to play: Nintendo Switch, Windows PC

I’ve played well over 30 hours of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes on Steam Deck, and even more time in my notebook. Puzzle sickos Simogo created a real masterpiece of secrets that pulls together logic puzzles, alternative realities, and math into an iconic black-and-white mansion. It’s a puzzle box with puzzle boxes of its own tucked inside. And then there are puzzle boxes inside those puzzle boxes. It’s a game that feels like it’d be very easy to get frustrated by, but Simogo makes it clear that all of the answers exist inside the game, be it in books, scripts, or in posters on the walls. If something is totally baffling, you probably just don’t have the right answer.

Like I alluded to earlier, so much of the game is played outside of the game screen. You need a notebook — that’s a directive even Simogo gives you early on. I said this in my review, but I’ve got pages of scribbles that look like nonsense to anyone else. Honestly, they’re likely nonsense to me now, too. I’ve never played anything like it, and I’m not sure I will again. —NC

Animal Well

Image: Shared Memory/Bigmode

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Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows PC

There’s a haunting little poem recited by an ominous figure midway through the TV series Twin Peaks: The Return:

This is the water and this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes and the dark within.

The series never elaborates on this; it just exists alongside every other strange thing you encounter. Maybe you will discover an answer that satisfies you. Maybe you won’t. You won’t forget it, though.

Animal Well is best understood this way. A beguiling labyrinth of indelible sights and fiendishly clever puzzles, Billy Basso’s mysterious low-fi dream (or nightmare?) of a game haunts the player with what it all could mean, it anything at all. Drink full and descend. —Joshua Rivera

Cryptmaster

Image: Akupara Games

Where to play: Windows PC

Cryptmaster is for the weirdos. It’s been described as a dungeon-crawling, corpse-filled Wordle — and yes, that’s about right. The game begins when a necromancer reanimates the corpses of four adventurers who he’d like to use to do his bidding. You’ll do that throughout the game, but you’ve also got to regain your memories and learn how to fight. This happens through words — not stories with words, but individual words. So if you found a chest, you type chest to open it. The item inside is usually something from one of the four heroes’ past, and you guess the item with clues from the necromancer. To get those clues, you can tell the cryptmaster what to do by typing a word: for example lick, look, or touch. It’s similar in battle, where you type your attacks — let fish rain down with the word salmon, or do something normal like, well, kick with kick. You’re typing while an enemy throws its own attacks, managing the cooldowns of the heroes while trying to recall what words you’ve unlocked. It’s a weird, wacky delight. —NC

Rimworld: Anomaly

Image: Ludeon Studios

Where to play: Mac, Windows PC

RimWorld’s base game is weird and ambitious enough, but each expansion adds a new set of mechanics to further complicate the task of keeping your sci-fi colony sane and alive. Anomaly is the best expansion by far, and it adds a healthy dose of horror to the already brutal survival game.

In RimWorld, players have to manage a community of survivors, keeping them fed, happy, and able to defend against mechs, raiders, and wild beasts. Anomaly throws super fun wrenches in the works — like a mysterious golden cube that enthralls your researchers, or a massive pillar that keeps cranking out evil clones. It’s a great way to add variety to RimWorld’s random events, and the expansion has given me hundreds more hours of entertainment in a game I already adore. —CM

Buckshot Roulette

Image: Mike Klubnika / Critical Reflex

Where to play: Windows PC

What if the antagonist from Inscryption had a maw of jagged teeth, hung out in a grimy warehouse, and had a shotgun? Buckshot Roulette was an incredibly successful game this year, despite the short play time and tiny price tag, due to its compelling premise. The player and the dealer end up in a high-stakes game of cards, with the loser doomed to take a shotgun blast to the face. Thankfully, there are a handful of accessories that can shake up the odds in your favor: a magnifying glass, a can of beer, a cigarette pack, handcuffs, and a handsaw. This is a short, weird, and unforgettable experience — the sort of game that has come to define 2024. —CM

Princess Peach: Showtime!

Image: Nintendo

Where to play: Nintendo Switch

Peach takes the spotlight in her first starring role in what feels like forever with Princess Peach: Showtime! Not only is she the star of the game, but Nintendo’s March release pulls the princess into a theater overrun with bad guys — and she’s got to take the lead in each of the plays to save the day. Princess Peach: Showtime! is a simple adventure game that keeps things interesting by putting Princess Peach into different costumes with different abilities: sometimes she’s a ninja or detective, elsewhere she’s a pastry chef or cowgirl. It’s exactly the game I’d love to have played as a little girl, while also being a game that constantly delighted and charmed me as an adult. —NC

Dragon’s Dogma 2

Image: Capcom

Where to play: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Windows PC

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a sequel released a full 12 years after its predecessor. It builds on and expands the original’s world and concepts, and offers a fascinating combination of action-RPG and party-based MMO without the rigidity that usually comes with those games. As a player, you can swap your vocation (class) as often as you like, and then you can fill out your party with pawns — NPCs to fight by your side that you can change out on a whim. Together, you and your pawns go explore the vast world of Dragon’s Dogma 2 — a world made even bigger by the lack of readily available fast travel. A quick trip to the next town over becomes a journey. You learn the roads between the big cities as you traverse them over and over. It makes the world familiar.

It’s a world populated by a mix of low-level enemies, like wolves, goblins, and lizardfolk, but also peppered with towering cyclopes, minotaurs, and griffins. This creates a really satisfying mix of hack-and-slash combat that you flavor with whatever class and tactics you want and large-scale, Shadow of the Colossus- or Monster Hunter-style not-quite boss fights. And through it all, you’re tackling quests for the characters that populate the cities, with a grand conspiracy in the main story supported by smaller, more human conflicts. It’s intricate without being complicated, and one of the most genuinely engaging games of the year. —Jeffrey Parkin

Stardew Valley 1.6 update

Image: ConcernedApe

Where to play: Android, iOS, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One

I’d cooled on Stardew Valley for years before the recent 1.6 update, but was brought back to the game for that release. I wondered, like many others, how much an update could impact Stardew Valley; I knew the update was supposed to be big, but was shocked to see just how much it adjusted. Stardew Valley is still Stardew Valley, but developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone absolutely overdelivered. The update touches all aspects of the game, making quality-of-life changes like the ability to drink mayonnaise with new content updates, like the Meadowlands Farm, which gives you chickens right away. I chose these two as examples because they’re illustrative of how deep the update goes: These two pieces work together as an essential early game strategy to move through the game more efficiently. (Chickens make eggs, and eggs make mayonnaise. Mayonnaise makes energy. An endless supply of mayonnaise means lots of extra energy!) Together, small updates like this make Stardew Valley even more of a pleasure to play. —NC

Summerhouse

Image: Friedemann/Future Friends Games

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Where to play: Mac, Windows PC

Summerhouse is a much smaller experience than some of the other games on this list, but it deserves its spot just as much. In Summerhouse, you use a set of lovely, well-designed assets to make houses. You can make houses in different environments, but Summerhouse is simple: You make houses. Every so often, you’ll unlock a new door or window that includes a character — a kid or a dog, for example. And you just keep building. Developer Friedmann described Summerhouse as a game about the feeling of exploring little towns and cities — appreciating the charm of an interesting house — on his summer vacations. It’s one of the best games of this year because it executes that goal so perfectly, letting you get lost in a lazy summer afternoon, too. —NC

Pacific Drive

Image: Ironwood Studios/Kepler Interactive

Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC

The most beautifully maddening game of 2024 so far might be this striking combination of roguelike, survival game, and station wagon driving simulator. Pacific Drive is all about making repeated, randomized forays into the irradiated, glitching reality of the Olympic Exclusion Zone in the Pacific Northwest, where some kind of massive science experiment went wrong decades before. You do so behind the wheel of an old car, and the core gameplay loop is all about scavenging the resources you need to fortify this old heap against the unpredictable hazards of the Zone.

It’s a tough game, and runs can go very wrong, seemingly costing you hours of progress. But throughout it all, the deepening bond you have with the heap of junk that becomes your mobile base and extension of yourself is what keeps you going. This is one of the best games around about the love affair between man and machine. —Oli Welsh

Balatro

Image: LocalThunk/Playstack via Polygon

Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

There have been a lot of games that have drawn my eye (and my time) this year. The pure delight of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. The nonstop hilarity of Helldivers 2. The haunting landscape of Pacific Drive. But no game has truly grabbed me in 2024 like Balatro. There’s just nothing quite like the alluring pull of a roguelite that keeps you coming back for just one more run.

Balatro takes the bones of poker and adds roguelite mechanics and a healthy dash of math to create an irresistible experience in the “number go up” genre of games. It’s the most fun you’ll ever have with PEMDAS, especially as you unlock more mechanics that encourage you to break the game.

The end result is a simple concept with a lot of strategic depth and endless replayability. Solo developer LocalThunk has created an absolute winner in Balatro, no matter how you pronounce it. —Pete Volk

Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior

Image: Sand Door Studio/Quantic Dream

Where to play: Windows PC

Lysfanga is a single-player game for people who wish they were better about scheduling time for multi-player games. Set in an ancient kingdom, a squad of heroes must work together to obliterate baddies and solve puzzles. The twist: One player controls all the characters by layering one run through an arena atop of another. And another. And another, another, and...

Each fight takes place in an arena crowded with too many enemies to squish within the fight’s limited amount of time. When the clock strikes zero, the battle doesn’t end; it restarts. Now, the player is supported by an AI partner recreating their previous run. Over and over, the player repeats this process, amassing a mob of clones that help them get through the level. The real fun isn’t the combat, but solving little puzzles that require multiple copies of yourself to flip switches and release powerful attacks at precisely the same time. In these moments, you feel less like a hero and more like the world’s finest choreographer. —Chris Plante

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Image: Don’t Nod/Focus Entertainment

Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X

Australian author Christina Stead once wrote that every love story is a ghost story, a phrase that perfectly encapsulates the gothic romance tradition so richly explored in literature but rarely in games.

Banishers throws itself at this notion, casting players as Red and Antea, a pair of exorcists sent to colonial New England to deal with a haunting that quickly goes awry. Antea is killed, and over the course of the game, Red must decide to follow love or duty, either banishing her ghost to the afterlife or using his occult knowledge to resurrect her.

Banishers is a slow, considered RPG that contemplates the many ways a place can be haunted, with a terrible question providing its emotional throughline: Are you working towards a reunion, or a long goodbye? —JR

Helldivers 2

Image: Arrowhead Game Studios/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC

Helldivers 2 is one of the year’s best surprises, completely reinventing the approach of the original game to create a hilarious and addictively fun squad shooter that feels like the best Starship Troopers game you could possibly ask for.

Much of the game’s humor comes from its over-the-top satire of Super Earth and its goal to spread democracy through bullets and hellfire. But Helldivers 2 also uses ragdoll physics and friendly fire to create hilarious moments during playtime, not just in the narrative dressings.

And it’s just rewarding to play. With interlocking gameplay loops, satisfying shooting mechanics, and depth from the stratagem system and the game’s varied enemies, it’s one of the best shooters of the year. Don’t miss it. –PV

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Image: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio/Sega

Where to play: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

A sprawling RPG with a heart of gold, Infinite Wealth continues the Like a Dragon (née Yakuza) franchise’s commitment to earnest narratives about the power of friendship, variety in play, and ridiculously silly fun.

Infinite Wealth’s story stretches across Hawaii and multiple cities in Japan, with a seemingly endless array of activities. There’s the usual buffet of bite-sized minigames: sports games, card games, dating games, collectible games, and so on. But the trio of the Animal Crossing-inspired Dondoko Island, the Crazy Taxi-inspired Crazy Eats, and the hilarious returning Pokémon parody Sujimon are fun, engaging, and deep enough to justify their own spots on this list. And they’re all just a part of the Infinite Wealth experience.

At the heart of it all is sweet Ichiban Kasuga, always relentlessly optimistic and supportive of just about everyone, to the point that he’s repeatedly making his enemies into life-long friends. And while Infinite Wealth isn’t technically an anthology story, it has something in common with them: If you don’t like what you’re currently doing, just wait a bit. You’ll be doing something completely different soon. —PV

Tekken 8

Image: Bandai Namco

Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X

Tekken 8 is a smorgasbord of acquired tastes crammed into a blender and set to overdrive. with a clown car roster packed with edgelord OCs, babes, and bears. There’s a limb-based button layout and move lists that seem to scroll forever, with an entrancing backing track of pulsing, aggressive rave beats. And bears! Did I mention the bears? There are two of them.

While the recent Street Fighter 6 seems to have been thoughtfully designed to be the most broadly appealing fighting game ever, Tekken 8 has set its sights on being the most Tekken fighting game ever. And boy, did it succeed! —Patrick Gill

Palworld

Image: Pocketpair via Polygon

Where to play: Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

It’s hard to find the words to talk about Palworld. In one single month, the game became a viral hit, selling over 8,000,000 copies in six days and becoming the subject of mass criticism online. Still, behind the negativity and the hype is the actual game.

Palworld is a hybrid monster of a video game. Players will likely recognize the influence of several games, like Fortnite or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Despite all the different genres it pulls from, Palworld is a survival game at heart. You’ll build sprawling camps, explore a wide world, and do it alongside Pokémon-like creatures you catch called Pals. It’s still in early access and it’s not the most polished game in the world, but its rough edges make for funny moments with friends. If you’re looking for a light-hearted survival game to play with others, I’d recommend it. —Ana Diaz

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Image: Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft via Polygon

Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is so good at what it does, we might need a new name for “Metroidvania.” A Persiavania? A Metroid…prince…ia? Look, the wordsmiths can quibble over the exact phrasing, but the point remains: It’s a rare sight to witness a game instantly establish itself as totemic.

The Lost Crown is initially just a competent platformer, where you navigate a byzantine maze-like palace with routes that unfold as you improve. Then the meticulousness of its assembly dawns on you. Utterly devoid of bloat, not a single pixel out of place, The Lost Crown isn’t just one of the best games of the year — it’s one of the best of the generation. —Ari Notis

The best late 2023 games we couldn’t consider last year

(the) Gnorp Apologue

Image: Myco

Where to play: Windows PC

Hit the boulder. Collect the shards. Research upgrades so you can hit the boulder harder, collect the shards faster, and research upgrades smarter, so you can… well, you get the point.

(the) Gnorp Apologue is an idle game that looks like the games I played on my school’s DOC computer in first grade. But (the) Gnorp Apologue’s capacity to devour my day owes more to modern idle gems, like Cookie Clicker, Universal Paperclips, and Candy Box 2. If you haven’t heard of those games, please forgive me for what I’ve unleashed upon your limited time in this universe.

And if you have played those games, you know the drill. Wish your friends and family well. You won’t be seeing them until you’ve hit the boulder, collected the shards, researched the upgrades, and decided to delete this file from your computer as an act of self-preservation. —CP

Against the Storm

Image: Eremite Games/Hooded Horse

Where to play: Windows PC

Against the Storm breaks the city builder genre in fascinating ways, focusing on the satisfying early game experience of getting your settlement going and using roguelike mechanics straight out of Slay the Spire to give you an endlessly replayable experience.

The game’s interlocking systems make each settlement different — maybe your city has harpies, so you really need to focus on clothing, or maybe you have harpies and humans and they’re clamoring for biscuits. All of those potential choices have cascading results — for clothing, you need materials to turn into fabric, a building to turn those materials into fabric, and a building to turn fabric into clothing. For biscuits, you need a source of grain, plant fiber, or mushrooms, a building to turn those into flour, and a building to make biscuits (along with herbs, berries, or roots to finish those delicious doughy treats). All the while, the storm rages on and threatens the stability of your fledgling city.

Keep your settlers (and the impatient queen) happy long enough, and you’ll move on to the next settlement. And the next one. And the next one. I’ve been hooked on this game for weeks, and it shows no sign of slowing down. —PV

Lethal Company

Image: Zeekerss

Where to play: Windows PC

Horror games are a tough sell for me, mainly because I’m a big scaredy cat. However, I have a full-hearted appreciation for Lethal Company, developed by a solo dev who goes by Zeekerss. In the game, you and up to three friends mobilize as beleaguered workers who scrounge up resources from alien planets to sell back to their employer and make quota. As you explore these alien locales, it’s up to you and your group to evade the scourge of each biome’s many horrifying monsters.

Lethal Company is an absolute riot. The game might contain jump scares, but it also really leans into slapstick antics. Accidental deaths are a dime a dozen in its twisting metal corridors, and so are the laughs. For me, these comedic elements helped make it more approachable as a horror game. The one drawback is that you pretty much need a group of four to play and even then, the game can be pretty tough. Seek employment there at your own risk! —AD