The 2024 Game Surprises
Plagued with layoff, delay and a seemingly small amount of hyped releases, for the longest time I wasn’t sure I’d even have 10 games that really moved me this year. But it seems with Steam getting more and more crowded, asking your friends for recommendations is more valuable than ever. If nothing else, this year tought me that there are way more smaller, independently marketed releases with mediocre discovery. Proving that the unique, great stuff is still there, but you need to dig for it. ⛏️
1. Dredge
Dredge from Black Salt Games has been an early entry into this year and stuck with me to this day. Initially I expected a very frightening, horror-esque experience. However, behind the spooky facade lies a cozy, explorative experience that has you slowly, but reflectively exploring the whole world with your little fishing boat. I never would have guessed how relaxing a Lovecraftian experience can be 🐙. Just a fantastic game that I can highly recommend for everyone to pick up.
2. Prince of Persia: Lost Crown
Ubisoft has been in a continuous struggle in 2024 and it is hard to say what will happen to the historic company in the upcoming year. The Lost Crown almost feels like a protest of the talent at Ubisoft, a sheer will to show to the world that the artist, animators, level designers, story writers could all keep up with the beloved indie darlings of the world. The result is a stellar Metroidvania of the highest grade, an appreciation of the talented team at Ubisoft… And it makes you reflect once reality check hits you as soon as you look at the credits roll of hundreds upon hundreds of people involved once you are done. Lets hope all that talent can continue to create inspired games like this one.
3. Helldivers 2
I actually wanted to put Earth Defense Force 6 on here, since it finally had its proper English release, but you know what? It does not deserve it. For years, everyone knew of EDFs potential to be bigger but D3 repeatedly drops the ball on the franchise. And nothing demonstrated this as competently as the sheer frenzy that Helldivers 2 from Arrowhead generated for a few months. Everyone loved the humor, everyone watched Starship Troopers again, everyone jumped in to liberate the galaxy. This could have been your year EDF, but you had someone else show you how it's done. 🐜🐜🐜
4. Balatro
If there is one game literally every game designer I know played at some point this year and utterly fell in love with its design, then it must be Balatro. I was also originally hesitant… “a card game rogue-like?”, but as you learn the mechanics, it reveals itself as a multi-layered, tightly designed masterpiece of a game. What a debut for the studio LocalThunk! Balatro is insane, one of these transformative must-plays in gameplay design that I truly believe any game designer should try to dissect. And even though I constantly think I’m done with it, I return every few weeks, just for one more run… 🃏
5. Minishoot Adventures
Sometimes it seems some game ideas have been on everyone's mind, but no one ever commits to doing it because they doubt it was that good of an idea to begin with. But what if someone would really commit to it? Then you get the excellent Minishoot adventures. Half Zelda dungeon crawling, half twin stick shooter, Minishoot is a testament that simple mash-up ideas can result in a unique experience if done with love and care. I absolutely adore that it was able to slowly accumulate a proper fanbase over the year and now made its way into some best of the year lists. A true labor love from SoulGame and incredibly fun to play.
6. Robocop Rogue City
Talk about a surprising masterpiece! Robocop Rogue City from long-time shovelware developer Teyon, is a 3D shooter original story set between the two first Robocop movies, and it's clearly made with lots of appreciation of the source material. Half of the game you slowly stomp through derelict Detroit, listening to people's problems in the declining city. And then it suddenly viscerally explodes and you transform into more tank than man, dismantling the scenery with a viscerality I’ve never felt in a shooter. I absolutely loved this game and in its 8 hours runtime it never overstayed its welcome. A must play, not only for fans of the source material!
7. Mouthwashing
Mouthwashing has been properly successful with streamers for its jump-scares and surreal level design. After the initial pull you are thrown into a clever, insanely well executed story of a spaceship crew afloat in a stranded ship, slowly going insane. Its proper engaging and very cleverly written by Wrong Organ. What stuck with me the most is that it brings back the genre that I properly missed: Short, first person, narrative games. Games like Quadlitteral Cowboy, Tacoma or Obra Dinn. Its great to see that these games still can survive and thrive in today's marketing ecosystem and I hope more designers will commit to such stories. 🚀
8. Thank Goodness you are here
I always feel like making a funny game is one of the hardest tasks. It's also very hard to write about humor. So let me just say that Thank Goodness you are here, from aptly named developer Coal Supper, is absolutely hilarious. You are playing a tiny man, his only interaction with the world being able to slap stuff. You are being sent into a town in god knows where, where the major doesn't want to meet you. So you set out into the town meeting the locals and their stories. What follows is crudely funny, but never groan worthy, just constantly surprising. It's reminiscent of a playable timeless British sketch comedy 🇬🇧. I struggle to tell people why to play the game, just trust me: it's funny.
9. Pacific Drive
I felt really mixed about Pacific Drive at first. I loved the concept of a car based rogue-lite, but the runs with your car into the zone were really harsh, punishing and frustrating. I really wanted to scavenge more, see the weird anomaly infested world. Then I found the difficulty customisation menu where you can tinker and adjust the experience in every detail to your liking. After tinkering on all parameters, time limits, radiation punishment… Now I love setting out into the zone in a difficulty and time limit that really fits. I’ve never experienced anything like it and more games should allow this degree of difficulty customisation!
10. Metaphor Re-Fantazio
When the first marketing material for Metaphor dropped it looked like management at Atlus was giving the 3D and UI team from Persona a free pass to do whatever they want. It looked absolutely insane, almost too over the top to make any sense and be playable. But when it finally launched this year, it did not only still deliver on that front (being actually playable), it also wrapped all the talent of a Persona title in a fresh new fantasy package. Metaphor really shows what the teams at Atlus are capable of and I’m quite sure we look at a future classic here that we will look back upon fondly. I almost hope there will never be a sequel to this game but Atlus will just drop a fresh new world on us every few years.
Some Honorable Mentions:
This year I just want to shout out a few titles that dropped off the list last second:
5 Hearts under 1 Roof: Hilarious, but for all the wrong reasons. Play it if you want a real culture shock.
UFO50: And absolute labor of love, but it showed me that I just don’t like these old-style games. Not for me but impressive
Metal Slug Tactics: A really well made and clever tactics game, that would deserve it to be on the list for innovation
Another Crabs Treasure: Cute and well made, but souls-like fatigue is getting real at this point.
Dread Delusion: This retro-esque RPG is also very much worth a view, even if it loses steam hard towards the middle.
Lethal Company: Sadly we only got 3 sessions out of it, but those were worth the price.
Zelda Echoes of Wisdom: A really solid game, nice to see that they finally gave Zelda a leading role as a hero.
Earth Defense Force 6: See Helldivers 2
