The Best Video Games of 2024

After 2023, a year hailed by some as one of the all-time great years for video games, 2024 was destined to be a bit of a comedown. Though AAA releases have been fewer and farther between, the indie gaming scene has produced a surfeit of gems, and old favorites have resurfaced in the form of sequels, remakes, or downloadable expansions. (We’re not counting the latter as standalone games, which means 2024’s new downloadable content for Elden Ring and Alan Wake II—two of GQ’s previous Game of the Year winners—aren’t eligible for this list.)

So: What are the can’t-miss games of 2024? Read on:

(PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows)

Is style enough to carry you through a video game? Your answer to that question is likely to determine exactly how much you’ll enjoy Nobody Wants to Die, a sci-fi noir that’s heavy on plot and atmosphere but relatively light on gameplay. As troubled, cynical detective James Karra, you’ll navigate New York City circa 2329 while attempting to nab a serial killer targeting the moneyed elite, who have used cutting-edge technology to buy themselves immortality. Timely!

(PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows)

The latest reboot of this classic survival-horror franchise deserved more recognition than it got. Set in a sweaty approximation of 1930s New Orleans, Alone in the Dark casts Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer and Stranger Things’ David Harbour as a pair of heroes shooting monsters and solving puzzles in an eerie gothic mansion converted into a home for the mentally ill. It’s a sometimes campy, sometime creepy throwback to a bygone era of horror gaming, and it deserves an appreciative audience even if it’s officially too late to save the team that crafted it.

(Nintendo Switch)

A minor-key game from one of Nintendo’s major franchises, Echoes of Wisdom feels, more than anything, like an experiment. This time around, the hero is Princess Zelda, and her primary weapon is a wand that allows her to copy and recreate more than a hundred enemies and items. There are obvious flaws here—like the combat, in which the optimal strategy is too often “summon a friendly monster to fight on your behalf while you hide in a corner”—but Nintendo deserves some credit for innovating where so many other franchises would have played it safe.

(PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows)

If you’re the kind of person who’d rather ring in the Yuletide season with Krampus than Santa Claus, Still Wakes the Deep is the gnarly little Christmas gift you’ve been looking for. It’s December 1975, and Cameron “Caz” McLeary is spending the season working as an electrician on an oil rig off the coast of Scotland. But when a driller hits the wrong deep-sea vein, a Lovecraftian horror emerges from the depths, corrupting the rig and warping the minds and bodies of Caz’s increasingly deranged colleagues. The result is a tense, gripping narrative experience that clocks in at around four hours, making it an ideal binge-play for the holiday break.

(PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows)

A confession: Until this year, I was never really a Tekken guy. But with the apparent collapses of the rival Soulcalibur and Dead or Alive franchises, the wildly entertaining Tekken 8 is clearly the modern 3D fighter to beat, and a great starting point for players who don’t know Jin Kazama from Kazuya Mishima. Bonus points for a story mode that begins by turning it up to eleven and somehow finds room to crank it up a few more notches before the credits roll.

(PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows)

Though it debuted just a few years after Final Fantasy, the Mana series has always been overshadowed by its RPG cousin. But this franchise has a charm all its own, and Visions — the first mainline Mana game since the PlayStation 2 — successfully brings the series into the modern era. With gorgeous storybook visuals and a tight, action-heavy combat system, Visions is an appealing reintroduction to the Mana universe, even if the rumored closure of developer Ouka Studios leaves the franchise’s long-term future, once again, in question.

(PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Windows)

After a pair of games that pushed the Life is Strange franchise into uncharted territory, Double Exposure proves there’s still plenty of juice left in the original game’s narrative (even if series diehards have spent the past month raging about the sidelining of a fan-favorite character). In this direct sequel to the first Life is Strange, players revisit heroine Max Caulfield, now the artist-in-residence at an elite Vermont college campus, as she grapples with both new superpowers and the murder of a close friend. The plot twists come fast, and most of them hit hard.

(Nintendo Switch)

This year’s award for unlikeliest video-game revival goes to Emio—The Smiling Man, a new installment in a story-driven mystery franchise that hadn’t seen a new game since 1989. To sell this swerve, Nintendo veered away from its kid-friendly reputation, sending the internet into a frenzy by dropping a brief, unnerving teaser featuring a creepy guy with a smiley-face bag on his head. It was a fitting introduction to this M-rated mystery game, which tasks the player with using both tools and wits to solve the grisly murder of a schoolboy.

(PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Windows, MacOS)

With three wildly different releases since 2015, Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games has emerged as one of the industry’s most intriguing independent studios. Their latest, Nine Sols, appears at first glance to be a typical (if unusually polished) game in the Metroidvania genre, as the cat-like hero Yi navigates a sprawling labyrinth on a quest for revenge. But underneath Nine Sols’ familiar structure lies something darker, stranger, and ultimately more rewarding, with a slick combat system built around precision-timed parrying and a rich narrative that unfolds largely through unpacking the small details found in the game’s uncanny world.

(PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows, MacOS)

The hook of Slay the Princess couldn’t be simpler. There’s a princess chained up in a basement; your job, explains an unseen narrator, is to kill her, which will—somehow—save the world. What you do with that information is up to you. A dramatically expanded version of a 2023 critical darling, Slay the Princess: The Pristine Cut is best experienced with no knowledge about where it might be going. (My advice? Play with a small group of friends — the arguments you’ll inevitably have about your next move will only enhance the experience.)

(PlayStation 5, Windows)

Helldivers 2 was the hit no one saw coming. A sequel to a 2015 game that (with apologies to developer Arrowhead) no one really remembered, this sci-fi shooter exploded out of the gate in February by blending Starship Troopers-style satire with rewarding run-and-gun gameplay — and all at a price point attractive enough that it was easy to talk three friends into joining you. It‘s entirely possible the Helldivers 2 craze has already peaked, but there’s still plenty of fun to be had in this warped sci-fi universe, and the recently released Omens of Tyranny expansion should bring even the most jaded veterans back to the fight.

(Nintendo Switch)

Is it fair to put a 20-year-old game on this list? When that game has aged as well as Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door—and stands head and shoulders above the brand-new Mario & Luigi RPG released this year—I’d say it belongs. This loving remake of the Nintendo GameCube classic, which is widely (and correctly) regarded as the standout game in the Paper Mario franchise, adds a fresh coat of paint but not much else, trusting that the addictive, timing-based RPG battles and joke-heavy script will be just as appealing an offering in 2024. Happily, they are.

(Xbox Series X/S, Windows)

With last year’s Dial of Destiny underperforming at the box office, and 82-year-old Harrison Ford formally hanging up his whip and fedora, is there any path forward for the Indiana Jones franchise? This lovingly crafted action-adventure game offers one intriguing answer. Set shortly after the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, with prolific video-game voice actor Troy Baker delivering a credible Harrison Ford impression, Great Circle finds Indy chasing a mysterious thief across such far-flung locations as Vatican City, the Great Pyramids, and the Himalayas.

(PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch, Windows)

At one point or another, you’re going to throw up your hands at Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. Hailing from Swedish developer Simogo—the duo behind the mind-bending smartphone classics Year Walk and Device 6—this bizarre, prickly game drops the player into an old mansion full of cryptic puzzles and asks you to solve them in whatever order you can. Whereever you start, it won’t be easy. (Pro tip: You’ll want a pen and paper at the ready.) Lorelei might be too frustrating for some, but diehard puzzle fans know there are few things more satisfying than suddenly cracking a puzzle that’s been nagging at you for hours.

(PlayStation 5)

You could make a case for Crash Bandicoot or Parappa the Rapper, but Sony never really established a mascot that could stand alongside Nintendo’s Mario or Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog. That changed this year with Astro Bot, a cheery 3D platformer that delivers pretty much nonstop fun while offering an extended tour through the history of the PlayStation brand. The self-celebratory tone becomes grating by the end, but the endlessly inventive level design never stops throwing new ideas at the player; one standout level, which allows the player to grow and shrink at will, could probably be expanded into a full game.

(PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows)

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 knows exactly what its audience wants. A crunchy, blood-and-guts third-person shooter set in the grimdark far-future of the Warhammer universe, the game draws obvious inspiration from the Gears of War franchise by casting the player — and, crucially, up to two friends — as an armor-clad space marine shooting, stomping, and chainsaw-ing their way through hundreds of hostile aliens. In case that description wasn’t clear enough: This game is simply a blast.

(PlayStation 5)

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth contains multitudes. The second installment in a planned trilogy of Final Fantasy VII remakes is an absolute behemoth, boasting a massive open world, a terrific action-based battle system, and a list of minigames and side quests that feels endless because it nearly is. Clearly, the strategy here was “more is more,” and there’s no question that ultimately tips into “too much of a good thing.” But it’s also a credit to this grand Final Fantasy VII remake project that even after playing dozens of hours, only to reach an ending so hopelessly muddled that I’m not even entirely sure what it means, I still can’t wait for part three.

(PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows)

A gorgeous fantasy political thriller with actual insights into both the fantasy genre and politics, Metaphor: ReFantazio took home the trophy for Best Narrative at the 2024 Game Awards, and rightly so. When the assassination of a king leaves the fate of an entire kingdom in question, a boy from a lower caste rounds up a group of like-minded citizens to challenge the general who intends to exploit the power vacuum. Metaphor’s battle system is cleverly designed to maximize the strategic gambits that make RPGs interesting while minimizing the grinding that makes them tedious, but it’s the dense, twisty story, and especially the unexpected metafictional flourishes, that will stick with you.

(PlayStation 5, Windows)

There were plenty of reasons to be skeptical of a Silent Hill 2 remake. The survival-horror franchise has been mismanaged by Konami for two full decades. This time around, they handed the keys to Polish developer Bloober Team, whose previous horror-game track record was spotty at best. Somehow, Bloober Team rose to the occasion, modernizing Silent Hill 2 without sacrificing the original game’s eerie sense of place, unsettling sequences of cruelty and violence, or the unusual psychological depth of its story, which climaxes with one of the more memorable reveals in video game history. One hopes Konami is ready to build on this unlikely success story with further Silent Hill games in this vein, because it’s been a long time since this foggy town had such a clear path forward.

(PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows, MacOS, iOS)

Arriving in an age of ballooning video-game budgets, Balatro is the anti-AAA title. It was developed by a single person. It boasts minimalist pixel graphics and no story at all. Its gameplay is just poker with a roguelike twist: a series of modifiers, chosen by the player, that turn each playthrough into a race for a high score by transforming cards and their values into whatever suits your playstyle best. It could not be simpler, it could not be more addictive, and it’s now available on cell phones, with free updates dropping at an impressively consistent clip. This is the kind of game I recommend with a warning: Be careful, or Balatro could completely take over your life.

This list, originally published on July 24, was updated on Dec 12.