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“2004”, “1998”, “2007”, are common answers when you ask long-time video game fans what they think has been the best year in gaming. 1998 brought Metal Gear Solid, Half-Life, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Resident Evil 2.
2004 delivered classics such as Halo 2, Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. 2007 was paramount through its introduction of Super Mario Galaxy, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and the year was the start of industry-defining franchises such as Bioshock, Assassin’s Creed, and Mass Effect.
These were hallmark years that delivered some legendary memorable games. Games that were so good, each one of them could have fairly easily won a Game of the Year award in nearly any other year in the era they were released in.
Now with 2023 winding down, I am here to tell you something I was already confident about back in April of this year and have now been totally convinced of, 2023 is going to go down as one of the greatest years in gaming history and I’ll go a step further predict that it will be the greatest year in gaming this decade.
When I first started saying this early in the year, it was a pretty bold claim to most. In the last couple of months, I have seen more and more people coming around to a similar line of thinking. Some of you out there may still think this is a silly claim, but that’s fine, in this post we will break down most of the popular titles of the year and you can judge for yourselves how they stack up to past years.
2023 Has Delivered on Critical Hits
I started writing this post several weeks ago, since that time several more games have been released and added to the already stellar year we were having. Here is a quick list of some of the Metacritic review scores for some of the most popular games of the year that have been released by the time this article was published.
Hi-Fi Rush (Metacritic 89)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Metacritic 96)
Street Fighter VI (Metacritic 92)
Diablo IV (Metacritic 91)
Dave The Diver (Metacritic 89)
Final Fantasy XVI (Metacritic 87)
Baldur’s Gate 3 (Metacritic 97)
Alan Wake II (Metacritic 88)
Spider-Man 2 (Metacritic 90)
Super Mario Wonder (Metacritic 92)
Depending on who you ask, each of those games could be up for Game of the Year in any other year and we still have a couple of months left where another game or two could pop up and be in competition for one of the best titles of the year.
Just recently Axios.com released data that shows 2023 has the best reviewed slate of video games in the last 20 years. The data backs up the feeling that this year has been an absolute banger for quality titles. Let’s take a more in-depth look at just how stacked the year has been by breaking down every month.
The First Quarter of 2023 came out Swinging!
In hindsight the first tangible indicator that this year was going to be a special one was back on January 25th with the stealth release of Hi-Fi Rush from Xbox studio Tango Gameworks. No one even knew this game was being made nonetheless it was going to come out the same day it was revealed to the world during the Xbox and Bethesda Direct.
The exceptionally tight gameplay and refreshingly crisp visual style of Hi-Fi Rush instantly propelled the game into hit cult status among critics and several gamers making this an early favorite for Game of the Year contention for many including myself.
EA then dropped the remake for Dead Space and fans of the original ate it up. The same game they loved a decade before was back but it looked better than ever and played just as well. The faithful update to the survival horror classic was a nice early treat for a year that was starting fast.
Just a month later back to back-to-back hits would land with the critically acclaimed Metroid Prime Remaster releasing on the Switch and Hogwarts Legacy landing on current generation platforms and PC. Hogwarts was a resounding success in setting records for player count and engagement across various metrics. The game hit benchmarks of success the industry hadn’t seen since 2022’s Elden Ring.
Many Harry Potter fans felt like it was the game they had been wishing for all their lives and despite some controversy surrounding the games release, the quality of the game and the overwhelmingly positive response of players who played it will mark this release as a triumph for WB games who also has another massive release coming out later this year in Mortal Kombat 1.
The first quarter of the year would end in March with the highly anticipated Resident Evil 4 remake and the very positively received Dredge, an indie fishing RPG that has some elements of horror and survival. The first quarter alone was potent enough to produce a few game-of-the-year-worthy titles but 2023 would just be getting started.
The Great Games Keep Coming in Quarter 2 of 2023
April 2023 delivered Star Was Jedi: Survivor. Though the game did have some technical issues, outside of that most saw the game as a definite step up over the already very good prequel. Jedi Survivor brought all of the action-packed gameplay and exciting Star Wars thrills of the first but expanded on them.
In May Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom hit store shelves and Nintendo’s online marketplace; like Hogwarts Legacy before it, the game exploded. Sales numbers were through the roof and critically, Tears of the Kingdom set unprecedented scores on Metacritic and opencritic becoming one of the best-rated games of all time.
After the critical and commercial success of Zelda, it may have seemed like the race for the title of 2023 Game of the Year would be an open and shut case, no, this year was not done, not by half. June would welcome the first of a new wave of fighting games that are looking to completely revitalize a once-thriving video game genre.
Street Fighter 6, the first Street Fighter game in seven years broke Steam user records for fighting games and also saw healthy sales. The game also followed a running theme of 2023, with exceptional critical reception, receiving a staggering 92 Metacritic score while being hailed as one of the best Street Fighter games ever made.
June continued to unleash hell on gamers wallets by delivering the addictive Diablo IV which, you guessed it, broke more records, this time with sales as the game rewarded publisher Blizzard games. The Indie darling Dave The Diver also came later in the month and had the attention of chill vibe-seeking PC gamers hooked after they took a bite of its enticing bait.
June finally decided to relent after one final massive release, none other than Final Fantasy 16 for the PlayStation 5. Another majorly anticipated game, another big seller, and another game that was received highly from critics and gamers alike.
Ok, we can take a breath now, but not for long, make it a big one, you will need it. On to quarter 3!
Quarter 3 Had Huge Releases and Huge Expectations
If you thought quarter 2 of 2023 was bad enough, quarter 3 may have it beat. Remnant II and Pikmin 4 quietly dropped at the end of July. Remnant II doesn’t have the review scores that pop out and grab you like so many of the other games on this list but for my money and from the mouths of many gamers who have played it, it is every bit as fun and wonderful as any other game contending for Game of the Year.
August 3rd made a huge splash that most gamers did not see coming. Baldur’s Gate 3‘s PC release date got pushed up to this date just weeks prior and for non-cRPG fans, this game was definitely flying under the radar.
When it was released on August 3rd, quietly to itself with little competition around, it hit the ground with an earth-shattering bang. Everyone’s attention was brought to Baldur’s Gate 3‘s eye-popping game previews and early review impressions.
The game was hailed as a return to great classic RPG’s such as Dragon Age Inquisition, a return to the days of classic games that were complete at launch, packed full of features, not nickel and diming players with microtransactions or additional fees.
The previously insurmountable review scores and hallowed status of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the game that felt destined, cemented, to win the 2023 Game of the Year just day before, was suddenly vulnerable. Shockingly, Baldur’s Gate 3 even managed to reach Zelda’s lofty 96 Metacritic score.
Baldurs Gate 3, a hardcore, extremely technical and nerdy fantasy cRPG based on Dungeons and Dragons nearly broke the steam records set earlier this year by Hogwarts Legacy; a feat even more impressive when you understand that Hogwarts Legacy had the benefit of being a more mainstream-friendly video game backed by a much more mainstream IP.
August still had juice left in the tank. From Software, the people that made last year’s Elden Ring one of the greatest reviewed games of all time and the game I surprisingly could not bring myself to get into, released Armored Core 6.
Surprise, surprise, Armored Core 6 also had some great reviews, the game also appears sold quite well, and consumers were very happy with it. Meh, fans got a mech game that they have been looking forward to for a long time and it delivered.
August 29 saw another nugget of Indie gold dropped into gamers laps with the release of Sea of Stars on all major platforms, including being dropped day one onto Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, the game is a throwback take on Japanese RPG’s like Chrono Trigger and is another major hit with critics getting an 88 Metacritic.
September came swinging with a haymaker as one of the most anticipated games of the decade finally launched. Starfield, Bethesda’s first original IP in nearly 30 years released and out of all the amazing games of 2023, Starfield was personally my most anticipated.
Could Bethesda manage to mold together everything they have learned over the decades of making Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, and distill all of that experience and expertise into an epic science fiction setting?
All I really needed was Fallout in space and I would say Starfield did come out being fairly similar to that. The game has been received favorably as it sits at a 86 Metacritic score however there is a pretty large contingent of gamers who are disappointed in the game for various reasons, one of the principal ones being how it sticks to some outdated Bethesda formulas.
Starfield has been a major success and it is a game that has a fantastic foundation that is ripe for being improved upon with updates and mods. I can see this being similar to games like Skyrim, No Man’s Sky, or Cyberpunk 2077, in that months and years down the line the game will continue to grow and become more and more relevant as time goes on.
September 19th was a big day as we saw the release of Moral Kombat 1! The highly anticipated sequel but kinda-sorta-almost-but-not-really-reboot of Mortal Kombat has been a major seller reaching the top of UK boxed sale charts and getting plenty of engagement through twtich streams and social media.
Even though the game didn’t receive the stellar reviews that Street Fighter 6 did earlier in the year, MK1 has still been reviewed very favorably and gamers are eating it up. By all accounts, this is another big hit for Mortal Kombat developers Neatherealm studios and this continues giving life to the fighting game renaissance we are in the midst of that will hopefully be capped off by Tekken 8 in early 2024.
September went out with a very loud bang. Cyberpunk 2077, Phantom Liberty, and its 2.0 update have launched and although this is just an update and expansion to a 3-year-old game, the changes are so big, it almost feels like a new release. This update adds a whole new story expansion to the game along with several gameplay overhauls and visual tweaks. In a sense, this is a reset or a finalization of the game that was released in 2020.
I have now spent several hours playing the 2.0 update myself and I can tell you Cyberpunk 2077 feels a lot better. The way they have changed character building is absolutely for the better. I was a fan of the game before but these updates and changes have put it over the top, this is the game Cyberpunk 2077 was always meant to be from the start and the reviews for Phantom Liberty have been exceedingly positive as well, I think this entire update has exceeded expectations.
Many gamers are probably surprised but we shouldn’t be, this has been how 2023 has been shaping up, this is the year where so many games are delivering, and it’s almost more surprising when something comes up short. I think at this point you can see why I think this year is in contention for the best year in gaming.
Quarter 4 is Not Going Out Quietly
The final three months of 2023 are not going softly into that good night. Like the rest of the year, they have continued to rage and likely will until the last page of the calendar turns over. October 10 revved gamers into gear as Forza Motorsport, the first Forza Motorsport game since 2017 dropped for Xbox and PC to positive reception.
Two days later on October 12 Assassins Creed Mirage, a return to the more traditional and contained Assassin’s Creed games of old came out from Ubisoft. Many long-time fans of the series were happy to see the game get back to its roots as the last several Assassin’s Creed games have become so huge and open-ended ended, they can take dozens upon dozens of hours to beat. I find it a bit ironic that 2023 is going down as a legendary year in gaming and Assassins Creed is going back to a formula that is much more similar to the original game that started the franchise off in another historic gaming year, 2007.
October 20th brought the colossal Spider-Man 2, easily one of the most highly anticipated games of the year and a heavy Game of the Year favorite. Sony has perhaps the best, most consistent, track record of anyone outside of Nintendo to release game of the year contenders and Insomniac has been their most prolific and consistent first-party studio in the last few years.
With a Metacritic score of 91, Spider-Man 2 is undoubtedly great, some critics are even calling it the greatest superhero game of all time! Having played through in its entirety and having gotten the platinum trophy, I can safely say it is one of my favorite games of the year and it has surpassed my expectations.
Insomniac knows how to tell a great story, they truly understand the character of Spider-Man and what makes him a heroic figure. This game fits right in with the excellent slate of titles on hand for this year.
Just as Spider-Man 2 enters the Game of the Year debate, that same date, yes, October 20th, Sony’s rival in red, Nintendo, dropped another Game of the Year contender as well. Super Mario Bros. Wonder was also released on October 20th and the review scores for this game are phenomenally impressive.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder has achieved a 93 Metacritic score and is right up there with the top-rated games of the year and in the company of some of the highest-rated games of all time. This was one of those games that certainly flew under my radar. What has made 2023 so marvelous is that not only have the highly anticipated games been really good but there has been a slew of unexpectedly great games and they have seemingly come out of nowhere to demand gamers attention.
Two legitimate game of the year contenders dropped on the same day and October is not nearly finished yet.
The month of October ends with a deliciously fitting horror banger. Alan Wake II haunted the dark recesses of gamers’ minds on October 27th. The long-awaited sequel finally arrived and it was worth the wait. Years in the making and coming off of a very successful title in Control, Remedy released what might be their biggest commercial and critical success so far.
October alone released 3 major games of the year contenders that month alone will go down as one of the best months in gaming and I think there will be a lot of people out there trying to enjoy all three of those games for the rest of the year.
November 9th Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name released. Kiryu Kazuma returns as a protagonist in his first yakuza game in years. This is one of my favorite series and these games are always quality. There has never been a bad one or even an okay one, every game has been good to excellent.
Super Mario RPG is made a surprise return on November 17th with a remake. The game has had some positive reviews and though it hasn’t brought anything majorly new to the table, it’s still a nice way to wind the year down with a Nintendo classic. Between this game, Starfield, Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy 16, Phantom Liberty, and Sea of Stars, RPG fans are eating quite good!
December has had a couple of big games come in to close the year out. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora which was released on December 7th is an Avatar game that has some similarities to Ubisoft’s Far Cry series of games. The reviews for this one are just decent but fans of the Avatar movies and the open-world Far Cry gameplay loop can probably find a lot of fun to be had here.
Also releasing on December 7th is another amazing cRPG following in the footsteps of the majorly successful Baldur’s Gate 3. Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader came out for all major platforms. An incredibly deep and comprehensive RPG that will give hardcore role-playing gamers a lot of meat to chew on.
2023,The Best Year in Gaming Keeps on Giving
This year has been fantastic for games. When I started to write this article, several weeks ago (life’s been busy) I encountered several new games I had to add. I already thought it was a great year then and that was 4-6 games shy of what ultimately ended up making it in this post.
I think we will look back on 2023 and think of it as one of the best years we had in gaming. Two areas that stand out to me, in particular, are how the interest and quality of the fighting game genre seem to be growing rapidly again. I haven’t seen so many people excited to play a Street Fighter game since I can even remember, Mortal Kombat has continued to fan that flame and I think Tekken 8 will keep that community thriving well into 2024.
The other genre I think that has had a tremendous year is the RPG. Baldurs Gate 3, Starfield, Final Fantasy 16, Sea of Stars and Cyberpunk: Phantom Liberty, are all major releases and they are different kinds of RPGs that offer different things. It’s incredible to see a technical, isometric cRPG get the massive audience attention and love that Baldurs Gate 3 has received as those games typically fly very under the radar. At the time of publishing this post, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader has just been released and every indication is that that game will also be another strong RPG for the year.
Though this has been a banner year for quality games as a whole the year has not been so great for game developers. In 2023 game developers suffered a devastating loss of over 6000 jobs with multiple major studios laying off talent.
I hope that this is just a trend of the economy at large and that the incredible quality of games we got this year is the true barometer of how healthy the industry is. The quality of games right now has rarely been higher, the hunger from gamers is just as present as it has always been as sales continue to be healthy.
Enjoy the games and enjoy this year, and if you haven’t tried something on this list but are curious, look into it, you might just discover your next favorite title. 2024 is shaping up to be another very good year and if we do find ourselves in a bit of a dry spell at any period in that year, I am sure you can go back to a 2023 gem you missed out on and play something from one of the greatest gaming years ever.
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