20 Best Video Games of 2023

In a move that would foreshadow a bombastic year ahead, Xbox and Bethesda kicked 2023 off strong with a needle drop during their Developer_Direct showcase last January, simultaneously announcing and releasing a new rhythm game from Tango Gameworks titled Hi-Fi Rush. The studio, known previously for its work on horror titles like The Evil Within, stepped into new territory with the shadow drop, unveiling a candy-coated action combat game unlike anything they’ve created before.

The story follows Chai, a 25-year-old wannabe rockstar who, after signing up for an experimental procedure for cybernetic limb replacement courtesy of the comedically dubious corporation Vandelay Technologies, ends up with a superpowered robot arm and a music player lodged in his chest. What follows is a slapstick musical brawler that plays out like Devil May Cry in 4/4 time. A synthesis of goofy humor, addictive rhythm-based gameplay, and tight pacing, Hi-Fi Rush evokes the best of genre hybridization defined by games like Crypt of the Necrodancer and No Straight Roads, with the visual design of a Saturday morning cartoon and a soundtrack that includes the Black Keys, Nine Inch Nails, and the Prodigy. Read the full review here.

Another genre mashup that deftly weaves together aspects of rhythmic timing, turn-based roleplaying, and outlandishly over-the-top battles in a (mostly) cohesive package, Annapurna Interactive’s Thirsty Suitors is one of the year’s most exciting indie releases. Developed by Outerloop Games, it tells the story of Jala, a fiercely independent young woman who’s forced to return to her small, middle-America hometown for her sister’s wedding. Along the way, she’ll need to reconcile not just with her estranged sister and staunchly traditional Indian family, but with the many exes she’s slighted over the years — often in battle.

A little bit Scott Pilgrim, a little bit Yakuza, the game’s influences are all over the map. Outside of RPG combat and dialogue trees, there’s tons to do in free-roaming sections from Tony Hawk-esque skateboarding traversal to intensive cooking minigames, all tethered by a heartfelt story of a South Asian family at odds in the struggle between modernism and traditional family values and commitment. For a totally surreal, eclectic stew of experiences with a meaningful twist, look no further than Thirsty Suitors.

In a year filled with remakes and remasters, few were as surprising to see as Super Mario RPG. One of the strangest relics of the SNES era, the original was a collaboration between Nintendo and Final Fantasy creators Squaresoft (now Square Enix) that brought Mario from his platforming roots into sword and sorcery RPG format. With the two companies parting ways for years to come, the one-off became a cult classic whose bizarre world and cast of characters would seemingly never return.

In lieu of a sequel, Nintendo opted for a remake that updates many of its retro quirks and overhauls the claymation-like aesthetic of the original without sacrificing its chibi charm. Although Mario would go onto other role-playing adventures, SMRPG remains steadfastly his best foray into the genre with a surreal tone centering around a giant anthropomorphic sword wreaking havoc on the mushroom kingdom, forcing Mario to take up arms alongside a marshmallow man, a star child embodying a wooden doll, and even his old enemy Bowser to save the day. Nostalgia-bait perfected, it’s an oddity worthy of attention for RPG beginners and experts alike.

There was a period during the mid-2000s when horror games reigned supreme. With the dawn of high-definition gaming, players wanted blood by the bucketful and atmospheric scares galore. Among the best at delivering the nightmare fuel was 2008’s Dead Space from Electronic Arts. Set in the 26th century on a derelict starship, it put gamers in the role of Isaac Clarke, an engineer left for dead after gruesome creatures called Necromorphs begin slaughtering wholesale every crew member on the doomed USG Ishimura.

And although the original still holds up today, this remake, developed by Motive Studio, manages to breathe new life into a body horror classic with a level of detail elevating its gratuitous violence, and dread that firmly cements it as one of 2023’s best games. Retaining the methodic, chunky combat that imbues the series with its breathless tone while streamlining quality of life updates, it manages not just to prove itself a worthy remake, but an experience to beat. Among a new generation of horror titles, including its own spiritual successor The Callisto Protocol, Dead Space is reanimating to show everyone else how it’s done. Read the full review here.

Despite being yet another remake to hit this year, Like a Dragon: Ishin! has the benefit of reimagining a game that originally never made it to the Western market. But following the increasingly global success of the Yakuza series, as well as the renewed popularity of games with historical samurai settings after Sony’s hit Ghost of Tsushima, it’s finally time for everyone to get in on one of the best entries in this franchise.

Rooted deeper in historical fiction than the more ridiculous plots of most Yakuza games, Ishin! centers around Sakamoto Ryōma, a real-life revolutionary who took aim at ending the rigid hierarchy of the samurai at the end of the Edo period. With some creative license (OK, a lot of creative license), it charts his story of revenge and redemption through a pseudo-open world adventure. The Yakuza and Like a Dragon games are famous for their kitchen-sink approach to gameplay, where as much time can be spent playing karaoke mini-games as it is following the story proper and with its unique cultural setting, Ishin! is a perfect entry point into a series that’s influenced dozens of modern titles (hello, Thirsty Suitors). Read the full review here.

When it launched in 2019, EA’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was heralded for the return of the narrative-driven, single player Star Wars experience gamers had longed for since The Force Unleashed II nearly a decade prior. But despite the fan fervor, it was mostly just a great foundation for a much better game. That’s what its sequel, Jedi: Survivor, accomplishes and more.

Developed by Respawn Entertainment, Jedi: Survivor expands on everything that worked in the previous game: refined (laser) swordplay, open world exploration with a hint of Metroidvania progression, and badass Force powers that make for the ultimate Jedi fantasy. Continuing the story of Jedi Knight and Order-66 survivor, Cal Kestis (played by Shameless’ Cameron Monaghan), it delivers an expansive journey that — as all Star Wars media must — fills in the gaps between the first two trilogies. With tons of customization options for both combat and cosmetics, as well as the return of iconic characters like Boba Fett and Lord Vader himself, Jedi: Survivor is a satisfying evolution of a surprisingly great franchise that offers both a clearer vision and deeper engagement than what Lucasfilm itself has been cooking on Disney+. Read the full review here.

One of the year’s biggest surprises, Lies of P is a gothic vision that dares to ask, “What if Pinocchio were hot?” Co-developed and published by South Korea’s Neowiz Games, it offers a glimpse of grim Belle Époque-inspired fantasy world starring a robot boy with shades of Timothée Chalamet, putting players in the role of a more violent and complex version of Pinocchio in a unique twist on the age-old tale. Here, in the fictional city of Krat, P must find a way to save his creator Geppetto and stave off a mindless puppet revolution.

Like Jedi: Survivor, Lies of P falls into the often infuriatingly difficult (but generally beloved) subgenre of “soulslike” games, a.k.a. games whose combat — and isolated, somber atmosphere — are reminiscent of FromSoftware’s Dark Souls series. And while its combat and tone could feel derivative at this point, well into a decade of the subgenre’s dominance, Lies of P offers something fresh with its reinvention of The Adventures of Pinocchio that adds to the mix a branching narrative driven by specific contextual moments rooted in P’s unique role as the only puppet who can lie. It’s all a lot cooler than it sounds.

Long before they changed the face of gaming by popularizing the “soulslike” genre, Japanese developers FromSoftware were the shepherds of another major franchise: Armored Core. Dormant since its last entry in 2013, the Armored Core games were renowned as the pinnacle of mecha-based, vehicular combat, offering crunchy robot combat with a ludicrous amount of customization options that tickled anyone who spent their childhood assembling Gundam Wing models (Hi, it’s me).

One of the more obscure revivals in a year filled with franchise resurrections, Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is an unapologetically old school game. The menus are sleek, and the visuals top notch, but this is the quintessential robot mechanic shop simulator, with a bare-bones storyline that serves to connect the dots between missions wherein players execute any number of assignments, from blowing up small mechs to working really hard to blow up a big one. There’s a sense of scope and verticality that is astounding, as boss battles push players to their limits scaling skyscraper-height machinations in breakneck battles that land on just the right side of frustrating. Fair to play, difficult to master, it’s a hardcore game that’s not for the faint of heart.

In a sea of blockbusters, it’s especially thrilling to see not one but two wonderfully crafted indie games that focus on the beauty of South Asian and Indian heritage. But while one, Thirsty Suitors, brings together an eclectic mix of game mechanics, the other, Venba, has a much tighter focus. Developed by Visai Games, Venba is ostensibly a cooking game. Set in 1988 and the years that follow, it centers on the titular Venba, who leaves Tamil Nadu with her husband to begin anew in Toronto, and chronicles the hardships immigrant families face as they foster new generations in the West.

The game is relatively short and straightforward, providing players with bits of story chronologically picking up with Venba as she navigates the challenges of raising her son, Kavin, who as a second generation-born Canadian Indian struggles to connect with his heritage. Using her grandmother’s faded recipe book, gameplay mostly consists of solving puzzles to execute a perfect cook while sussing out the order, measurements, and placement of ingredients. Where most games you’ll play are swinging big, Venba offers a refreshingly small, intimate look at the lives of an immigrant family with heartwarming panache.

Of all the fighting games to triumph beyond the arcade heyday of the Nineties, none have seen level of success as Netherrealm Studios’ Mortal Kombat. After some stumbling through its awkward 3D phase in the aughts, the series found new life with a soft reboot in 2009’s Mortal Kombat (the ninth). But while most would think modernization would mean toning down the violence for a broader appeal, Mortal Kombat found success by tripling down on the viscera that modern technology afforded it, and leaning heavily into its own lore and continuity with an exploration of timelines and multiverses before it was fashionable.

Now, with Mortal Kombat 1, the series is going back to its roots once more with a narratively mandated reboot once more. But make no mistake, while you’re seeing classic characters like Scorpion and Liu Kang in all their Nineties glory, these are new versions with complex arcs remixed into one “perfect” timeline that follows the story of the previous 11 titles. With an assist system à la X-Men vs. Street Fighter and overhauled mechanics to master, it’s also one of the most accessible entries in the franchise that never lets a good fatality keep it down.

It’s been a long, long wait for Blizzard’s Diablo IV. While Diablo III’s initial launch in 2012 caused a stir for being considered by many to be too “casual-friendly,” it eventually garnered a fervent userbase with a series of updates through the decade. But fans were still hoping for a true return to form, one that evoked the grim tone of the series pinnacle, Diablo II, with modern touches to bring players on a true trip to hell. And in most ways, Diablo IV delivered. Inspired by the gruesome Renaissance-era aesthetic of the originals and driven by a wildly addictive dungeon-crawler gameplay loop, the game delivered a masterclass in ARPG (action role-playing game) presentation.

It wasn’t without its hurdles, however, as its first post-launch update nerfed many of the systems that players grew to love in the pre-release and launch windows, but as an ever-evolving live service game, Diablo IV is seeing a course correction in its ongoing seasonal updates that are addressing and anticipating what players want to see to keep them invested long-term. A wonderfully built cooperative game online or on the couch, it’s the type of deep, continuous investment that feels like a part-time job (in the good way). Read the full review here.

Easily the most anticipated remake in a sea of revitalization, Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 shouldn’t be as good as it is. Famously one of the most reissued games of the modern era, the 2004 original is playable on pretty much every device imaginable and was being rereleased all the way up to 2021 with its VR port to the Oculus Quest 2. And yet …

There’s nothing quite like Resident Evil 4. The game that marked the shift of the survival horror franchise from a tanklike, methodical, haunted-house affair into a full-blown action thriller, RE4 popularized so many mechanics across so many games, its DNA can still be felt industry wide. And following wildly successful remakes of Resident Evils 2 and 3, this rework was obviously going to be a good game, but it’s hard to comprehend just how new it feels despite working off a foundation everyone knows so well. Chillingly atmospheric, tightly scripted with organic jump scares and palm sweat-inducing set pieces, it’s frankly the best version of one of the best games ever made. And if it still manages to feel like an old hat, pick up the recently released PSVR2 update for one of the scariest experiences a person could ever have. Full stop. Read the full review here.

One of the greatest gifts that the age of indie gaming has given us, aside from allowing bold new ideas to thrive in an increasingly risk adverse industry, is the ability for creators to put their spin on the titles that inspired them growing up. While most of gaming’s staples have moved on from the play styles that defined their early years (see: Final Fantasy, Resident Evil), there are legions of people working to re-create those original visions as they were — or at least, as you remember them.

That’s where a game like Sea of Stars shines. Wearing its Nineties JRPG roots on its sleeve, it’s a wonderful homage to games like Chrono Trigger, gorgeously rendered pixel art epics that refuse to cave to modern standards of more action-oriented play. Set in the world of its previous retro-homage, 2018’s The Messenger, developers Sabotage Studio have crafted an original story surrounding six playable party members that focuses heavily on puzzle mechanics and turn-based combat. Sea of Stars shows there’s still mileage on classic ideas without resorting to an endless stream of remakes or sequels.

Although original games and new IP are essential to audiences, there’s still a huge demand for sequels. In fact, the remainder of this list is fully comprised of major follow-ups in their respective series. But if you’re going to do it, it needs to be done right, and few studios do sequels quite as well as Insomniac Games. After redefining the superhero game with the one-two shot of 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man and 2020’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the studio brought all of the spider-folk together for its mega-sized PS5 exclusive, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

Picking up after the first two games, it follows in equal parts both of New York’s premiere Spider-Men, OG Peter Parker and upstart Miles Morales. Pulling inspiration from a number of classic comic book stories, including Kraven’s Last Hunt, it weaves a web that will bring both heroes face-to-face with their own personal demons, in a campaign that focuses on more grounded themes than the multiversal shenanigans seen in the most recent films, and treats the characters with more respect than any actual Marvel comic has in the past 20 years. With an effective story, relentless action set pieces, and by far the most lovingly re-created version of New York ever seen in a game, it’s arguably the best Spider-Man experience available across medium right now. Read the full review here.

2023 has been a special year in gaming for a litany of reasons, not least of which is that it marked the full-fledged fighting-game renaissance. With new entries from the Big Three fighting franchises all within a year of each other, beginning with Street Fighter 6 and Mortal Kombat 1, soon to be followed by January’s Tekken 8, it’s the kind of planetary alignment not seen in over two decades.

At the core of it is, of course, the granddaddy of fighting games: Street Fighter. Although the series has taken a back seat to the likes of Mortal Kombat, whose cultural cache and focus on pop-culture guest characters have allowed it to remain in the zeitgeist, Street Fighter 6 marks the point in the story where the underdog comes back to win. Rebuilt from ground up with a multitude of accessibility options, a stunning graffiti-inspired art direction, and generations of characters both new and old, it’s a perfect storm of creative decisions that will hopefully help rejuvenate the fighting game community for years to come. Grab a controller, or preferably a fight stick, because it’s time to begin training to be the next world warrior. Read the full review here.

There’s an interesting thing about gaming that sets it apart from other forms of entertainment: It’s still a young medium. While the Martin Scorseses and Paul McCartneys of the world already had generations of icons to pull from, we’re just now entering the stage of the gaming industry’s lifespan where a new generation is stepping up to take up the mantle from icons like Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto. That transition is evident now in modern games, many of which are paying homage to a bygone era and beginning to forge something new.

It’s that generational synthesis that makes Super Mario Bros. Wonder something to behold. At its core, it plays like a traditional 2D Mario sidescroller, but quickly becomes something more. It sets the rules, then breaks them, over and over, in an increasingly mad dash through the looking glass. The first Mario game to take heavy input from the new wave of creatives at Nintendo, under the watchful eye of veteran producer Takashi Tezuka, it feels like an amalgamation of what people who grew up playing Mario want Mario to be. Wringing every ounce of power out of the now fading Switch, it’s a visual feast that presents the iconic plumber not as a polygonal facsimile of his former pixelated self, but as a fully realized character that feels like the first cover of Nintendo Power come to life.

If the overarching theme of the state of gaming in 2023 is “old meets new,” no game better exemplifies to motif than Final Fantasy XVI. For a series with no mainline continuity, perpetually reinventing itself to adapt to a shifting industry landscape, there’s something about Square Enix’s latest that just feels like Final Fantasy. Despite shifting away from RPG elements almost entirely into a more action-oriented focus, led by designer Ryota Suzuki (Devil May Cry 5), there’s a reverence to the fantasy element that’s unmistakable in its world and tone.

Heavily influenced by more Westernized fantasy media like Game of Thrones, the game focuses on the warring factions of Valisthea, with all the politicking, drama, and sex fans of that world might expect, paired with the headier themes and abstract postulating that defines Japanese RPGs. But in the seams, fans can see that it’s true to the series name. There’re giant crystals, chocobos, elemental summons, and elders named Cid. Even in menus, characters are represented not with sleek profile sheets, but pixel-perfect re-creations of what they’d look like in the SNES era. It’s hard not to wonder at times if this isn’t exactly what older gamers envisioned in their heads when they first picked up a controller for their own Final Fantasy in the cartridge days. Read the full review here.

Every few years a game arrives to continue pushing the cinematic nature of the medium forward, continually rivaling the storytelling capabilities of Hollywood and often going beyond. This year, that game is Alan Wake 2. The long-awaited sequel to 2010’s cult favorite, the game picks up 13 years after the events of the first game, and follows novelist Alan, who has been trapped in an alternate dimension. This time around, it also follows a deuteragonist, FBI agent Saga Anderson whom Alan is writing about as a character in a horror story as a means to escape his ethereal prison.

It’s all very heady, mind-bending stuff that makes for a deeply unnerving horror experience. Developer Remedy Entertainment have taken the Lynchian tone of the first game and married it with other influences like Silence of the Lambs and True Detective to create a serial thriller for the ages. Blending digital imagery with selective live-action sequences (Remedy’s house style), it seamlessly blurs the line between video game and playable movie in ways that make the Alan Wake series ripe for the next big-screen adaptation. But until then, delve into the unnerving mystery with controller in hand (and preferably a beefy set of headphones).

It’s impossible to have any Game of the Year discussion without having Baldur’s Gate 3 at the tip of your tongue. Developed by Larian Studios, it’s technically one of the biggest, most opulently produced indie games of all time (despite having AAA caliber resources behind it). It’s a sweeping epic, pulled from the pages of Dungeons & Dragons, that delivers an operatic, engrossing, player-choice driven odyssey unlike anything on the market.

But it’s not for everyone. It’s the sort of game that, despite the latter resurgence of tabletop gaming in pop culture, is simply too much for some. Too many choices, too many paths to follow, too many ways to build a character that you grow deeply attached to, then another, and another for the next couple of hundred hours of your life. Want to romance a bear? You can do it. Become a wheel of cheese? Yeah, why not? Your character can be one of 12 classes, divided further into 46 subclasses. You can play it over the shoulder or top down. Really, it can be anything you want it to be — you and a group of your closest friends, trading in the pen and paper for a roll of the digital die. In one of the most meticulously crafted, lavishly built games of this or any year in recent memory, “too much” is never enough. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game that people will be talking about for years to come. It’s best to get in now to become part of the conversation ahead.

It’s hard to articulate just how impressive a game The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom truly is. Built on the foundation of its successor, Breath of the Wild, it encompasses everything it that game and more. Just when you think you have an idea of what the game has to offer — a sprawling open world uncluttered by quest markers or copy/paste NPCs, a Minecraft-level crafting system that rewards creativity and a mock doctorate in engineering, an ever-unfurling fusion system that makes enemy eyeballs and jellies into weapons of war — it proceeds to show you something more. There are games within games in Tears of the Kingdom, and it runs on hardware outclassed by the phone in your pocket.

Nintendo’s greatest strength, that which kept it relevant in an industry where horsepower, networking, and cinematic scope have pushed gaming into the echelon of digital art, is its never-ending ability to reinvent. In a series literally predicated on the reincarnation cycle of an elf-eared hero combating a primordial evil, reinvention is key. The promise of Tears of the Kingdom is that, even if you think you know the legend, there’s always going to be more layers to discover. In a year where every corner of the industry brought their A-game, it takes something special to be the best. It takes The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom; it takes a perfect video game. Read the full review here.