2024 has been a really rough year for game releases that interested me. 2023 is my favourite year for gaming so far with 2025 looking to be somehow even bigger after the rocky patch that I consider this year to have been. As far as I’m concerned there’s not been anything new that has made me really enjoy gaming, which is why I spent all my time replaying old favourites rather than pursuing new releases.

These five games listed below are the best I’ve played, although none would have cracked the top ten if they released last year. Nevertheless, it hasn’t been all disappointment and mediocrity in 2024, as the below games will attempt to demonstrate.

5) The Inquisitor

Any game brave enough to delve into a fictional representation of religion deserves to be rewarded as far as I am concerned. The experience and dialogue that I witnessed contained a decent amount of appeal which made me almost appreciate it during my brief time playing. Unfortunately I couldn’t face finishing the game as it plays like a mid 2000’s attempt at game design, somewhat explained by the fact it’s the first non-mobile game made by its developer.

The premise is you play as the titular Inquisitor sent to a European town to hunt down a vampire. In this universe, Jesus did not die on the cross and instead wreaked havoc across those who had crossed him. This allowed him to raise the church into the world’s first globally feared superpower, of which you are essentially a police officer / middle manager who acts with absolute impunity. I love everything about that concept, especially because I spent time with the nuns myself as I attended Catholic school as a child. Vampires are less formidable, even if none ever showed up during my hours with The Inquisitor.

This game trips over and ultimately ruins itself by having forced stealth sections which soured the already minimal experience for me. It was upon starting the fifth in only a handful of hours, and Googling to see if there were many more after that (yes) that I packed in playing altogether. To be blunt, if it wasn’t for the interesting setting, these stealth sections against literal nondescript otherworldly ghosts would entice me to name The Inquisitor as the worst game of the year. That’s the level of quality we’re dealing with. Credit where it’s due for a mildly interesting premise for a story but I’ll never think about The Inquisitor again when 2025 gets here.

4) Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn

Flintlock is a Soulslike game with an easy mode. There; that’s why I like it. It is a concept that players have been asking for for ages and now we have it. Does it work? Not really, but whilst the gameplay experience does suffer from a lack of challenge I do have to appreciate the fact that they bothered to put this mode in. I’ll stop asking for an easy mode in Soulslikes from now on.

For the record; the title isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds within the context of the game, as ‘Dawn’ is a place which is indeed under siege.

3) Black Myth: Wukong

While I didn’t spend a lot of time with Black Myth: Wukong, it’s safe to say I enjoyed nearly every minute of it. I have a temperamental attitude when it comes to difficulty spikes in games, so when I hit my first challenge roadblock during release week I stopped playing and haven’t been back since.

The game, while much more linear than originally expected, is undeniably gorgeous and very fun to play. The combat styles and relentless enemy variety kept me coming back again and again after almost every death, and I have every intention of returning to it the next time I get the Souls itch. Players will be quick to tell you that it’s not in fact a Soulslike, and is instead just a challenging action game. To that my only response is: What’s the fucking difference (don’t tell me, I don’t really care).

2) Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero

I came so close to naming Sparking Zero as my game of the year, but as soon as I realised 30 hours in that I was putting in all the effort for creating fun with it I just couldn’t give it the top spot. There’s a lot of things it does right, mainly tickling that nostalgic Dragonball Z itch which I’ve been missing for nearly two decades. Unfortunately I found the campaign varied wildly in difficulty from absolute cake walk to gruelling grossly unfair fights. That’s not to mention how it skips chunks of story assuming you’ve seen it all before, which you likely have, but I don’t like it when a game decides for me if it’s being boring.

I spent the bulk of my time creating my own match ups in the offline fight creator, which while fun, did mean I was the one making Sparking Zero function as a game that I paid money for.

The sound design and colour palette are exceptionally well optimised; I just wish as much attention had been afforded to the structure of the story mode. Far from a bad game, but I am left with the constant niggling doubt that it had the potential to be so much more.

And now for the top spot!

Game of 2024 – Astro Bot

While this game didn’t exactly blow me away when it released during the summer, I do have to concede that when it comes to the concept of creating a great video game, Astro Bot is by a significant margin the best game released in 2024.

The graphical quality and level design are peerless as far as I’m concerned for recent platformers; a thoroughly under utilised genre of games which seem to be making a comeback through the highly successful Astro Bot. I only got as far as finishing the fourth galaxy in the game but upon revisiting it while writing this list to see if it still strongly holds up, I can confidently confirm that it absolutely does.

I highly recommend Astro Bot to anyone who has a PlayStation 5 console, and it absolutely deserved to win game of the year at the game awards.

What were your favourite games that released this year? Did you play the games on this list? Did you play them even more than I did? Let me know in the comments, and for now, Happy New Year and I will catch you all in the bountiful looking 2025!

Written and edited by Alexx.

Liberty Lives in the Execution.