AJ’s Top Ten Games of 2024

Damn, the end of 2024 took off, didn’t it? I thought last year was pretty bad but it turns out that things can and will get worse. I mean, the games industry has continued its death spiral/downsizing with several thousands more people now unemployed while a lot of the big industry players reporting profits and aggressively expanding into new areas in the pursuit of constant growth.

At least we had a few high-profile flops that explained why people “had” to be let go; all the while people at the very top shook their heads in disbelief “How could this be happening… again?”

It is okay though, a rich South African tech oligarch, who is mainly successful because his dad owned an Esmerald mine during apartheid has said he’d like to make games great again… By using AI to make them. At this rate my top ten list of games for 2025 will be played with sticks and stones.  

That said, this year has been a shockingly good year. In 2023, I had a solid pick, but it was about deciding where I was going to position the games on my list rather than having to field which ones to remove. In 2024, of the 126 game I started this year (and the 50+ I rolled credits on) there were 18 genuine contenders for my top ten list. Now I know one person that will be relieved that Inquisitor got knocked off the list, but there were games like Space Marine II, Exhausted Man, and Predator: Hunting Grounds that slipped off as well. Even writing this part right now and staring at the list, I am trying to figure out an excuse to move Metal Slug Action Reloaded back on to the list. This year was just that strong for me.

Without a further ado, let’s get on with my top ten:

10. Little Kitty, Big City (review here)

Look, sometimes a game doesn’t have to be an emotional heavy hitter. All I need is to watch with satisfaction as a tiny kitty brushes up against a pedestrian and it causes them to drop their phone in surprise that; or the look of delighted amusement on a cat as they are escorted out of a store, held aloft, by a disgruntled store owner.

Sometimes all I want is a bite-sized open world, with a bite-sized protagonist, and that is enough.

9. Still Wakes the Deep (review here)

I am a prolific horror movie watcher, with very little that can perturb me. Horror games, however, are a different thing all together. I struggle to play them as I find them terrifying. Still Wakes the Deep managed to keep a hold on me due to the fantastic writing and pacing. Set on a lonely oil rig, the game takes advantage of the wet, claustrophobic interiors, and the wailing cold exteriors to pull out all the stops for scares. Rooting all this body horror and gore, is a central cast of characters that is voiced fantastically.

The review above goes into more detail but anyone who likes the idea of a Scottish The Thing must play this.

8. Cat’s Quest III (review here)

What if you were diminutive cat in an open world? Shit, already did that pitch.

Cat’s Quest III is good, not as good as Cat’s Quest II, but I think that one is the gold standard of accessible, but deep Action RPGs. There is no part of this game’s experience that I am able to detach from the warm feelings of playing this alongside my partner, which was a delight in itself. Enjoying a game because the person next to you is on the same wavelength is a core part of a couch co-op experience. This is pure comfort gaming with colourful worlds, tons of puns, and easy to learn/easy to master gameplay.

7. Wildermyth (review here)

Wildermyth is the prototype for one of my dream games – short RPG adventures that impact your character in subtle ways causing campaigns to progress and for them to accrue new weapons, quirks, friends, enemies and lovers. The art style is this disarming, simplistic papercraft fare that really works. The turn-based combat is excellent, and having others join in and play makes the stories richer as people make decisions that can break a playthrough in interesting ways.

I say prototype because each campaign is self-contained and connections and moments (outside of aesthetics) are not brought across from others. This was still one of the more interesting turn-based RPGs I’ve played recently.

6. Morbid: Lords of Ire (review here)

Still Running followed up their 2D Dark Souls game with a 3D version. What was impressive is how well they transitioned to that extra dimension. Instead of trying to up the graphical fidelity to an exorbitant amount, they delivered fantastic level design and direction instead. This is a game that has jagged edges and jarring mid200s graphics, but also moments of genuine breathtaking beauty. There is a moment near the end of the game where the protagonist walks through a grim, dripping dungeon only to come around a corner to behold a collapsed behemoth. The game might look like an early X360 game but the design was so good I had to take a screenshot. It would have been a great skybox, something to observe but not interact with, but then the game leads you into the creature’s mouth.

The gameplay is also incredibly tight with the weapons being limited in range but distinct in fashion that made me feel like I could choose my own tactics and those choices felt meaningful to the task at hand. More importantly I felt like I had to change up tactics for certain sections to adapt. There were dozens of unique encounters that I enjoyed figuring out and it would take a whole article to talk about them.

Lords of Ire is a masterclass in how to make a lo-fi game that shames a lot of its fancier peers.  

5. Ravenswatch (review here)

I love mystery dungeon games, more commonly known in the Europe and North America as Roguelikes (or Roguelites if there is stat-based meta progress). This year there has, like every year, been an excellent selection of experiences. What has been great to see is developers looking for more diverse approaches to what constitutes a mystery dungeon experience. Balatro and Metal Slug Tactics were both excellent spins on it (albeit Balatro feels like a refinement more than a variance). For me, Ravenswatch was my favourite. It plays like a Diablo Action RPG, but the aggressive way that it forces the player to engage with enemies due to the ever ticking time limit means that it is more frantic, more urgent, more… better.

There are 9 unlockable characters and each time I play with strangers I see different builds and strategies emerge as I unlock different skills. One run had me playing aggressively, another had me building a healer class, but in both cases I was playing with the same character.

The art style is fantastic, and the chaos that ensues on higher difficulties is its own challenge.

There are some connectivity and stability issues that have started to emerge during busier multiplayer playthroughs, but I am still loving this game and am still booting it up whenever I have the chance.

4. Nobody Wants to Die (review here)

I have just said that mystery dungeon games are amongst my favourite genre. My favourite type of game is one that surprises me, one that emerges with no real fanfare and no pre-built expectations and then proceeds to bowl me over. I didn’t even really understand what genre Nobody Wants to Die was supposed to be with the preview video looking just like Bioshock. Turns out it is really good walking simulator set in a cyber punk future where rich people can live forever by feeding off the poor. The story is well built, the world is believable, and it looks gorgeous. The payoff feels a little weak with the ending being quite abrupt, maybe trying to mimic cinematic inspirations like Chinatown (but showing how that doesn’t work in games), but the rest of the game is a must. The richness of the characters and the commitment to cyber-noir genre is unparalleled.

3. Indika (review here)

Another big surprise for me. It was Jamie’s review, linked above, that first sparked my interest (despite his downbeat feelings about it). This is a stunningly blunt look at faith, love and punishment. It follows a nun as she embarks on a journey steeped in magical realism where she will do things like witness a skewered man sink into a frozen river, explore a giant, oppressive, fish factory, and blunder through a looped room straight out of the movie Labyrinth (Indika fans please do not attack me for this, I am trying to refer to something that gamers might have heard of).

Its sensibilities are undoubtedly Art-house, with the script feeling like it was written by Jodorowsky and its scenes and colours harking to the Tarkovsky greats, what makes it all work is this undeniable sense of fatalistic humour. In the opening the game talks about how the nuns around the main character love her, because they are nuns, but really, if they are honest, the nuns find her deeply annoying. If that doesn’t make you laugh, then knocking all the chairs over that one nun has haphazardly stacked should.

Indika is truly unique in this media landscape, and well worth playing – I recommend playing it in Russian for the proper experience.

2. Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (review here)

The overworld in Kunitsu-Gami was a massive pain in the arse, which was unnecessarily fiddly. It tarnished an otherwise perfect game. I scored this game low because of it, but Kunitsu-Gami is something that my thoughts have returned to repeatedly since I finished my first playthrough. Part hack-and-slash, part tower defence, the game is brimming with Capcom game design inventiveness. This title should have been an afterthought for the big publisher, but I think it really shines. For those just intent on playing through an inventive, gorgeous-looking title it is feasible to just mainline most of the missions. For those looking to explore the game’s systems and cast of helpers there are additional challenges that will encourage exploring different tactics. The New Game+ isn’t just a ‘and now it is harder’ but actually unlocks additional challenges that had me rethinking these levels again.

For those with Game Pass, this should be a no brainer to give it a download and play.

I would try and make some kind of spurious claim like I did in 2023 about this being the best game Capcom released all year, but that would be a brazen fib.

1. Dragon’s Dogma II (review here)

The best game that Capcom released this year was a game that I never hoped to dream was ever going to happen. The original Dragon’s Dogma was responsible for me going on a drunken rant about it at bar, punctuated by many more beers. I then cycled home out of my mind and rode straight into the back of a stationary taxi.

Dragon’s Dogma II is superb, I was so excited about it that I booked a week off to play it. That week then ended up coinciding with the week that I quit my job and had to move continents. Each day was filled with some perfunctory packing and then hours and hours of playing it.

People have talked about it being as inaccessible and obtuse as the first one. I could have done with even more arcane moments in Dragon’s Dogma II – things were a little too streamlined in places where I would have appreciated a bit more friction. That said, the gloriously, implausibly, undeniably brilliant pawn system is back and infuses the AI companions with the kind of personality that made the first game great.

By the time March was over I was trying to imagine a game that was going to have the same impact on me as Dragon’s Dogma II, the end of the year has rolled around and nothing (except for another Capcom game) came close.

And now for a few stats.

I have a few personal stats and those from Xbox.com, if you want to look at your own end of year stats go here.

Xbox got right into shaming me.

I played way too much of a game that had a hateful community. And my Predecessor addiction came out of nowhere at the end of the year.

And those numbers show what a procrastinator I am. The numbers mean that I tried out a different game every 2 days. It tracks that Dragon’s Dogma II blew out my gaming numbers in March (even though it came out 8 days from the end of the month and I was supposed to be moving continents).

And these most played games are just bizarre, love it (RIP to the Illfonic team members impacted by the layoffs):

If you do the same thing, let me know if you have any fun stats!

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Written by
AJ Small is a games industry veteran, starting in QA back in 2004. He currently walks the earth in search of the tastiest/seediest drinking holes as part of his attempt to tell every single person on the planet that Speedball 2 and The Chaos Engine are the greatest games ever made. He can be found on twitter (@badgercommander), where he welcomes screenshots of Dreamcast games and talk about Mindjack, just don’t mention that one time he was in Canada.

2 Comments

  1. I kind of feel bad that I haven’t played any of those games!

    Reply
    • No need to feel bad! I want to know what your top ten games are though

      Reply

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