[Editor’s Note: Authors were told to approach their game of the year lists however they wanted, including listing their favorite games they personally played this year regardless of release year.]
9. Anachronox (2001)
Perhaps my favorite forgotten game, Anachronox was the brain child of a team led by id Software alum Tom Hall, that took the Quake 2 engine and crammed into it the mechanics of a party-based JRPG and a deeply weird, original, and delightful universe. Every line of dialogue is clever to the point that being introduced with a room full of new people to talk to feels like a reward. No other game has companions as interesting as Democratus, a planet full of indecisive democrats who shrink their planet down to follow you around and shoot lasers, and El Puno, a washed up superhero who has to push past his alcoholism and depression to help save the world again.
8. Arx Fatalis (2002)
This is one of the games it’s taken me decades to come around to, but now I deeply love. Awkward and goofy at times, and deeply engaging at others, Arx Fatalis is basically a dungeon crawler in the tradition of older games like Ultima Underworld, with a surprisingly deep magic system and fun mechanics to poke at and utilize in clever ways to get ahead. Use the latest version of the Arx Libertatis mod to get it running on modern systems, and make sure “Alternate Rune Recognition” is on so the magic system is more fun than frustrating!
7. Deus Ex (2000)
Deus Ex is the game I replay in full every two years or so, and always find something new. Deus Ex was made when shows like the X Files were popular, and so depicted a world in which every popular conspiracy theory was, in some way, true. Some of it’s creators like Harvey Smith and Warren Spector would go on to pontificate on whether they’d make the game again, now that we live in a world where conspiracy theories are harmful and tear families apart, rather than are just seen as “kinda neat.”
6. Thief 2: The Metal Age (2000)
I always go back and forth on which of the original 2 Thief games are my favorite. Thief 1 is all over the place on what it asks of you – sometimes you’re breaking into a house or large complex to steal an important, and other times you’re basically tomb raiding. Thief 2, however, is more focused on the thieving. It knows, more consciously, what it is and what it wants to be. Both definitely have their merits, but as of my latest playthrough, Thief 2’s concentrated gameplay of meticulously picking and sleuthing through its large, charming maps has me most enthralled.
5. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Probably the most “AAA” game on this list, and worth talking about by being, in my opinion, the only good Star Wars content being released at the moment. The characters are great, the worlds are so much fun to dig through and figure out, and I’m excited to see where the stories go next.
4. Escape from Lavender Island
Don’t read or learn anything about this one. Just play it.
3. System Shock Remake (2023)
The original System Shock (1993) was one of the most enthralling games I got to watch my dad play as a kid. For almost two decades it was nearly impossible to play System Shock on modern hardware until Nightdive Studios released an “enhanced edition” in 2015, and soon after set out on making their own fully-realized remake. After years of production issues and delays, the game finally came out in 2023 and was, quite literally, everything I hoped it would be.
2. The Talos Principle 2
I don’t understand why this game is only 30 dollars. After the original The Talos Principle burst on the scene becoming, alongside Portal, as one of the great puzzle titles, Croteam toiled away for the rest of the decade on the (in my opinion) deeply disappointing and aimless Serious Sam 4. Talos 2, however, feels like where they’ve been putting all their attention over all that time. Croteam says that they priced Talos 2 as a budget title to make it more accessible to folks in a year with quite a few great other releases, but the game feels like it should be full-priced: the presentation and writing are gorgeous, and the puzzles make you feel like an idiot and a genius at the same time, as all puzzle games should do.
1. Alan Wake 2
In Control (2019), Remedy Entertainment returned to flesh out a world it had started building in Alan Wake (2010) but left off as a cliffhanger. Control’s second Story DLC turned out to be a back-door announcement for Alan Wake 2, and four years later we can finally play it. Alan Wake 2’s gameplay is a lot more horror-based than the original, sticking close to the gameplay formula used by Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space, but the story is what sets this apart. Control had a set piece set in an infinitely unfolding hotel which changed in sync with rock music, and Alan Wake 2 somehow outdoes that.
