Gamescom: The best video games of the year so far

Saga Anderson crouches before a sunset in Bright Falls, the initial setting for Alan Wake 2 — Image: Remedy Entertainment/Epic Games

2023’s momentum continues with fantastic sequels and mind-bending puzzles

I’m not sure I’ve ever had such a motley collection of video games in my immediate backlog.

There’s the whimsical and trippy platforming of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the serene open-world traversal of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, the mend-melting puzzles of Cocoon. None of this is to mention the games I’ve already finished that I’m dying to return to: Chants of Sennaar and Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew come to mind, but we all know how alluring the idea of that sixth character in Baldur’s Gate 3 can be. Just like Alex Casey, the hard-boiled detective of Alan Wake 2, finds, sometimes cliches are cliches for a reason: Right now, it feels like there’s a video game for everyone.

In fact, each time I leave the proverbial water cooler after recounting stories about drow wizards or Remedy Entertainment’s future plans, I seem to come away with three more games in my backlog. 2023 has been an embarrassment of riches across seemingly every genre, and it’s rarely been easier to recommend a game that might fall outside a friend’s wheelhouse.

So, as we play our way through this last gasp of fall releases, we’ve compiled Polygon’s favorite video games below, in the hopes that you’ll find that one last nudge toward a game you’ve been putting off, or even stumble across a gem you’ve never heard before. —Mike Mahardy

Alan Wake 2

Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X

Like any game from Remedy Entertainment, Alan Wake 2 is designed to be obsessed over.

From its twisting plot to its labyrinthine level design to its implications for the Remedy Connected Universe (Control nerds will find a lot to parse through here), Alan Wake 2 is a dreamlike survival-horror game that pulls from a plethora of obvious inspirations and, in the process, creates something wholly weird and new. It also takes several big design swings and knocks each one of them out of the park: two playable protagonists, each with their own storyline and world to explore; interactive 3D spaces that take the place of boring old menus; and a meta story that’s just as much about the original 2010 Alan Wake as it is about fandom, interactive art, storytelling, and Remedy itself.

It’s been 13 years since we first set foot in the surreal town of Bright Falls, Washington, and the sequel is worth every minute of that wait. Alan Wake 2 marks yet another daring outing from Remedy Entertainment, albeit with more resources than the bold studio has ever experimented with before. The result is a game unlike any other. —MM

Super Mario Bros. Wonder

Where to play: Nintendo Switch

The Super Mario Bros. games raised me. These games taught me how to play precision platformers — and when I got a Game Boy Advance SP, Super Mario Bros. 3 became a source of entertainment no matter where I went. While I’ve loved basically every contemporary iteration of Mario — Paper Mario games, Galaxy games, Odyssey — the 2D side-scrollers will always be the heart of the series for me.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is everything I could have asked for in a new series entry. It truly captures that sense of wonder with new gameplay mechanics — touch the Wonder Seed and the level becomes even more whimsical — enemy types, and delightful gimmicks. Every level is overflowing with ideas, and they’re all so joyful and just plain fun to play. With no more level timers, there’s freedom to find every nook and cranny — and savvy players will find hidden rooms and pathways, just like in the game’s mysterious, joyful progenitors. Nicole Clark

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Where to play: PlayStation 5

New York City is a vibrant metropolis of 8.5 million people who are always in a hurry to get somewhere and do something, a fact that seems like the primary design ethos of Spider-Man 2.

One of the many marvels (sorry) of Insomniac Games’ third Spidey game is that it throws a plethora of activities at you — there’s always a citizen to save, a collectible to hunt down, a science experiment to conduct, a roller coaster to ride, graffiti to spray-paint, an umpteenth upgrade currency to earn — yet it somehow never feels overwhelming or bloated. It’s a terrific Spider-Man simulator on a number of levels, including that meta layer: Peter Parker and Miles Morales, of course, are perpetually on the brink of being overwhelmed by the great responsibility that comes with their great power. He just like me fr!!!!, as the kids say.

Insomniac accomplishes this by smartly gating certain unlocks and activities behind story progression. And it harnesses the power of the PlayStation 5 hardware to remove much of the friction that exists in typical open-world games: When fast travel is effectively instantaneous thanks to the PS5’s speedy SSD, it’s easier than ever to swing by one more icon on your map before calling it a night. Speaking of which... thwip! —Samit Sarkar

Assassin’s Creed Mirage

Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X

Turns out, Assassin’s Creed only needed to go back 15 years to crack the code. Yes, Assassin’s Creed Mirage is nominally set in the 9th century, but it feels more like a creature of the late aughts than anything else.

Recent entries in Ubisoft’s history murder-sim series — Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla — were sprawling action-RPGs replete with stats and equipment and massive open worlds. While all were terrific in their own right, Assassin’s Creed has long been overdue for a return to form. By paring back, Mirage delivers.

Remember when Assassin’s Creed was actually about, y’know, assassins? In Mirage, eliminating your targets means gathering evidence, scoping out enemy bases, formulating a plan of attack, and attempting to enact that plan without getting discovered. When you do get caught, though, you don’t stand and fight. You run away, parkouring across rooftops (so 2000s) and looking for the nearest bale of hay to hide in. Like all good stealth games, Assassin’s Creed Mirage is less of an action game than it is a high-stakes puzzle game — which, for longtime series diehards, feels like home.

Also, it stars Shohreh Aghdashloo. —Ari Notis

Cocoon

Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X

There’s nothing more potent than the rush of solving a good puzzle. This is compounded when you learn a novel mechanic, or arrive at a revelation that makes you look at the game’s entire world in a new way, especially if the gameplay feels frictionless and inviting. I’m just conceited enough to admit that Cocoon’s puzzles are so slick and intuitive that playing it made me feel like a genius. Who doesn’t want that?

Cocoon mixes the concept of matryoshka dolls with excellent adventure and exploration elements — including well-tuned boss fights. It’s got an absolutely gorgeous art style to boot, mixing science fiction machinery with bugs, making metal feel alive in a way that just borders on the ick. Initially, it’s a game about carrying orbs around and putting them in the right places. But soon, that simple idea explodes, and it becomes so much more. I wish I could play this for the first time again. —N. Clark

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

A neon-lit pyramid-shaped building in Dogtown, the new district introduced in Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion.

Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X

Like the best DLC, Phantom Liberty does as much to expand on the base game as it does to reframe it. Alongside the sweeping Patch 2.0, which revamped Cyberpunk 2077’s role-playing progression systems, improved its enemy AI, and course-corrected a litany of other details, Phantom Liberty also adds a whole new district to the dystopian world of Night City, complete with its own spy-thriller storyline.

The resulting Cyberpunk 2077 is not an entirely different beast than the one that was released in 2020, but it is a more evolved one. It delivers on the promise of building a hacker-samurai in a neon-infused open world replete with futuristic heists, daunting choices, and striking characters. Phantom Liberty and Patch 2.0 may not completely erase the memory of CD Projekt’s initial botched release, but they come pretty damn close. Three years after we first set foot in V’s shoes, Cyberpunk 2077 has finally justified the hype. —M. Mahardy

Lies of P

Where to play: Mac, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X

Yes, Lies of P is a Dark Souls mixed with Pinocchio, and that’s a questionable elevator pitch from the outset.

In the years leading up to Lies of P, “Pinnocchiosouls” was more of a running joke than anything — this profane idea that you can take any world and slap some Dark Souls into it to get people mildly interested. But once you’re in the game, eliminating bosses left and right with your sweet parry moves, you’ll quickly find yourself entirely unbothered by how strange Lies of P initially seemed. And you’ll start telling your partner things like “I have to go back to Geppetto to upgrade my puppet body” like it’s a perfectly normal task to assign yourself on a Tuesday afternoon.

It’s very rare for a Soulslike to ever feel like anything more than a knockoff — even when they’re decent fun, like The Surge. But the best compliment I can give Lies of P is that it feels like the genuine article, a FromSoftware game developed in an alternate dimension and somehow released in this one by mistake. But it wasn’t a mistake or luck that made Lies of P, and it wasn’t FromSoftware, either; it was a talented group of developers at Neowiz Games and Round8 Studio that took a tired genre, paired it with a bizarre IP, and knocked it out of the park. —Ryan Gilliam

Chants of Sennaar

Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One

In Chants of Sennaar you climb up a kind of Tower of Babel, and your job is to decipher the distinct language each group of people speaks, eventually aiming to translate fluidly from one language to another. You do so by matching pictographic symbols — the characters for each language — to images of the nouns, actions, and concepts in a large dictionary-style book.

It sounds complicated, but it’s wonderfully fun because the mechanics are so simple. You explore the isometric world — which is rendered in a gorgeous cel-shaded style — witnessing interactions between cultures and attempting to puzzle out the meaning of their written words. The game parcels out words for you to assign meaning to in little packets, to avoid overwhelming you. By the end, you’ll have translated numerous languages, and scaled your way to the top of the tower. Perhaps you’ll even change the tower itself. —N. Clark

Sea of Stars

Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X

Sea of Stars is a delightful role-playing game from the makers of The Messenger, Sabotage Studio, and it serves as a reminder of the glory days of the turn-based, pixel-art RPG. Some have compared it to beloved games like Chrono Trigger, but for me, it reminds me of one of my favorite games from childhood: Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga for Game Boy Advance.

That’s part of the charm of Sea of Stars. It’s confident in both its identity and also where it draws on its influences. So whether it’s your first turn-based RPG (in which case it offers some fabulous difficulty toggles) or it’s taking you back to the Super Nintendo halcyon days, it feels crafted for you.

Sea of Stars is a total package for an indie RPG. It looks great, it sounds great, it feels great, and it’s got charming characters that I actually enjoy spending time with. It reminds me of my childhood, sure, but it also makes the kind of lasting impression that ensures it’ll be some new kid’s Mario & Luigi — the turn-based RPG standard by which they measure all future games. —RG

Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon

Where to play: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X

After a decade-long break from the Armored Core franchise, during which its members became hitmakers with games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring, developer FromSoftware has returned to hardcore mech action with Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon. Linear in structure and devoid of the unique multiplayer mechanics of the Souls games, Armored Core 6 is still decidedly a FromSoft game: incredibly demanding, both in difficulty and in asking the player to meet it on its own terms.

Armored Core 6, like the Souls games, is about failure and perseverance. You are sent out on missions on a contested alien world, battling powerful, heavy metal machines with your ever-evolving mech. A failed mission sends players back to their garage, where they can experiment with new builds of their mech (AC) to outfit themselves with a variety of weapons and body parts, hopefully eking out a win with a new set of strategies.

Unlike the Souls series, Armored Core 6 is less about player freedom in a fully realized open world. As a faceless, (mostly) nameless mercenary, you are told where to go and whom to kill. The game’s mission-based storyline will play out the same for all players — right up until you reach Armored Core 6’s new game plus (and beyond), where the story unfolds in new and more intriguing ways. That requires even more determination, of course, but like FromSoft’s other games, the climb is more than worth the view from the top. —Michael McWhertor

Baldur’s Gate 3

Where to play: PlayStation 5 and Windows PC

It’s impossible to capture the limitless possibilities of tabletop role-playing in a video game, but Baldur’s Gate 3 certainly pushes it farther than anything before it.

Larian Studios’ sprawling RPG offers dozens upon dozens of possibilities, seemingly small choices that ripple into greater effects. There is so much within the game that there is a huge amount of pressure to explore every single area and finish every single quest. But the beauty of Baldur’s Gate 3 is that it’s impossible to do everything in just one playthrough, or two, or three. The game invites replays, encouraging players to experience the same battles and areas through the eyes of different character builds and party combinations. A lawful Paladin isn’t necessarily going to delve into the deep arcane secrets of a random basement the same way that a chaotic Sorcerer might want to, just as a drow might be more aligned to side with Minthara than with Halsin.

Part of the reason I love playing choice-driven RPGs is because of the storytelling potential. I like to build my main character’s story along with the game, spinning up my own personal lore and mythos for how they interact with the world and the main plot. I recognize that video games will always have to impose some limits, be it preset last names or origin stories, but Baldur’s Gate 3 lets me have free rein over so much, yet still take into account my particular choices and interactions. It’s everything I’ve been looking for in a game, and I’m looking forward to replaying it over and over again. —Petrana Radulovic

Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew

Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X

Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew may very well be the most bittersweet entry on this list. It is, for my money, one of the best games to be released in 2023. It is also the swan song of Mimimi Games, one of the most underappreciated studios making games throughout the last decade. Mimimi announced its planned closure only two weeks after releasing its final game. This makes The Cursed Crew its swan song. It is also the team’s magnum opus.

Set in a tropical world of zombie pirates, religious fanatics, and talking ships, The Cursed Crew sees you traveling freely across an archipelago as you revive your undead crew, deploy them on dioramic worlds constituting some of the finest level design in video games to date, and dispatching enemies with a mixture of tactical stealth and supernatural abilities. Taken at a distance, this mixture is undeniably niche. But seen up close, The Cursed Crew is as potent a creation as we’ve seen since 2016’s Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun or 2020’s Desperados 3, which respectively established and cemented the studio’s brilliant design chops. I’ll miss Mimimi — but I can’t imagine a better farewell. —M. Mahardy

Venba

Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X

I don’t love to cook. For me, it’s more a necessity than anything else. So it’s not often that a piece of media — or anything, really — leaves me with the feeling that I need to make something, to spend time in the kitchen reveling in the tedium of chopping and the sizzle of onions frying.

Venba elicited that urge, reminding me that food is not just something to keep me alive, but something to be cherished. Venba is a cooking game that focuses on an immigrant family that’s moved from India to Canada. Food transcends the story by way of simple cooking minigames as I move through the chapters of main character Venba’s life — moments that switch between painful and heartwarming. Venba packs as much heart in its one-hour playtime as games 30 times its size. —Nicole Carpenter

Pikmin 4

Where to play: Nintendo Switch

Has any game so effectively captured the thrill of chasing 100% efficiency, something that may or may not even exist?

Pikmin 4 is based on the Japanese concept of dandori, “the art of organizing your tasks strategically and working with maximum efficiency to execute your plans quickly.” You gather, grow, harvest, and command a slew of multifarious Pikmin on a strange planet (which looks a whole lot like Earth) in your efforts to, well, collect things. Sometimes this means building bridges. Other times it means fighting terrifying creatures. Other times it means launching a handful of blue Pikmin into a pond in order to freeze it, before your dog Oatchi pulls a giant artifact across it, all while another group of Pikmin gathers building materials across the map. Whether or not 100% efficiency truly exists, Pikmin 4 is a meditative marvel about the joy of chasing said maximum productivity, and it’s a game about the hours that melt away while you’re engaged in that chase. —M. Mahardy

Viewfinder

Where to play: PlayStation 5 and Windows PC

At the heart of Viewfinder is a magic trick that never gets old: You take a photo of the environment and paste that perspective into the game world to create a bridge or reveal a needed trinket. The experience of seeing reality distorted by your hands so easily is nearly on the level of thinking with Portals for the first time. You’ll ponder a solution for minutes, sure it’s impossible and that the developers must have made a mistake, before you’re struck by a eureka moment like a lightning bolt.

The game’s lesson on perspective extends to its narrative, which, much like the photos you use to manipulate the world, contains multitudes. Though it’s told in fairly typical video game-y audio monologues that you uncover from the game’s trippy environments, the journey is powerful and topical. Just as differing perspectives can allow for unique solutions, they can also obscure truths that lead us to deny the reality that’s right in front of us. —Clayton Ashley

Hitman World of Assassination: Freelancer mode

Agent 47 holds an automatic shotgun and stands in front of the campaign map in his safehouse in Hitman World of Assassination’s Freelancer mode

Where to play: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X

Hitman World of Assassination’s Freelancer mode, which debuted in January and puts a roguelike twist on Agent 47’s globe-trotting murder-for-hire missions, isn’t for the faint of heart. It demands constant improvisation, to a degree that can challenge even veteran Hitman players. Repeated failures can make it feel more frustrating than fun.

But as every fan of roguelikes knows, these high-stakes experiences have the capacity to deliver a sense of exhilaration like nothing else. Pulling off multiple daring kills, hiding the evidence (or going out with a bang), and trying to make it out alive with all the gear you brought into the mission — it’s tense and thrilling, every time.

Every move you make could be your last one; all it takes to ruin a flawless run is a single ill-considered plan, just one seemingly minor slip-up. With the abyss of failure forever yawning beneath 47, playing Hitman Freelancer can feel like tiptoeing along the top of a barbed-wire fence. The exultation of safely making it to the final exfiltration point, having defeated a crime syndicate after completing a lengthy series of dangerous missions, is a high I’ll keep chasing again and again. —SS

Final Fantasy 16

Where to play: PlayStation 5

Final Fantasy 16 kicks ass. The newest mainline entry in the long, winding series takes you on a lavish, unadulterated Game of Thrones-esque adventure. You play as a broody Clive Rosfield, a young man whose life’s work is to protect his little brother, Joshua. The story begins when Clive’s life takes a turn for the worse and he vows to destroy the monster who ruined his and his family’s legacy.

Developed by Creative Business Unit III, Square Enix’s internal team behind the MMORPG Final Fantasy 14, 16 leans into patchwork territories of fantasy genre fare. There is palace intrigue, a whole lot of sex, and endless war between nations. But the developers then sprinkle in Final Fantasy elements like mother crystals, dazzling kaiju fights between summons (known as Eikons in this iteration), and of course, Chocobos.

The quality of the story in this long and linear character-driven RPG waxes and wanes, but the action combat is among the best I’ve ever played. The gameplay grips you from the very beginning as Clive smoothly dashes, parries, and swings his giant sword and varied magic with a dazzling amount of style. The gameplay didn’t just help me stick with the game, but instead allowed my excitement to bubble over every time I took on a new mission. —Ana Diaz

Dave the Diver

Where to play: Nintendo Switch and Windows PC

You could describe Dave the Diver as a fishing game and a restaurant management simulator, and that’d be correct. But that would also be underselling the game, and understating things quite a lot.

Diving into the mysterious Blue Hole, Dave spends the first two quarters of his day swimming deeper into the colorful abyss, discovering both sea life and a story that’s equally absurd and earnest. When you’re not picking up sea urchins or spearfishing sharks, Dave is assisting the rest of Dave the Diver’s cast of characters — his sushi business partners, a community of seafolk, an anime-obsessed weapons expert, and a pair of dolphins. At night, Dave slings sushi and pours drinks at the restaurant, frantically running back and forth between clearing dishes, delivering sushi, and refilling the freshly ground wasabi. Between all that, Dave’s harvesting rice and vegetables on a farm, curating a hatchery, racing seahorses with mermaids, and taking down a suspicious group masquerading as environmental activists. Somehow, there’s even a well-done rhythm video game — starring one of those anime idols that the arms dealer loves — that makes perfect sense.

It really shouldn’t work; I can’t imagine another game where all these disparate ideas coalesce so seamlessly. But Dave the Diver would feel less complete without any one of them. It makes for such a compelling loop, and a consistent advancement of the game’s story, that I kept finding myself in that “one more day” mindset, eager to jump back into the ocean for one more go. —N. Carpenter

Battlebit Remastered

A first person perspective of a helicopter cockpit, looking down at a boggy field

Where to play: Windows PC

Battlebit Remastered takes the spirit of the Battlefield series at its very best. The 127-versus-127 combat sandbox sits happily between Arma and Call of Duty, plucking bits from each. Sim elements like detailed bullet-drop models, functional scope zeroing, and multiple reload styles contrast with arcade-y allowances like infinite sprint, easy revives, and vehicular hijinks.

The game’s small dev team has clearly prioritized feel and function over aesthetics, and for the most part, it works. When you’re desperately defending a capture point with your squad or speeding over rough terrain in a smoking truck, it’s easy to look past the super lo-fi graphics. But there are times when flat colors and textureless expanses can make the battlefield hard to parse.

Battlebit Remastered is still in development, and I hope we’ll continue to see the visuals and audio tuned up in the coming months. I’m not too worried, though. Even in its scrappy, blocky state, it might be the best Battlefield game of the decade. —Pat Gill

Diablo 4

Where to play: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X

With Diablo 4, Blizzard Entertainment set out to marry the frenetic action of Diablo 3, the deep RPG systems of Diablo 2, and the dark tone of the original game. It was an ambitious promise to be sure, but four years and a whole pandemic after the studio announced the long-awaited sequel at BlizzCon 2019, it’s here, and it’s fantastic.

But Diablo 4’s marriage of tone, action, and role-playing isn’t what makes it so good. In addition to all of those other things, Diablo 4 is the best launch we’ve seen for a new “living game” in recent memory.

With the likes of Destiny, Anthem, and even Diablo 3, it was clear from the start that there were some nuggets of potential. But being a fan meant slogging through mountains of frustration just to taste a morsel of what you’d hope those games would become. Playing these games early on was a kind of gamble.

Diablo 4, however, is unlike any of those projects, because its systems are already deep and nuanced enough to spend hundreds of hours growing your character. And there is already loads of content to support that kind of time investment.

With multiple expansions in the works already, Blizzard Entertainment finds itself in almost uncharted territory. When the first expansion for a living game isn’t merely righting the ship, what potential does it hold? It’s a question made even more enticing by the fact that Diablo 4 could never see a single expansion and it would still be a best-in-class ARPG. —RG

Amnesia: The Bunker

Where to play: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X

If only one developer could be said to have a master’s grasp on interactive horror, I’d have to tip my hat to Frictional Games. The Amnesia series has always been a thrill ride of terrifying chases and the quiet, a little too quiet, moments that build up tension between. Amnesia: The Bunker is no different. In fact, it’s one of Frictional’s best.

Set in a seemingly abandoned bunker that’s been sealed by explosions during World War I, your simple yet difficult task is to find an exit. This being a horror game, though, you also have to collect fuel for the bunker’s generator — a veritable beating heart — and scrutinize maps on safe room walls, before venturing into the titular structure’s labyrinthine bowels. Oh, also! There’s a monster hunting you. And it can ambush you from wall vents. And it’s attracted to even the slightest bit of sound. And whether you’re juicing your hand-cranked flashlight, triggering long-forgotten tripwires, or just opening a heavy door into yet another concrete-encased corridor, you’re going to have to make noise at some point. The Bunker is as potent in its terror as any horror video game out there. —M. Mahardy

Super Mega Baseball 4

Where to play: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X

More than 200 real-life ballplayers join the roster of Super Mega Baseball 4, Metalhead’s delightful, arcade-style presentation of the National Pastime. Fans need not worry: Everything that has made the Super Mega Baseball franchise a hit for the past decade is still here, namely the rock-solid gameplay, deep and long-tail season modes, and a dry sense of humor found in everything from the teams’ nicknames to the ads on the outfield walls.

Sports fans who pine for the days, 20 years ago, when they had multiple video game options for any of their favorite sports — especially arcade titles — will feel like they’ve gone back in time. Super Mega Baseball 4 may not be licensed by the major leagues, but it doesn’t need to be: It’s the essence of a very fun sport, and that means a lot more than any branding. —Owen Good

Street Fighter 6

Where to play: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X

If I were in the “making fighting games” biz, I would not want to follow Street Fighter 6. Historically, fighting games haven’t had to be feature-rich media experiences. It seems like the majority of development effort goes into designing the systems, balancing characters, and everything that happens between “Fight” and “K.O.” While that approach has served the core audience of fighting game diehards, it hasn’t created the best on-ramp for new players, or people who just want to play differently.

And that’s where Street Fighter 6 sings. The game is overflowing with stuff and love. There’s a lengthy open-world-RPG-esque story mode where your self-insert create-a-character pals around with the iconic World Warriors. The campaign drip-feeds you new tools and mechanics, teaching you fighting game fundamentals through goofy scenarios.

That joyous abundance of character extends to every little bit of the game. Lovingly rendered idle animations on the character-select screen transition into bravura entrances. The character-specific tutorial modules are written in that fighter’s voice. The stages are gorgeous and full of cute details and Easter eggs.

Jam all of that joy into a package with compelling mechanics, an industry-leading training mode, and excellent netplay, and you’ve got one of the best, most accessible fighting games ever. —PG

System Shock

Where to play: Windows PC

In a year of several stellar remakes and immersive sims, it wouldn’t have been surprising if System Shock showed its age of nearly 30 years. At least, it would have been understandable if the changes needed to update the game would leave it nigh unrecognizable. That’s why Nightdive Studios’ accomplish is so impressive: It updated the 1994 classic with a slick coat of modern paint while also preserving what made the game so thrilling in the first place.

The element where that’s most evident is in the game’s look, which captures all of the original System Shock’s garish cyberpunk neons and frightening enemies in a style that appears like a modern high-fidelity game at a distance, but subtly transforms into retro pixel bitmaps on closer inspection. In much the same way, the gameplay feels surprisingly modern at a distance, but on closer inspection, you start to see how this proto-immersive sim is actually what inspired so much modern game design. You have to rely on your own curiosity, caution, and cunning to navigate the halls of Citadel Station and upgrade your hacker into a cybernetic death machine. It’s a game that expects a lot from the player (and a little save scumming), but the experience is just as rewarding as it was in 1994. —CA

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Where to play: Nintendo Switch

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom had massive shoes to fill, and somehow, it not only filled them, but managed to tread new ground. Its predecessor, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, went down in history as one of the most influential games in open-world design. Now we know that Breath of the Wild was just the first draft of an adventure that would be so much bigger.

Tears of the Kingdom gives you the freedom and tools to tinker your way through Hyrule. Now, with Link’s new powers, you can build a wide array of contraptions to help Link traverse the wilderness. His Ultrahand power allows you to “glue” a vast array of materials together, while Fuse lets you craft weapons out of the most unlikely combinations of items. Fans have used these abilities to build everything from maniacal torture devices to fully functional war machines. Memes aside, these contraptions show what an absolute marvel Tears of the Kingdom is. Whereas it’s fun for many players to merely mess around, developers have said that even a simple bridge in the game is a development miracle.

These astounding mechanics guide you through a world that’s both strange and familiar at the same time. Hyrule has experienced an upheaval, and the mainland we got to know in Breath of the Wild is dotted with new settlements and archeological wonders. Additionally, you explore two entirely new layers of the map — one above and one below Hyrule — adding even more mystery and wonder to the wilderness Nintendo first unveiled in 2017. At the end of the day, this new world and Link’s new powers all contribute to an emotionally charged time-travel narrative between Link, Princess Zelda, and even Ganondorf. Taken together, these elements make Tears of the Kingdom one of the best games of 2023. —AD

Laya’s Horizon

Where to play: Android and iOS with a Netflix subscription

Remember Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey? Their developer, Snowman, made a spiritual follow-up, except this time it’s a 3D open-world game. And it rules. Laya’s Horizon takes my favorite bits of Steep, Riders Republic, and the Alto’s games (read: moving extremely fast down tall cliffs to chill music) and tosses away practically everything else. Your goal is simply to glide down a mountain and land at the shore. Along the way, you can complete some light objectives (like playing tag with a bird or racing a crew of fellow gliders) or you can just enjoy the feeling of virtual wind in your hair.

Laya’s Horizon didn’t make a big splash when it launched in May, but here’s the thing: If you have a Netflix subscription, the game is basically free. Download it on iOS or Android, sign in with your account, and you’re all set to wingsuit away your weekend. —Chris Plante

Age of Wonders 4

Where to play: Windows PC

As Alexis Ong wrote in our Age of Wonders 4 review, “the real magic of 4X games lies in watching shit happen.” And in Age of Wonders 4, a lot of shit happens.

Resting somewhere between the empire-building of the Civilization series and the emergent storytelling of Crusader Kings 3, Age of Wonders 4 lets you build your own high-fantasy race from the ground up, gradually flesh out its beliefs, rituals, ideals, and laws, and watch as a complex web of systems either reinforces those pillars or, more than likely, morphs them all into something unrecognizable. You can found new cities, explore natural wonders, and deploy your armies in shows of militaristic might, but the true joy in Age of Wonders 4 comes from comparing the civilization you wanted to build at the outset with the one that emerged as a result of circumstance. My crusading Toadkin may have had holy wars on their mind when they first set foot on the world’s stage, but by the end of my failed campaign, they had become stauncher pacifists than any of their neighbors. And I loved every second of the transformation. —M. Mahardy

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X

Is Star Wars Jedi: Survivor an Empire Strikes Back level of sequel? Well, no, but it manages to get extraordinarily close to being one of the best follow-ups in the entire Star Wars franchise.

The game improves upon Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order in every conceivable way, with a more entertaining, action-oriented start and a ton of aerial movements and lightsaber stances that make you feel even more like a seasoned Jedi Knight. Quality-of-life improvements like fast travel make the game less frustrating to play, while the new locales packed with hidden collectibles and upgrades makes exploration more rewarding.

But what makes Jedi: Survivor truly special isn’t this crude matter, but its luminous heart. You feel it in the memorable characters you meet on your galactic journey, be it the people you help or the friendships you forge and reconcile with. It’s in the classic, crowded cantina where you actually want to go check in with the barkeep. It’s in the tactile, reverent way you craft your lightsaber. And it’s in the kinetic set-pieces that remind you of the serials Star Wars was originally inspired by. At its best, y

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