Video games are the ultimate escapist fantasy. They pull you from struggle, and invite you to deeper worlds – innovative, beautiful, horrific, and delightful by design. While the games industry itself was denied this escape in 2024, in a year of great hardship defined by layoffs, studio closures, and corporate greed, brilliant games still launched in defiance of this gloom.
We should celebrate the achievements of the developers who worked so hard to make that happen, and to help us all through a difficult year. In 2024, we saw a raft of fantastic games releasing across multiple platforms: PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, Mobile, and PC. Bringing them all together in this listicle, the GamesHub team has whittled down our favourites, to highlight the games we most appreciated in 2024.
These are the games that brought us emotional catharsis. They inspired us to weep over virtual characters, experience delight in its purest form, and grasp deeper questions about life, love, and staying together.
These are GamesHub’s top ten best games of 2024.
Table of Contents
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
After a decade of waiting, Dragon Age: The Veilguard had an incredibly steep curve of hopes and expectations to meet. While sentiment has been mixed, as a diehard fan of the series, I thoroughly enjoyed being thrown back into the world of Thedas.
Read: Dragon Age: The Veilguard review – Worth the decade of longing
My Lucanis-romancing, shortsword-whirling, wise-cracking Rook provided some much-needed entertainment at a very stressful time of the year, and for that, it will have a safe place in my heart (even if some of the game’s events utterly broke it). I’m fine, but Bioware I just wanna talk. – Steph Panecasio
Astro Bot
Astro Bot is just absolutely delightful, any way you look at it. From the game’s cutesy PlayStation aesthetic, to its gameplay mechanics, it embodies pure joy – and this is repeated tenfold with every new level, and every new world. In all the best ways, Astro Bot is a throwback to a purer time in gaming, when the video game mascot was king. There’s a reason there’s such nostalgia for this era – folks will always crave its simplicity, beauty, and care-free fun.
Read: Astro Bot review – Pure bottled joy for these dark times
Astro Bot leans into this sense of play heavily, borrowing from the best games of the classic platformer genre for something that is nostalgic yet innovative. It shines incredibly brightly, immediately captures your attention, and transports you into a bouncy, light-hearted world of brilliance. – Leah J. Williams
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth tells a grand and ambitious story that weaves threads from the original Final Fantasy 7 into new shapes, enhancing as it goes. There’s new friends to find in your quest, more story pieces to put together, and everywhere you look, beautiful vistas of hidden secrets. In its looser approach to telling the FF7 story, Square Enix imbued this game with a dreamlike quality. It asks so many questions with few answers, trailing intrigue in its wake.
Read: Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth – Review
As a middle chapter, it does bear the weight of a slower pace, and a need to assemble chess pieces for a devastating finale, but it does so with aplomb. On the strength of its narrative, its well-realised characters, and its sheer beauty, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a phenomenal adventure. – Leah J. Williams
Conscript
Conscript is an absolutely brutal work of art that dives deep into the nature of war, and its impact on psychology. Taking cues from Resident Evil and Silent Hill, it focuses largely on the horror of being a lone soldier, and in doing so, paints a realistic portrait of history. Too often, war games glorify battles, and paint soldiers as heroes. Conscript rejects that narrative entirely, for an impactful game that feels so needed.
Read: Conscript review – Reflecting war as real-life survival horror
Not only is Conscript impressive for its subject matter and how it’s handled, it’s also worth noting this is the creation of Australian-based solo developer Jordan Mochi, who worked on the game over a number of years. It’s an incredible achievement, and one that deserves to be applauded. Equally, Conscript deserves to be played. It’s one of the best games of 2024, and it’s as memorable as it is horrific. – Leah J. Williams
The Plucky Squire
The Plucky Squire, the debut title from All Possible Futures, is a real marvel. It’s brimming with cool, novel ideas and endearing characters, and made even sweeter by its innovative puzzles and creativity. There’s so many layers to this adventure. You’re roaming across story book pages. You’re leaping out of those pages, into the real world. You’re jumping into wordplay, taking part in rocket mini-games, playing a version of Magic: The Gathering. There’s so many elements here, and they’re all fantastic.
Read: The Plucky Squire review – A real page-turner
Across multiple chapters, protagonist Jot and his friends take on all manner of challenges, with each being more different and ambitious than the last. It makes The Plucky Squire a smorgasbord of cool ideas, all tied with a neat art style, a snappy story about persevering, and a wonderful message of embracing your inner joy.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
The Indiana Jones franchise holds an incredibly special place in my heart, so it’s safe to say that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle had a lot to live up to. I was apprehensive going in, but my fears were allayed – it captures the essence of Indiana Jones in a genuinely enjoyable, rollicking ride, and it feels so satisfying to trudge through sand, jungle and rooftops in Indy’s well-worn shoes.
Read: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review – As Indy as it comes
The feel and energy of this game is exactly the right balance of light and shade, legacy and freshness. I can’t wait to make my Dad (a retired history professor and Indiana Jones tragic) sit down and play it with me over the break. It’s absolutely one of the best games of the year, and he’s going to lose his mind. – Steph Panecasio
Neva
Are you prepared to have your heart captured and subsequently held hostage for a few hours? Neva is an earth-shatteringly emotional game with an art style so stunning that it’s my personal favourite for Best Art Direction at The Game Awards this year.
Read: TGA nominee Neva is an underrated gem you need to play
Simple block colours make up the majority of the action, giving way to pastel watercolour painted vistas which are just so tastefully done. I’m confident that if you give it a chance, Neva will tug on your heartstrings, sweep you away with the music, and give you a slice of something truly beautiful. – Steph Panecasio
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
While it can be divisive to include DLC in a Best Games of the Year list, I think it’s reasonable to say Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is comprehensive and engaging enough to merit the inclusion. It’s a magnificent piece of art, and does exactly what a great DLC should: it accents the main game, without feeling out of balance with the original’s level of flash, flair, and creativity.
Read: Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree review – Raising an impossible bar
Shadow of the Erdtree is also just genuinely really enjoyable, especially if you love a challenge. From the character and enemy design, through to the degree of difficulty, it feels fine-tuned in exactly the right way. – Steph Panecasio
Harold Halibut
Harold Halibut is a wonderful rumination on the state of life, and the nature of seeking purpose. As Harold, the audience is invited into relative mundanity that is soon disrupted by the arrival of something other. What follows is a thoughtful tale about stepping out of your shell, and touching the real world.
Read: Harold Halibut review – Life in clay and technicolour
Beyond being beautiful in narrative and meaning, Harold Halibut is also beautiful in aesthetic. The entire world of the game is handcrafted from clay and other materials which are 3D scanned in, making every scene look and feel handmade. With each new quest, more colour and delight comes to the fore, highlighting Harold Halibut as one of the most evocative games of the year. – Leah J. Williams
Balatro
It’s the runaway hit that nobody saw coming, and everyone is playing. Balatro is a roguelike deckbuilder that is both a time-sink of the highest order (and we mean this as a compliment), and one of the most impressively sharp games we’ve seen in a while. – Steph Panecasio
Read: Balatro is pushing the roguelike deckbuilder to new territory
In their review, Nidula Geeganage said, “The innovations of Balatro are designed with an impressively cohesive intentionality; deftly balancing new ideas, depth, and player comprehension, while conveying its own distinctive player fantasy. With such artful design, the game’s success is not only well-deserved but also a boon to players – the genre has received yet another entry to its hall of fame.”
Check out the rest of GamesHub’s Best Games of the Year (GOTY) lists:
