I am going to lower to the chase: 2024 has been an important 12 months for gaming. Simply take a look at the varied GOTY items that’ll be going up over this week and into the start of 2025: every of the writing group right here at VG247 has written three items – one about our precise GOTY, one about one thing that we really feel has been criminally under-rated over the previous 12 months, and one about one thing we’re actually trying ahead to within the new 12 months.
However there’s a price of residing disaster proper now. Most territories that play video video games are seeing residing prices rise and rise while wages stagnate. Video games are costly, they usually’re solely getting pricier.
With that in thoughts, I’ve requested the group to every write about one thing they have been taking part in this 12 months that is not really from this 12 months. Many people have chosen to write down about video games that we have picked up on a budget as a result of they’re getting on a bit, or downloaded as a part of a subscription service for the reason that writer has relaxed limitations on licensing for them since they’re exhibiting their age.
I feel it is vital to indicate some like to the backlog, particularly when many people cannot actually afford to choose up a brand new $70+ sport monthly. With that in thoughts, right here is the complete record of what VG247 has been taking part in in 2024 (that is not from 2024).
James Billcliffe remains to be taking part in… Frogwares
My most performed style this 12 months is Frogwares.
On the PlayStation Retailer, they promote bundles of The Sinking Metropolis, Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One and Sherlock Holmes: The Woke up for ridiculously low cost at any time when there’s a sale on. That equals 60-ish hours of gentlemanly intrigue, investigation and thriller.
As a set, it’s excellent: you get to play Cthulhu, then Sherlock Holmes, then Sherlock Holmes and Cthulhu – what extra may you need?
Frogwares video games are virtually faultless in idea if not execution – a pulpy combination of atmospheric role-playing and exploration that’s unbeatably cozy, even when the sport’s imagined to be spooky. These are good, old school video games: designed to be vibrant and bold and stunning and, above all, enjoyable – even when the extra technical points can’t match as much as some greater finances releases.
Due to the standard of life enhancements launched with every sport, I’d suggest taking part in them in launch order, beginning off with a bang within the squelchy open-world of The Sinking Metropolis, the place an aristocratic orangutan man welcomes you onto the dock and it simply will get weirder from there.
Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One subsequent is a delight with a surprisingly detailed open world and tons of fascinating and twisty instances to unravel, however the smaller-scale Sherlock Holmes: The Woke up is greatest to shut proceedings because the shortest, and most fashionable, entry.
Dom Peppiatt remains to be taking part in… Inscryption
So, I’ve simply wrapped up watching Rivals on Disney+, and it was one in all my favorite TV collection of the 12 months. And that is not due to its raunchy intercourse scenes, not due to its diligent, poet-souled Irish lead actor within the type of Aiden Turner, and never due to David Tennant’s spectacular flip as a ruthless 80s baddie. No. I used to be obsessive about it as a result of, at no level throughout its eight episode run, may I precisely predict what was going to occur subsequent. The present deliberately toys along with your expectations and subverts tropes with deft ease.
I really feel precisely the identical about Inscyrption; a sport that originally seems to be a bizarre hostage state of affairs in a log cabin with a mystical card sport very, in a short time reveals itself to be one thing else fully. The sport is absolute insanity – literal and figurative, it seems – and side-swiped my expectations persistently. Not an hour of in-game time glided by with out me saying ‘wait, WHAT’ out loud, a giant labrador grin plastered throughout my face.
It is laborious to speak in regards to the finer factors of Inscryption with out spoiling issues, so I am going to hold this transient: I feel it is some of the subversive and attention-grabbing video games I’ve performed in years. A long time, possibly. It is an inky black card-based odyssey that is half deck-building roguelike, half escape-room hell, part-Stanfod Prisoner Experiment. Daniel Mullins Video games – who you might also recognise from Pony Island and The Hex – completely perfected its craft with this one, and I am very unhappy I did not play it nearer to launch in 2021. I am very glad it is on PlayStation 4 and 5, and through PS+, no much less.
Connor Makar remains to be taking part in… Buckshot Roulette
This 12 months I’ve spent a variety of time taking part in varied multiplayer video games with some IRL associates in Discord, which breathed life into a wonderful indie that I had a variety of enjoyable with some time again. You’ve got most likely already seen Buckshot Roulette! A shady, gritting spin on its Russian counterpart during which you enter a sport of life-or-death probability within the hope of snatching the money. It is a great solo expertise. Then, actually final month, the great Mike Klubnika dropped a multiplayer replace! If a sport wins me over as soon as, it is nice. If it wins me over twice? Then it deserves a spot in articles reminiscent of this.
Kelsey Raynor remains to be taking part in… Stardew Valley
Whereas 2024 has had loads of stellar releases, in addition to some I’d relatively overlook, there are a few video games from pre-2024 that I’ve been spending portion of time with this 12 months. Particularly, Stardew Valley.
Stardew Valley was launched again in 2016, which I can’t fairly imagine, and the updates for it haven’t stopped coming since. Simply earlier this 12 months, developer ConcernedApe launched the 1.6 replace. Yeah, the fella is meant to be laborious at work on Haunted Chocolatier, however people like me have such an affection for Stardew Valley that ConcernedApe merely can not depart the sport alone for greater than 5 minutes. I can’t blame him, and it meant that when the replace hit consoles, I began yet one more run of the sport.
I’ve misplaced depend what number of farms I’ve began and deserted as soon as the Group Heart was accomplished. This time round, I’m decided to achieve Perfection on my present save, however you’ll need to test in with me once more subsequent 12 months to see if I received any nearer to reaching that, as a result of that’s most likely how lengthy it’s going to take.
What’s higher is that whereas I’ve been revisiting Pelican City, my associates have concurrently been grinding within the mines and foraging like their lives depend upon it. Evaluating our progress frequently (or celebrating every Prismatic Shard one in all us finds) has been one of many ‘little issues’ that has actually helped make an in any other case chaotic 12 months rather more bearable. I’ve a variety of love for Stardew Valley, the great neighborhood ConcernedApe has helped form, and largely, attending to share my love of this sport with my associates.
Rebecca Jones remains to be taking part in… Honkai: Star Rail 2.0
You possibly can’t precisely accuse Honkai: Star Rail of being some ignored retro gem: it launched lower than 18 months in the past and has been yet one more extremely profitable gacha hit for developer miHoYo ever since. However we’re right here to speak in regards to the already-released video games that we liked in 2024, and there is not any denying that Honkai: Star Rail – thanks largely to its stellar (pardon the pun) 2.0 replace in February – has match the invoice for me this 12 months. The Penacony chapter whisked the Astral Specific crew alongside the silver rail to their subsequent cease: a swanky diplomatic retreat at a faux-Jazz Age dreamland theme park with (insert shocked gasps right here) a sinister underbelly.
All the things about this newest storyline represented a powerful refinement on HSR 1.0, regardless of the launch model of the sport already being one in all my favorite new releases of final 12 months. It was in order that good that I am not even mad we did not get many new hints as to March seventh’s actual id… though if my MVP amnesiac daughter may get her long-deserved narrative payoff when 3.0 launches in January, that’d be beautiful.
Mark Warren remains to be taking part in… Elden Ring
Psst. Whereas 2024’s not trying, I’ve received a secret to let you know. It’s a giant one. Definitely not the form of factor you would have identified about if you happen to appeared on the homepage of a sure web site in, say, July. You already know, not that lengthy after a sure DLC got here out. I performed Elden Ring for the primary time this 12 months. Okay, so I cheated through the use of a mod that made me a residing god, as a result of I’m a coward, a wimp, a weakling, and undoubtedly not value your time.
However right here’s the factor – although I did that, I nonetheless got here out of my playthrough feeling like I’d gotten a correct understanding of why Elden Ring is the masterpiece individuals (my coworkers included) have lengthy been telling me it’s, even when getting slapped up by Malenia’s not essentially my gaming cup of tea. Oh, and I’ve lastly given Fallout 76 a attempt, in addition to the Katamari collection through the remasters. I’m unsure which is the higher factor about hoarding. Okay, it’s Katamari.
Sherif Saed remains to be taking part in… Diablo 4
With regards to ARPGs, I’m a person of straightforward style. If clicking on demons and killing monsters feels nice, and the dopamine hit of energy and merchandise acquisition is constant sufficient, you’re going to search out me taking part in quite a bit of whichever one in all them delivers – and I most likely gained’t cease speaking about it. At the same time as scarred because it was at its launch in 2023, Diablo 4 instantly delivered on the previous, and made an honest sufficient try on the latter that it was all I wanted for my curiosity to be sustained all through that 12 months.
Diablo 4 began off 2024 on a extremely bitter notice, with what’s undoubtedly been its worst season but. We had been months off from the discharge of its first main post-launch enlargement, too, so to see my favorite ARPG run out of steam that early into the 12 months was alarming. No matter inside awakening came about at Blizzard in 2024, it has been liable for a few of the greatest content material the sport had seen but. Most of that work has been squarely aimed toward making a compelling case for the endgame. The complete construction of loot and itemisation was fully overhauled, and Blizzard later even turned your complete levelling system on its head. With virtually each season, a brand new endgame exercise could be launched; a brand new boss to battle for focused loot, or some much-needed high quality of life updates to maintain up with the ever-growing sport.
Mockingly, a variety of that work has been extra impactful on the core sport than the paid enlargement. Vessel of Hatred, nevertheless, I’m rather less scorching on. Judged solely on the worth (and quantity) of the content material it dropped at the sport, it’s a strong enlargement. The brand new Spiritborn class is extremely enjoyable, and brings a brand new model of play to set it except for the bottom 5. The brand new zone has enjoyable enemies, new endgame actions, and nicely, it’s a brand new landmass to gallop round in. Narratively, nevertheless, it was probably the most egregious waste of time I could have ever seen from a Diablo, nicely, something. There’s a surprising, and instantly obvious, drop to the standard of writing. The marketing campaign fails at establishing a menace value fearing or a spinning a story value following.
My grievances with that apart, the entire work that went into Diablo 4 received me to complete lots of the 12 months’s battle passes, getting a number of heroes into the endgame, and discovering new methods to get pleasure from my favorite ARPG. So right here’s to a different 12 months of making a brand new character each rattling season and discovering pleasure on the treadmill as soon as once more.
Alex Donaldson remains to be taking part in… Cities Skylines 2
Cities Skylines 2 was all the time brimming with potential, however when it first landed again in October of final 12 months it was a bit of a multitude – and that is me being extraordinarily charitable.
Within the pre-release interval I did not even discover the issues as a lot – taking part in for a restricted period of time, and on a pimped-out, cutting-edge rig, I simply acknowledged that this was a sport pushing for a deeply granular degree of simulation that left CPUs burning scorching and PCs struggling – although I noticed its potential as a challenge that’ll be performed for the following fifteen years, not merely the following two.
As soon as Skylines 2 was in additional individuals’s fingers, nevertheless, it rapidly grew to become clear that this wasn’t simply teething issues – this was full-on edentulation. The enamel had been straight-up falling out. You could suppose I am stretching the dental analogy to breaking level, and you would be proper – however know this: one of many issues that was breaking the sport and melting PCs was Skylines 2 rendering NPC’s enamel in graphic element even when the digicam was zoomed out by miles.
2024, then, has been a 12 months of apology and enchancment. Writer Paradox Interactive has mainly spent all of 2024 consuming a dump truck’s value of humble pie throughout a number of tasks, and in Skylines 2 that is manifested as a shed load of patches, free DLC, and an indefinite delay for any doable console model. Quietly, slowly however absolutely, that PC launch has been getting extra dependable and extra acceptable. And in the long run, I’ve performed a variety of it – over 150 hours this 12 months. That is most likely solely behind Road Fighter 6 and Balatro.
Video games should not launch as damaged disasters, and Paradox deserved the general public flogging it received for the state of Cities Skylines 2 at launch. However because it retains bettering, it inexorably edges nearer to being what it ought to’ve been: a worthy sequel to one of many biggest metropolis builders ever. I sit up for persevering with to test in on it each couple of months in 2025.
