I could argue that 2023 has been one of the best years for video games ever and I don’t know that I’d get too much push back for that. 2023 was jam-packed with games that would take top marks had they been released any other year, but somehow they all got smushed into one, very overwhelming year.

To set the stage a little bit, I played and enjoyed a lot of games this year, and tons of them aren’t on my hodgepodge of a list, primarily because I didn’t want to make this list a top 30 or whatever it might pan out to be. I also had a lot of positive experiences with games that I really didn’t have more to say about them other than, “I liked them.” Games like Sea of Stars, Super Mario Wonder, Super Mario RPG, Stray, and plenty of others just didn’t make the list because I don’t really have much more to say about them than, “they’re good!”

With that said, let’s just dive in.

Honorable Mentions

Animal Crossing: New Leaf

What better way to start off a Game of the Year list than with a decade old video game for a long abandoned platform? This year, in an attempt to find more games my partner and I could enjoy together, we both found ourselves getting hopelessly addicted to Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the Nintendo 3DS.

Our addiction and obsession stems, not only from being long-time fans of the series, but also because the latest entry in the series, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, played a key role in our burgeoning relationship back during the early part of the pandemic. It helped us stay together during a time when people were forced to be apart, and going back to play New Leaf together has really reinforced how special this series is to us. It also helps that Animal Crossing: New Leaf is arguably the best entry in the series, jam-packed with content that, despite our ravenous rate of play, we’ve only scratched the surface of.

Disney Illusion Island

Another game that my partner and I bulldozed our way through, Disney Illusion Island was a fantastic platformer that was easy for both of us to enjoy. It was interesting and varied enough for my seasoned gaming sensibilities, yet accessible and welcoming for my my partner to enjoy. Beautiful art and the decision to not have any combat in Disney Illusion Island, also really helped grease the wheels. Having to only focus on navigating the world without the headache of some random enemy try to ice us, really made for a more enjoyable cooperative experience that wasn’t subject to the normal difficulty spikes one might find in other Metroidvanias.

While the game was a little too long and simplistic for my taste, it was an excellent way to spend some time with my partner, and that alone earns it a spot on this list.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage

As someone who never really got into the newer style of Assassin’s Creed games, Assassin’s Creed Mirage was a refreshing return to form for the series that I found very mechanically satisfying, even if the story and setting weren’t my favorite. For the first time in well over a decade, I had a lot of fun playing an Assassin’s Creed game.

Narrowing the scope of these games feels like a necessary change to the bloat and grandeur that’s invaded the more recent entries, both in terms of mechanics and concept. I like just being an assassin and having to focus solely on doing a good job at that, which is the majority of what this game gave me. If Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the foundation for the direction of the series going forward, then I’m onboard for whatever is next.

Lil’ Gator Game

Lil’ Gator Game is an earnest and relaxing take on the recent Zelda formula, that I was absolutely taken with this year. You play as the titular “lil’ gator,” who conscripts every person who lives on their home island, to play along and effectively be NPCs in the adventure game they’ve concocted. As the gator, you go on a DIY, Breath of the Wild-styled adventure across the island, slaying cardboard cutouts of enemies and solving puzzles, all in an effort to get your older sister to stop working on her college coursework, so she can play with you like she used to.

It’s a very sweet and very fun examination of responsibilities and growing up, while also being incredibly low impact and not demanding. I really enjoyed Lil’ Gator Game on just about every level, and I think it’s worth checking out.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Two Spider-Men and a Venom? That’s right folks, for the price of one video game, you can play as two Spider-Men and one whole Venom. That’s just the excellent value you can expect from Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, the very good sequel to two very good games.

Realistically though, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is a really good sequel that takes what you loved about its predecessors, shaves down some of the rough edges, and sprinkles on more of what people liked about those earlier entries in the series. They even brought back those bad stealth segments where you play as Mary Jane, except this time they gave her a stun gun that’s more effective than either of the Spider-Men you play as.

While I found the enemy variety, move sets, expanded world and story pacing to be greatly improved over Marvel’s Spider-Man, there were some really lame bits of storytelling and uninspired mission design on display. There’s also the fact that the good, Spider-Man-based stealth, has been minimized both in terms of opportunities for it and its effectiveness. It sucks because I really enjoyed the stealth mechanics and focus of the previous entries, and now it feels like you can only get away with so much before combat is foisted upon you.

The overwhelming sentiment I was left with once I rolled credits on Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was an excited curiosity to see what Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 was going to be about, because despite my criticisms, I still am very invested in seeing this story continue or resolve.

Runner Up

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a phenomenal game, just like its direct predecessor that came out over six years ago. It is the successor to one of the most groundbreaking open world games of all time, and if not for the next game on this list, it probably would have been my game of the year. But despite all the well deserved praise, it’s a very iterative experience that didn’t deviate too far from the winning formula that Breath of the Wild established.

I truly loved The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and all most its new mechanics, some of which really changed the way I approached combat and puzzles, and some of which could be completely ignored if you just didn’t want to deal with it. Fusing objects together to make ridiculous weapons was great fun, even if it was a bit tedious and a way to backdoor crafting into the game. Ascending through ceilings and being able to reverse the flow of time really changed how I approached platforming and navigating the environment, even if I kept forgetting I had access to them.

But then you have the absurdly named Ultrahand ability, which allows you to build all sorts of vehicles that can help you, quite literally, fly across Hyrule faster than any pathetic horse could ever hope to. It’s an amazing feature in its execution, but it’s a total bummer for people like myself who have no interest in engaging with building things in games. I just don’t have the patience to sit and finely engineer the perfect flying machine that won’t flip over the second I board it, when I could just walk to my next location. And even if I did want to engage with that system, I’d have to spend ages grinding away to build up enough battery capacity to run these things for more than 30 seconds. It’s this entirely optional system that’s been added, that’s responsible for a good portion of what’s new about Tears of the Kingdom, and it’s just something I had no desire to engage with.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a great example of taking what worked, and giving the player more of it. “Not enough dungeons? We added a bunch more. Not enough boss fights? Here you go! Not enough korok seeds? How’s about we triple the amount then?” Hell, they even added a bunch of floating islands above Hyrule, as well as an underground area that’s just as big as the mainland, just to see how much they could strain the CPU of a Nintendo Switch. Granted, the floating islands are cool, albeit fairly empty and more limited in number than I’d like. Meanwhile the underground area is just one large grayscale nightmare zone that isn’t fun to explore and filled with things that want to kill you.

I don’t mean to harp on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, because I really did enjoy it quite a great deal. But just about every positive aspect of it is something that I got out of Breath of the Wild, six years ago. Sure the sky islands are cool, sure the traversal options are fun, and sure, the story is much better than the one in Breath of the Wild. I’m not denying that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an excellent game that is worthy adoration, but it does sometimes feel like the “director’s cut” version of a movie I’ve already seen before.

Game of the Year

Baldur’s Gate 3

Defying all reason or logic, Baldur’s Gate 3, a tactical role-playing game, is my game of the year in a year that was filled with some of the most laudable games of all time. A genre of game that I absolutely do not enjoy, didn’t just win the top spot on this year’s list, it’s forever cemented as one of my favorite games of all time.

Initially, I bounced off of Baldur’s Gate 3 when it first was available in early access, opting to spend more time with it once it fully released rather than battle against constant progress-wiping updates that were to be expected in its preview state. When it finally did release fully back in August, it did so to a deluge of fanfare that left me excited to get my hands on it in a, “eventually I’ll have time, but not right now,” kind of way. I put it off until this October, where I proceeded to pour about 100 hours into a game I thought I’d just like.

And despite how I felt about it in 2020, where I thought my familiarity with D&D mechanics would be the thing pulling me through the game, it turned out that the combat was my least favorite part of the whole thing. The story, the setting, the characters — most of the characters, they were the things that kept me coming back with ravenous desire. They were the things that made me restart the game 4 times until I “got it right.” While I don’t think there’s actually any choices you can make that will force a fail-state in the game, which I should point out, is an incredible feat of game design and execution, I still didn’t want to chance it and accidentally doom the future of my campaign.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is not a game without its faults, to be sure; the path finding is a joke, performance is spotty, the camera hates indoor spaces despite how many of them there are, quest tracking was iffy at best, and there were some sections of the game that I did not find to be fun at all. There are sections that I’m dreading having to do again in an inevitable second playthrough, but those low points are incapable of outweighing the towering highs of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Baldur’s Gate 3 was easily the best and most addicting game I played this year. It wasn’t just because of excellent world building and punchy combat, but its writing, acting and narrative that all worked in tandem to deliver some truly emotionally impactful moments. Very few games have ever moved me, and I did not expect Baldur’s Gate 3 to be the latest addition to that list.

Baldur’s Gate 3 was an adventure I got to go on with this group of ragtag NPCs that, for the most part, I grew to genuinely care about and get invested in. But most importantly, it’s a game that adapted to me and actually accounted for the things I did and chose. I wasn’t just playing a game, I was writing my own story, and the game was going along with me. Baldur’s Gate 3 gave me the most personalized and unique gaming experience of the year — hell, the most unique gaming experience of my life, and that alone makes it worthy of calling it my Game of the Year.

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Thanks for taking the time to read this list, I really appreciate it. The Bonus World, if nothing else, will return in 2024 to make another one of these lists. Hopefully more stuff is posted as well, but at the very least, another Game of the Year list is scheduled.

Regardless, I hope your holiday season was as stress free as possible, and your new year is better than the last. Have a good one, everybody.