As we’re getting ever closer to awards season, but with still several bangers yet to be released, I thought now would be a good time to document all the great games that came out this year. Below is a list of the highest ranked games on Metacritic that have at least twenty reviews. I’ll include remakes but not ports.

1st: Big Walk
2nd: Forza Horizon 6
3rd: Mina the Hollower
4th: Schrodinger’s Call
5th: Pokemon Pokeopia
6th: Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave
7th: Resident Evil Requiem
8th: Denshattack
9th: Mewgenics
10th: Ace Combat 8

11th: 007 First Light
12th: Saros
13th: Nioh 3
14th: Mixtape
15th: OPUS Prism Peak
16th: Monster Hunter Stories 3
17th: Cairn
18th: Onimusha Way of the Sword
19th: Pragmata
20th: Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls

21st: Star Wars Zero Company
22nd: Esoteric Ebb
23rd: Blazblue Entropy Effect X
24th: Demon Tides
25th: Assassins Creed Black Flag Resync
26th: Blood of Dawnwalker
27th: Zero Parades For Dead Spies
28th: Lego Batman
29th: Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth
30th: Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse

31st: Control Resonant
32nd: Dragon Quest VII Reimagined
33rd: Mio Memories in Orbit
34th: TR-49
35th: Mortal Shell 2
36th: Vampire Crawlers (I think this is a new game????)
37th: Rhythm Heaven Groove
38th: Splatoon Raiders
39th: Orbitals
40th: Coffee Talk Tokyo

41st: Marathon
42nd: Silent Hill Townfall
43rd: Star Fox
44th: Halo Campaign Evolved
45th: Reanimal
46th: Yoshi and the Mysterious Book
47th: Mouse for PI Hire
48th: Planet of Lana II
49th: Pathologic 3
50th: EA Sports IFC 6

Unfortunately for Falcom fans, neither Ys X nor Trails 2 have 20 reviews yet, even though both are absolutely worthy of your time, and would’ve been on the list otherwise.

Vampire Crawlers (I think this is a new game????)

• It's a card version of Vampyre Survivors and it plays a lot like Slay the Spire, it's been doing well for them. Sad to see no mention of Crimson Desert. Too many people piled on the hate-train and fired off those review bombs. Still though I'm glad to see Mewgenics do so well, it's a great little game.

@GirlVersusGame thanks for letting me know. I guess it counts as a new game then??? I guess if Halo, Assassins Creed and Star Fox count, I don’t see why this doesn’t.

@ShadowRJ It definitely counts, they are a really popular Developer after releasing Vampyre Survivors to mankind and creating addicts of us all. The Big Walk is cleaning up at number one, Mina the Hollower too. Zero Parades For Dead Spies is surprising considering the controversy and hate surrounding the new owners of the IP. I'll probably grab it for PS5 regardless, I'm already supporting the original Developer's new project so it levels out. Esoteric Ebb is basically Dungeons and Dragon's meets Disco Elysium. Numbers/ratings aside I like how varied that list is, it shows people are open to try new things.

@GirlVersusGame absolutely. This is partly the reason why I like going through Metacritic at the end of the year. So I can see which games I never realised existed, but are apparently really good. It’s how I discovered some hidden indie darlings like Kaze and the Wild Masks.