- Final Fantasy Origin: Stranger of Paradise: A deliciously satisfying combat system with lots of fun classes and abilities to experiment with, all wrapped in a smart reimagining of one of my formative gaming memories.
- King Arthur: Knight’s Tale: I’ve loved this series from the beginning, and this is a great inheritor of the legacy. A small-scale tactical sandbox jam-packed with tricky situations and chances to put together just the right sequence of moves to get through overwhelming odds.
- Elden Ring: I don’t have anything particularly insightful to add to the discussion here, but I’m still in shock that the dark, slow, obtuse, weighty, confusing, and incredibly niche game design I fell in love with on the PS2 with King’s Field: The Ancient City has somehow become the consensus GotY.
- Nobody Saves the World: A bit messy, but joyful in its game-ness, and was lots of fun to put together different combinations of abilities for each new dungeon.
- Immortality: A really interesting experiment with format and storytelling.
Honorable Mentions: Symphony of War, Citizen Sleeper
Want to play: Midnight Suns, Bayonetta 3, Triangle Strategy
The top 3 engrossed me for well over 100 hours each, and tower above everything else I played this year. Ask me on a different day and I might change the ordering.