The 15 Best Video Games of 2023
To close out the year, GQ is revisiting the most fascinating ideas, trends, people, and projects of 2023. For all of our year-end coverage, including Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang's top five video-game moments of the year, click here.
2023 has been an unusually strong year for video games. Over the past 12 months, we’ve seen compelling new originals like Dave the Diver and Dredge; long-awaited sequels like Diablo IV and Oxenfree II: Lost Signals; top-tier remakes of classics like Dead Space and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars; and a free-to-play, somehow totally official game about Sonic the Hedgehog getting murdered.
And those are just the games that didn’t make this list. So what did? Here are the best video games of 2023, along with where you can play them.
15. Hi-Fi Rush (Buy on Xbox Series X/S, Windows)
Between the failure of Redfall and the more humdrum disappointment of Starfield, 2023 has been a rough year for Xbox exclusives. One unexpected bright spot: Hi-Fi Rush, which was developed in secret and surprise-dropped like a Beyoncé album all the way back in January. A clever rhythm/action hybrid that rewards you for attacking enemies on the beat, Hi-Fi Rush ultimately overstays its welcome, but the addictive gameplay loop and cheerfully tongue-in-cheek sense of humor keeps it mostly grooving along anyway.
14. The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood (Buy on Nintendo Switch, Windows)
The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is one of those games that constantly makes you second-guess yourself by warning your choices will have permanent and significant consequences. Playing as a witch who is 200 years into a thousand-year sentence for prophesying the death of her coven — and, depending on your actions, seeking either redemption or revenge — the game alternates between letting the player design their own tarot cards and using those cards to predict the fates of your visitors. It’s a unique and intriguing blend of cozy and stressful, with top-notch writing no matter which way you steer the story.
13. El Paso, Elsewhere (Buy on Nintendo Switch Xbox Series X/S, Windows)
El, Paso Elsewhere is destined to be a cult favorite. Developer Strange Scaffold’s homage to a bygone era of third-person shooters borrows a lot from 2001’s Max Payne, including a painkiller-popping protagonist who speaks exclusively in Raymond Chandler monologues and a core mechanic that encourages diving around in slow motion with guns blazing. But the game is also admirably weird —the plot is about fighting through a magic hotel to stop your vampire ex-girlfriend from destroying the world — and it’s tough as nails without ever being so frustrating you put down the controller. “YOU KEEP GOING,” the game insisted after a ghoul disemboweled me for the dozenth time. So I did.
12. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (Buy on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows)
With apologies to The Mandalorian and Ahsoka, the most enjoyable thing that came out of the Star Wars universe in 2023 was Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. A significant improvement over 2019’s already-pretty-good Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Jedi: Survivor somehow manages to capture the feeling of being a plucky rebel squaring off against an impossibly large, powerful evil empire and let you enjoy the power fantasy of slicing through hundreds of stormtroopers with a lightsaber — customized exactly to your specifications, in a way that seems designed to please everyone’s inner twelve-year-old.
11. Sea of Stars (Buy on Nintendo Switch PlayStation 5 and 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Windows)
Plenty of indie-game RPGs have tried to tap into nostalgia for Super Nintendo classics like Chrono Trigger. Few have come as close to the mark as Sea of Stars. A throwback RPG with an engaging, timing-based battle system, Sea of Stars makes plenty of concessions to modern gameplay conveniences without sacrificing old-school flair. As a bonus, it’s got some of the year’s prettiest pixel art.
10. Cocoon (Buy on PlayStation 5 and 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows)
If you like your puzzle games enigmatic and artsy, look no further than Cocoon. Casting the player as some kind of insect navigating a series of alien worlds by interacting with strange orbs, Cocoon explains little but never stops delivering that great “aha!” feeling when you suddenly wrap your head around a tricky puzzle. It’s available on pretty much every platform, but I think it works best as an Xbox Game Pass title, which makes it feel a little like a weird alien artifact that got beamed down to your console by mistake.
9. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (Buy on PlayStation 5)
Spider-Man 2 doesn’t dramatically reinvent the formula that made 2018’s Spider-Man and its 2020 spinoff, Miles Morales, into such a massive hit. It didn’t need to; developer Insomniac got pretty much everything right the first time around. Instead, the game gives you more: Two different Spider-Men to control, two new boroughs to explore, and a nifty wingsuit that makes traversing this digital New York feel even better. It’s as slick and compulsively playable as anything in the AAA gaming space, all built around a story that’s at least as good as anything you’ve seen from the Marvel Cinematic Universe lately.
8. Final Fantasy XVI (Buy on PlayStation 5, Windows)
Love it or hate it, no one can say that Square Enix isn’t willing to take risks with its biggest RPG franchise. The 16th (!) main-line Final Fantasy drops turned-based combat entirely, opting instead for an action-based system closer to Capcom’s Devil May Cry while telling a story of a half-dozen warring kingdoms that draws obvious inspiration from Game of Thrones (and not just because everybody says “fuck” all the time). It’s not the best Final Fantasy ever made, but the highs are awfully high: the game’s showstopping eikon battles, in which kaiju-like monsters exchange blows for millions of points of damage, might also the single best technical showcase for the PlayStation 5.
7. Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo (Buy on Nintendo Switch, Windows, iOS, Android)
Yes, “Paranormasight” sounds like a bad Syfy ghost-hunting show that got canceled after a single season. But look past the goofy name and you’ll find one of the year’s most under-the-radar surprises. In practice, this twisty visual novel plays more like an especially grisly episode of The Twilight Zone. The player assumes control of a rotating cast of characters — each in possession of a unique curse that enables them to instantly kill someone if the conditions are right, and each aware that if they kill enough people and harvest their souls, they’ll be able to resurrect a dead loved one. It’s a story that, through its multiple shifts in perspective, is constantly asking you to reconsider what’s really going on, with enough jump-scares to ensure you never get too comfortable.
6. Horizon: Call of the Mountain (Buy on PlayStation VR2)
When it comes to Sony’s flagship franchises, Horizon is the one that’s always left me a little cold (or at least as lukewarm as you can feel about anything that involves hunting robot dinosaurs). But I was wowed by the franchise’s first foray into VR, which successfully immersed me in Horizon’s colorful post-apocalyptic world. Thanks to the PSVR2’s Sense controllers, shooting the bow-and-arrow feels tight and responsive, and the climbing segments are nerve-racking enough to induce some genuine vertigo whenever you glance down. Is it worth buying an entire PSVR2 just to play this? Maybe not, but it’s definitely worth befriending somebody who has one.
5. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Buy on Nintendo Switch)
Arguably the year’s most anticipated game, Tears of the Kingdom is to 2017’s Breath of the Wild as Majora’s Mask was to Ocarina of Time: A darker, weirder, and more polarizing sequel built on the bones of an undeniable classic. Without breaking dramatically from the moment-to-moment gameplay of its predecessor, Tears of the Kingdom boasts two major changes: new areas to explore both above and below the kingdom’s surface, and an entirely new lineup of abilities to use. Your mileage may vary — personally, I prefer Breath of the Wild’s more straightforward abilities to the build-anything ethos of Tears of the Kingdom — but there’s no denying the scope and depth of what was accomplished here.
4. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Buy on Nintendo Switch)
It’s been nearly 40 years since the original Super Mario Bros., but Nintendo is still managing to find new ways to shake up the 2D platformer. The big new idea in Wonder is that each level contains a “wonder flower” that, when found, adds a trippy twist to the level. It’s easily the best new 2D Mario mechanic in years, but even without it, Wonder would be a must-play, boasting Nintendo’s characteristically top-notch level design and a drop-in/drop-out multiplayer mechanic that makes the game equally fun solo or with up to three friends. Not my favorite game of the year, but probably the one I had the most fun with.
3. Resident Evil 4 (PlayStation 5 and 4, Xbox Series X/S, Windows)
There were plenty of reasons to be skeptical about a Resident Evil 4 remake. Unlike Resident Evil 2 and 3 — which were remade, in part, because the original games featured tank controls that were unforgivingly clunky by modern standards — Resident Evil 4 had aged just fine. It was also available on pretty much every platform you can think of, including an acclaimed VR version that dropped just a few years ago. But any doubts about playing yet another version of what is, by many accounts, one of the best video games ever made will be swept away by playing just a few minutes of the Resident Evil 4 remake. At heart, this is the same propulsive third-person shooter, telling a Michael Bay-esque fun/dumb story about a special agent attempting to rescue the president’s daughter from a cult infected by mind-controlling parasites. But the remake makes it all feel fresh again with stunning new graphics, totally reworked gunplay, and a series of clever deviations and traps designed specifically to mess with people who played the original.
2. Baldur’s Gate 3 (Buy on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows, Mac)
Baldur’s Gate 3 won Game of the Year at the 2023 Game Awards last week, and for good reason: There’s just so much game here. It also takes some admirable risks: At a time when it might seem safer to dumb down a game’s mechanics for mass appeal, Baldur’s Gate 3 leans into its Dungeons & Dragons origins, successfully digitizing the complexity of a well-run tabletop game by dropping you a world full of dangers and opportunities, and then giving you a remarkably versatile toolkit to deal with things pretty much any way you want. It’s easy to drop dozens of hours into this game, battling goblins or hooking up with elves or just wandering around the landscape — and at the end of it all, it’s likely you’ve had wildly different experiences than anyone else who played the game. I wouldn’t argue with anyone who called Baldur’s Gate 3 the year’s best game. And yet…
1. Alan Wake II (Buy on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows)
Sometimes a long wait pays off. All the way back in 2010, Alan Wake — a game about a pulp writer who ends up trapped in one of his own horror stories — ended on an enigmatic cliffhanger that practically begged for a sequel. But despite a couple of solid DLC chapters, a not-bad 2012 spinoff game, and some pointed references in developer Remedy’s last game Control, it was never clear we’d get a proper continuation of Alan Wake’s story. It took more than a decade of failed pitches and false starts, but Alan Wake II is finally here, and like Twin Peaks: The Return, the game’s most obvious inspiration, the passage of actual time has only added heft to the main character’s desperate search for a resolution to his story. Beginning with a cult murder in the woods of Washington State, and quickly spiraling into something stranger and richer, Alan Wake II is above all an exercise in keeping the player off-kilter. It’s scarier, funnier, more unpredictable, more thought-provoking, and ultimately more satisfying than anything else I played this year.
Originally Appeared on GQ
