2024 was a stellar year for games, with a ton of standout releases. You had indie games made by small teams dominate the industry, as well as AAA games polished to a high sheen. So many genres had incredible releases, so just about everyone had something new and awesome to mess around with.
Here are the nominees for TechRaptor's 2024 Game of the Year Award for the best game of the year, whose sum of its parts is greater than any other.
- Animal Well
- Astro Bot
- Balatro
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard
- Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
- Helldivers 2
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
- Metaphor: ReFantazio
- UFO 50
Check out here for our other award categories.
Fifth Place - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Developer: Square Enix | Release Date: Februrary 29th, 2024
Written by Andrew Stretch
The reimagining of Cloud's legendary adventure took its second big step this year. With the escape from Midgar and quest to seek Sephiroth, the doors of the world flew open and Square Enix managed to take core elements of what made Remake so great; enhanced combat, compelling performances from the cast, and incredible visuals and improve on them even more.
This adventure made further deviations from the original story, continuing to remind fans of the original game of what made the adventure so great, while also providing new mystery all leading to an incredible and action-packed finale.
Check out our interview with Brianna White about bringing Aerith to life.
Fourth Place - Astro Bot
Developer: Team Asobi | Release Date: September 6th, 2024
Written by Austin Suther
Astro Bot took Game of the Year at Geoff Keighly’s The Game Awards, so it’s no wonder this delightful platformer makes an appearance on this list. Astro Bot is pure childhood joy molded into video game form, creating an experience that’ll have you smiling from start to finish.
Though Astro Bot features a myriad of PlayStation mascots and other gaming characters, the real highlight is this platformer’s stellar level design. Each level is a new experience to enjoy, as Team Asobi made sure to incorporate as many fun ideas as they could into one video game.
Its use of DuelSense is another marvel in game design. It’s not just an auditory and visual experience, but a tactile one as well. It’s something you’ll just have to experience for yourself, and once you do, you’ll see what makes Astro Bot such a triumph.
Third Place - Balatro
Developer: LocalThunk | Release Date: February 20th, 2024
Written by Blair Bishop
When The Game Awards announced the nominees for their awards show, some saw Balatro not just as the token indie pick, but as something that took a more deserving spot from something like, say, Silent Hill 2 or Helldivers 2. Not only were they wrong, but it was the first year where the token indie nod had a legitimate chance to upset the entire industry and come out on top.
While it wasn’t meant to be, that still doesn’t detract from the sheer power Balatro possesses. Since its 1.0 release in February of 2024, it’s only grown bigger and bigger, a supermassive black hole which sucks up your free time. A true indie powerhouse, it’s an incredible time-sink, a deceptively welcome experience, and a soaring entry into the upper echelon of roguelikes.
Second Place - Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Developer: MachineGames | Release Date: December 9th, 2024
Written by Andrew Stretch
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is the Indiana Jones adventure of the 80s we never got. This game features an almost perfect blend of exploration, puzzle solving, and combat that allows you to get invested not only in the greater mystery of the game, but in the world as you stumble into interesting side quests and puzzles alike.
Most impressive of all is how the character of Indiana Jones is performed so faithfully with a mix of nailing Harrison Ford-esque facial expressions and a stellar performance by Troy Baker. We're transported to the past while also getting to enjoy the evolution of action-exploration games.
Winner - Metaphor: ReFantazio
Developer: Atlus | Release Date: October 11th, 2024
Written by Veerender Singh Jubbal
Metaphor: ReFantazio’s Bond system improves upon recent mainline Persona games’ Social Link mechanics to expedite the relationships your player character has with the cast and allows more player choice in building teams the way you would like. Being able to defeat lower-level enemies in the overworld to not trigger an encounter or being able to easily restart any battle, so you can get the best results pushes you further in tackling the game’s tough enemies even on the Normal difficulty setting.
One of Metaphor’s main theses early on is: can fictional media change the views and ideologies of real people for the better? Can fictional representation in stories bring about real-world change? The game handles the topics of racism/xenophobia directly and poignantly with hopeful lenses, but also does not shy away from showcasing that hatred/discrimination/despair to the player through degradation and ostracization in an impactful way from NPCs exuding microaggressions, subtle racism and/or unapologetic racism—all of various levels, types, and intricacies.
A remarkable and all-new intellectual property that showcases colorful style with its cutscenes, artful UI, dedicated substance, and an excellent soundtrack with simple, but effective gameplay mechanics ushers in a new age not just of JRPGs, but RPGs as a whole is TechRaptor’s 2024 Game of the Year.
There's no I in TEAM!! We're all on the case, and this is how you know it :)
