This has been the year of the indies and it has been no bad thing. Sure there were a few blockbuster titles – not as many as 2023 – but it meant that the quirkier, more surprising, off-the-wall titles had a chance to shine.
From Balatro to Animal Well, we’ve had a lot of low-poly goodness (and some fiendishly addictive gameplay); and of course there were still a few mega-titles such as Black Ops 6 and Fifa, sorry EA Sports FC, which have refined their whoppingly successful formats still further and offered gamers fresh takes on old favourites.
We’ve spent an awful long time playing and here are our favourites...
Neva
This gorgeous platformer should be getting all the accolades and then some simply for its art direction alone, but seems to have flown under the radar so far. That’s probably because Nomada Studios’ last work, the equally visually stunning Gris, came out all the way back in 2018 – but stick with Neva, because it’s well worth the four to five-hour playtime.
You are Alba, a warrior woman in a world bereft of humans but populated by massive animals – including the puppy Neva. Their world, rendered here in shades of watercolour, is beautiful but increasingly blighted by a malignant rot that warps those animals into terrifying fiends. Neva and Alba’s job is to fight that rot, but what seems like a simple premise actually unfolds into an exploration of love, humanity and death that hits with all the force of a freight truck.
There’s no dialogue in this; what we get instead is a delicate, expansive piano soundtrack that unfolds as the landscape scrolls past. Pack tissues, it’s devastating stuff. VJ
Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl
I’ve spent the past month throwing rusty bolts at dust devils in Stalker 2. When I wasn’t trying to tame the game’s environmental anomalies, I was fleeing poltergeists, hunting for radioactive artefacts, and gorging on stale bread and condensed milk. Just another day in the Zone, an alternate take on the devastated area surrounding the Chornobyl nuclear site; where the air crackles with the hum of death.
You’ll definitely get radiation poisoning, but it’s nothing that a bottle of Cossack’s Vodka can’t cure. Word of advice: when an Emission starts, and the sky turns a violent shade of red, run like hell for the closest bunker. It’s a testament to how great Stalker 2 is that, despite dying a thousand times, I’m looking forward to venturing back to the Zone. Either that or I’m a masochist. SS
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
The new Call of Duty zapped 100 hours of my life in the span of a few weeks. Hooked on multiplayer, I refused to stop until I reached Prestige, the prized rank that resets your stats. As a CoD veteran, everything clicked into place instantly. It felt like a scene from an action movie where a grizzled soldier is assembling a dismantled gun from muscle memory. Developer Treyarch, who has always led point on the Black Ops sub-series, was firing on all cylinders. Finally, there was a campaign worth playing, thanks to a captivating, cinematic storyline that felt like the A-Team meets Oceans 11. Alas, I still suck at Zombies, but the addition of Directed Mode and the recently launched Training Course gives me hope that I may one day master that, too. SS
Harold Halibut
Slow Bros. spent almost a decade making Harold Halibut, known to some as “that stop motion game.” It’s not actually stop motion, but has a distinctive style with a clay-like physicality. You are Harold, a put upon janitor who works aboard a space craft. It was made to take humanity to new worlds, but ended up crash-landing into the sea on an unknown planet. Harold Halibut plays out like a point ’n’ click adventure game minus the puzzles. A little patience is required to sync up to its gentle pacing but it unfolds into one of the most charming and engaging stories of the year. AW
Still Wakes the Deep
How do you make a combat-free game that mostly involves walking around an environment tense and scary? Set it on an oil rig whose drilling has unearthed an otherworldly entity that turns the workers into hideous monsters. While your actual interactions with Still Wakes the Deep are simple, the most demanding being a bit of basic stealth, it’s waterlogged with atmosphere. And features some of the most legit Scottish voice acting and slang ever heard in a game. Still Wakes the Deep comes from the progenitors of the “walking sim” genre, developer The Chinese Room, and is one of the few big-name examples of it in recent years. AW
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
A true behemoth of a game, Final Fantasy Rebirth builds off the equally impressive work that Square Enix did in 2020 with Remake (itself the first part of an ambitious plan to remake its beloved 1997 RPG as a trilogy).
For the most part, it delivers. The combat is sublime – a mix of action and turn-based that manages to still feel fresh and dynamic – while the revamped open world, which is packed with extra missions and activities, is massive, sprawling and immersive. There’s a joy to doing exploring it with characters who are already so beloved and well-known – and of course, the graphics themselves are gorgeous. Goodbye low-poly, hello detailed 3D renders.
Yes, its commitment to revamping absolutely everything can mean that the plot gets slightly convoluted at times. But if you can switch off and just enjoy bouncing around Midgar with your band of friends (and trusty chocobo), then all the better. VJ
Animal Well
Another indie champion to emerge from this year, the minimalist Animal Well is by turns fascinating, quirky and throw-your-Switch-at-the-wall frustrating. It’s a Metroidvania with a difference: rather like the brilliant Hollow Knight, you are a little blob who gets hatched into a mysterious cavern and must try and puzzle your way out.
The focus here is very much on exploration and experimentation: there is no map, there are no rules, the only thing you can do is move left, right and jump. There are many, many dungeons and caverns that gradually become unlocked as you level up, collect items and learn how to fight. Combine that with the retro-era graphics (which come in fetching shades of purple and pink) and the result is a gorgeous little puzzle box of a game that can very quickly become a time sink. VJ
Balatro
Charlie Brooker called Balatro “possibly the most addictive thing ever created.” You’ve been warned. But we still recommend you give it a try. Balatro looks like poker at first glance, but the only advantage you get from knowing that game is a familiarity with poker hands. In each round you have to reach a certain score within a certain number of hands. But the familiar rules melt away as you pick up game-breaking Joker cards and level-up hands to home in on strategies to send your scores into the stratosphere. Its loop lulls your brain into a hypnotic state, all accompanied by jazzy synthwave soundtrack that plants deep roots in your mind. AW
And the game of the year… Astrobot
Is this the biggest surprise of 2024? When Astrobot was announced, most people shook their heads. PlayStation’s long-sidelined mascot, finally getting a PlayStation-themed solo outing? Surely, this was one for only the most dedicated of fans.
How wrong we were. What we got instead was one of the funniest, most dynamic games of the entire year – and one that feels like a decent argument in itself for investing in a PS5. The game itself is a platformer that follows the exceptionally cute Astrobot as they go around rebuilding their spaceship (it’s a PS5) and collecting their robot pals (they are also very cute) after evil aliens scatter them all to the nine winds.
The levels that follow are an explosion of imagination that really test the limits of what a console can do. Each one (and there are many) have a dedicated theme and power-up; many contain secret levels-within-levels, or wormholes that take you to a different universe altogether. It’s challenging – this isn’t just a kid’s game.
And above all, it’s cute. Though PlayStation’s most iconic franchises do make an appearance (God of War, Uncharted; not The Last Of Us, funnily enough) they’re treated with loving care and reworked into standalone, Astrobot-flavoured levels that still manage to be indecently fun. It’s a triumph of creativity that never gets boring – what a feat. We bow down.
