The best video games of 2023, from Baldur’s Gate to Alan Wake 2
To say 2023 was a staccato year for the video game industry would be … generous. From the games themselves to the state of the industry, 2023 oscillated between soaring highs and humiliating lows.
The industry produced some truly phenomenal originals, sequels and remakes — we’ll get into those in a minute — but also dumped some true dreck on us: The Walking Dead: Destinies, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum and, earlier this month, The Day Before, which is charging $40 for one of the lowest-reviewed titles on Steam, the PC game storefront.
Meanwhile, dozens of game companies cut thousands of video game-related jobs and canceled projects galore, including at Redmond-based Microsoft, Renton-based Wizards of the Coast, Bellevue-based Bungie and Seattle-based Amazon.
It’s been an up-and-down year, but when things went right, they went very, very right. It was a blockbuster year for fantastic game releases, no matter your preferred genre: From horror to platforming, low-stakes to life-or-death, a great game was released this year for just about everyone. And we even got news about a trailer for the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto VI (due in 2025, it’s the sequel to the second most-sold game ever)!
So, as the year ends, we raise a glass to the ultimately strong gaming year that was 2023 — and the tremendous games that made the year worthwhile.
Alan Wake 2
Available on: PlayStation 5 (PS5), Xbox Series X/S (XSX/S), PC
Fans of Remedy Entertainment’s 2010 Alan Wake have been waiting a long time for a proper sequel. Now, 13 years later, Alan Wake 2 is here — and it was worth the wait. Leaning into its survival horror genre, AW2 brings back the best of the original game — terrific writing, stellar cinematics (particularly the live-action scenes), haunting environments — and amps it...