Game of the Year 2023 – The Winners

Fare thee well, 2023. It's been emotional, but 2024 is knocking at the door, and it's time to let it in. We hope you've had a wonderful Christmas, and are looking forward to having a Happy New Year, but, until then, we have some final end of year business to get down to. Everyone, sit down and steel yourself – it's time for our Game of the Year winners!

It's been a fairly special year for games, with a huge and varied range of genuinely great titles to enjoy throughout 2023, and while you'll already know which of those are in the running, thanks to our nominees, this is where we narrow down the real cream of the crop. No doubt, you'll have your personal favourites, and if they failed to make our list, don't despair. Just know that we spent a long time putting together this list, and, as ever, there were a lot of arguments.

Here's to 2023, then, and the fantastic games that shined a light through the darkness. Onward we march into 2024, and, hopefully, even more video gaming excellence. But first things first – find out our 2023 Game of the Year winners below. Enjoy, and have a Happy New Year!

Runners-Up:

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

If for the past five years you've been wondering what exactly long-time Yakuza protagonist Kazuma Kiryu has been up to, then Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name has the answer. With Yakuza 6 seemingly wrapping up Kiryu's saga in suitably melodramatic style, Gaiden continues to lean into that spirit of heightened emotion, as we find our man attempting to lay low under the assumed name of 'Joryu'.

Naturally, things very quickly begin to unravel, and developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio spins a tremendous yarn that belies the game's 'side story' status, welcoming Kiryu back into the fold in spectacular fashion – no more cameos, at least for the time being. Following the events of The Man Who Erased His Name, Kiryu will be back front and centre alongside Ichiban Kasuga in Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth. RGG Studio has always had a handle on what makes a compelling tale, and this is no different. Stellar.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

We’ve been saying for years that the games industry needs to do more with the espionage genre, but even we didn’t expect that the first game in a long time to do it would be Cyberpunk 2077. As it turns out, though, Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty was the perfect setting for it. With high-tech gadgets, alluring characters and more twists and turns than a rollercoaster, CD Projekt RED’s redemption arc was complete. Phantom Liberty had it all. Fantastic chemistry within the cast, great dialogue and characters to boot, and some sensational writing that fuels the all-pervading sense of paranoia. It truly was one of 2023’s best stories, and we can’t wait to play it all over again in 2024.

Winner:

Alan Wake II

Thirteen years is a long time. Since we last saw Alan Wake, he has gained a mop of long and oily hair and a look of permanent confusion. Both justified, arguably, as he has been immured in a paradimensional prison under a lake all this while. The task of this sequel wasn’t easy: to pick up where Alan left off, to tell a new story, and to be relevant. The developer, Remedy Entertainment, managed all this by bringing in Saga Anderson, a bright and buoyant F.B.I. agent, to dig around in Alan’s wake and work out where he went. The plot is a two-hander, giving you the choice to switch between protagonists and measure out the drama according to whom you want to drive it onwards.

The real story of Alan Wake II, though, lies with Sam Lake, who writes and co-directs, and who has – to judge by the game’s prevailing themes, of writer’s block and cycles of repetition – spent the intervening years trapped in himself. A Lake of his own intricate devising. The risk of making a sequel about how tough it is to make a sequel is that people will charge you with self-indulgence. (Just ask anyone who played Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.) But the notion that in 2023 a studio can, with the backing of a huge publisher, exercise such creative freedom with a Triple-A game is reassuring. Roll on the sequel!

Runners-Up:

Takaya Kuroda as Kazuma Kiryu in Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

Ever since Yakuza/Ryu Ga Gotoku first released in 2005, Kuroda has become synonymous with series hero Kazuma Kiryu. And with good reason. Few voice performers manage to imbue a character with such warmth and good humour, before turning on a dime with a shouted threat. How many actors could convincingly utter to a gang of thugs “turn around now and I'll let you go home in one piece,” in hushed tones, without it seeming laughable?

When the first Yakuza came to the west all those years ago, Darryl Kurylo provided Kiryu's English language voice. Now, Yong Yea has taken over, and the trouble is, there's simply no matching Kuroda's inimitable performance. He is and always will be Kazuma Kiryu, and in Like a Dragon Gaiden, he gives it both barrels – especially during that scene. You know the one.

Neil Newbon as Astarion in Baldur's Gate III

You could probably give a shout out to any of Baldur’s Gate 3’s cast for Best Performance in 2023, because they were all excellent. Whether you’re talking about the fun-loving devil Karlach (Samantha Beart), the more soulful Shadowheart (Jennifer English) or the soothing narrator (Amelia Tyler), the entire cast of Larian’s epic CRPG were just outstanding. However, there is one name that climbs its way to the top ever so slightly. Yes, we are of course talking about Neil Newbon as Astarion; a character that grows and grows throughout Baldur’s Gate 3. Astarion’s bravado and sarcasm in the early stages of Baldur’s Gate 3 is just the beginning for a character whose depth knows no bounds. It won’t take long before you start peeling back the layers of an incredibly complex character, and Newbon does an outstanding job in bringing that to life. A simply stunning job from the UK actor.

Winner:

Idris Elba as Solomon Reed in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

It sometimes can be natural for big Hollywood silver screen actors to phone it in a little when it comes to video games. But when it came to Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty in 2023, clearly Idris Elba as Solomon Reed didn’t get that particular memo. Elba was utterly mesmerising in Phantom Liberty, putting in arguably one of his best performances ever - across any medium. The gruff and veteran former agent might seem a little one dimensional on the surface, but as the expansion’s narrative unravels, the depth to Solomon Reed is astonishing. In fact, the longer it goes on, the better Elba’s performance really is. Return to Night City for Phantom Liberty’s engaging espionage thriller, but stay for Idris Elba’s outstanding performance.

Runners-Up:

The Finals

Arriving like a bolt from the blue earlier this month, The Finals introduced its fast and furious free-to-play multiplayer shenanigans to the world, and rather quickly, it caught on. The setup is simple: three teams of three duke it out inside a simulated gameshow for a shedload of cash. During 'Quick Cash' mode, teams race to be first to the vault, then attempt to deposit the cash – the twist is, the box of shiny coins takes its sweet time to go through the machine, so you'll need to protect it. Yes, it's one of those multiplayer games that demands teamwork.

With opponents able to swoop in and steal your consignment of readies at any time – even, heartbreakingly, at the very last second – working with your teammates to keep foes at bay is vital, otherwise a win can slip away fast. 'Bank It' mode is even more frantic, as you squabble over money from wherever you can find it, then strive to keep hold of it for long enough to 'cashout'. Get taken out, and you'll drop any cash you've collected for an opportunist rival to hoover it up – sometimes, it's a cruel game, but, with its destructible environments, fluid traversal, and novel modes, The Finals is a blast.

Party Animals

Party games seem to have been on the rise in recent years. Whether that’s down to us as a collective being traumatised enough to stay in and play video games with friends rather than going out (thanks, COVID!), who the bloody hell knows? Maybe we were always like that! What we do know is that developer Recreate Games smashed it out the park in 2023 with Party Animals. Inspired by the recent resurgence of party games, the studio combined furry and cute-as-a-button animals with chaotic, small-arena-based party games where you smack two tons of crap out of each other. The result of that fusion is an incredibly fun and hilarious party game that’s a blast to play, not just with mates, but randoms the world over.

Winner:

Street Fighter 6

For decades, Street Fighter has cemented its place as the fighting connoisseur's game of choice, and with Street Fighter 6, Capcom went big in providing one of the coolest, most exciting multiplayer offerings to date. Under the roof of the 'Battle Hub', you're let loose in an expansive arcade filled with cabinets and ways to interact with other players. Fancy a match? Sit at the nearest cabinet and get cracking. Want to take a break? Mosey over to the big screen and watch some replays, spectate a few bouts, or tool around with a few retro Capcom classics.

Extreme Battles, meanwhile, introduce various modifiers, making throwdowns slightly more unpredictable. Then there are avatar battles, where you can pit your custom-made fighter from the game's 'World Tour' story mode against one another. All this before you even consider the simple joys of sitting down next to a friend for a local versus match – something that has made Street Fighter a mainstay at EVO year in, year out. No doubt Street Fighter 6 will also be doing the rounds for years to come.

Runners-Up:

Hi-Fi Rush

You’ve got to give it to Tango Gameworks. If challenged to daub a game in the high-fructose hues of a gobstopper, most developers would wince; but Hi-Fi Rush is, true to its name, a sugary surge of colours that practically coat the tongue. If there were an award for the most lickable game of 2023, this would win. The game’s style, moreover, is of a piece with its intent: to prove that Tango isn’t just a horror-monger, that it can, when required, ditch the mood of The Evil Within games, which took their tonal cues from a corpse, all numbing blues and sickly yellows. Hi-Fi Rush was a palate cleanser; arriving in late-January, it was a sunburst of cartoon noise that belonged in the summer. Not a bad way to shake off the lingering chill of the early months.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

2023 has been one of those years that truly feels like the current generation is starting to meet the expectations we had for how games ought to look. Rather crazily, though, it’s not Unreal Engine 5 stealing the headlines when it comes to spectacle and wonder in 2023. It’s a series of in-house custom solutions. Launching on Ubisoft Massive’s Snowdrop engine in December of this year was a game that really came from leftfield in terms of its visuals: Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

Sure, we know The Division and its sequel was attractive enough, but with Frontiers of Pandora, the Swedish developer really raised its game. Avatar’s world of Pandora is, as we said at the time, a technical and visual masterpiece. It’s diverse, it’s wondrous. It’s picturesque. It’s everything you want in an open-world to explore, and definitely one of 2023’s best looking games, not just in terms of visual fidelity, but in terms of artistic vision as well. If Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is an indication of the capabilities of Ubisoft Massive’s Snowdrop engine, then we can’t wait to see what they pull off in Star Wars Outlaws next year!

Winner:

Alan Wake II

With Alan Wake II, Remedy has shown its knack for the hours of dusk. Just as it gave us all those espresso-black nights, in Max Payne, here it specialises in low light – skies that clot with the threat of rain, afternoon sun that bruises over and leaks away into evening. One of the joys of the game is to stand back and stare at it. The graphical grunt of the Northlight engine, mixed with Remedy’s eye for ebbing brightness, throws up sight after sight. I won’t soon forget the texture on Saga’s F.B.I. windbreaker, nor the cosy warmth of the log cabin that she conjures in her mind, nor the purgatory of Alan’s imagined New York: a nocturne of smeary neon and dead alleys. So romantic! You could forgive anyone for wanting to stay trapped all these years.

Runners-Up:

Hi-Fi Rush

Many an action game built round a rhythm-based mechanic has been doomed to failure, but Hi-Fi Rush is unequivocally not one of them. That's thanks to the gameplay, yes, but it's also down to a sensational soundtrack. And from beginning to end, the music pumps away, driving every swipe of protagonist Chai's gnarly axe, success in matching the rhythm adding more and more layers to the score until you're nodding along.

A game like Hi-Fi Rush lives or dies by its soundtrack, and with an original score rubbing shoulders with expertly-deployed licensed music, developer Tango Gameworks pitches things exactly right, perfectly marrying tunes and gameplay for one of the year's most gratifying action experiences, and one of the most pulse-pounding soundtracks around.

Baldur's Gate III

We've already waxed lyrical about just how good the voice acting is in Baldur's Gate 3, but Borislav Slavov’s accompanying soundtrack is just as good, too. In fact, that’s underselling it. Baldur’s Gate 3’s original composition is utterly fantastic. From meandering around the Sword Coast to traipsing through the seedy underbelly of Baldur's Gate itself, Slavov's original score is absolutely sublime.

While I still listen to Skyrim’s soundtrack to this day, Baldur's Gate 3’s will undoubtedly join that illustrious list. It’s that good. From the pompous and in your face “The Legacy of Bhaal” to the truly soothing, “Down By The River,” the soundtrack has incredible range and has a sound for every occasion, so to speak. The haunting choirs littered throughout is like something out of an ethereal dream. It’s truly beautiful. Sure, everyone is already talking about Alan Wake 2’s Herald of Darkness set piece, but the truth is, Baldur's Gate 3 has a track to rival that in the latter stages of the game. If you've not already sampled the delights, do not sleep on Baldur's Gate 3’s epic soundtrack. You will not regret it. 

Winner:

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

This may seem like cheating. The developer of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Respawn Entertainment, has access to a vault of nostalgic noises. The hum and spit of clashing laser, the moan-wail of a TIE fighter, the droids and their symphony of beeps and electronic burps. However, on top of this suite of inherited gifts, Respawn has layered a wealth of its own. The score is composed by Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab, whose work on both games is a Forceful tribute to John Williams. Music has always been key to Respawn. (Barton scored both Titanfall games, along with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, before the studio had splintered off from Infinity Ward.) It knows, as Williams did, that the fastest way to rouse a rebellion is by playing to hearts and minds.

Runners-Up:

Chants of Sennaar's 'Glyph Deciphering'

Featuring a mechanic that's like Duolingo for ancient runes, Chants of Sennaar set itself apart from every other game this year with puzzles that really stretched your grey matter and tested your lingual skills. Each stage of your journey through Sennaar's unique world takes you to a different civilisation, with its own culture, architecture, way of life, and language. To progress, you'll need to compile a lexicon of symbols, then apply logic to figure out what they all mean.

Every symbol pertains to a specific thing within your notebook, and you can freely type in your best guess at what it might be, until you discover a definitive answer. You can potentially get by on guesswork for a time, but eventually, you're going to have to come up with a solution, be it through a process of elimination, or, in some cases, it might just be dumb luck. Either way, Chants of Sennaar's language decoding twist made it easily one of 2023's most intriguing and distinctive puzzle games.

Hogwart’s Legacy’s 'Room of Requirement'

In any other year, Hogwarts Legacy would no doubt have featured a lot more heavily in our end of the year awards, but alas, 2023 was just one of those epic years we’ll still bee talking about for some time. What Hogwarts Legacy did better than most in 2023, however, was innovate. Hogwarts itself was a sheer delight, with its gamut of secrets and ever-shifting corridors. There was mystery and wonder around every corner. One of those mysteries comes a fair way into the game, Hogwarts Legacy’s ‘Room of Requirement,’ a fully customisable and ever-expanding getaway for the player.

What starts off as a simple place to grow some plants and make some potions, eventually evolves into a full-scale wizardry production outfit with tons of options to decorate it with. One room becomes two. Then you get a habitat biome to breed fantastic beasts. Then you get another biome, and another, and another. The Room of Requirement truly was your home away from home, and as you made your way through the game, it expanded to meet your needs - just like the version from the books and the films. You even get your own house-elf by the name of Deek. Like the game itself, Hogwarts Legacy’s Room of Requirement was purely magical, and a really fresh take on a mechanic in games that has grown a touch stale over the past few years. 

Winner:

Cocoon's ‘World Capsules’

The crux of Cocoon is that you, an insectoid scurrier, must lug the world, contained in a glassy orb, on your back. Or at least a world. The world that you are in is similarly contained in a capsule of its own, and there are worlds outside that to think about, too. At the touch of a button, you hop outside of one plane, downsize it to a portable bauble, and bear it off. Amid this cosmic Russian Doll roundelay, questions arise. What is this grasshopperish fellow’s intent? Who sent him, and what is his mission? The answers are purely mechanical, and the developer, Geometric Interactive, does well to pull us through without chafing us with challenge. The mechanisms in play – as we shrink entire planets into goldfish bowls and slosh them to their destination – are never daunting. And at no point is our chap bowed down by his task and tempted to do an Atlas Bugged.

Games have chewed through the fabric of reality before; think of the termite routine of Portal, wherein you bored holes through spacetime. But to encapsulate whole planets, including the one you’re standing in, and string them together like pearls, without turning a player’s cranium into a shaken snow globe? That takes craft and curation. 2023 saw some delicious mechanics, but this one is worlds away.

Runners-Up:

Starfield

As Bethesda's first brand-new franchise in more than 25 years, to say that expectations were high for Starfield is something of an understatement. And, while it's not without its fair share of flaws, Starfield delivered on that all-important sense of wonder, as you chart the galaxy and explore its myriad planets. Granted, some of those planets are a little on the sparse side, but there's almost always something intriguing to discover.

Crucially, Starfield makes you feel like an interstellar adventurer, as you build your ship, then shoot into the cosmos, never being entirely sure what you might encounter next. Bethesda's game frequently has the capacity to surprise, too, especially if you dare to venture off the beaten path. You can be any kind of astronaut you like, as well, be it a smuggler, pirate, law enforcer, or general troublemaker. It might not reach the heights of Skyrim or Fallout, but Starfield is a triumphant small step towards a giant leap into something truly exciting.

Lies of P

While not technically a new intellectual property, being a riff on a book from 1883, Lies of P gave us a vision of Pinocchio that was unlike any other. This is saying something, given that Carlo Collodi’s work has been warped into many shapes – not least by Disney, which sticks its nose wherever it can sniff out fresh invention.

The coup of Lies of P is its setting, Krat, which resembles Paris at the turn of the century: a bad turn, with bits of BioShock Infinite fused onto its cobbles. We get robotic policemen, opera houses with vanilla-cream facades, lamplight, and savage violence. The figure at the heart of the action was cold and hard, refusing to pump any life or presence into the game; this was fitting, considering his own heart was made of metal and ticked like a pocket watch. While P himself is purely a mechanism, and hardly fit to pull any narrative strings, the world is one we would happily go back to.

Winner:

Hi-Fi Rush

The last thing anyone expected from The Evil Within developer Tango Gameworks was a vivid and colourful rhythm-based action game. And, given the swiftness with which it was announced and then launched, few people would have expected Hi-Fi Rush to be quite so brilliant, too. Along with the Xbox launch of Ghostwire: Tokyo, Tango hit its stride in 2023, managing to create games that are wonderfully unique.

Often, there's an innate rhythm to hack and slash action games, but Hi-Fi Rush leaned right into it, challenging players to cleave through enemies while keeping up with the beat, and with an infectious energy, Tango's game proved impossible to resist. Seeing wannabe rockstar Chai and his pals take on the corporate forces of Vandelay, Hi-Fi Rush is unreservedly exciting and enjoyable, even if you fail to match the musical timing. Without a doubt, this was one of 2023's most joyful highlights.

Runners-Up:

Vampire Survivors

That weird 'be the bullet hell' game that released last year, Vampire Survivors was still going strong in 2023, receiving frequent updates with exciting new features (four player couch co-op, anyone?!), tasty paid DLCs available for less than the price of a cup of coffee, and new stages for free. It may not be much to look at, but Vampire Survivors kept things fresh throughout the year.

Free skins, characters, stages, and new achievements offered ample reason to keep coming back to a game that's already more addictive than Peanut M&Ms. Who'd have thought that this wonderful pixel jamboree stuffed with garlic would still be keeping our eyeballs and thumbs busy? Vampire Survivors was the guaranteed gratification game to keep going back to, and still, it has not a single vampire in it. For some reason that escapes us.

Fortnite

More than six years on, Fortnite kept the seasons coming, impressing with its Chapter 4 Season 4, which introduced a heist to the wildly popular battle royale, and brought things back to the beginning with the celebrated 'Season OG'. 2023 was also the year we saw Geralt, Ciri, Attack on Titan content, Resident Evil characters, Anakin Skywalker, Padme, Darth Maul, Ahsoka Tano, Spider-Man 2099, Optimus Prime, the cast of Futurama, Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia, and Alan Wake all come to Fortnite. Phew.

Then, as if all that wasn't enough, 'The Big Bang' event earlier this month brought actual full games to Fortnite, starting with sandbox survival game LEGO Fortnite, Rocket Racing from Rocket League studio Psyonix, and rhythm-action game Fortnite Festival from Rock Band maker Harmonix. What a cracking year Fortnite had – even if you'd never dabbled with Epic Games' all-conquering free-to-play game before, this year made a very compelling case to dive in.

Winner:

Cyberpunk 2077

After a notoriously rocky launch three years ago, Cyberpunk 2077 continued its road to redemption in 2023 with the massive game-changing Update 2.0 and engaging espionage storyline in the Phantom Liberty expansion starring Idris Elba. Those two things along would have been enough to cement a successful year for developer CD Projekt RED and its ongoing mission to ensure that Cyberpunk 2077 lives in the memory as a good game, rather than the messy product it released as in 2020.

But the Polish studio had more to give, dropping Update 2.1 out of nowhere, with even more features that many thought had been consigned to the cutting room floor for good. CDPR finally added the NCART metro system, enabling you to admire the view while getting around Night City; introduced the Radioport for listening to music outside of a vehicle; and gave players more hangouts to share with V's romantic interests. Also, how about a new Porsche 911 Cabriolet, repeatable car races, and extra accessibility features on top of that lot? Don't mind if we do.

Runners-Up:

RoboCop: Rogue City

Without question, we'd buy RoboCop: Rogue City for a dollar. And then some. Though expectations were low for a game from the makers of Rambo: The Video Game and the not-that-bad Terminator: Resistance, RoboCop: Rogue City came right out of left-field, demonstrating a clear love for the original 1987 movie that inspired it. Bringing actor Peter Weller back on board as Alex Murphy/RoboCop, Rogue City felt like an authentic part of that cinematic world, its Old Detroit rendered in grimy, graffiti-daubed detail.

Not only does Rogue City look the part, but it's also ludicrously fun to play, every rapid-fire bullet from Robo's iconic Auto-9 handgun wreaking environmental destruction and exploding criminal heads left, right, and centre. You can grab enemies and chuck them. You can use RoboCop's hacking spike as a melee weapon. You can throw objects around with reckless abandon. RoboCop: Rogue City is a good game.

Lies of P

In a good year for soulslikes, the developer of Lies of P, Neowiz Games, stood apart. The surprise came in two stages. First, that there was a side to the story of Pinocchio that we hadn’t yet seen – one that entailed automatons, a slight hiss of steampunk, and sticky flood of horror. Second, that the game was actually good. It didn’t look bad, in the trailers before its release; it just looked staid.

Another love letter penned to FromSoftware, this one specifically to Bloodborne, it looked like a known quantity, a carefully carved lump of homage. But the combat cribbed smartly from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, with its parries and its posture-breaking, and the setting was not a pure copy of Yarnham; it benefitted from a transfusion of fresh sights. Lies of P had a life of its own, in other words. The truth is, in this genre, you can’t hope for much more than that.

Winner:

Hi-Fi Rush

The very definition of a surprise, Hi-Fi Rush was officially announced on the same day it launched. No build up. No marketing. Just, 'here's the game!' And what a game, too. An eye-saucering, colourful brawler with a pulsating rhythm twist, Hi-Fi Rush felt like a a true original, following the optimistic and energetic Chai and his gang of pals, as they smash the evil robotic conglomerate of Vandelay.

Equal parts Jet Set Radio, Sunset Overdrive, and Devil May Cry, Hi-Fi Rush is an unfettered joy to play, every moment of its upbeat story infused with an infectious, irresistible verve. Not all surprises are pleasant, but Hi-Fi Rush's unexpected release at the beginning of the year is about as pleasant a surprise as you could hope for. And from the studio behind the dark, twisted survival horror vision of The Evil Within, no less. Did anyone predict this from Tango Gameworks? We sure as hell didn't.

Runners Up:

Remedy Entertainment

On the face of it, Remedy may seem undeserving of a nod in this category, having only put out one game this year. But with Control 2, remakes of Max Payne and Max Payne 2, something codenamed Condor, and something else codenamed Kestrel, the studio is feathering its roost with an awful lot of upcoming projects. To deliver Alan Wake II with all this going on is no lean achievement. In fact, to deliver Alan Wake II with nothing else going on would be no lean achievement. It’s one of the year’s best games, a hulking blockbuster of horror-tinged gunplay and looping narrative, and it shines a light on the studio’s lead creative, Sam Lake, whose accomplishments have only grown richer and more strange.

Tango Gameworks

Hi-Fi Rush came out of nowhere, at the close of January, and with it Tango Gameworks proved that it can be more than a purveyor of grim horror. The studio, led by Shinji Mikami, marked out its territory with The Evil Within and its sequel; and Ghostwire: Tokyo wore a horror mask but leapt with the spirit of open-world adventure.

Hi-Fi Rush, on the other hand, was something else entirely. The other hand in question was robotic, and it belonged to Chai, whose chest held an iPod where his heart should be. A music-driven, rhythm-action platformer, this was a burst of vibrant intent. That Tango could completely surprise – shadow dropping a game without a word of notice, and breaking free of a genre pigeon hole – is a delight. And it points to a bright way ahead, for a studio whose heart is always in the right place, no matter what genre it has shuffled to.

Winner:

Larian Studios

Larian Studios’ rise to the top has been wild. The Belgian video game developer opened its doors back in 1996 by founder Swen Vicke - who’s still running the show to this day - but it wasn’t until its make-or-break moment in 2014 that things started to really turn around. Thanks to the success of Divinity: Original Sin, the studio was allowed to breathe another day. Since then, however, the studio has perfectly honed its craft in the CRPG genre and gone from strength to strength, with each game building upon the foundations of the last.

From the brink of bankruptcy nearly a decade ago to being one of the most-talked about companies around (now with studios in six cities all across the globe) with one of the hottest video games of 2023, you can’t help but appreciate the tenacity and commitment of Larian, particularly the teams that make the games. There’s no doubt about it, Baldur’s Gate 3 is an absolute triumph, and a testament that we, the people, still crave epic single-player experiences, and are happy to put our hands in our pockets to wave them in. Larian are still flying the triple-A single-player flag with no compromises, and you have to give them eternal credit for that. And long may it continue.

Runners Up:

Capcom

In 2023, Capcom had a portfolio with sufficient bulge and variety. There was the remake of Resident Evil 4, and the Separate Ways DLC, landing six months later. Then there was the excellent V.R. mode for that game. Then there was Exoprimal, a game obsessed with scale, so to speak, stuffing every frame with thousands of dinosuars and tasking you with their destruction. Then there was the small matter of Street Fighter 6, with its nifty new Drive Gauge system. All of these games – and these are only the top notes, not counting mobile releases – had one thing in common: they were good. In fact, in the case of Resident Evil 4 and Street Fighter 6, they were exquisite. Capcom is rarely out of the running, when it comes to top publishing efforts, and if you really want to gauge its drive then look no further than the wealth of games that it published this year.

Electronic Arts

PGA, FC, F1, WRC, UFC: behold the storm of jumbled letters that marks just some of Electronic Arts’ publishing efforts this year. In other words, the EA Sports division produced excellent entries in the fields of golf, football, Formula 1, rally racing, and MMA fighting. There are a couple of games worthy of special note. With EA Sports FC 24, the company shed the FIFA name and delivered a predictably slick game of football. With EA Sports WRC, Codemasters was given the official World Rally Championship Licence, and it conjured a mud-caked dream. Along with all this, we got a remake of Dead Space, from Motive Studio; an excellent sequel, in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, from Respawn Entertainment; and, as part of the EA Originals label, Wild Hearts was a refreshing tribute to Monster Hunter, which beat with a rhythm of its own. You might look at all this and expect nothing less from a giant such as EA, so it’s a good job that it gave us nothing less.

Winner:

SEGA

While SEGA ended 2023 with a big bang, confirming new versions of Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Golden Axe, Shinobi, and Streets of Rage, it had already had a strong year, releasing a surprisingly good Sonic game; and not one, but two Like a Dragon games. Meanwhile, Atlus (a SEGA subsidiary) had a field day with Persona, releasing Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden on home consoles, liberating them from their handheld prison.

Finally bringing Like a Dragon: Ishin! to the west in lovingly remastered form, resurrecting Kazuma Kiryu's story in The Man Who Erased his name, and bringing fun four-player co-op with the superb Sonic Superstars, 2023 can't be seen as anything other than a complete success for SEGA. Throw in Persona 5 Tactica, and SEGA/Atlus had a busy, busy year. And 2024 is shaping up to be even busier. Bring it on.

Runners Up:

Chants of Sennaar

While one of the first things that strikes you about Chants of Sennaar is its sharp and vivid art style, what lives on in the memory is the game's whip-smart puzzles, logic-driven glyph-deciphering, and quiet contemplative atmosphere. Both a gorgeous and enormously intricate game, Sennaar has been meticulously crafted by its developer, Rundisc, and the result is one of the year's most unique puzzlers.

While Cocoon dazzled with its worlds within worlds, Chants of Sennaar combined physical puzzles with a genuinely clever language-decoding twist, really putting your grey matter through its paces. It's also perfectly pitched, starting things off nice and gently with a few simple conundrums, before introducing increasingly complex glyphs to unravel, and tracts of text to decipher. Granted, we could have done without the stealth bits, but this was a minor misstep in a bravura indie gem.

Sea of Stars

There's little wonder that Sea of Stars absolutely shattered its Kickstarter goal. An RPG adventure inspired by the genre's 1990s golden era, with music from Chrono Trigger composer Yasunori Mitsuda; how could you possibly not want to get in on that? Quebec-based developer Sabotage Studio knew exactly what it wanted to do, too, creating a gorgeous pixel art realm to explore, backed up by an engaging story and loveable characters.

As young Solstice Warriors in training, Zale the blade dancer and Valere the battle monk, you'll experience the plucky duo's formative years, before venturing out into the wider world, facing the looming threat of The Fleshmancers. Bursting at the seams with infectious brio and a sense of wonder, Sea of Stars displays a real reverence for its influences, without being beholden to them. A love letter to RPGs of a certain vintage, Sabotage wears its passion on its sleeve with Sea of Stars, delivering an endearing and memorable tale, with plenty of its own unique ideas. Hoo!

Winner:

Cocoon

Cocoon is a marvel. The mechanic at its heart is the year’s most ingenious. And the premise is a mystery and a quiet meditation. The goal is simple: playing as an insectoid alien, you scuttle to and fro solving puzzles. The developer, Geometric Interactive, cuts out anything extraneous, and the result is a game that feels guided without being airless. You shrink the world into a marble-like sphere and slot it into vast machines. Then, the world outside of that is shrunk, as well: planets within planets, all rolled along by this beetle-like figure. Nothing else this year makes you feel the way Cocoon does: calm, quietly awed, and, most of all, smart. I buzzed through the entire thing in a single sitting without ever coming unstuck. Only, it still felt challenging, because it stirs up ideas. The mechanics are polished and calibrated to bring your mind into play. You emerge from this one changed.

Runners Up:

Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4 was a thrill. Faced with an unenviable task, in remaking one of the best and most influential games that there has ever been, Capcom gave us something special. Resident Evil 4 didn’t – by definition couldn’t – have the impact of the original, whose attitude to genre was not unlike its leading monster: lodging within its host and mutating it into something else, something monstrously more. The remake was concerned with that legacy, and its attitude was one of reverence and light ruffling: it changed some of the layouts, re-ordered the scares, and cut some things entirely. For those who hold the original Resident Evil 4 as a formative text, the remake was like a lavish abridged edition. Like any good remake, it was a comment on the original, it was obsessed with it, in love with it. It wanted to understand its source by slicing to the warm root of it. It was also beautiful, tense, and it left you wanting to play the old game again. What better ode than that?

Alan Wake II

Alan Wake could well have stayed trapped under that lake indefinitely. His work was done, his pulp material would hang around in the game-playing public subconscious, and so what if he would never make it back to his wife? The fact is, Alan looks better when he's blocked and alone. Alan Wake II doesn’t exactly need to exist, then. That it manages to say something meaningful about the original, about the nature of birthing difficult follow-ups, while also giving us some of the most sumptuous visual texture of the year, and a solid horror action game is an extraordinary achievement. It may gaze a little too inward for some people. The story is a little wet in places and, in the end, may leave a slightly stagnant taste (we’re in for another sequel, without a doubt) but, then, it did just claw its way out of a lake, after thirteen years. Let’s give it some credit.

Winner:

Baldur’s Gate III

It's hard to say that Baldur's Gate 3 came out of nowhere in 2023, being that it's been in early access on PC for three years, but I'm not sure anyone really expected how good the final experience would be. Baldur's Gate 3 is not only 2023’s best video game, but you could argue it's perhaps the best video game of the last decade, and is definitely the best game of this generation so far. Baldur's Gate 3 has it all, from an epic score, to a fantastic cast of characters with equally fantastic performances. But more than anything, BG3 truly captured the imagination of a Dungeons and Dragons experience.

From talking squirrels and silver-tongued devils, to treacherous dungeons and phenomenal architecture, the continent of Faerun is jam-packed with handcrafted content and truly ingenious moments. It’s a game where one small deviation from the main plot can devolve into a truly epic and expansive adventure that other players could quite easily miss. Baldur’s Game 3 is an RPG with absolutely no filler, no fetch quests, and no unnecessary bloat. Everything in Larian’s latest masterpiece has a purpose. Everything is designed to empower the player with an insane amount of choice and consequence, which can have a ripple effect throughout your journey across the Sword Coast and beyond.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a masterpiece - there’s no other way to put it - and truly deserving of our Game of the Year award for 2023. Kudos to Larian and the team on a truly iconic experience, and one we’ll remember for decades to come.