Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 knows exactly what its audience wants. A crunchy, blood-and-guts third-person shooter set in the grimdark far-future of the Warhammer universe, the game draws obvious inspiration from the Gears of War franchise by casting the player — and, crucially, up to two friends — as an armor-clad space marine shooting, stomping, and chainsaw-ing their way through hundreds of hostile aliens. In case that description wasn’t clear enough: This game is simply a blast.
4. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
(PlayStation 5)
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth contains multitudes. The second installment in a planned trilogy of Final Fantasy VII remakes is an absolute behemoth, boasting a massive open world, a terrific action-based battle system, and a list of minigames and side quests that feels endless because it nearly is. Clearly, the strategy here was “more is more,” and there’s no question that ultimately tips into “too much of a good thing.” But it’s also a credit to this grand Final Fantasy VII remake project that even after playing dozens of hours, only to reach an ending so hopelessly muddled that I’m not even entirely sure what it means, I still can’t wait for part three.
3. Metaphor: ReFantazio
(PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows)
A gorgeous fantasy political thriller with actual insights into both the fantasy genre and politics, Metaphor: ReFantazio took home the trophy for Best Narrative at the 2024 Game Awards, and rightly so. When the assassination of a king leaves the fate of an entire kingdom in question, a boy from a lower caste rounds up a group of like-minded citizens to challenge the general who intends to exploit the power vacuum. Metaphor’s battle system is cleverly designed to maximize the strategic gambits that make RPGs interesting while minimizing the grinding that makes them tedious, but it’s the dense, twisty story, and especially the unexpected metafictional flourishes, that will stick with you.
2. Silent Hill 2
(PlayStation 5, Windows)
There were plenty of reasons to be skeptical of a Silent Hill 2 remake. The survival-horror franchise has been mismanaged by Konami for two full decades. This time around, they handed the keys to Polish developer Bloober Team, whose previous horror-game track record was spotty at best. Somehow, Bloober Team rose to the occasion, modernizing Silent Hill 2 without sacrificing the original game’s eerie sense of place, unsettling sequences of cruelty and violence, or the unusual psychological depth of its story, which climaxes with one of the more memorable reveals in video game history. One hopes Konami is ready to build on this unlikely success story with further Silent Hill games in this vein, because it’s been a long time since this foggy town had such a clear path forward.
1. Balatro
(PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows, MacOS, iOS)
Arriving in an age of ballooning video-game budgets, Balatro is the anti-AAA title. It was developed by a single person. It boasts minimalist pixel graphics and no story at all. Its gameplay is just poker with a roguelike twist: a series of modifiers, chosen by the player, that turn each playthrough into a race for a high score by transforming cards and their values into whatever suits your playstyle best. It could not be simpler, it could not be more addictive, and it’s now available on cell phones, with free updates dropping at an impressively consistent clip. This is the kind of game I recommend with a warning: Be careful, or Balatro could completely take over your life.
This list, originally published on July 24, was updated on Dec 12.
