Fans overwhelmingly supported games in 2024 that shied away from progressive ideologies, opting for a return to normalcy.
Whether it was through sports or some good, old-fashioned hack-and-slash, the best games of the year didn't need to sell you on nonbinary adventures; they let the gameplay do the talking.
The first on that list is Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. The game was well received not only by the general public but by skeptics who worried the game would take a turn toward the dark side.
As That Park Place reported in May, Warhammer lore was rewritten to ensure inclusivity to females, removing the words "sons" and "men" from older texts.
Thankfully, the only thing that was "questioning" in this game was whether the gamer should first kill the massive horde of aliens coming from his left or his right.
A sprawling landscape, while feeling choked at times, still delivered a graphically impressive title that is easy to pick up and play and even included couch co-op. Step into a giant suit of armor and kill aliens with giant swords and machine guns? Yes.
Stellar Blade fought the machine and won — multiple times. The game was plagued with bad press from the start, but for all the right reasons. First, South Korean video game director Hyung-Tae Kim was accused of sexism when he dared to make his lead character look like an actual woman.
Complaints said character Eve was an unrealistic portrayal of the female body, but it was quickly pointed out that the character was a body scan of a living person.
Kim refused to cover up his character, which surely sounds odd, but that's only until you realize that critics are complaining about a female video game character being too attractive. The game later released updated outfits for the character after users complained the designers had already compromised too much upon launch.
Kim struck back at critics and pointed out that Western media is too focused on "gender and racial diversity," adding he believes his character designs have actually "become somewhat of a brave thing to be going for or attempting."
The gameplay did not suffer, either. Another slasher game with modern graphics that lived up to the hype for fans, scoring a 9.2 based on almost 7,000 user ratings.
With the motto "every team is somebody's favorite team," EA College Football 25 was a crowd-pleaser, even if it wasn't the best technical sports game ever made.
With a July release, it took just a few months for the game to break the all-time sales record for a U.S. football game the following October. Much of this can be attributed to the excitement of fans after a more than 10-year absence from the franchise, but the game still plays pretty well.
The authenticity is what carried it, however. With custom entrance songs from a long list of schools, consistently updated uniforms, and the college football playoffs before they ever happened in real life, the game was a welcome change from the monotony that Madden has become.
NCAA outperformed Madden 25 so well, in fact, that rumors started swirling that the NFL was concerned with the series' poor performance ahead of licensing negotiations with Electronic Arts.
Fans will no doubt hope the game's success will put pressure on EA to make better products, but it could also just result in multiple stale football franchises.
At the same time, MLB the Show '24 is likely one of the only sports games that gets noticeably better each year. Critic scores are around 80, and user scores are abysmal. They're both wrong.
This MLB game keeps the lineup moving with a decent improvement on last year's game, with features that are actually worth using. Noticeable bugs are gone, and while some drawbacks in the gameplay are still evident, longtime players will notice that certain instances that bothered them just don't happen any more.
Pitchers can actually pick off runners, base runners can actually be doubled off after a line-drive out, and a pitcher's confidence matters. Add in a story mode featuring Derek Jeter that is somewhat enjoyable (due to a series of interviews with him), and this is likely the best baseball game of all time.
It still can improve, though.
Early in 2024, fans of the Final Fantasy series eagerly awaited Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, the second installment in a three-part remake to the PlayStation original.
After many users complained that the first game felt a little hollow, the sequel rebounded with what was described as almost too much to do. Multiple in-game mini challenges, near-impossible side quests, and even a Magic: The Gathering-style card game.
The larger map benefited from the story transitioning beyond the city of Midgar and was pushed along with the amusement park Gold Saucer. Seeing what the original game imaged in rigid pixels come to life in a modern, graphical masterpiece was pretty remarkable. This landed the game a 92/100 on Metacritic.
With the saddest scenes in the story likely behind it, it will be interesting to see how part three compares when it is released in *gulp* 2027.
It's a story so good that even the guy from "Twilight" boasts about it ... okay, he's also Batman.
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