It’s pretty rare in the gaming industry for everyone to agree on something. There will always be naysayers in every crowd, but a site like Metacritic is a good way to gauge what the overall vibe of a game is in the community. While middling receptions are fairly common, a few times a year there are games so good that even the harshest of critics can’t help but sing their praises, and it’s those games that we want to highlight.
We’ve gone through every game released in 2024 and picked out the ones that got the very best critic score on Metacritic.
The Tekken series has always been one of the kings of the fighting game genre and Tekken 8 made sure no one was going to forget that fact, proving to be the best-received Tekken game in quite some time. It received near-universal praise for being one of the best modern fighting games out there and revitalizing the series’ competitive scene.
Sometimes it pays to be unapologetically weird, and Thank Goodness You’re Here! is one of the most brilliantly weird games I’ve ever played. It has a brilliant sense of humour that puts absurdist comedy through an aggressively British lens that feels almost nostalgic if you’re a Brit, yet still side-splittingly funny if you’re not.
Read more: Thank Goodness You’re Here! review: thank goodness this was made
Remastering a game that wasn’t even four years old at the time is a questionable decision, but clearly it worked, as this touched-up version of the game received just as much praise as the original. Combined with some additional content, it makes this the definitive version of a game that was already highly acclaimed.
Unquestionably the biggest indie hit of the year, Balatro took the simplest of concepts and turned it into a complex and addictive masterclass in “number go up” game design. It does a fantastic job of slowly pulling you into its fiendishly complicated world in a way that has you analysing every little move and slowly growing from a bumbling card clicker into a master strategist.
Satisfactory feels like it’s been around forever, but it finally came out of early access a couple of months ago and it proved well worth the wait. Developing a gameplay formula that had already seen success with the likes of Factorio and modded Minecraft, Satisfactory allows you to build up an incredible empire from nothing with giving you total freedom to make it as efficient or chaotic as your heart desires.
This game got a nice boost in buzz thanks to being the first game published by Bigmode, which was established by content creator VideoGameDunkey. As far as first outings go, this was about as big a success as the publisher could’ve hoped for, as Animal Well is an extremely intelligent puzzle platformer that just keeps getting deeper the more you look into it.
Read more: Animal Well review: deeper than it looks
Why have one game when you can have 50? This is a collection of retro-style games that can be played in both single and multiplayer, and it captured people’s hearts immediately. It nailed the visual style and feel of classic games while having modern design to bring out unique ideas that keep you coming back for more.
The second part in the trilogy of Final Fantasy 7 remakes, Rebirth showed the full potential of what the team could do to this all-time great story with modern technology. After Remake’s linear experience it was a breath of fresh air to play around in this massive world with almost too much stuff to do in it. It kept the original’s incredible story alive, recreating classic moments while still innovating, taking things in a new direction as we look forward to the finale of the trilogy in a few years’ time.
Astro Bot managed to pick the perfect year to release, as it’s been long enough since the last mainline Mario 3D platformer that people were well up for something along those lines. While there is plenty of debate around whether Astro Bot is actually up to scratch with the plumber, it is definitely a fantastic 3D platforming experience, the likes of which we haven’t seen from a company not named Nintendo in a very long time.
DLC or not, Shadow of the Erdtree could easily stand on it’s own as a great RPG experience, and it was never in any doubt that this Elden Ring expansion was going to make waves. It brought back everything people loved about the base game while ramping up the difficulty in its boss design and massively expanded the build possibilities with the new gear. “Elden Ring, but more” is pretty much what everyone wanted from SotE and that’s exactly what we got.
“Persona but fantasy” was the pitch for Metaphor: ReFantazio and everyone got on board pretty much immediately, with many even saying that Metaphor has surpassed Persona in how it uses its core mechanics. Whether you agree with that or not, Metaphor succeeded in capturing that audience with great writing, fun battle mechanics, and refined life-sim elements that make it a clear frontrunner for best JRPG of the year.
