The Finger Guns Games of the Year 2024
2024 felt like a year of profound change in the gaming industry. Bubbles’ burst, tens of thousands of jobs were lost, games that could have been considered dead certs in previous years ‘failed to meet expectations’`. The landscape has certainly changed and we wait with baited breath to see how 2025 shapes up in this regard. I think it’s important to salute all of the creative minds that are forging ahead to create the best art they can in a market where capitalism can close doors overnight. We appreciate you and everything you created this year.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom however. If there was one thing that was consistent throughout 2024, it was the persistent release of high quality, creative and ground breaking games. We joked in our Finger Guns slack channel back in April how we were only 4 months into the year and we have already played 4 potential GOTY contenders. That pace continued all year with dozens of games that could be considered the cream of the crop in any other year. There’s every chance we’ll look back at 2024 in the years to come and see it shoulder to shoulder with the likes of 1998 (Metal Gear Solid, Half-Life, Resi 2) or 2007 (Super Mario Galaxy, Halo 4, CoD4: MW).
Deciding a singular “Game of the Year” is difficult at the best of times and to be honest, our friendships are not worth the heated debates (okay, arguments) we’d need to have in order to come to an agreement on one. Each of the Finger Guns team would be fighting for their favourite, and because we’re all so unique snow flakes with our likes, dislikes and passion for our corner of gaming, we’d likely never publish this list as we’d be at each other’s throats. There’s no editor-in-chief here to overrule everyone else. Each persons’ opinion means as much as the next person.
Instead, we each get a say. Below, you’ll find an eclectic list of excellent games, each of which should be consider our “Game of the Year 2024”. These are the games we each thought stood out in an exemplary year of gaming. There’s some honourable mentions too, of games we think came close in taking the crown. Upon review of the list, it’s a truly excellent collection of the best 2024 had to offer.
Without further ado, allow us to introduce to you the “Finger Guns Games of the Year 2024”.
Miles
For the majority of 2024, I’d been stuck in a perpetual cycle of maybe finding a GOTY, only for yet another great game to come out and scupper that idea. No word of a lie, at one stage I potentially had 6-7 contenders. Thankfully for my sanity, I had the wondrous pleasure of playing Metaphor: ReFantazio, which blew everything else out of the water. When a game consumes your every waking moment, you know it’s achieved something quite special.
Metaphor: ReFantazio excels in its ability to continuously up the ante throughout a ridiculous 60+ hour runtime. At hour 5, I was intrigued, by hour 15, I was engrossed. At hour 30, the game revealed that the previous 29 hours had been little but an introduction. Atlus incredulously make an exceptionally long runtime a joy to experience, thanks to its layered and deep turn-based combat system, addicting afternoon-evening social cycle and more side quests than you could shake a magla-infused stick at.
But what really drew me in, and made Metaphor: ReFantazio a 10/10 for me, was the storytelling. Yes, there are reams of dialogue. However, the earnest and heartfelt backstories of the friends you make along the journey are wonderfully realised. As a dark fantasy tale, it sets up an antagonist who can rival some of the best of them, while maintaining engaging themes around the nature of power, societal divide and overcoming inner fears. In times as tumultuous as ours, that’s quite the important message.
In all, I went into Metaphor: ReFantazio not really knowing what to expect. I came away from my 66 or so hours with it blown away, massively impressed and it left a void that’s been pretty difficult to fill since. It’s an incredible title, overflowing with depth, content and superb writing that’s more than deserving of being my 2024 GOTY.
Honourable Mention: Farewell North
If GOTY was dictated solely by how much a game made could make me ugly sob, Farewell North wouldn’t have even had competition. An intensely emotional, beautiful indie title that teases you in with the lure of being a carefree dog, only to break your heart and make you feel grateful for it. Farewell North is moving, uplifting, harrowing and mesmerising all at once. You can read more about it here, but I’d highly encourage experiencing this beautiful artistic creation for yourself.
Kat
It would be remiss of me not to include my first 10/10 in the three years of my time here at FG – if I was to then NOT make it my GOTY?
You can read my review of I Am Future: Cosy Apocolypse Survival here. I Am Future is almost a crime of passion to the cosy genre. A rebuttal to every single trope criticism that plagues the cosy genre in game after game. Every turn and every corner where I could see myself writing the same criticisms mostly always mentioned in cosy games, I would be proven so very wrong moments later. I Am Future encapsulates challenge, relaxation, re-building and a perfect blend of resourcefulness, creativity, and heartwarming storybeats. I couldn’t put it down, and every mechanic and detail felt crafted with intention and love for the genre. It has a deeply satisfying progression mechanic and continues to bring me joy every time I play.
I am glad to stand behind an indie for GOTY. If you haven’t heard of it, and you like the genre, please I implore you to give it a go (not sponsored I swear). It is available on PC and Steam Deck, and the last I saw was at the very reasonable price of 10 British pounds. That’s basically a Starbucks and a cake for a plethora of joyful post-apocalyptic fun! I truly believe it will be a high bar for the cosy genre going forward.
Honourable Mention: Astro Bot
I mean, of course right? Astro Bot was a pure love letter to PlayStation fans. A platforming haven that is spectacular in every way. It deserved the pants off of GOTY this year at the Game Awards. You can read more blushing and gushing love for the game below!
Rossko
Thanks, Kat! This was kind of inevitable, right?
After the glorious two hour experience of Astro’s Playroom I was hoping that Team Asobi saw the feedback and were working on an full Astro experience for the console. What I didn’t expect was it would win countless Game of the Year awards and be my personal favourite game of the last twelve months. Asobi clearly took it to heart and said ‘well, if we’re gonna do this, might as well make it the greatest thing ever’ and lo and behold, that’s what they did. Maybe. Feels like it.
It says something when I can’t wipe the stupid grin off my face throughout the playthrough of a game. After lambasting the Summer Game Fest and Opening Night Live for focusing so heavily on miserable Soulslike / horror games that all looked exactly the same and are doing nothing but chasing a trend, Astro Bot stood out. It was a joyous trailer, one that got the young platformer-loving nerd in me doing jumping jacks. I needed Astro Bot or I feared I wouldn’t have had anything else to look forward to for the rest of the year. I told the team I was ready to jack in gaming fully if all we were gonna get from here-on in was just broody miserable games that do nothing differently from one another.
Astro Bot works because the joy is front and centre. It can’t be ignored. As soon as you turn the game on you can control the DualSense ship in the opening credits. It’s created to be a positive, exciting and blisteringly colourful experience from the get go, and it’s difficult to really argue with its reasoning. Even my beloved Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is still a slog due to the bleakness of its narrative. I needed something that would get me out of my funk and Astro Bot tore through the game industry to reach me, and it reaffirmed my belief that this medium of video games is still the greatest at what it does. I can’t think of a game that lifted my spirit the way Astro Bot did, and that’s why it’s my Game of the Year. It made me love games again.
What a miraculous achievement.
Honourable Mention – Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island
Another game that gave me the joy feels was Mythwrecked – Ambrosia Island. From the makers of the wonderful Roki, it was high on my anticipated list for the year and thankfully did not disappoint. My review goes into more detail as to why but this is a wonderful indie experience with a high concept that seeps everything out of the idea and delivers in spades. I really hope it does well, it deserves to be played by as many people as possible.
Sean
Malevelon Creek. These simple two words will have stirred a powerful and conflicting reaction in some of you. First, it’ll be the memories of the red laser file whizzing over head as you crawl through the bushes, the chuntering automatons bearing down on your location. Your eyes have probably glazed over. More than just a meme, this was the location that many of the new generation of Helldivers cut their teeth in the battle for freedom and democracy. It’s an ugly planet. A bug automaton planet. A planet hostile to life [writer is attacked and maimed].
These memories of battling in the dark jungle will quickly be followed by the positive vibes that comes from playing Helldivers 2. The clutch meta-victories. The last second extractions. The tidal waves of democracy-threatening aliens that need to be defeated in the name of Super Earth. The hilarious failures and stray friendly fire. Playing Helldivers 2 is the most fun I’ve had with a video game in years.
All credit to Arrowhead Studios – a satirical third person live service shooter managed to crack into the main stream in 2024, and that’s worthy of a Game of the Year nod on its own. The fact that it is an incredibly well crafted, intelligently designed and (after a few hiccups at launch) a technical masterpiece of online play is the reason why there has only really been one choice for my Game of the Year in 2024. Well done to Helldiver 2 *salutes in Super Earth*.
Honourable Mention – Star Wars Outlaws
I wasn’t surprised when my PlayStation Wrapped 2024 highlighted that I’d played an eye watering amount of Star Wars Outlaws during 2024. While it has certainly been divisive with the wider audience, Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft have created a fascinating world within a beloved fictional universe that I loved spending time with. This is something I’m really surprised to be writing, because my first impression of Outlaws was a poor one. Before the fixes and updates, the game needed some TLC and probably released a little too early for its own good. After a few updates however, Outlaws really started to shine, and quickly became a favourite of mine in 2024. For fans of Star Wars, Outlaws really is essential, leaving behind the Skywalkers and Jedi for the seedy underbelly of the galaxy far, far away that makes for a fantastic setting. I came to love Kay Vess & Nix and couldn’t pull myself away from their high-jinx for months, so much so that I went on to 100% the game. Oh, and Ubisoft, if you’re reading this, do the right thing and release a full, standalone Sabacc game. You know you should.
Greg
When it comes to picking a favourite game of any year, there’s usually a mass-debate involved. Do I pick an indie darling like a hipster, do I go with the masses and say that I, too, loved a particularly popular game? Well this year’s thought process was easy enough: what game was I looking forward to, what didn’t disappoint and what gave me a great deal of fun to both review and play? The answer to all three: Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2.
Despite a thirteen year gap between this and the original, it plays exactly like you’d expect a direct sequel to. Except instead of that sounding boring, it’s clearly benefitted from technological improvements and Saber Interactive’s World War Z mass-enemy-on-screen-at-once tech. As I said in my review, Space Marine 2 is a time capsule of a game. A great time of linear shooter action, by yourself or with friends, that makes players feel epic from start to finish. Well, morally dubious, “Are we just Space Nazi’s?” ethics aside.
Honourable Mention – Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster
Again it feels like reaching for the low hanging fruit, even more so when this technically “came out” eighteen years ago. But I don’t care, they’re my picks and this is what I had fun with.
DRDR takes everything that made the original great and has had the spruce up treatment by Capcom. It’s not quite warts and all, because some of it has been made easier due to modern quality of life tweaks and today’s accessibility standards. But the challenge is still there, as is the absurdity and the downright cathartic feeling of re-deading the undead, just as it was before the series crashed and burned a few years ago.
Josh
Surprising absolutely no one, due to my propensity to obsess over survival horror, my GOTY pick is Silent Hill 2. I’ve had a real journey on the lead up to its release where at one point I couldn’t wait to play, then I didn’t think Bloober Team had it in them to pull it off, and then a mere couple of weeks before launch I was crossing my fingers and toes for something at least memorable. I like it when I’m right but I like it more when I’m proven wrong and I think Bloober came at the franchise with the same respect and admiration of any superfan and proved that they were the ones to do it.
It’s a tonally less ambiguous retelling of the Silent Hill 2 story as there’s less left up to the imagination. The writing is different when it needs to be and untouched when it’s not. Everyone’s performance has brought new emotions to the forefront – whether it’s Luke Roberts’ dejected James Sunderland or Gianna Kiehl’s heartbreaking Angela, all of it is in service to the fantastic narrative. Not to mention this version of Silent Hill looks the most terrifying it’s ever been. I’ve not stopped thinking about how this game has made me feel, the ‘In Water’ ending has been etched in my head ever since. Just maybe less mannequin enemies next time, yeah?
Honourable Mention – Arco
Speaking of games I’ve not been able to get out of my head, Arco is one that’s stuck with me for the past 4 months since its release. Had I played this after the patches made to the Switch version’s performance this could have nabbed the top spot, but as it stands it wasn’t quite as playable. However, despite its bugs, I could not put this one down. It’s an epic western about revenge from the perspective of the natives, told from the three playable protagonists you go on the journey with. It’s an important story that’s both beautiful and brutal whilst also having some amazing gameplay to back it up. A mixture of real-time and turn-based combat that’s such an addictive loop, a big world to explore and discover all of its secrets while being chock full of amazing vistas in an excellent pixel art style. Do not sleep on this one.
Toby
Even though many games came out this year that could have usually been an easy shoo-in for GOTY for me, my real issue was that my heart had already been stolen right at the start of proceedings. To have Final Fantasy VII Rebirth appear in February, and for it to then be better than Remake in almost every conceivable way, was somewhat mind-boggling. To have it be a sprawling multi-location open-world structure that worked far better than it had any right to and demanded you exhaust yourself in six different places before moving on. To have a mini-game bonanza throughout the entire game, from end to end, just throwing joyful dopamine hits at you (something like 30 different games) and tugging at that nostalgic gaming bug from the old days. And to have it all at such an incredible quality of graphics, voice-acting, direction, and gameplay for an incredible 120 or so hours, was just beyond anything that later experiences of the year could hope to match.
Other games this year have been amazing, just look at the others on this list. But nothing quite compares to joining Sephiroth in Nibelheim mountains, challenging NPCs to a viable and fun card game at every turn, reaching Gold Saucer, or the way the game manages to pile one completely bonkers over-the-top flamboyant scene on top of another for its entire runtime. It is a beautiful experience to be saying to friends, Costa Del Sol is just crazy, everything is crazy, and for them to say, just wait until you get to Dio and Gold Saucer, you’ve seen nothing yet. It is a beautiful experience to relive childhood memories given the time and flesh and presence to really work and then find them given new life and new plot that works. I cried when I reached Cosmo Canyon and it was a spiritualist tourist trap, I cried when I rode my first Chocobo, I cried at the end when [REDACTED] happened.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was nominated for no less than seven Game Awards, including Game of the Year, which I truly think it deserved. However, it walked away with only one – Best Score and Music. The soundtrack to Rebirth is one for the ages, an incredible feat considering I’ve been listening to Uematsu’s original for 25 years at this point. Somehow it manages to rework all those tracks in amazing ways, but also reinvent itself a new over-the-top identity that I loved from beginning to end.
Honourable Mention – Black Myth Wukong
Black Myth Wukong was something of a cultural cornerstone in my year. I prepped for the game by reading Journey to the West and getting my fix of millennia-old monkey shenanigans. When I started up the game, I was able to appreciate and identify a good number of characters from the original story, in particular Pigsy who is your travelling companion for a fair part of the game. Black Myth Wukong managed to pull off my favourite combat of the year, and be a stunning and authentic work of art throughout.
Paul
Every year when I get my gaming “Year in Review,” one title always takes the top spot: The Forest. I had such a blast playing that game. So, when I heard there was a sequel on the way, I couldn’t wait—I sharpened my virtual axe in anticipation.
But there was one catch: Sons of the Forest launched exclusively on Steam. I waited (and waited) for a PS5 release, but it never came. Eventually, I decided enough was enough—I subscribed to GeForce Now just to play it. And let me tell you, I haven’t regretted it for a second. The fact that I signed up for a subscription service purely for this game says everything you need to know about my Game of the Year.
Sons of the Forest is everything a sequel should be. A bigger island, better tools, smarter building mechanics—it improves on the original in all the right ways while keeping the core elements that made The Forest so much fun. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, the game is stunning. The island feels alive, beautifully crafted, and brimming with opportunities for real exploration.
The enemies? They’ve leveled up too. Some of the more human-like creatures now show intelligence—one moment I’ll be decapitating an enemy with a samurai sword, and the next, I’ll catch another kneeling over their fallen comrade, crying. It’s haunting and immersive.
And the weapons? The arsenal has expanded dramatically. In the original game, finding bits of an old gun felt like a triumph. In Sons of the Forest, the options are seemingly endless: shotguns, silenced pistols, crossbows, bows, swords, machetes—you name it, it’s there. If I have one small critique, it’s that there might be too many weapons, which shifts the focus a bit more toward action and away from pure survival.
Special mention goes to the building mechanics. Instead of rigid blueprints, you can now build freeform, starting with a simple log on the ground and creating from there. The system is intuitive and allows for incredible creativity. Some of the massive structures my friend and I have built are a testament to how simple yet powerful the mechanics are.
I’ve been eagerly awaiting Sons of the Forest for a long time, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s visually breathtaking, has a compelling story, and features creatures that will haunt your nightmares for weeks. What’s not to love?
Honourable Mention – Astro Bot
What can I say about this game that hasn’t already been said by the rest of the team? I had an absolute blast playing it. The gameplay is phenomenal, and the way it uses the DualSense controller is nothing short of amazing—a combination that, dare I say it, puts Mario to shame.
I never thought I’d make such a bold statement, but here it is: Mario finally has some serious competition when it comes to delivering the best platforming fun. I can’t wait to see what the next installment brings!
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Have we missed your favourite game of 2024? Agree or disagree with us? Head to the comments section and sound off.
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