My picks for Game of the Year are WARNO and Metaphor: Refantazio, both of which I wrote about.
WARNO successfully iterated on Eugen’s real-time tactics formula, and gave me many hours of fun during an often-challenging period.
I picked up Metaphor: Refantazio late in the year, and it wowed me with its style, dungeon-crawling, and character interactions.
The runners-up
I would place Indiana Jones and the Great Circle just a notch below. This is not so much the game’s fault as a matter of personal taste — later areas moved away from the verticality, focus on freeform exploration, and gorgeous architecture that enchanted me so much in the first area, the Vatican.
Unicorn Overlord is mechanically excellent and in terms of sheer hours, was one of the games I played most in 2024. Had the writing been better, it would be higher up my list.
What titles from previous years did I discover or revisit?
After 13 years!
There were a lot of beefy, evergreen strategy games:
I revisited Old World and Crusader Kings III in response to the release of new DLCs. Old World, in particular, is a perennial on my end-of-year lists.
Anno 1800 is another perennial. I even put together a to-do list on pen and paper, as I continued working through the tremendous amount of content in the game.
Inspired by the excellent new Shogun TV series, I revisited Total War: Shogun 2 — and finally won as the Oda clan, the first clan I ever tried!
I revisited Terra Invicta and found it coming along well, two years after it launched into Early Access.
I revisited Emperor of the Fading Suns (link to my original write-up from back in 2011), a classic 1990s 4X game that has been updated and re-released on GOG.
I also tried Fantasy General 2, Field of Glory 2: Medieval, and 40K: Gladius for the first time (and dusted off FOG2‘s predecessor, Sengoku Jidai). While its production values are limited, Fantasy General 2 made a good impression on me.
Fighting a field boss in Elden Ring.
Non-strategy games included:
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was my favourite game of 2023, and I finished in 2024.
I revisited Elden Ring and made it most of the way through the base game — up to the Fire Giant — as well as starting on the DLC.
A Legionary’s Life was the standout “short-form” game I discovered in 2024.
Revisiting Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord took much of the shine off (my original write-up from 2020), as this time the core gameplay loop felt much more repetitive. But what it does (spectacular battles), it does well.
I discovered and enjoyed Suzerain’s base game, leading me to pick up the “Kingdom of Rizia” DLC.
Potionomics is charming, although its central loop (brew potions, sell potions, buy ingredients to make more potions, repeat) hasn’t kept me engaged as long as some of the other games on this list.
On a technical note, I switched to a new theme, GeneratePress.
Upcoming releases
There’s only one game release on my radar, the imminent Civilization VII.
In terms of hardware, I am very interested in the upcoming Switch 2. If Nintendo releases it at a reasonable price and with a decent launch library (a new Mario Kart is already visible in the trailer video), then I’ll look to buy it as soon as I can after launch.
I look forward to seeing you around for the rest of the year.
