From beginning to end, 2023 was a standout year for games. Every month brought a new selection of games that impressed with creativity, technical sophistication, artistic depth, and design brilliance. Tiny indie teams competed with massive triple-A projects for the gaming public's attention. The result was one of the most enjoyable years of new games in a long time.
As we come to the end of this year, we’re celebrating the very best of those games that crossed our screens over the last year. Read below to discover the projects we felt rose above the fray, earning our highest praise.
Game Informer's Top 10 Games of 2023:
10
Street Fighter 6
Street Fighter 6 practically overcorrects on Street Fighter V's mistakes. Instead of a bare-bones launch, it packs a ton of cool features from the get-go. The biggest is World Tour, a goofy and enjoyable single-player campaign letting us hang out with the main cast and fight bizarre strangers in a surprisingly large sandbox.
Of course, the one-on-one fighting is the franchise’s bread and butter, and it’s as fun and polished as ever. Thanks to the new Drive System, we loved playing new twists on old favorites like Ryu, Chun-Li, and Guile while falling in love with newcomers such as Kimberly, Manon, and Jamie. Best of all, every Shoryuken, Flash Kick, and Hundred Hand Slap looks fantastic, thanks to the game’s fluid animations and colorfully vibrant graffiti paint effects.
Superb onboarding features such as simple yet robust tutorials ensure even rookies can catch up to veterans in no time. And even if they don’t, the streamlined inputs of the new Modern control scheme flatten the playing field, allowing newcomers to hold their own while letting experienced players go all out. Testing those skills in the online battle hub recaptures the old-school thrill of creating arcade rivalries with friends and strangers alike. Street Fighter 6 is the year’s best fighter and one of the finest in the genre’s history.
9
Sea of Stars
Sea of Stars follows the journey of two fated warriors and their childhood friend as they fight the forces of destiny to defeat immortal quarreling beings. The story is as large as the adventure, and it wears its Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG (among other games) inspirations on its sleeves, crafting a consistently joyful throwback experience. The fantastic art style and excellent music (featuring work from famed Square Enix composer Yasunori Mitsuda) make Sea of Stars feel like that fantastic RPG from your childhood that you never got around to playing.
But even with all the inherent nostalgia, it feels like a contemporary RPG with excellent modern combat, fun movement, and a thrilling pace. This isn’t an RPG where you need to spend time grinding just to see what happens next, but you can take a break to go fishing if you want.
The indie scene is full of games playing in the sandbox of your childhood video game memories. Sea of Stars isn’t unique in that way, but the reason it makes our top 10 is how well developer Sabotage executed delivering an RPG experience even better than what we remember while still feeling like it was born of another era. Even if you have no nostalgia for the RPGs that inspired Sea of Stars, it’s still worth spending time with Solstice Warriors Valere and Zale and their friend Garl.