Game Informer

Persona 3 Reload is right around the corner – it hits PlayStation, Xbox, and PC on February 2. If you've ever played a Persona game, you're likely familiar with the "opening movie," which is the awesome animated opening to the game set to what is typically the main theme song. Ahead of Persona 3 Reload's release next month, Atlus has released its opening movie, debuting a brand new track called "Full Moon Full Life." 

In it, we get a look at the main character and the rest of the cast, as well as Persona, Igor, and more. As you might expect, the opening movie retains the flashy and stylish animation Persona has become known for over the years, and no surprise, it looks great. Atlus notes the trailer contains violent and sensitive content, however, so be wary of that before pressing play. 

Check out the Persona 3 Reload opening movie for yourself below: 

The original Outcast was a PC-exclusive, 3D open-world action game that predated Grand Theft Auto III by two years. It was an innovative, well-regarded, but underplayed game about landing on an alien planet and trying to survive in the face of its dangerous fauna. A remake of that game, called Outcast: Second Contact, was released in 2017, but Outcast: A New Beginning is the long overdue, proper sequel to the cult classic.

Join Marcus Stewart and me as we check out what the game has to offer, which is primarily impressive jetpack mechanics that let you literally fly around the alien world at high speeds. Outcast: A New Beginning is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on March 15.

Head over to Game Informer's YouTube channel for more previews, reviews, and discussions of new and upcoming games. Watch other episodes of New Gameplay Today right here.

In this week's episode of The Game Informer Show, returning guest and editor of this podcast, Matt Storm, joins us to discuss our most anticipated games of 2024. We dive into Game Informer's 2024 game release calendar and go month-by-month, highlighting the projects we're most looking forward to. 

Watch The Podcast To Learn About Upcoming Games In 2024: 

Follow us on social media: Alex Van Aken (@itsVanAken), Marcus Stewart (@MarcusStewart7), Kyle Hilliard (@KyleMHilliard), Matt Storm (@DJ_Stormageddon)

The Game Informer Show is a weekly gaming podcast covering the latest video game news, industry topics, exclusive reveals, and reviews. Join host Alex Van Aken every Thursday to chat about your favorite games – past and present – with Game Informer staff, developers, and special guests from around the industry. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

PlayStation has released a promotional video highlighting some of the biggest games coming to its console this year. The video hypes both first and third-party releases, many of which already had release dates/windows, but it also casually confirms 2024 launches for two previously un-dated projects.

Specifically, the video labels Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater and Silent Hill 2 as 2024 games. Both games, each a remake of their respective titles, had no launch window prior to today. But the video and the accompanying PlayStation Blog post confirm as much, which is a little surprising to see happen with relatively limited fanfare instead of Konami rolling out individual red carpets for each game's launch update. But if you're looking forward to playing either title, this is welcomed news nonetheless.

Silent Hill 2 was announced in 2022 as a remake of the 2001 classic and is being developed by Bloober Team. The studio recently shared that work on the game was “progressing smoothly”, and it is a PlayStation 5 console exclusive (but will also launch on PC). 

First, there was the Xbox Series X mini-fridge, and now the Series S gets its own appliance in the form of a toaster. Bread will never be the same again. 

Feast your eyes on the officially licensed Series S toaster, which is on sale now at Walmart. The novelty appliance boasts a wide slot to toast thick slices of bread, bagels, waffles, English muffins, and probably most PlayStation discs for the truly devoted. In a neat twist, the oven roasts the Xbox logo on the food itself to add a flavorful touch of corporate branding to your carb intake. 

When I was 13 years old, I struggled to beat Cynthia, the Pokémon League champion in Pokémon Platinum. U.S.-based 13-year-old Willis Gibson just beat an unbeatable Tetris game that players have been attempting to complete since its release on the NES in 1989. 

On January 1, Gibson reached level 157 of Tetris, a feat previously thought impossible. New techniques, like the "hypertapping" one discovered in 2010 by Thor Aackerlund (thanks, BBC), and "rolling," discovered in 2021 according to IGN, allowed players to reach never before seen levels. Before that, getting past the thirties was all but impossible and now, Gibson has made it to level 157. As you can see in the video below, upon reaching that level, Tetris serves Gibson a kill screen – meaning it has crashed – ending his impossible run. 

It took Gibson, who goes by Blue Scuti on YouTube, 38 minutes to reach this new kill screen. BBC reports that Gibson has been playing Tetris for about two years, or since he was 11. Alongside his achievement of reaching level 157, Gibson also obtained the new highest score for Tetris. 

CD Projekt Red is one of the biggest developers in Europe, but the studio behind The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 has no interest in being acquired. That comes from a new interview with the studio’s CEO, Adam Kiciński, who discusses acquisition possibilities while providing small updates on the studio’s litany of upcoming projects.

Speaking to the Polish outlet Parkiet, Kiciński was asked about rumors regarding the studio being a target of a takeover. He states via translation, “We are not interested in being included in any larger entity. We have worked our whole lives to get to the position we have now. And we believe that in a few years we will be even bigger and stronger. We have ambitious plans and we are passionate about what we do. We value independence.”

In turn, Kiciński also states CD Projekt Red is currently uninterested in buying another studio purely for the sake of having it to, in his words, “consolidate their financial results.” In October 2021, the studio acquired Molasses Flood, the developer of The Flame in the Flood and Drake Hollow. That studio is currently working on a game set in the Witcher universe codenamed “Sirius.” 

Platform: PlayStation 5
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Release: February 29, 2024
Rating: Teen

Final Fantasy VII Remake gave fans of the original game quite a shock as Cloud and the party exited Midgar. Zack, the protagonist of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and a key figure in Cloud, Aerith, and Sephiroth's past, appears to be alive, and helped an injured Cloud reach Midgar. This stands in stark contrast to his fate in the original continuity, where he was killed and his Buster Sword was handed over to Cloud. 

On January 1, Steamboat Willie, the cartoon that introduced the world to Mickey Mouse, entered the public domain, meaning the first version of Disney’s iconic mascot is (mostly) free to use by anyone. And just like when the film Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey took advantage of that whimsical character entering the public domain, someone has already started making a twisted, horrifying version of Mickey. In this case, it’s a video game.

It’s called Infestation: Origins, and it’s the debut title by Nightmare Forge Games. The game is an episodic four-player co-op survival adventure in which players control exterminators tasked with killing mutated vermin – and one of them happens to be a terrifying, person-sized monster modeled after Mickey. Similar to games like Phasmophobia and Lethal Company, you’ll rely on various tools and surveillance equipment to track the source of the infestations before neutralizing them. You’ll also have to maintain power for certain pieces of equipment while evading the giant, murderous rodents.  

It’s a new year, and Xbox is kicking off January with its first batch of new Game Pass titles for 2024. This month is headlined by the additions of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and the remake of Resident Evil 2. As always, when new games enter a few must leave, and one big departure is Grand Theft Auto V in just a couple of days. Check out the full list below and check out the links to our reviews for applicable titles.

What’s Coming

Hell Let Loose (Xbox Series X/S, PC,Cloud) - January 4

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Console, PC, Cloud) - January 9 | Our Review

Figment (Console, PC, Cloud) - January 9

Super Mega Baseball 4 via EA Play (Console, PC, Cloud) - January 11 | Our Review

We Happy Few (Console, PC, Cloud) - January 11 | Our Review

Resident Evil 2 (Console, PC, Cloud) - January 16 | Our Review

Those Who Remain (Console, PC, Cloud) - January 16 

Jack Black has joined the cast of the in-development live-action Minecraft movie. Rumors about this casting popped up yesterday, January 2, with Deadline reporting that Black would play Steve (the Minecraft guy with the teal shirt and blue pants). Notably, Black starred as the villainous Bowser in The Super Mario Bros. Movie last year, giving us the instant-classic "Peaches," too. 

Following that report, other outlets, like Variety, further confirmed that Black would be starring in Minecraft alongside previously announced cast members like Jason Momoa (Aquaman, Game of Thrones), Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple), and Emma Myers (Wednesday). Black himself even nodded to the news in an Instagram post that showed him reading a Minecraft Basics for Dummies book. However, neither he nor the film's various production companies, like Warner Bros. and Legendary, have confirmed Deadline's report that he's playing Steve. 

Dave the Diver has surpassed 3 million units sold, developer Mintrocket has revealed. The studio announced this achievement on X today, alongside some new art from the game to celebrate the milestone. Selling 3 million units is no small feat, especially considering Dave the Diver is Mintrocket's first game. 

In Dave the Diver, players control Dave as he dives during the day to find treasure, fish, complete quests, and more. At night, Dave runs a sushi restaurant, and the game mixes its adventure gameplay with its simulation gameplay really well – read more about that in Game Informer's Dave the Diver review. 

🌊3 million global sales of Dave the Diver!🤿
Thank you so much for the support and love!🐳 pic.twitter.com/YzfUSOrHxd

Update: Earlier today, a Disney Parks blog pointed to Star Wars Outlaws releasing in late 2024, but the term "late" has now been removed from the post so that is now reads just 2024. Ubisoft also confirmed to Kotaku that, "the timing was incorrect and has since been amended." So, Star Wars Outlaws' release window has moved from late 2024 back to some general time this year.

Original story:

Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft's upcoming open-world Star Wars game, has enjoyed a vague 2024 release window since it was revealed at an Xbox Showcase last year. However, a recent post on Disney's official park blog has given the game a more specific window. According to the blog, Star Wars Outlaws is releasing late 2024. The blog post, which is a collection of 24 exciting Disney-things happening in 2024 reads, "And for Star Wars fans – Star Wars Outlaws, the open-world Star Wars game is set to release late this year."

Scaring players has helped put the small team at Red Candle Games on the map. Its first two titles, Detention and Devotion, impressed and terrified fans with frighteningly strong horror chops, but the team is leaving that behind to tackle something completely different in Nine Sols. This side-scrolling action platformer blends sci-fi with Chinese mythology and is Red Candle’s most ambitious project yet. This significant step forward affords an opportunity to look back on the studio’s young history, so we spoke with co-founder Vincent Yang to learn about how a small band of gamers in Taiwan formed one of the industry’s most promising – and, at one time, controversial – indie studios.

Red Candle Games began in 2014 when designer Coffee Yao was developing a prototype for Detention. The side-scrolling horror game features two students exploring a haunted high school in 1960s Taiwan, incorporating local cultural references rarely seen in games. These elements drew the attention of Henry and Light Wang during an indie developer meetup in Taipei. According to Yang, Detention impressed the Wangs enough for them to join the project. As the game grew in scope, the three recruited help from mutual friends – Doy Chiang, Hans Chen, and Yang himself – bumping the yet-to-be-named team to six members by late 2015. After working remotely on Detention for a period, the group decided a physical office was necessary, which led to the official formation of Red Candle Games.

Beginning in 1989, the Prince of Persia series enjoyed consistent attention, with its longest break between releases being six years between Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame and the better-left forgotten Prince of Persia 3D. 2003’s Sands of Time and its two sequels marked a new era for Prince and, in many ways, laid the foundation for Ubisoft’s most successful franchise, Assassin’s Creed. The 2008 Prince of Persia reboot didn’t reignite the series as Ubisoft had hoped, and 2010’s Forgotten Sands felt closer to a movie tie-in than a new, proper entry.

That game’s subtitle would end up being a portend of the future as the series seemed inexplicably lost to time. Though not completely ignored, thanks to the occasional cameo in other Ubisoft games and underplayed mobile releases, we will have gone 13 years without a new Prince of Persia game by the time The Lost Crown is released early next year. We’re well overdue for another chance to explore a Persian location with our impressive parkour skills. We may not have expected the series to go back to its 2D roots for its triumphant return, but based on our discussions with developer Ubisoft Montpellier and playing the game’s first three and a half hours, it may be precisely what we need.

Before we read and wrote, we moved. Stories of people moving – migrating – have been told since time immemorial. The Mexica journey to central Mexico; Moses leading the Jewish people across the desert; the founding of Rome – as told by Virgil – by those that fled the fall of Troy. Unsurprisingly, then, video games also tell stories of migration. On August 8, 2013, game designer Lucas Pope, the man behind the studio 3909, released Papers, Please, a game about managing migration.

Papers, Please, subtitled “A Dystopian Document Thriller,” was for some the first time they played a game whose core design ethos challenged their worldviews and understanding. Other games have placed the topic of migration front and center. Path Out (Causa Creations, 2014), an adventure game that retells the journey of Abdullah Karam, a young Syrian artist who escapes the country’s decade-long civil war in 2014; and Escape from Woomera (2003), a game about a refugee, Mustafa, stuck in the infamous Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre in South Australia, are two stand-outs. Papers, Please tackles the subject from a different perspective. You play an inspector examining documents, determining whether a person can enter the fictional country of Arstotzka.

Platform: PlayStation 5
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Release: February 29, 2024
Rating: Teen

Final Fantasy VII is full of iconic scenes. Whether you're talking about the well-known sequences already depicted in Remake or the upcoming gut-punch at the Forgotten Capital, the Remake trilogy allows fans to experience these moments in their most fully realized forms. While this middle portion of Final Fantasy VII, which Rebirth depicts, focuses on Aerith and the looming specter of Sephiroth, so much of Rebirth's depiction emphasizes the deepening of relationships.

Happy New Year! Now that 2024 is here, it’s time to push it the hell out of the way and look ahead to 2025. At least, that’s what it feels like the game industry is increasingly saying I should do. A number of recently revealed titles have been slapped with 2025 release windows, so I can’t help but wonder how next year will shape up and, most importantly, what the awards seasons will look like.  

There are still hundreds of games yet to fill the 2025 release calendar, but let’s pretend they won’t exist. Let’s say 95% of the game industry collectively decided to take a year off. Making games is obscenely hard, and to avoid crunch, everyone decided to take some well-deserved (and well-compensated) R&R, so these seven titles are the only ones to launch in 2025. What’s Game Awards host Geoff Keighley to do come December? Continue the show anyway; those trophies aren’t going to award themselves. 

To save yourself three hours of cringy celebrity presenters and Genshin Impact commercials, I’ve taken the liberty of spoiling the event here. Be sure to check back next December to see how right I am. 

As 1983 came into focus, the future of video games in North America looked bleak. Store shelves were crowded with poorly made games, and consumer interest waned substantially. Developers that ushered in the “golden age” of arcades and the first two generations of home consoles began to crash and burn at an alarming pace. In no time, the once billion-dollar industry was reduced to rubble.

In the summer of that same year, in Japan, gaming giant Nintendo released its first-ever home console with swappable cartridges. With its striking red and gold design, the Family Computer, better known as the Famicom, brought arcade hits like Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. into Japanese homes.

While the Famicom would go on to revitalize the North American gaming market as the VHS-inspired Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, many of Nintendo’s quirky games and accessories were forever locked in its home country. With the Famicom’s 40th anniversary at hand, there’s never been a better time to look back on the bizarre and surprisingly innovative experiments Nintendo unleashed on Japanese players throughout the console's celebrated run.

This week on All Things Nintendo, we close out 2023 with a special Inbox Q&A episode featuring Brittney Brombacher from What's Good Games. Brian and Brittney cover everything from the Zelda movie to looking back on Super Mario Bros. Wonder more than two months later. Of course, before we get to that, Brian learns Brittney's history with Nintendo.

If you'd like to follow Brian on social media, you can do so on his Instagram/Threads @BrianPShea or Twitter @BrianPShea. You can follow Brittney on Twitter: @BlondeNerd. You can also find What's Good Games on YouTube.

The All Things Nintendo podcast is a weekly show where we celebrate, discuss, and break down all the latest games, news, and announcements from the industry's most recognizable name. Each week, Brian is joined by different guests to talk about what's happening in the world of Nintendo. Along the way, they'll share personal stories, uncover hidden gems in the eShop, and even look back on the classics we all grew up with. A new episode hits every Friday!

Platform: PlayStation 5
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Release: February 29, 2024
Rating: Teen

Just as Final Fantasy VII Remake featured a predetermined endpoint – the escape from Midgar – Final Fantasy VII Rebirth players also know when their adventure will culminate in this game. The Forgotten Capital, the location that plays host to one of the most impactful moments in any video game, is the destination for the story contained within Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for the original version of Final Fantasy VII.

At the end of every year, gamers are faced with an undeniable fact: far too many video games are released in a 12-month span for anyone to reasonably play them all. It's literally my job to play video games and I bet someone could fill a reasonable top ten this year of titles I didn't even get time to touch. But even as it's a universal, undeniable truth, the revelation that you missed out on something popular is always met with the same incredulous statement.

“You've never played this?”

I understand the impulse. For instance, Baldur's Gate 3 took up so many hours of my 2023 that it's hard to fathom what the year would be like without it. This sentiment extends well beyond GOTY talks, though – some games are so fundamental to our taste or upbringing that it can be hard to process that people who did it differently exist. There are people who have never played a Zelda game or a Halo game, and I bet if you asked a middle school crowd, plenty of them have never played Wii Sports. But personally, any shock I experience is quickly overwritten by excitement. If someone I'm close to has never played one of my favorite games, then I get to do something even better than replaying it; I get to watch them experience it for the first time.

It’s no secret that 2023 is off to a raucous start with multiple high-scoring games hitting within the first few months of the year. This list will be your guide to every gaming experience Game Informer considers a must-play in 2023, encompassing the best games you can play on platforms like PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC, among others.

Below you'll find a list of the top-scoring games of 2023, beginning with the top scorer and going down. Any game that scores between a 10 and an 8.5 makes the cut. Each entry also features a small blurb and a link to the full review. We'll update the list with eligible titles as the year progresses, so be sure to bookmark this page if you ever need recommendations on what to play next. Have fun!

9.75

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

They say you can never go home again, but I adored returning to Hyrule with all new tools. Read review

With the year almost behind us, it's hard not to look back at 2023 with conflicted feelings. It was a fantastic year for gamers at home with great tentpole releases from PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo, and some excellent indies, too. For years to come, we will all likely argue that 2023 was one of the best – if not the best – year for games. But it was also a terrible year for the people who make games, with more than 10,000 developers laid off, studios closed, and more. 

Between big video game releases, a heartbreaking amount of layoffs, record-breaking acquisitions and box office reports, and more, 2023 contained plenty of news stories that had us talking for weeks, speculating on the future of the industry, and reshaping how we view game development. Here are the 10 biggest gaming news stories of 2023.

Whether you’re new to the scene or you’ve been rolling dice and crafting adventures for years, 2023 had no shortage of wonderful games to pull you into other worlds. It’s an excellent time to get together with friends, gather around the table, and tell a story together, and each of the games that follow will take your group to surprising new destinations.

Xbox’s first-party studio lineup in 2017 consisted of five studios and a publishing arm: Rare, Turn 10, 343 Industries, The Coalition, Mojang Studios, and Xbox Game Studios Publishing. Today, six years later, Microsoft owns more than 50 studios, thanks to various acquisitions over the years.

Microsoft announced in January of 2022 that it was acquiring Call of Duty and Diablo maker Activision Blizzard for a colossal $68.7 billion, the largest video game acquisition ever. After nearly two years of Stateside court cases with the federal government, appeals and appeasements across the pond, unprecedented document leaks, direct arguments from rivals like PlayStation, and more, the deal is complete: Xbox is home to all 19 of Activision Blizzard’s studios (and King’s 11 mobile game development studios as well, since Activision Blizzard purchased the company in 2016).

Grand Ambition

Following the official announcement of the acquisition, lawyers and analysts were quick to bring up the U.S. Federal Trade Commission lawsuit against Microsoft in 1999, in which the regulatory agency argued that Microsoft was monopolizing the PC home market with its proprietary software and technology restrictions. Microsoft lost that case, with a judge ruling it violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. But an appeals court overturned it, and Microsoft and the FTC settled, which Lee Law founding partner Michael Lee says is typical.

While most of the major gaming companies released player-specific wrap-up stats earlier this month, today Valve decided to share some platform-wide statistics, highlighting the most played Steam games of the year. To avoid divulging specifics, the entries are not ranked individually but by category. The top twelve games are in the platinum section, the next 13 are in the gold section, the next 25 are in the silver section, and the last 50 are in bronze. Within those categories, however, entries are "randomly sorted," so it's unclear which specific game came out at the top of the heap in any specific category.

Still, it's interesting data. Hogwarts Legacy, Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield, and Sons of the Forest each make the platinum category of almost every list they qualify for. Baldur's Gate 3 nearly completes a full sweep, but it doesn't quite make the cut for the controller platinum category, and there isn't a VR version. It's also interesting to see The Witcher 3, a nearly nine-year-old game, reach the top of the Steam Deck charts, but maybe not as impressive as Half-Life, released in 1998, which has a spot on that same list.

Here are the categories, their sorting criteria, and the games that made the top 12.

More than six years after the original Persona 5 arrived on U.S. store shelves, the RPG is still spitting out successors and spin-offs that capitalize on how beloved that title is to this day. The 2020 update, Persona 5 Royal, is the best-received successor, but both 2021 Musou hybrid Persona 5 Strikers and the recently released turn-based strategy RPG Persona 5 Tactica gave players plenty to love.

The quality of video game releases in 2023 has been discussed in detail by many, and it will absolutely go down as one of the best years the medium has experienced, strictly in terms of the excellent games that were released. The larger industry and its members will always look back on 2023 with justified frustration.

Patterns in any year are always a given. Trends inspire entire genres to be prevalent, and we also have events like 2009, where there were two high-profile open-world games about super-powered humans: Infamous and Prototype. This year will certainly be remembered for games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Baldur’s Gate 3, among others, but I can’t help but notice that RPGs citing a specific era of the genre were also, inexplicably, hugely popular.

In this week's episode of The Game Informer Show we discuss our game and games of the year, the best and brightest feature (currently in the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth issue of the magazine), and just generally recap all the discussions that went it how that annual feature comes together.

The Game Informer Show #687 Podcast:

Follow us on social media: Marcus Stewart (@MarcusStewart7), Kyle Hilliard (@KyleMHilliard), Wesley LeBlanc (@LeBlancWes)

The Game Informer Show is a weekly gaming podcast covering the latest video game news, industry topics, exclusive reveals, and reviews. Join host Alex Van Aken every Thursday to chat about your favorite games – past and present – with Game Informer staff, developers, and special guests from around the industry. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

2024 is right around the corner, and what better way to kick it off than to get some complimentary games from your PlayStation Plus subscription? As announced in the PS Blog, this month's selection of games is headlined by A Plague Tale: Requiem, Asobo Studio's 2022 tale of sickness and siblings. While he thought it dragged on a bit in the second half, our reviewer said, "Calling Requiem a standard sequel is a disservice; Asobo has created a Plague Tale epic." You can read that full review here and take a look at the other two offerings below.

Incredible gaming was not limited to the screen this year. A wealth of fantastic board, card, and miniature games found their way to tables, bringing friends and families together for evenings of strategy, imagination, and fun. From simple party games to sprawling quest-driven adventures, these are some of the year’s best new projects for your gaming group.

James Sunderland is not going to survive this.

By the end of his journey through Silent Hill, everything will be chaos – his mind and even the world around him, a violent cacophony of anguish.

But in the beginning, it’s silent. The kind of quiet that’s deafening, where you hear your pulse in your ears, and every tiny sound becomes the worst thing you can imagine.

Includes spoilers for Silent Hill 2

The opening hour of Silent Hill 2 is – without question – the scariest thing I have ever played. Which, taken at face value, might seem a bit ridiculous. Your goal is simply to navigate James through a dilapidated apartment building. At most, you’ll face 10 enemies throughout the building’s three floors, but they hardly pose a threat; they’re easily avoided or killed. Gameplay primarily consists of walking up to each door in the building and trying to enter; more often than not, they’re locked. There’s a boss battle at the end, but it’s on a timer; you can just run around until it ends. It’s tedious by design.

And yet, it’s that damn silence that wears on you as a player. The vacuum of sound leaves enough room that you start to imagine hearing things – or worse, the game has random sound effects that mess with you, such as whispers in rooms that may or may not play, depending on your playthrough.

Valve has released its annual "Best Of" list highlighting the top-performing games on Steam measured by gross revenue and player engagement.

The categories are top sellers, best-selling new releases, most-played games on PC, most-played games on Steam Deck, highest-grossing early access games, most-played using a controller, and best-selling VR titles. The top 12 games in each category earn Platinum status, while everything below them is grouped into a descending ranking of Gold, Silver, and Bronze. It's a fun snapshot of the games Steam users dug into most this year and a reminder that games seemingly on the downtrend or long in the tooth (like, say, Destiny 2) clearly have a lot of players still logging in to play.  

You can view the complete list here, but we’ve listed the Platinum-ranked games alphabetically in each category (Valve does not rank these games).

Platform: PlayStation 5
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Release: February 29, 2024
Rating: Teen

Back in 1997, Final Fantasy VII established Sephiroth as one of the most iconic antagonists in gaming history. In 2020, Final Fantasy VII Remake greatly expanded his role in the first act of the beloved RPG, and in 2024, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth hopes to give us even more context for the One-Winged Angel. We played a portion of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and spoke with several members of the development team to learn how Sephiroth is depicted in the upcoming second act of the Remake trilogy.

This year represented one of the most difficult game of the year discussions we’ve had in some time; 2023 was overflowing with fantastic games. But our opinions are not the only ones (you can read Game Informer's top 2023 10 list right here). For a few weeks, beginning November 17, we ran a poll online, and readers sent their top five favorite games of 2023. We used ranked positional voting – the Borda count method – to gather the results below. If you have opinions on your opinions, leave us a comment below! But you can't be mad at us. This is all you.

Platform: Rift, Quest, Vive
Publisher: Singer Studios
Developer: Singer Studios
Release: 2024

When you think of pirates, history mainstays like Blackbeard might come to mind alongside the fictional Jack Sparrow. An important but often forgotten name, however, is Cheng Shih. Not only is Cheng Shih one of history's most successful pirates, but she's also the woman who took over her late husband Cheng Yat's pirate armada after his death, putting her in indirect control of 40,000-plus pirates for a nearly decade-long stint in Chinese waters in the early 19th Century. While Cheng Shih's story can be found on pages of books and elsewhere, Singer Studios aims to bring her story to life in VR. 

Now that Tekken 8’s 32-character launch roster has been unveiled, Bandai Namco has been releasing gameplay trailers for the fighters that didn’t get one the first time around. It's Kuma's turn now, and the fighting bear is embearrassing challengers left and right.

Sporting a sweet headband and rugged gi, Kuma looks to be an unbearably challenging opponent. His furious paw swipes show he has no problem bearing arms, even against his perennial crush, Panda. In fact, she could bearly stand up to him! But don’t take my word for it. Bear witness to Kuma’s grizzly carnage by watching the trailer below. 

Tekken 8 launches on January 26 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Check out our recent hands-on preview of the game's story mode here. 

We've already published our staff-wide list of the best games of 2023, but every editor had a few games they wish could have received some praise. This is where we have the opportunity to shout out some of those games. Below, you'll see each individual Game Informer editor's personal top 10 list for 2023. Check out each editor's list and let us know in the comments section which editor you most align with!

Climbing a skyscraper for the 25th time in a day quickly erodes the novelty of virtual reality.

For over three years, Attila Kardos was one of the quality assurance testers at PlayStation Liverpool, one of the testing centers of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe. During his tenure, he worked on first-party behemoths like God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Detroit: Become Human. But today, heʼs talking about a different type of testing involving a headset and physically mimicking movements for multiple hours at your office desk.

In games like Blood & Truth, where you take a starring role in action movie-esque setpieces, the fun factor of virtual reality quickly makes itself apparent. However, experiences like this can be taxing. A player can stop at any time. A tester doesnʼt have that luxury. It doesnʼt take long for the monotonous physical effort to take a toll. And then they have to show up at work the next day and do it all again.

Job Simulator

“Eventually, you start feeling your shoulders,” Kardos laughs. “You feel the extra muscle pain.”