It's been another huge year for video game releases, with no shortage of game of the year contenders. So, we at GamesRadar+ have whittled it down to one handy list of our Top 25 Games of 2024.
Category
🎮️
GamingTranscript
00:002024 has been huge for video game releases. With an enormous amount of triple A and indie titles,
00:06there's barely been a week since January that hasn't been dominated by a brand new drop,
00:10with some truly excellent experiences as a result, be it a full game or DLC. Although,
00:16they have not all been winners, of course. In fact, the games industry itself hasn't had too
00:22good a time, with developer layoffs across the board. As we look back at the best titles,
00:26let's not forget the cost of it all. So, with that being said, here's our top 25 games of 2024.
00:36In a sense, developer GameScience achieved the impossible with Black Myth Wukong,
00:41an unknown studio in western markets with just two credits to its name,
00:45both mobile-first strategy games, wading into genre waters long-dominated by the
00:50likes of Capcom, From Software, Sega, Square Enix and Ubisoft. What followed has been nothing short
00:56of a phenomenon, with Black Myth Wukong becoming one of the fastest selling games of all time,
01:01over 20 million units shifted across PC and PS5, but success alone does not make for a game of the
01:07year. Black Myth Wukong is a luxurious action RPG experience, dazzling with its stunning visual
01:13fidelity and finely tuned battle systems. There are over 80 bosses to encounter on the adventure,
01:19which is itself inspired by legendary texts journeying to the west, a trek across distant,
01:23deserted lands with little more than a staff and three battle stances to protect yourself.
01:28Combat is kinetic, encounters varied and enemy design a constant surprise. Black Myth Wukong
01:34isn't a boss rush, nor is it a traditional Souls-like. What it is, is one of the finest
01:39action games of the year. For those people that developer VanillaWare's Unicorn Overlord speaks to,
01:48it practically shouts. A punishing tactical role-playing game and throwback to classic
01:52titles from the 1990s with gorgeous, vibrant art and significant mechanical depth, Unicorn Overlord
01:59is as much chess as it is a Rube Goldberg machine, with entirely different design sensibilities to
02:04most modern video games. Though it makes the game difficult to compare, it also makes it singular.
02:09For years there has been a distinct lack of something akin to Final Fantasy tactics. There
02:13are in plenty of tactical RPGs, sure. Fire Emblem is still a going concern, for example, but few
02:19manage to come close to effectively combining the just-one-more-battle impulse of moment-to-moment
02:24gameplay with a meaningful overarching plot, captivating characters and incredible art
02:28direction. And because this is VanillaWare, it goes without saying that all of the digital food
02:33also looks good enough to eat. It's not the most important part of the game, but it is the literal
02:38cherry on top. Given the success Capcom has enjoyed over the past five years with its string of
02:44sublime Resident Evil remakes, it always seemed likely that Konami would want in on the action
02:49eventually. Perhaps Silent Hill would be revived for a new generation, Silent Hill 3 or The Room
02:54reinterpreted with new technology. After the collapse of Kojima Productions' Silent Hills,
02:59there was always this sense that anything was possible, except for the return of Silent Hill 2,
03:04a single-player horror adventure that is widely considered sacrosanct. And yet here we are,
03:08with a rather stunning Silent Hill 2 remake from developer Bloober Team. What's impressive is how
03:13well the studio has preserved the overbearing, sickly atmosphere, a sad and silent crawl into
03:19bloodied, unknowable depths. Bloober demonstrates a keen understanding of when to expand the scope
03:24and when to pull back to the blueprint, impressing with overhauled combat systems and delightfully
03:29dense puzzle design. Whether you were traumatised two decades ago, we're only now discovering that
03:34some scares leave a permanent scar. Silent Hill 2 is as mesmerising as it ever was.
03:40That S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chernobyl is one of our Game of the Year picks for 2024 only speaks
03:45to the strength of its creative vision. The adventure has this captivating, unquantifiable
03:50quality that is difficult to pull away from, even as a prevalence of underlying anomalies try to
03:54push you away at every turn. The sickly whir of the Geiger counter, the sharp pulse of the detector,
04:00the roar of distant gunfire carried across open plains on irradiated winds. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was
04:05on irradiated winds. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was born in a war zone and gradually inures you to its own
04:10over time. It's truly daunting how expansive this wasteland is, so too the challenges thrown your
04:16way by man and mutant alike. Enemy AI is erratic and domineering, shifting weight around improvised
04:21combat areas with little regard to your health and safety. Weapons burn through ammunition and
04:26degrade to the point of no return at the most inopportune of times, every time. Getting lost
04:31in the world is a feature, not a bug, and the bugs themselves only strain,
04:36not strangle an otherwise incomparable first-person adventure.
04:42During a tumultuous year like 2024, sometimes you just need to laugh, and no game will leave
04:47a smile on your face more than the two-person, Yorkshire-based indie studio Coal Supper's
04:52Thank Goodness You're Here. Set in the absurdly quirky northern English town of Barnsworth,
04:58Thank Goodness You're Here dubs itself a Slapformer, where you play as a tiny travelling
05:03salesman who can only interact with the world by slapping, and jumping, their way through life.
05:08Putting humour first, the plot follows our small hero performing odd jobs for Barnsworth residents,
05:14all of which are either surreally delightful or are set up for a pun, the comedic writing,
05:19visual jokes and brilliant voice acting becoming more chaotic as you complete tasks. But still,
05:24everything blends seamlessly together here, creating one of the most polished gaming
05:28experiences of the year. Thank Goodness You're Here is genuinely clever, creative,
05:33and manages to balance its weird ideas with laughter in a stroke of Monty Python-esque genius.
05:42Satisfactory understands that completing the simplest of tasks can sometimes bear the greatest
05:48rewards. Developer Coffee Stain Studios has spent the better part of five years tweaking
05:53the formula of its factory simulation experience through Early Access, a burgeoning genre that
05:58combines the survival crafting elements of Minecraft with wide-scale automation systems,
06:03where your dedication to the cause allows for the construction of towering, intertwining machinery
06:08that's as daunting as it is mesmerising to behold. With Satisfactory now available in a more than
06:13satisfactory 1.0 state, what you'll find here is the ultimate time sink, an experience where the
06:19simple act of connecting resource extractors to refineries via conveyor belts just utterly consumes
06:25your attention. Then you'll start digging into the details, tweaking your mini-factory to improve
06:30efficiency. Soon you'll find Satisfactory to be all-consuming, a dustralisation of an alien world
06:36infiltrating your dreams. If you've ever been curious about giving wide-scale construction
06:41and management games like Factorio a try, but were turned away by the lo-fi style,
06:45Unreal Engine 5-powered Satisfactory is the entry point to the genre you've been looking for.
06:54You won't play an RPG in 2024 as self-indulgent as Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth. Then again,
07:00developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has earned the right to flex its muscles at this point,
07:05after nearly two decades of delivering one outrageous Yakuza game after the other,
07:10keenly balancing the pomp and circumstance necessitated by the core adventure against
07:14a litany of distractions which range from the menial to the utterly absurd. In many ways,
07:19Infinite Wealth feels like the culmination of these efforts, as predictable as it is undefinable.
07:24The series' shift towards turn-based combat continues to impress, so too the ways Ryu Ga Gotoku
07:30Studio shatters the model when it sees fit. Absorbing character studies help bring together
07:35a narrative delicately threading past and present, and an undeniably ridiculous array of monstrous
07:41set-piece encounters ensure that you've never left without something to gawk at. Lush new settings,
07:46smartly refined mechanics, and a dedication to distraction unlike any other are just some of
07:51the ways Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth is able to separate itself in a crowded year of RPGs.
08:00For all the success of the revived Modern Warfare framework, it's been difficult to ignore this sense
08:06that Call of Duty had lost its way. Struggling to innovate after blowback to both historical
08:11and futuristic endeavours, and suffocating under the weight of serving the wider interconnected
08:16ecosystem. It's impressive, then, that Call of Duty Black Ops 6 feels like such a breath of fresh
08:21air. There's the expansive single-player campaign, which looks beyond the greatest hits, a reanimated
08:26zombies offering which finds pure cooperative thrills, and a delightfully robust multiplayer
08:32offering. The IW 9.0 engine shift, introduced by Infinity Ward for Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2,
08:39laying groundwork for the series' evolution, meant that Treyarch had to rebuild Black Ops'
08:44foundational design. OmniMovement was born, a movement system which allows for sprinting and
08:49sliding in any direction. It's a massive change of pace which helps familiar encounters feel fresh
08:54again, particularly across such a diverse span of multiplayer maps and Mission Impossible-inspired
09:00campaign encounters. In Black Ops 6, you get a glimpse at the future of Call of Duty.
09:05There's a puzzle exceptionally early into Lorelei and the Laser Eyes that made me put down my
09:10Switch, shake my head, and smile. See a static screenshot, and the mesmerising, haunting visual
09:15identity will be immediately apparent. See it in motion, perhaps you'll tune into its unconventional
09:20wavelength, an oddly unsettling experience. But the only way to truly grasp at the brilliance of
09:25Lorelei and the Laser Eyes' underlying design is to dive into it yourself with a pen and paper close
09:31is to dive into it yourself with a pen and paper close at hand, a thing of pure beauty.
09:36Developer Simogo has delivered a truly mesmerising, non-linear mystery.
09:41Its handcrafted puzzles are dazzlingly complex in both structure and execution,
09:46where eventual success often comes from careful examination as you run it all back in your head.
09:51In a game of surreal illusion, you'll often marvel at the ways in which you're able to break its
09:55spell. Lorelei is obtuse, purposefully so, but the subtle ways in which it teaches just enough
10:02about robin numerals, strobogrammatic numbers, and zodiac signs to get by,
10:06speaks to the undeniable quality of the experience.
10:11Death comes for us all. That's the principal message developer 11-Bit Studios seeks to
10:16convey in Frostpunk 2, in an often destructive and frequently nihilistic city-building survival
10:21game where you're left to desperately manage a civilization always on the brink of collapsing.
10:25Perhaps the freezing temperatures will do it this time, and a famine the next. Another run
10:30ended due to uncontainable illnesses here, and another because of shattered faction alliances
10:35there. Frostpunk 2 is beautifully, brilliantly brutal, in the best possible sense. Frostpunk
10:412 successfully builds on the legacy of its predecessor by widening the scope,
10:45with survival measured in weeks rather than days. More complex resource management systems
10:50allow for rapid expansion, and the management of workforces, industry and population relationships
10:55an ever-present burden. As unyieldingly bleak as it can be, there's something utterly engrossing
11:00about the way 11-Bit pushes you to mitigate calamity on a micro level, and manage catastrophes
11:05on a macro scale. It'll break your heart time and time again, but that's part of the reason
11:10we so thoroughly love Frostpunk 2. What happens when you take one of the most
11:17distinctive RPGs on the PlayStation 2, and Persona 5 are fire at about 10% or so? You get
11:23Persona 3 Reload, one of the best RPG remakes ever. The unforgettable and constant hip-hop
11:30soundtrack isn't just intact, but enhanced and expanded, as are the visuals that combine
11:36daytime bright blues and whites with the sickly greens and yellows of the midnight hour. It's at
11:41this mysterious time of day that balancing social commitments with your school pals pays off.
11:46Your choices power up your party and collection of demonic allies as you troll Tartarus in an
11:51attempt to save the town. This mega-dungeon is still a grind, but has been much improved in
11:55Reload. Still mostly random, new tilesets and a gorgeous art style makes each area you move
12:01through feel distinct, and new tactical options in combat makes each encounter more interesting.
12:06A dense, yet unforgettable journey across both tense battles and its moving story,
12:11Persona 3 Reload is one of the best ways to play a true gaming classic.
12:19Reinventing turn-based strategy is no easy feat in 2024, which is perhaps why Tactical
12:25Breach Wizards wears its inspiration so firmly on its sleeve. There's plenty of into the breaches,
12:30impeccable tight-knit problem solving in its push-and-shove combat, a dash of XCOM's tightly
12:35militaristic setting, and the joy of defenestration that came from Suspicious Development's previous
12:40games. But for all the ways that Tactical Breach Wizards hopes to borrow from some of its genre's
12:45greatest hits, it's also constantly prepared to be its own thing. Silly, but rarely outright
12:50foolish, it's extremely funny, a real genuine sense of ownership running through it that lets
12:55you stay grounded in its comedic slant on the precursor to World War 5. And as much as it's an
13:00homage to some of those genre giants, it's willing to acknowledge where their staple mechanics don't
13:05fit. That willingness to adapt to its own needs, whether narrative or mechanical,
13:09is a big part of what turns Tactical Breach Wizards from just another strategy game into
13:15one of this year's hidden gems. With both Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter
13:21returning to fine fighting form last year, there was an immense amount of pressure on Bandai
13:26Namco Entertainment to deliver a worthy competitor. The returning King of Iron Fist tournament has
13:31been nothing short of a masterclass, regardless of whether you're a seasoned combatant or are
13:36only just taking your first steps into the arena. Tekken 8 doesn't just build on solid
13:41franchise foundations, it evolves them in a way that frequently surprise and delight.
13:45At its heart, Tekken 8 is all about expressive, aggressive action. New universal mechanics like
13:52heat enhance abilities once per round to encourage more creative risk-taking,
13:56supported by a well-implemented recoverable health gauge and returning rage system.
14:01One versus one encounters are fierce dances across beautifully rendered 3D spaces,
14:06the vast 32-character roster available at launch only furthering the depth on display
14:12all throughout the experience. Bandai has delivered a series high here in Tekken 8.
14:16It's a rich, detailed and widely accessible fighter that doesn't pull any of its punches.
14:22Over the years, we've seen a lot of the RPG genre's rougher edges sanded down in favour
14:27of simplicity. Clearly, someone at Capcom didn't get the memo. Dragon's Dogma 2 is an ode to
14:33journeys that beat the destination, with its combination of limited fast travel and monster
14:37ridden roads making for some truly unpredictable adventures across the nations of Vermond and
14:43Batal. Capcom refuses to hold your hand on this journey, but your party of player-made
14:49pawns, creations that range from astounding to horrifying, offer all the company you need.
14:54But greatest of all are the seemingly small touches that bring Dragon's Dogma 2 to life.
15:00Greatest of the greatest of all is the ability to grab enemies, even those who can fly halfway
15:04across the world while you cling on for dear life. But things like destructible bridges which
15:09take time to repair, even if they're essential to your route, create a living, breathing world
15:14world that refuses to bend for players. Sprinkle in some phenomenal combat,
15:20did I mention you could grab people? And you've got the makings of an all-timer RPG.
15:28It's been a long time since an Xbox Game Studios production really felt as if it were at the
15:33cutting edge of interactive entertainment. Perhaps that's why Senua's Saga Hellblade 2
15:38seemed so revelatory, with developer Ninja Theory delivering what should be considered
15:42one of the best looking and sounding video games of the generation so far.
15:47It's a visual and auditory assault on the senses, a world of uncomfortable illusions
15:52and hallucinatory rituals enveloping Senua as she faces new threats inland.
15:56But Hellblade 2 is far more than a showcase of Ninja Theory's increased prowess with Unreal
16:01Engine 5 and advancing motion capture techniques. It's a solemn descent into the depths of Senua's
16:07psychosis, as solitary as it is loudly overwhelming. Internal battles remain a
16:12focus of this series, but external challenges have been considerably improved, the adventure
16:17imbued with faster, more frenetic combat. Every battle a desperate struggle to survive,
16:22one cinematic sword swing at a time. Hellblade 2 isn't for the faint of heart,
16:26but it is a journey well worth taking.
16:31Spend an hour in the company of Animal World and you may wonder why this seemingly simplistic 2D
16:37exploration game has ranked so highly on this list of Game of the Year contenders.
16:41There's no combat, no direction given, and exceptionally basic puzzles to solve.
16:46A lo-fi metroidvania with a strip-backed, pixelated visual style.
16:50Spend five hours with Animal World and you'll be up to your neck in its brilliance,
16:54struggling to comprehend the complexities hidden deep within the depths of this darkened world.
16:59It's best if you take Animal World on its own terms. It's not that dissimilar to games like
17:03Fez, Outer Wilds and Tunic in that respect, really delivering if you're able to resist the
17:08urge to seek guidance. This is a game of discovery after all, an astonishing achievement from a
17:14solitary developer. Loops around the world blur together, gadgets transform into tools to decrypt
17:19complex cryptic environments, and every inch of progression a new mystery to solve in an
17:25otherworldly puzzle box. Animal World is a pure, singular delight.
17:30With every ambitious step forward Nintendo makes with its 3D Legend of Zelda games,
17:35each rewarded with a sort of financial success that is sure to make department heads at PlayStation
17:39and Xbox jealous, I'm struck with this fear that the 2D titles which ushered the legendary series
17:45to life will one day be left behind. It's one of the reasons Zelda Echoes of Wisdom is such a
17:50delightful surprise. The first original 2D single-player Legend of Zelda adventure since
17:562013's A Link Between Worlds. The titular princess takes centre stage in an experience which is able
18:02to deftly weave the feel of classic top-down Legend of Zelda titles together with some of
18:06the freedom afforded by the modern 3D experiences. The ability to conjure Echoes of Elements
18:11encountered in Hyrule is refreshing, so too is the way that developer Grezzo is able to smartly
18:16ground all of its puzzle solving and combat around the new system. Echoes of Wisdom is the sort of
18:22adventure that reminds you of all the reasons you fell in love with the Legend of Zelda to begin with.
18:31Sometimes it's the smallest innovations that can have the largest, longest lasting impacts on a
18:36genre. Take what Prince of Persia The Lost Crown quietly achieved for Metroidvanias this year,
18:42introducing the ability to pin screenshots of seemingly unsurmountable traps and pitfalls
18:46directly to your map for further scrutiny later down the line, once Sargon unlocks
18:51new powers and abilities to further aid in his exploration. Such a simple idea,
18:56executed with absolute precision, navigating the labyrinthian world has never felt so deliberate
19:02and purposeful. There's far more to Prince of Persia The Lost Crown than a few neat tricks mind.
19:07It's an exceedingly enjoyable experience that does well to weigh its challenge between scintillating
19:12combat encounters and intuitive puzzle design, all of it draped in an arresting visual presentation
19:17and smartly woven narrative threads. The decision to shift focus away from the titular prince proved
19:23controversial for Ubisoft Montpelier, but it paid off in the end, giving the studio space to both
19:28pay homage to Prince of Persia's humble origins and carry the torch forward to the wider metroidvania
19:33revival. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is where it could have all fallen apart for Square Enix.
19:40In the second installment of a planned trilogy, the developer was faced with the undeniably
19:45difficult task of threading nostalgia into a reimagined tapestry, balancing the legacy of an
19:50identity reveal and a weight of a character's death with the desire to deliver something fresh
19:55for a new generation of players. That Rebirth is such a resounding success only speaks to the
20:00quality of its production. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a true system showcase for the PS5,
20:06one of the best looking and feeling games of the year. It's an audaciously sized experience,
20:11a pseudo open world setup ensuring that there's always some distraction to follow,
20:15the experience earned here integral to surviving later game challenges. Battles experience a smart
20:20evolution on the action combat framework established by Remake, and sharp writing brings
20:25the package together, with standout performances from the core cast ensuring the overarching
20:29narrative drips with heart, humour and suspense. In a sense, Square Enix really did achieve the
20:35impossible with Rebirth. Here's a hyperbolic statement
20:40that still somehow gets the heart of why Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2 works as well as it does.
20:46It's almost as if developer, Saber Interactive, staged an exceptionally elaborate Warhammer 40k
20:51tabletop campaign, shrunk you and two buddies down to miniature size, willed the entire setup
20:57into existence, and then threw you into the thick of it all. It's the scale of the experience which
21:02sells it, the massive environments having this almost toybox quality which ignites the imagination.
21:08That you spend your time trudging around these blood drenched spaces, while battling back
21:12hundreds of thousands of enemies crawling across everything in sight, only adds to the power
21:17fantasy. In a sense, Space Marine 2 feels like the modernisation of a third person shooter formula
21:22which died in an older console generation. Action is kinetic, weighted, and a little silly as you
21:28shred and tear through one foe after the other. Space Marine 2 is not only one of the best
21:32shooters of 2024, it's one of the best Warhammer games.
21:38Taking a standard pack of playing cards and the scoring system of poker,
21:42Bellatro ingeniously plays with this innate knowledge to create a roguelike that's all
21:46about bending the rules. New cards can be shoved into your deck wholesale and upgraded with tarot
21:52cards, making a four of a kind a lot easier with ten aces after all. Planet cards meanwhile increase
21:57your scorecard for each hand, meaning careful play can result in a pair outsourcing a full
22:02house in no time. Then there are the jokers. Each has a unique rule that completely changes
22:08how you play, and developer Local Funk is constantly adding new ones. From allowing
22:13you to skip numbers in a straight, to sacrificing other cards to increase a multiplier, and many,
22:18many more. They're powerful on their own, but become exceptionally more game breaking when
22:23used in concert. You've always the option to use winnings to tweak and adjust your strategy
22:27between rounds, and it's constantly tempting you to retool your plan, making you feel like
22:31a true king when your new idea pays off. Who'd have thought that 2024 would be the
22:39year that we stopped pining after Persona 6? The last mainline instalment, the beloved
22:45Atlus RPG series, is fast approaching its 10th anniversary, and yet here we have many of its
22:50key creative leads showcasing that the formula is ready to graduate from high school. Metaphor
22:55Refantasio kicks the modern setting to the curb in favour of a wondrous fantasy kingdom,
23:01Eucronia, home to a sprawling saga that'll easily arrest your attention for some 100 hours of play
23:06time. Part of that is the visual and UX design, with Metaphor Refantasio asserting the sort of
23:12undeniable style that other RPGs could only dream of capturing. Part of it is the way that characters
23:18interplay with one another, breathing life into the complicated machinations of the wider
23:22narrative. And then there's the staggering depth to combat, snappy turn-based battles given life
23:28by an outrageously expansive archetype job system. Whether you're a long-standing Persona fan,
23:34or a lover of fantasy RPGs looking for your next fix, I promise you won't play anything
23:39quite as all-encompassing as Metaphor Refantasio this year.
23:44Dragon Age The Veil Guard was almost subsumed by a much larger narrative. In the decades since the
23:49release of its predecessor, 2014's Inquisition, Bioware has endured the public cancellation of
23:55Shadow Realms, the failure of Mass Effect's Andromeda, the collapse of Anthem, and countless
24:01difficulties in getting the fourth Dragon Age game into stable production. The studio needed a win,
24:08and it needed it badly. That's unequivocally what The Veil Guard represents,
24:14not only capturing the essence of the series, but energising it for a new generation.
24:19Dragon Age The Veil Guard is a game of meaningful choice counterbalanced by damning consequences,
24:25every decision an opportunity to weigh your relationships with beloved companions and the
24:30gorgeous world in which you inhabit. Sharp character writing intersects brilliantly with
24:35sweeping narrative arcs, and a shift towards snappier action RPG combat ensures that momentum
24:40rarely subsides across its runtime. Regardless of your history with the series,
24:45Dragon Age The Veil Guard is the best RPG of 2024.
24:522024 is the year that Sony beat Nintendo at its own game. It's perhaps fitting that this
24:58should occur as Sony Interactive Entertainment celebrates the 30th anniversary of PlayStation,
25:03a platform which emerged almost out of spite in the aftermath of a failed collaboration between
25:08the two companies. Astro Bot is the nexus point for all of this, a wondrous celebration of the
25:14ways that PlayStation transformed the way we play today, and a mechanically pure platformer that
25:19rivals the best Super Mario games. Astro Bot is a perfectly weighted experience, where every dash,
25:25jump, and dive must be carefully calculated amongst a fray of countless obstacles.
25:30It's an exceptional system showcase for the PS5 too, the series once again demonstrating
25:35the unique draw of both the DualSense controller and the console's lightning-fast level loading.
25:41Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon, Oddworld, Abe's Odyssey, and Rayman were the platformers
25:47which defined PlayStation's past, and it is Astro Bot which so resoundingly reflects its future.
25:54Developer Arrowhead Game Studios conscripted millions into the Super Earth Armed Forces,
26:01and a desperate battle against invading Automaton and Terminated Armies has raged ever since.
26:07Helldivers 2 got people talking, and against all odds, it kept them talking. A tall order
26:12in the modern era, where so many disparate live service experiences are vying for our attention.
26:17Friendships shattered through hasty extractions, galaxy sectors won and lost to the whims of the
26:22community, stratagem commands punched in under a haze of grease and gore. Together,
26:28we fought for democracy. When we awarded Helldivers 2 4 out of 5 stars, we failed to
26:34envision how this online shooter would evolve, how the galactic map which tracks global player-based
26:39progression would so resoundingly enrapture our imaginations. A story which changes daily,
26:45battle orders engineered in real-time across social media. It's the community spirit which
26:50has proved transformative, elevating the physicality and ferocity so core to Helldivers 2's
26:56underlying mechanical design to new heights. Whether you were battling the bugs solo or
27:01wading into Automaton-controlled territory with friends, Helldivers 2 refined the nature of play
27:08in 2024. And there we have it, our top 25 games of 2024. But what do you think of this list?
27:19Did your favourite make the cut? Are there any entries you massively disagree with?
27:24Let us know in the comments, and as always stick with GamesRadar for the latest gaming content.