Okay I did my GotY post, now let’s stop looking at the past and look at the future… Hopefully 2024 brings just a bit more quality than 2023 did.

I’m just gonna do the usual, just talk about my top 6 most-hyped-for-now games, and then big lists of games I have some level of hype for, and a slightly smaller list of games that might be popular but that I don’t have hype for (some because they’re bad, some because they’re not really my thing).

So let’s go!

Top 6 games I’m probably excited for

There’s an actually big amount of games I’m interested for in 2024, but finding the ones that deserve a highlight to be a bit hard to figure out. But I think I got something… There may be some genre bias here.

So these are the games that I’ll get at launch and that I’m pretty sure I’ll love.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth

My boy Kasuga Ichiban is back! I skipped both Yakuza games this year, but I’m back for this one for sure. I avoided watching any of the trailers except the one with Kasuga naked on the beach of Hawaii, so I have no idea what’s happening here, I just want to play it. And we have very little time to wait.

SaGa: Emerald Beyond

SaGa is something of a guilty pleasure to me. The last one, Scarlet Grace, was super good. From the 2 trailers I saw for this one, it seems to use a similar combat system to Scarlet Grace, so I’m pretty hyped since the battles in that game were so good.

Visions of Mana

This is the first properly new Mana game (that isn’t a shitty phone game or a handheld spin-off) since the PS2. So that’s pretty exciting. It also looks really fucking nice. There’s not much to say based on the trailer but I’m excited.

Metaphor: ReFantazio

Why are all my most hyped games of the year RPGs? Anyways, this is an RPG made by the Persona team. It looks pretty cool. I just hope there’s more RPGing than the Persona games. More dungeons and combat, less 5-hours-of-talking-between-dungeons, that’s the dream. But yeah, looks good and I’ll play it either way.

Unicorn Overlord

This is the new Vanillaware game, but most importantly it’s a game similar to the classic SNES/N64 Ogre Battle games (some aspects of the combat are straight taken from Ogre Battle). There’s really not a lot of games that play like this, so this is a welcome kind of game. It’s gonna be niche as hell, but I’m excited to try it out.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink

I dunno, trying to put a sixth game on this list and this is the one that I figured made sense (it was this or Eiyuden Chronicle… another RPG, who would’ve thought). Normally I’d put something more vague like “whatever Nintendo’s releasing”, but we have very little info on that and the currently-announced Nintendo games for 2024 aren’t impressive… So instead here’s this game I’ve been waiting for years to finally see come out. It was originally in development by Platinum, but that changed partway through (like 4 years ago). It looks like a cool action take on Granblue. Some of the videos I saw had very bullet-sponge enemies, but maybe that’s more of an endgame thing.

Other Games I’m Hyped For At Some Level

Of course game companies are weird and bad at estimating release dates, so anything here might be delayed past 2024 (even though so many of these were already delayed from 2023 (and some even from 2022 or 2021)).

These are not all games I will get, some of them are there because I find them interesting even if I likely won’t play them. Basically this is games I think will be pretty good and have a chance of me buying them.

And, why not, I’ll bold the games I’m most interested in here. And I’m gonna put comments next to some of them too because why not.

• Avowed
• Agent 64: Spies Never Die (this is a Goldeneye 64-inspired game. The demo was fun)
• Another Code: Recollection
• Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore (this is a game based on the CDi Zelda games (though the gameplay is clearly way smoother than the CDi games)… it actually looks kinda cool, shame it’s Limited Run Games)
• Atomic Picnic
• Black Myth: Wukong
• Bubble Ghost Remake
• Class of Heroes 1 & 2: Complete Edition
• Clock Tower (I vaguely remember the Future Club people saying they were working on this, if that’s true this goes in the next list because fuck Future Club… if it’s not true, I do recommend this game, it’s solid)
• Contra: Operation Galuga
• Cosplay Club
• Decapolice
• Demonschool
• Diesel Legacy: The Brazen Age
• DokeV
• Dragon’s Dogma 2
• Dragon Quest III HD-2D (that was one I highlighted last year… it’s still not out… fun… I’m putting it here in hopes that they’re finally done with it and will release it soon)
• Earth Defense Force 6
• Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2
• Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes
• Ex-Zodiac (this is inspired by the SNES Star Fox)
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
• Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn
• Frostpunk 2
• Gestalt: Steam & Cinder (wasn’t this meant to come out, like, 2-3 years ago?)
• Goblin Slayer Another Adventurer: Nightmare Feast
• Gori: Cuddly Carnage
• Graven
• The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily
• Hades 2
• Hollow Knight: Silksong (well that was supposed to be out by July 2023 but got further delayed to who knows when so… yeah… might one day be a game that exists… I’ll believe when I see it, at this point)
• Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road
• Last Epoch
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak
• Legend of Legacy HD Remastered
• Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland
• Lollipop Chainsaw: RePOP
• Lords of Exile
• Mario vs. Donkey Kong
• Megaton Musashi Wired
• Metal Slug Tactics
• Metroid Prime 4 (I’m just putting this here for the lulz don’t worry about it… We’re entering the sixth year of development so it actually does make sense for it to be properly revealed and release here… but I’ll believe it when I see it)
• Mewgenics
• Mina the Hollower (by the devs of Shovel Knight)
• Momodora: Moonlit Farewell
• Palworld
• Penny’s Big Breakaway
• Pepper Grinder
• Persona 3 Reload
• Phantom Fury
• The Plucky Squire
• Princess Peach: Showtime! (looks very average, I’ll still get it)
• Project Warlock II
• Retro Game Challenge 1 + 2 Replay (hopefully it gets released in the west… and we need a good sequel)
• Rift of the Necrodancer
• Rise of Ronin (actual PS5 exclusive maybe… for now, it’s probably gonna pop up on PC in a couple years… I’m curious about it, I’ll watch more trailers)
• Rivals of Aether 2
• Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland (this is an NES game, funny enough, if you want to get the cartridge (I wanted to put a link because I thought I saw the site to buy it, but I might have been wrong). The modern console/PC version will include both the NES version’s graphics and HD graphics that look pretty close to the cartoon. It’s kinda similar to the old Rescue Rangers NES games with the box carrying stuff… actually looks pretty good, surprisingly)
• SacriFire
• Shadow of the Ninja Reborn
• Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution
• Shashingo
• Skald: Against the Black Priory (this is a classic PC RPG style game, very similar to Ultima 3, looks really cool, latest news has it coming out in Spring)
• Slave Zero X
• Snow Bros. Wonderland
• South Park: Snow Day
• Stellar Blade (Well Sony got into a deal with the devs so this will probably be a timed PS5 exclusive… and, knowing Sony, will also probably be censored to shit since it’s not american-made and the main character isn’t ugly… so I hope the devs know what they’re doing and don’t let themselves get bullied into shitting up their own game… it does look cool, I’ll grab it when it comes to PC if it’s not completely fucked by Sony of California)
• Stormgate (Early access)
• Suikoden I & II HD Remaster: Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars
• Tekken 8
• TMNT: The Last Ronin
• Truxton Extreme
• Ufouria: The Saga 2 (very random but really cool that Sunsoft would make this… their last new game attempt was a kinda weird co-op 16-player roguelite based on Ikki, but a Hebereke sequel is actually super cool)
• Ultros
• Under Night In-Birth II Sys:Celes
• Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
• Witchfire (I have the early access for this. It’s pretty good… though the maps need some more variance IMO… but the gameplay loop itself is interesting (the one map I played in the early access is unchanging every time you go in, minus occasionally-different enemy spawns, so it gets a bit too samey IMO))
• Wrath: Aeon of Ruin

Upcoming games that I don’t care about

Some of these might be good, most not. Basically these are all games I have zero interest in for various reasons. Either they just genuinely look awful, or just aren’t my kinda thing.

• Alone in the Dark
• Another Crab’s Treasure (well, I thought this looked cool, but the devs are douchebags, so fuck you. If you think “Gamers are bad and deserve nothing”, you don’t deserve my money. Eat shit… this is a copy-paste from last year, lol)
• Ark 2
• Baby Steps
• Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden (this game has extreme “every Sony game” syndrome, based on gameplay videos)
• Blue Protocol (I’d find this kinda cool if it wasn’t for the egregious censorship Jeff Bezos is forcing upon it… not that I’d play it since it’s an MMO, but it’s really a shame how the modern western game industry is acting like 90s conservatives)
• Dragon Age: Dreadwolf
• Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (still waiting for them to release the full game, this episodic garbage is stupid)
• Foamstars (this is squeenix’s dumb splatoon rip-off, I kinda hate it)
• Gunvolt Records Cychronicle
• Homeworld 3
• The Last of Us Part II Remastered (might actually be the dumbest release in gaming history… you can literally already play this piece of pure shit on PS5, why release it again?)
• Little Nightmares III
• Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD
• MultiVersus (it’s a shit game… just in case you were wondering)
• PAC-MAN Mega Tunnel Battle: Chomp Champs
• Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
• Pragmata (we still don’t really know what kind of game it is… we saw like 3 whole seconds of what might be gameplay, but that doesn’t help… shit was announced in 2020, why do that when the game is clearly not ready and needs to be constantly delayed? Just announce your games when they’re ready to go)
• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (I know people are hyped for this, but that’s pretty dumb since it’s a Ubisoft game and they literally haven’t made a good game since Rayman Legends (that was 10 years ago by the way… yeah I’m surprised too) …  but this could end up being the only game in this part of this post that I might end up getting if the hype ends up being warranted… and I’d wait for a few price drops because why the fuck is this a full-price release?)
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake
• Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II
• Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island
• Skull and Bones (I played the beta for this. Not only has it been in development for 10 years, but it’s also crap)
• Star Wars Outlaws
• Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
• Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft
• Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2
• World of Goo 2
• Zenless Zone Zero