Nate and Julie

Nov 239 min read

ANNOUNCING: The Video Games Are Good 2024 GOTY Nominees

Updated: Nov 25

Per tradition, our Game of the Year nominees were revealed with our biggest video of the year during our annual 24-hour anniversary stream. Share the video, play all of the games on the list, and celebrate these developers!

You'll find the full text transcript below. Enjoy!

The Video Games are Good 2024 Game of the Year Nominees

Every year that we make one of these videos, we tend to spend our intros lamenting the state of the games industry — and the world in general. We worry, we fret, we panic. But I sincerely doubt you need a reminder about how dark 2024 has been, or yet another primer about how much work is ahead of us to fix this industry. So I think this year, we’ll fast forward to what got us through it.

Let’s talk about our love and appreciation for the games that defied all odds to get made and to reach us. This year was defined by games that seemed built to help us through the nightmares. More often than not, we could see the fingerprints of developers processing the same kinds of turmoil and repackaging it into their art. The 2024 class of nominees gave prominence to empathy, they communicated the power of community and resistance in all its forms… and they just reminded us what joy in gaming feels like.

It’s been another year of incredible games. So much so, that when we had to cut our list of the year’s best down to just 10… we were left a little bit emotionally drained.

And even though it gets harder every year to pick just a handful of standout games, we’re thrilled with this year’s list. It’s full of games that truly lived within us all year, whether we went back to play them constantly or thought about them damn near every day after credits rolled. We’re so incredibly honored to introduce you to VGG’s 2024 Game of the Year nominees.

Balatro — Developed by LocalThunk

Amidst all of our Game of the Year nominees, there is exactly one game that I’ve played almost every single day since its release, and it’s the demented little poker roguelike that took the world by storm. Roguelikes are always built to be as addictive as possible, but LocalThunk tapped into a well of satisfying design to make this card game one of the biggest games of the year. It constantly surprises you with how it builds upon the familiarity of the poker format and with the endless synergies you can build when picking which poker hands to chase or which Jokers to bring with you.

There was no better feeling I had while gaming in 2024 than getting my first-ever Balatro win, and if you somehow haven’t spent time with this masterpiece yet, go buy it, lose a week of your life, and check back in.

Now excuse me as I stop editing this video and get back to chasing a Gold Stake win.

Great God Grove — Developed by LimboLane

The key art for Great God Grove. Atop a tall peak, a cowboy hat wearing person with a megaphone stares out at a pantheon of gods. A skeletal nun, a mouse-like busboy, a 70s folk singer, a corn cob with arms, and a giant cowboy stand amidst a swirling storm.

The lessons Great God Grove teaches us can be summarized easily.

First: Communication is key to understanding your fellow person. Second: Sucking the thoughts out of your friends’ minds to flirt with gods and save the world is not only appropriate but encouraged. Third: Cowboy fashion is so, so back.

This apocalyptic queer narrative puzzler cements LimboLane as one of our favorites in the industry, especially coming on the heels of their phenomenal 2019 release, Smile for Me. Great God Grove oozes warmth thanks to the studio’s one-of-a-kind art style and ever-present oddball humor, complete with full-on live-action puppet cutscenes. It made us cry so hard as it left us reckoning with ideas about mortality, legacy, how words are wielded, the fragile yet vital bonds of community, and doing the best we can while we’re here.

It’s everything I hoped it would be and then some, so… consider this segment me sucking the message “PLAY GREAT GOD GROVE NOW” out of my mind and shooting it into your face. Thanks!

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth — Developed by RGG Studio

The key art for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Framed by an infinity symbol, a collage of the game's characters can be seen. In front of the various side characters are two stoic men, Kazuma Kiryu with graying hari on the left and Ichiban Kasuga with his fluffy styled hair on the right.

I love my shirtless punching boys. I love a portrayal of masculinity that’s nuanced and diverse. I love the Like A Dragon series.

The latest game, Infinite Wealth, exemplifies everything I’ve loved about the series while improving on some of the faults from their first attempt at an RPG in Like A Dragon. I maintain to this day that Infinite Wealth has my favorite turn-based RPG battle system in years — and that its Animal Crossing-like minigame, Dondoko Island, is itself an excellent game nearly worthy of nomination. But what truly solidified Infinite Wealth as one of the best games of the year was its ability to deliver silliness and tender emotions in equal measure. No other game could turn men in diapers into an emotional goodbye between a man and his dying wife quite like Infinite Wealth.

If you’re ready to embrace a game that offers switch-ups like that, Infinite Wealth is the GOTY nominee for you.

Until Then — Developed by Polychroma Games

As a Filipino-American, Until Then is a special game for me. Because it’s one of the rare video games that genuinely represents my culture. More than that though, this narrative adventure has an evocative sense of place unlike any other.

The granular detail in both their pixel visuals and deep soundscapes grounds you in its setting and makes each narrative moment much more impactful. The emotionally sincere dialogue transports you back to a more vulnerable and universally awkward time, when the world felt like it was always crumbling all the time and texting your crush was the hardest thing you’ve ever done. And just when you think you understand it, its eventual twists and turns disorient you and make this slice of life something fresh.

We need more Filipino representation in gaming, but until then… Until Then has certainly made up for lost time.

I Am Your Beast — Developed by Strange Scaffold

The I Am Your Beast key art. A fist comes from off screen to punch in the face of a red goggles wearing soldier. The force of the punch has knocked the goggles off and shattered one of the lenses. Text above the fist reads: "I AM YOUR BEAST".

No game made me as feral this year as Strange Scaffold’s I Am Your Beast. This fast-paced FPS thriller sees you inhabiting the worn boots of Alphonse Harding, a man possessed, who’s using the ruthless training given to him by a morally bankrupt government to tear that same government apart. All because they just won’t leave him alone.

Playing it makes you feel as powerful as the man crushing waves of enemies under his heel. But this is a Strange Scaffold game. So it’s more than just a simple power fantasy. Its speedrunning format trains you to eventually be the kick-ass Alphonse Harding you have within you. RJ Lake’s soundtrack is, to no one’s surprise, one of the best of the year. And the writing and vocal performances of its actors make it a more impactful narrative than you’d imagine.

Strange Scaffold taught me how to embrace the beast inside of me — and that guy says I Am Your Beast is an easy GOTY nominee. Sorry not sorry.

Metaphor: Refantazio — Developed by Studio Zero

The key art for Metaphor: Refantazio. A giant crowd is marching forward, with a ship with legs in the middle of the crowd and a giant monstrous humanoid beast looming in the back. In the front, the game's main cast leads the crowd. A nobleman wearing a beige coat, a longhaired singer with a red and black dress, a blue-haired headband wearing young man, a bat-like man, and a tall red-haired elf-like woman all walk together.

Persona 4 and 5 are some of the best RPGs I’ve ever played, and I genuinely wasn’t sure if that team could capture that same magic when they left the series behind to make what would eventually become Metaphor: Refantazio. Well, not only did they capture that magic — they found ways to improve on the formula to make an RPG that’s reminiscent of some of the genre’s all-time classics.

Metaphor is a more mechanically sound RPG than its predecessors, removing some of the barriers to allow for genuine experimentation through the game’s Archetype job system. Metaphor’s story, which tackles discrimination and the indoctrination of a frustrated populace, feels painfully prescient. Despite how heavy-handed it can be at times, Metaphor’s lessons feel so necessary and it’s such a step up from some of the more problematic choices in the studio’s past.

But the real reason Metaphor got nominated is its menus. Have you seen these things? Do you see how artistic they made the menus?!

Astro Bot — Developed by Team Asobi

Yes. Astro Bot’s a nostalgia bait 3D platformer that’s essentially a commercial for the PlayStation brand. That can be true.

But what’s also true?

It’s one of the most joy-filled, fun-first games I’ve played in a long time.

Nearly everything in this game feels built to make you smile, whether it’s the way the little bots wave at you from inside your controller or the constantly evolving level design in each new planet that you visit, Astro Bot captures joy in ways only Nintendo used to be capable of. And what else is gaming about, if not that? PlayStation has been desperate for a proper mascot since the days of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro. And now, Astro Bot has stamped his place in the brand’s lexicon forever. Look, just give Team Asobi a blank check and get them to make these games forever please.

UFO 50 — Developed by Mossmouth

The key art for UFO 50. A collage of characters from all of UFO 50's games can be seen. Among others, there's a yellow submarine, a green-armored woman with a laser rifle, a blue robot with a golf club, and a small bunny girl.

Okay, so before you yell at me… yes. I’m kinda cheating by putting this game on my list. UFO 50 is not just one game, but a collection of 50. So I guess you can say that this year’s GOTY list is actually 59 games long, because UFO 50 is here to stay.

Mossmouth stole my heart from the word go, as the package presents itself as a digital restoration of a long-lost fictional console and the 50 games that were made for it. As you play through them, following their fictional release order, you’ll watch the developers and the technology they work with improve with each game. Forcefully limited by the technological limits of ’80s game design, the creativity of each game’s creator shines through. When it’s all said and done, these 50 games outpace many games released in the modern era, and that’s cooler than I can even explain. There’s an unexplainable nostalgia in playing these fictionally unreleased games and a pure joy in re-entering an era unhindered by the baggage of modern game design.

UFO 50 is special and it deserves your attention.

1000xRESIST — Developed by Sunset Visitor

The key art for 1000xRESIST. A close-up on a femme person's face, with some strange blurring of other people's faces. On the left, a person with black hair wearing glasses, in the middle a blue haired person, on the right, a red-eyed person wearing some kind of fancy mask.

Hekki grace, gamers. Allmother blesses you and Reviewer is here to tell you why 1000xRESIST is one of the most magnetic games of 2024.

You observe this sci-fi narrative game through the attentive eyes of Watcher, one of a sisterhood of specialists keeping the world running in the far-flung future after a cataclysmic global pandemic destroyed nearly all human life. Its story is all-encompassing and richly dense, jumping deftly from point to point as it works through generational traumas, the gravity of a rapidly unfolding pandemic, revolutions, complex mother-daughter relationships, faith and allegiance, and life as a first-generation immigrant. As you pull on the string and watch this emotionally raw journey unfold, you find that the game digs deeper and deeper into your psyche, and before you know it, it’s six months later and you can’t stop thinking about it. 1000xRESIST is a masterwork in building and decoding its own mythology, creating a world that’s so alien and off but so human and truthful.

Red to blue, 1000xRESIST awaits you.

Rise of the Golden Idol — Developed by Color Gray Games

The key art for Rise of the Golden Idol. Against a glowing red background, a collage of characters from Rise of the Golden Idol can be seen. There's a cop with a pointy nose, a bald-headed man with massive mutton chops, a woman with tall hair that has beads and ribbons in it. And away from the crowd is one golden retriever.

Oh, we’re so back, baby.

Rise of the Golden Idol is VGG’s first-ever return entry for a series since we started collecting GOTY nominees four years ago. We called the first game the truest detective game, showering it with praise for the ways it asked you to rummage through people’s pockets and piece together the answers to questions you weren’t even sure were being asked yet. And Rise of the Golden Idol only turns that mystery-solving up to 11, taking the series out of the grimy 18th century and straight into… the grimy 1970s, where technology reigns and sex, drugs, and disco have taken hold.

The basic premise is still there, but now the game presents its cases as interconnected memories from the jump, having you sleuth the immediate crime in front of you while you consider its greater implications in the larger story being told in that chapter. When it all coalesces into one greater narrative at the end, the AHA is bigger and better than ever and we hope Color Gray Games never stops delivering those moments of detective bliss.

There you have it! The ten best games of 2024 — made by ten teams of incredibly talented individuals whose art is needed and appreciated even more in the face of the hard times ahead. If any of these games intrigue you, please check them out. And if there are any games that inspired you the way the nominees inspired us, let the world know. This industry trains its fanbase only to speak up when games make us upset, but sharing love when games move us? That’s what Video Games are Good is here to normalize.

If you want to find out more about the nominees, we’re continuing the new tradition this year! All throughout December, we’ll be streaming spotlights for each nominee in the lead-up to our Game of the Year winner reveal at the end of the year. If you need something to do in the meantime, check out videogamesgood.com to read our in-depth reviews and our recent interviews.

Thank you for watching, and thank you to our patrons for supporting this video.