Hi there, I’m Pat, one of the hosts of Gaming Fyx, and a big fan of my friends at Super GG Radio. Alex was kind enough to ask me to submit a Game of the Year List, and it’s been quite a year, so I’m excited to share it.
2023 has been one of the most challenging years for me as a person that I’ve experienced. Through significant professional struggles, the realization that I have things to work through for my mental health, and genuine despair at the state of the world, the lens that I view and enjoy media through has shifted more over the last few years than it had throughout my 20s.
In the past, I used to devour big, sprawling single player games at a wild rate. I barely ever finished them, but I was always ready for something new. The core reason that I used to enjoy games was the constant quest to learn something new. To find a new mountain to climb, and to see how developers would adapt their ideas for emergent storytelling into game mechanics. While I still love to learn and engage with new ideas, my reasons for playing games has shifted significantly over the last couple of years.
These days, I come to games for a couple of reasons. For one, as I’ve made my way through my early 30s I’ve realized that I really want to find a hobby to be genuinely good at. I took up golf this year, and while I enjoy it, the logistical demands it carries and starting so late means that I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to say I’m a “good” golfer. I’ve also developed a fun relationship with fighting games. Guilty Gear Strive has become one of my all-time favorite games, and I cannot wait for Gran Blue Fantasy Versus Rising this month, but I’m too old and started too late to ever main event Evo alongside 20 year olds.
The other thing I have sought games for this year is the social element. I don’t exactly know when my shift into playing multiplayer games almost exclusively happened. I’ve always enjoyed games like Call of Duty, League of Legends, and Rocket League, but over this year and last multiplayer games have shifted to become the core of my gaming diet. I imagine it has to do with the COVID-19 pandemic, and the desire to keep those human connections alive during a challenging, lonely time for all of us.
And so, my list. I have here my Top 5 games of 2023. Really it’s the Top 5 Games I Played a Lot of in 2023. You’ll notice that games like Tears of the Kingdom and Armored Core 6 are absent here – two games I’ve noted as being contenders for me to friends in the past. These games and others absolutely deserve to be celebrated, as they are truly remarkable titles that should be on games of all time lists, but the honest truth is they just didn’t hold my attention like what I’ve listed below. I’ve also omitted some classics that I played a lot of this year like the Forest and Rocket League. In one of those cases I discovered a game I love to play with friends, in the latter I maintained an appreciation for one of my all-time favorites. Still, they’re not right for this list.
With that extensive pre-amble, let’s get into it.
5. Baldur’s Gate III
One of my earliest gaming memories is sitting down with my dad to play Baldur’s Gate. We sunk hundreds of hours into that game, both on our own, and playing together. I would sit and watch him navigate the title’s dank corridors for hours on end, and we still talk about it to this day. That continued with Icewind Dale, Baldur’s Gate 2, Planescape Torment, and Neverwinter Nights. Our love of this series stuck with me, and no RPG has ever quite scratched the itch that those Black Isle titles did. And honestly, Baldur’s Gate III doesn’t either, but that’s OK.
I haven’t finished BG3, not even close. I’ve started over multiple times, pierced Act 2, been frustrated, elated, and bored with it, sometimes all at once. I think the monumental, heaping praise it has received is beyond what any game could really live up to. And yet, I do still feel it’s a masterpiece of a CRPG. The depth of the characters and the breadth of choice really are spectacular in this game. It is not an immersive sim, nor is it trying to be, but it is one of the most successful simulations of tabletop roleplaying committed to video game form. Larian has accounted for so many of the things the player might attempt, and when it hasn’t the game has the internal logic to maybe figure it out, just like a good DM.
I have many quibbles and frustrations with D&D 5e that all come out with this game, I find many aspects of it annoying and swingy, I hate rolling D20s to determine huge events, and I think some areas are just incredibly frustrating. All of that said, I know I will keep pushing at Baldur’s Gate 3 over the next year, because it’s just such a beautiful toybox of systems, writing, and adventure.
4. Warcraft Rumble
I don’t play a lot of mobile games. I was a Genshin Impact guy for a bit but I always played that on PC, and the visual novel/party battler style that so many gachas present just does not appeal to me. Usually I check in on a few bite-sized Apple Arcade experiences over the year and forget about them by year’s end (go play Cricket Through the Ages though, I’m begging you). This year though, a mobile title released that has kept me coming back, and that’s Warcraft Rumble.
Rumble is Blizzard’s take on Clash Royale. The cynic might suggest it’s their bid to get a piece of the mobile game pie (don’t say Hearthstone), and sure, they’d probably be right, but damn, it’s good. While Warcraft Rumble does have PvP, balances that against a pretty deep and vast single player experience that just fits so well with the setting. The basic gameplay has you deploying units (the game calls them “minis” to fit a tabletop aesthetic adjacent to Hearthstone’s cards) from a base on your end of a battlefield. From there those minis march down the lanes of the map and conquer towers and waypoints to give you forward deployment options, with the goal of defeating the enemy. It’s a lot like Clash Royale, but with so many twists.
On the PvP side, those twists mostly just come in the form of map design. Instead of a largely static board with two lanes, Rumble features multiple lanes and routes that give strategy more depth, and the map rotates weekly, with each one being inspired by a World of Warcraft battleground. Where the game really shines, though, is its PvE content.
The game presents you with a map of Azeroth that is broken up into zones, and you play through zones in a linear order, taking on iconic enemies from WoW as you progress. These encounters cheat and throw you curveballs, so you have to constantly adjust your tactics and army list as you move through the levels. There’s also a heroic campaign that unlocks, presenting you with a reason to replay those encounters with different leaders. The game has a rotating weekly “dungeon” as well, which strings together three levels that lock in your army list, themed after WoW’s endless list of different dungeons. Co-op raids are even coming in 2024, further connectin the game to it’s MMO big sibling.
There is, of course, monetization at play. You never really feel like you have enough resources to do everything you want, but the game does at least omit any sort of stamina systems. You can always grind out progression, even if it’s slow going without some cash. That said, I’ve found a happy medium between minimal spending and satisfying progress, and it lets me look past the monetization model.
It’s not a game that will light the world on fire, but it’s been a great before bed companion piece for me to settle my anxiety about tomorrow each night since its release.
3. Lethal Company
At the time of this writing Lethal Company hasn’t been out for long, plus it’s an early access title, but it’s my list, and my rules, and damn. The premise of this game is simple – you and three friends land on a moon in your flying studio apartment of a spaceship and enter an abandoned facility to grab as much junk as you can to bring back to your corporate overlords. All that stands in the way is a bevy of icky, inventive monsters that will kill you over, and over, and over again.
This is a game that might not exist without Phasmophobia. It leans into just how funny proximity voice chat is, and it does it incredibly well. Where it leap frogs Phasmo is its simpler premise, but it still carries depth with the way the creatures are designed.
I don’t want to talk too extensively about this game because the early joys of playing it are in the discovery of its gallery of horrors that will haunt you and your friends. What I can tell you is it has produced some of my favorite multiplayer gaming moments I’ve ever had in just 20 or so hours of play. The way that the different creatures can collide to uniquely screw you over is incredible, and the stakes are just high enough that you’ll really want to try to survive, but not so high that death won’t have you cracking up laughing. It’s a perfect social multiplayer game and it only has room to grow. Most incredibly, it’s made by a solo developer and available for ten bucks – and I can promise you it’s the best ten bucks you’ll spend on a game all year.
2. World of Warcraft
How did we get here? My cohost of Gaming Fyx, Andre, reminded me recently that I confusedly admonished him for installing WoW a couple of years back, something that is really hilarious to think about today. It’s true, I’ve become a World of Warcraft guy.
It started with the most recent expansion, Dragonflight, late last year. The expansion added a cool new race and class that I really like, and has completely overhauled how flight works for traversal in the game. You can now ride a dragon mount at blistering speeds while doing some light mechanical inputs to maximize your flight distance and pace. It has massively opened up the world in ways I appreciate, as you can get from place to place in seconds, making the endless stream of events, quests, and interactions that make up the average night of WoW actually fun instead of daunting.
That all has helped me come to understand the mechanics of the game on a much deeper level, and that’s really what has me hooked. I’m learning about the ways different talents and spells interact on a much deeper level than I have in the past, despite having played (almost) every expansion at some point in the game’s 20 year history.
Finally, it’s a game that helps me connect with my partner. I love to explore the world of Azeroth with her, and the newest WoW release – Season of Discovery – turns much of the classic, vanilla experience on its head. Thanks to my richer understanding of the game through the modern version, I can now really enjoy this classic experience with my partner despite the return to the point a to b walking.
I’m not here to tell you that World of Warcraft is for everyone, or even for you, but all of this combines with an ambitious, exciting plan for the next three expansions that Blizzard revealed at Blizzcon to make me excited to keep up and sink a lot of my gaming time into it. I think it’s one of the best times yet to jump in if you’re curious.
1. Magic: the Gathering
Staring at the word count of this list, I really need to wrap it up. I can see Alex off stage giving me the hand signals, and I appreciate it if you’ve stuck with me this far. I promise, I’ll make it quick.
Magic: the Gathering is the greatest game ever designed.
I mean it. I can’t believe it took me over a decade to return to my favorite game. A game I abandoned and then spent ten years clowning on, joking about, and pontificating over. It was all because I just couldn’t accept how much I fucking love it.
This masterpiece of design leans on an elegant resource system, easy to grasp card identities, and an endless stream of possibilities. While it is a daunting game to understand at a high level, it is also deeply rewarding. The interactions possible in Magic are nearly endless, and the vast number of ways to play and have fun with it are really staggering. Whether you want to dip your toe into playing Magic: Arena, the best place to play the Standard format, or you pick up a preconstructed Commander deck to play with friends around your kitchen table, there’s no wrong way to engage with Magic. Maybe you’ll even end up like me, a crotchety old man who shouts that Magic: the Gathering Online is still the best digital way to play.
Magic’s only imperfection lies in its need to constantly churn out new products, and its need to maintain some arbitrary value for high dollar single cards. Thankfully, these imperfections are easy to ignore if you find some friends, proxy a few dual lands, and sleeve up a spicy commander deck. This is a game about community, self-improvement, and fun. It is everything that makes games special to me, and I love it dearly for that.
Thanks for taking the time to read my list. I don’t really do much on social media these days, but if you’d like to work together or get in touch you can find me on twitter @PJCPlays or @patc.bsky.social (where I hardly ever post).
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