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Engadget’s 2024 Games of the Year is a collection of 23 staff favorites, not a ranked list or a contest with one overall winner. Published on December 24, 2024, it ranges from puzzle adventures and RPGs to horror, platformers, and VR. The most useful way to read it is as a set of personal recommendations: match each game’s mechanics, tone, and challenge to what you want to play.
What Engadget’s 2024 list is—and isn’t
Engadget’s roundup gathers individual staff picks, with a short description or personal case for each game. It does not apply a shared scoring system or declare a single best game. The blurbs are editorial opinions, so a title’s inclusion signals that a writer valued it—not that it is the right fit for every player.
The 23 picks cover a wide range of styles. Use the guide below to find games by the experience they offer rather than treating the list as a universal ranking. All descriptions and opinions here reflect Engadget’s roundup, published December 24, 2024: Engadget.
Pick by the kind of play you want
Platforming, exploration, and movement
- Animal Well: A restrained, secret-filled Metroidvania built around exploration, puzzles, platforming, and bosses. Its map lets players make their own markings, fitting a game that expects them to infer much for themselves. Jeff Dunn’s praise centers on that trust in player discovery.
- Astro Bot: A lively PlayStation platformer praised for its personality, visual design, platforming, PlayStation-history references, and use of DualSense haptics. Engadget’s Kris Holt calls out its joyful feel, while noting that bonus levels can be tough.
- Neva: A relatively short action platformer told without words. It follows warrior Alba and a wolf companion through the seasons, with environmental storytelling shaped by themes of disease, entropy, and human-animal relationships.
- Pepper Grinder: A focused, kinetic platformer in which a drill drives movement through short stages. Engadget describes a run as about four hours and notes that some late sections lean into run-and-gun action.
- The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom: Princess Zelda takes the starring role in an adventure built around exploration, puzzles, dungeons, and summoning. Engadget says the game offers 127 summonable echoes.
Puzzles, investigation, and problem-solving
- Lorelei and the Laser Eyes: A nonlinear puzzle game set in a hotel, with more than 150 puzzles across forms including logic, memory, perspective, math, art, lunar phases, astrology, and mazes, according to Engadget.
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle: Favors stealth, investigation, and problem-solving over constant gunfights. Engadget highlights its recreation of the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Troy Baker’s performance, and puzzles it considers a manageable challenge.
- Phoenix Springs: A hand-drawn neo-noir point-and-click detective story about technology reporter Iris Dormer searching for her brother. Its measured pace and visual and audio atmosphere are central to the recommendation.
- Thank Goodness You’re Here!: A comic, easy-to-play adventure in the fictional northern English town of Barnsworth. Its simple actions lead into brief comic tasks rather than demanding elaborate systems.
Role-playing and action combat
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Engadget emphasizes its character creator, cinematic opening, character-focused storytelling, and action-RPG combat. Its skill tree allows respecs without penalty; the entry also flags demanding ray tracing for players with modern GPUs.
- Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: An expansive middle chapter in the PS5 remake trilogy, with action-RPG combat built around synergy attacks, materia, and summons. Engadget also praises its varied regions and soundtrack.
- Metaphor: ReFantazio: Praised for its story, characters, battle system, and quest-driven alternative to routine dungeon grinding. The roundup also notes technical shortcomings, including low-resolution textures and visual artifacts.
- Nine Sols: A 2D Metroidvania with Sekiro-inspired combat. Engadget presents its story and the way it unfolds through exploration as a particular draw.
- Space Marine 2: A Warhammer 40,000 action game whose combat emphasizes blocking and parrying at close range. Its cooperative mode includes progression.
Horror, tension, and unusual stories
- Crow Country: A PS1-survival-horror-inspired game set in an abandoned amusement park, mixing resource management and puzzles. Its adjustable modes include Exploration, which removes enemies, and a harder mode.
- INDIKA: A surreal, satirical third-person adventure about a nun and the devil. Engadget praises its combination of humor and difficult subject matter, but explicitly warns that scenes of sexual violence make it an uncomfortable recommendation for some players.
- Silent Hill 2: The 2024 remake of the psychological horror game retains the broad story while updating environments and enemies. James Sunderland returns to Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his deceased wife.
- Still Wakes the Deep: First-person horror on an oil rig in the North Sea, combining grotesque paranormal threats and environmental danger with a story about family and regret.
VR and other distinctive picks
- Batman: Arkham Shadow: A VR entry built around familiar Arkham-style gadgets, combat, and stealth, with a story involving Bruce Wayne and Batman’s villains. Engadget’s Danny Gallagher sees it as an example of VR’s potential for story-led games.
- Vendetta Forever: A VR action game about moving between enemies, grabbing weapons, and dodging incoming fire. Gallagher describes it as an active way to play in a headset.
- Balatro: Engadget’s staff enthusiasm was strong enough that the roundup points readers to a separate ode rather than trying to fit the game into a brief blurb.
- Infinity Nikki: A relaxed open-world game centered on fashion and collecting outfits. Engadget compares its influences with Genshin Impact, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, and 3D Mario, while describing it as less stressful and challenging.
- The Last of Us Part II Remastered: Nathan Ingraham focuses on its No Return roguelike mode and replay value. He reports that his PlayStation wrap-up showed 318 hours playing the game in 2024; his estimate that 250–275 of those hours were in No Return is a rough personal guess, not a measured total.
How to narrow down the picks
- Choose your mechanics: For platforming, consider Astro Bot, Neva, or Pepper Grinder. For layered puzzles, try Lorelei and the Laser Eyes; for exploration and discovery, look at Animal Well or Nine Sols.
- Match the tone: Thank Goodness You’re Here! leans into comedy; Still Wakes the Deep and Silent Hill 2 offer horror; INDIKA mixes satire with difficult subject matter.
- Consider challenge and pace: Crow Country offers an enemy-free Exploration mode as well as a harder mode. Engadget describes Pepper Grinder as about four hours and Neva as relatively short; those are descriptions from the roundup, not standardized playtime measurements.
- Check platform and equipment: Engadget identifies Astro Bot and several other games as PlayStation titles, while Batman: Arkham Shadow and Vendetta Forever are VR experiences. Confirm a game’s current platform, edition, and any headset or hardware requirements before buying.
Source and scope
This guide reflects Engadget’s staff roundup, “Engadget’s Games of the Year 2024,” published December 24, 2024. Its game descriptions and playtime figures are attributed to the writers and article, rather than independent measurements; availability and current editions may change.
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