. Second: 
the Stragtory must grow
Alright as nobody wants to create this thread apparently I will half-butt it. 
Introduction
As 2024 comes to a close, it's time to celebrate the incredible games that defined the year! From groundbreaking remakes of washed-up IPs to famous franchises that reached new lows, this year has given us plenty of unforgettable gaming moments. Whether you were swept away by jaw-dropping visuals, gripping arguments in our current culture war, or derivative gameplay mechanics, there's no doubt that 2024 was a stellar year for g*mers everywhere. And if you didn't care about the highs, what about the lows? Sony even managed to one-down Suicide Squad with Concord as the biggest failure of the year, Ubisoft became an even bigger laughing stock while Nintendo still didn't release the Switch 2 and instead focused on bringing down emulators while seething about Palworld's success. I'd say something derogatory about Xbox too but honestly there's not even anything to even frick up. Whatever, the year was overshadowed by the sheer endless DEI cultural war and I'm just so tired. In fact, every game should either look like Scarlet Blade or Nethack.
Context
In this thread, we're asking you to share your picks for Game of the Year! What game captured your heart or dominated your playtime? Was it a AAA blockbuster, an indie masterpiece, or something entirely unexpected?
Did you finally find the right gacha to jerk off too?
Did you use the year to work on your backlog instead?
Did you even play a single game released in 2024 instead of depressingly queuing up your favourite endless game that you don't even like?
2024 was one of the better years in the past decade with many genuinely fantastic titles - and 2025 looks even better. Gaming is le saved - regardless if woke is le devil or not.
I unironically love these pictures, same with non-buynary 
Previous Years
2022 - Elden Ring
2023 - Baldur's Gate 3
idk ctrl-f popular titles and these were the largest hits
Releases
Here's a short look at some of the most trending releases of 2024:
But it wouldn't make sense to include all of them on the list, r-right? That's why I went out of my way and queried rdrama's data base to find the 20 (or so) most mentioned games released in 2024 on this site. Anything goes too! DLC, Mod, Remake, Release, Early Access? I don't care. Isn't that just amazing? Anyway, here are the nominations:
VOTE
carp, capy, geto, ninjjer, donger, elfy pin please 
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I nominate
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No contest
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Where is Factorio space age? Rigged
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Ban anyone who doesn't vote balatro
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I voted balatro because it's the only one I played.
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lad iw
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NCAA25
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To literally all the Concs out there like just remember you are stealing from literally still living queer and brown people of development when you dont vote for your Veiliens like just to make a statement about Queer and Brown people of development that no longer exist, and History will not look back on you kindly
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Other -
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Concord
Simply not being playable makes it 100x better.
Close down all DEI games everywhere!
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Where's planet crafter?
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meme game aside if expansion is allowed then Space Age won hard
it is so good
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Where are Starfield and NCAA 25?
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zoz
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zle
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zozzle
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I've only played two 2024 games, I think. Dragon's Dogma 2, which was dog shit and Age of Mythology: Retold, which is totally awesome... but also just a straight remake of a game from 2002.
So Age of Mythology Retold wins by default!
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!besties
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We love our spergs, don't we folks?
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I haven't played any of these but some like Mullet Mad Jack and Felvidek look fun and I'll probably get them at some point.
Can't say the same for any of the big releases
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helldivers 2 and it ain't close
I've had so much fun with that game. If u got a couple fellas willing to dive, shit is a blast. Gunplay is rock fricking solid. Moment to moment action turns cinematic at the drop of a hat. Multi billion dollar cod campaigns have been less cinematic than some of the last stands in helldiverss.
Weapon variety is great. I love calling in air strikes and orbital bombardments.
I also enjoy the lil narrative they've got with super earth bravely defending itself against the perfidious alien. Hopefully they've got more cool shit in store this year.
Awesome game. Best in years probably.
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Only game released this year that I played was sneed Marine 2, so I guess that wins by default.
While they improved some mechanics like i-frames on execution (seriously, in 1 you could be locked into executing an ork - which is how you replenish health - and take damage and be killed while doing so, with nothing you can do against it). But i still find it a bit clunky and frustrating quite often. It should be closer to fromsoft titles in that regard imo.
The story was quite good, and it did a great job of visualising the universe, so I dont want to complain too much.
But since its not on the list I'm voting for concord. For me the GOTY because of the sneed it caused and the DEI-cide it heralded
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Where do I vote for Satisfactory?
I don't think I played a single new game last year, tbh.
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Selaco
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@PillsburyDoughboy want too like selaco, and did at first, but then it frustrated the shit out of me. Maybe they fixed it with patches? The part where the power goes out and you're shooting guys in the dark and it's a big
Open space was so fricking annoying. Trans lives matter
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Git Gud
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@HailVictory1776 played Signalis and thought it was a very good game with an interesting setting and atmosphere and then @HailVictory1776 went looking for some thoughts about what people thought about the themes only too find that it's yet another thing ruined by
s with awful fan art everywhere. The concept of "fandom" is fricking disgusting and everypony involved must be killed blue lives matter
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Facts tho
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Rogue Trader is my 2024 GOTY, strong contender for my 2020s GOTD (so far)
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Despite all the flops last year I played a lot of enjoyable games; Stellar Blade, Princess Peach Showtime, Unicorn Overlord, Stellar Blade, The First Descendant, Zau, ZZZ, heck I even enjoyed Star Wars outlaws. Kinda hard to choose game od the year between them.
I'm gonna give it to Eve.
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Where do I find more neurodivergent cult classics? I like Elona and Elin but they both broke into the mainstream, I imagine there are way more hidden gems out there I've never heard of.
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Idk, it really depends on how you count mainstream vs cult. Imo, Elin/ona are both pretty far from the mainstream, though they get a lot of airplay round here, while there's a lot of theoretically mainstream games which somehow seem to pass under the radar.
One of my best sources is the steam discovery queue, but it's probably not as useful for most people
Itch is theoretically interesting, but the crap to gold ratio is way off. Otherwise RockPaperZhotgun is pretty good, other review sites don't seem to bother with the indie scene.
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oh frick I mised elin
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also move this to /h/vidya pls
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will do
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I had to stop playing balatro, I really liked Mouthwashing, just played MiSide and it was good. Webfishing was super fun.
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half of that is
bait
how old were you again
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mouthwashing is good, but has a tumblr fanbase,
Webfishing is furry but was good because it came at a time when all my friends couldn't decide what game to play,
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Putting in early acces and live-service slop like Hades 2 and Concord but not Infinite Wealth
Anyway, easily Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (or Yakuza 8).
A massive game with over a hundred hours of polished content.
The story isn't as amazing as Yakuza 7, but it's still very good, and was the first time RGG made a followup story that relied heavily on the previous game.
However the gameplay, QOL and side-content (that the Yakuza series is famous for), is just a straight up an improvement from 7 in every single way.
The new map is larger but just as detailed, and they reuse Ichiban's Yokohoma for Kiryu's segments, which as really fun. You coule tell they put a lot of effort into making Hawaii as accurate as possible, down to making a 3rd of the npcs obese
It didn't have nearly the audience of the other GOTYs because if how it relies on you playing 7 to fully enjoy it, but I think it is easily the best game to come this year, and I look foward to Ichi's next adventure.
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Their mistake was releasing at the beginning of the year. Even though it's totally my GOTY (despite bullshit ng+ preorder stuff), i forgot i was even obsessed with it by october.
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Yeah releasing it on January is suicide for goty because of recency bias lol.
I like the release though because I got to play in tropical Hawaii while it was winter irl
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oh frick i knew i missed something
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Path of Achra
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Have I mentioned Rogue Trader?
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Jak 3
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Seven Cities of Gold
!oldstrags !genx
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Palworld is both actually good and upset a lot of people
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im still playing balatro every day i really thought i would get sick of it but shit is like crack
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Balatro is the only new game I played this year.
It's good for a phone game
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no
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Play Rogue Trader, you will be mindraped with autism instead
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really
i have like 15h and I'm done
it's pretty sweet
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I got checks notes 350 hours
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I added it to my wishlist. That's more than I can say about the other games in the list from OP
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average !truecels day
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He said while getting headpats from his gf
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All i played was hitman
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Play Rogue Trader, you will win at life
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Put Rise of the Ronin in the poll you BIPOC
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It's Rise of the Ronin hands down, not close, if you disagree you either didn't play it or are mentally r-slurred.
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NEIGHBOR that game released in 2023 (I think)
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It was spiritually finished in 2024, everybody knows it takes Owlcat 1 year to iron out bugs, Baldurs Soy 3 got fricking 3 years of Early Access, Owlcat deserves slak
!g*mers
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What was even the plot of that game? I got 20 hours in before I got bored.
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