The Best Games Of 2022 (So Far)

Pentiment is a gem of a murder mystery packaged in gorgeous art inspired by medieval manuscripts. It’s a lovely work of historical fiction where you take on the role of artist Andreas Maler, exploring the town of Tassing and unraveling the threads of a mysterious and shocking murder. Pentiment paints a wonderful portrait of its characters, many of whom are easily relatable and certainly entertaining.

With branching narrative consequences and a choice of backgrounds and expertise for Maler, Pentiment’s response to your choices always feels genuine and entertainingly mysterious. It’s hard to tell what may or may not happen and the game handles your choices in a very seamless way, laying out a story that feels natural beat-by-beat and begs for multiple playthroughs.

Playable On: Xbox, PC

Rough Average Playtime: 13 hours

The war atrocity simulator returns! Despite a half-empty campaign (or half-full if you’re an optimist), with all the usual, awful depictions of violence and military might, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and its free-to-play battle royale update, Warzone 2.0, has a rock-solid, satisfying, and masterable feel to its gun-based combat loop. It’s simply too much fun not to recommend for those who like to chew on a good shooter. Warzone’s newest update proves not only that battle royales have profound staying power, but that CoD’s spin on the formula remains a very dynamic and challenging experience that tests your wits, reaction time, and planning. And it’s even more fun when partying up with friends.

Its newest mode, DMZ, is particularly one of the most promising aspects of the game. A focused round of survival, resource management, and tense gun battles, the pressure to plan well and make it out alive makes for some exhilarating scenarios.

Playable On: Xbox, PlayStation, PC

Rough Average Playtime: We don’t count time spent on guilty pleasures (Eight to 16 hours on campaign)

The original Butterfly Soup was a landmark game of the late 2010s. A tender, insightful, and often hilarious story of queer Asian high-school girls playing baseball and falling in love, its keen observation of its characters and its centering of their humanity made it as quietly radical as it was entertaining. The new sequel (available for pay-what-you-want on itchio) picks up right after the first game, reuniting us with the core cast as they continue navigating the trials and tribulations of their lives, only occasionally making time for Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour on the GameCube. As the characters struggle in real ways with aspects of their identity and the limiting, sometimes crushing expectations the world imposes upon them, Butterfly Soup 2 reminds us of what real humanity in games can look like, and of what such human art can do.

Playable On: PC and Mac

Rough Average Playtime: 2 hours

Marvel Snap has quickly and quietly become one of the biggest games of 2022. A bunch of people at Kotaku are playing it daily. And for good reason. Snap is fast, fun, and a fresh take on the digital card game genre featuring small decks, short matches, and a lot of randomness. It also ditches annoying loot boxes or paid card packs, making it easy to recommend without the usual caveat most mobile games come with of “Well, it’s good but the store is annoying…” Honestly, the only negative with Marvel Snap is that it’s not expanding fast enough. We need this game on consoles, we need more cards, more social features, more of everything to support the incredibly solid and irresistible mechanics at its core.

Playable On: iOS, Android, PC

Rough Average Playtime: Forever

God of War: Ragnarok is one of the biggest and most expensive games of the year, filled with bombastic action and epic fights between literal gods and monsters. And most of it feels great and plays wonderfully, even on the aging PS4. But what really makes Kratos and Atreus’ latest journey worth playing is the focus on the characters and their relationships. Ragnarök spends a lot of time—both outside of and during gameplay—with its cast of characters, giving them all moments to shine in this massive adventure. So yeah, you may come for the awesome axe and cool boss fights, but you’ll likely stay with Ragnarök because of its writing and characters.

Playable On: PS5, PS4

Rough Average Playtime: 20-35 hours

When Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle arrived on Switch during the console’s first year, the strategy mashup of Nintendo’s mascots and Ubisoft’s slapstick alien crew was way better than many of us expected. Even still, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope improves on the original in almost every way. Movement is more fluid, exploration more seamless, and the XCOM-style tactical combat even deeper than before while still feeling manageable and streamlined.

Despite being developed by the company behind Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, Sparks of Hope feels like a Nintendo game at its core: clever, playful, and brisk. Where the first game felt like a strategy homage to Super Mario World, the sequel almost feels like a Super Mario Galaxy spin-off, complete with interplanetary travel and a range of beautiful, unique worlds to explore in 3D. While turn-based combat from behind cover is still the game’s bread and butter, Sparks of Hope is more than just a strategy game, and all the better for it.

Playable On: Switch

Rough Average Playtime: 29 hours

2022 has seen no shortage of shooters, with probably one of the biggest ones, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, dropping on October 28. But while the genre may be oversaturated with releases, you really shouldn’t sleep on Nintendo’s ink ’em up Splatoon 3. It can be easy to write this three-quel off as a glorified Splatoon 2 expansion, but that surface-level reading belies the new features and quality-of-life improvements that’ve been implemented here.

Weapons have been reworked for better balancing, while new paint-splattering tools have been introduced for greater carnage. New mobility options lend themselves to added maneuverability around stages, giving you more ways to enter into and escape from skirmishes before getting splatted to smithereens. And the extra gear choices let you dress your squidling in some of the most fire outfits the franchise has seen thus far. That’s, of course, not mentioning the fleshed-out single-player campaign mode and the new Tricolor Turf War Splatfests that have been cropping up here and there.

In short, Splatoon 3 is the best version of Splatoon, a shining example of how to iterate on a successful sequel while keeping things fresh and interesting, even if the game’s online infrastructure is pretty atrocious at times.

Playable On: Nintendo Switch

Rough Average Playtime: 11 hours

Disney Dreamlight Valley could have been a dull and lifeless cash grab. It could have just been a cheap knock-off of Animal Crossing with Disney characters crammed into it. But perhaps the biggest surprise of 2022 is that Dreamlight Valley is a fun, hard-to-put-down life sim. It actually improves on Animal Crossing and Stardew Vally with its simple but effective quest system and Disney-themed realms to explore.

Really, nobody expected Dreamlight Valley to be this good. We can’t wait for the game to get more characters and Disney worlds in future updates.

Playable On: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Nintendo Switch

Rough Average Playtime: 51 hours

It turns out being exquisitely crafted isn’t always what you want in a game. Sometimes you want QWOP and Guitar Hero to have a bastard mutant child, and then enjoy flailing incompetently at “playing” trombone along to famous tunes. Trombone Champ is astoundingly difficult to play well, but constantly hilarious to play badly, and that’s its secret sauce. That, and Nintendo Mii-like art, idiotically false facts on loading screens, and a general sense of all-permeating joy.

Playable On: PC

Rough Average Playtime: 3 1/2 hours

The extraordinary conflation of a beautifully illustrated picture book, and a story of suspicious deaths, mysterious chemicals, and the judicious application of the word “shit,” make for quite the game.

Beacon Pines has you playing through a bizarre and often moving story, in gorgeous hand-painted scenes, but where things come to sudden grizzly ends far more often than you’d expect. But when they do, you return to a previous point in time, change a single word in the story, and then play out the ensuing alternative reality. It’s quite brilliant, very funny, and oh wow, that final ending.

Playable On: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Nintendo Switch

Rough Average Playtime: 6 hours

Stray, “the cat game,” doesn’t put you in control of a cat. You are the cat, navigating a post-apocalyptic city by performing hyper-specific feline behavior: scratching doors, knocking things off ledges, and jumping everywhere you’re not supposed to. (There’s also a dedicated meow button.) Save for a few brief action segments, in which you use a drone to shoot malignant rodents, most of the gameplay is structured around rudimentary environmental puzzles. The joy of Stray is less about playing and more about inhabiting the fantasy of being an loveable housecat without the house. And even though it kinda whiffs the ending, everything prior to those final five minutes is worth living that fantasy out.

Playable On: PS4, PS5, PC

Rough Average Playtime: 6 hours

Few genres are more daunting than JRPGs, what with most of the canon clocking playtimes north of 50 hours. In that sense, Live a Live, a remake of a 1994 game that never released stateside, is a breath of fresh air: You can finish the whole thing in half the time of, say, a Tales game. Live a Live is broken up into eight brief chapters, each one focusing on a distinct character and setting; if you’re not digging the wild west chapter or the prehistoric one, it won’t be long until Live a Live tees up something more your speed. They’re all tied together with solid turn-based combat (with a grid!) and Square Enix’s killer “2D HD” visual style (seen in games like Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy).

Playable On: Switch

Rough Average Playtime: 25 hours

​​Some visual novels feel like they should just be books, and some games feel like a neat set of tricks in search of a reason to exist. Citizen Sleeper—a futuristic narrative-driven RPG about the working class on a space station—is the rare game that marries long scrolls of poignant, introspective text with a gripping and beautifully rendered set of rules for governing how they unfurl. Plenty of games know how to alienate you from the work of playing them. Citizen Sleeper makes the toil into a better way of understanding yourself.

Playable On: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC

Rough Average Playtime: 9 hours

It may have taken a few tries, but Monolith Soft finally nailed the Xenoblade formula with Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Yes, the game is as sprawling and systems-heavy as its forebears. But it goes to lengths to explain how all of its intricate combat system works. (As ever, Xenoblade Chronicles is the sort of game you can put on autopilot, if you so please.) It’s all fueled by a labyrinthian plot—about child soldiers with biologically constricted life spans—which remains riveting at every turn. Characters eschew fitting into neat archetypes. Plot twists are actual twists. And it somehow never veers into cringe-worthy dialogue.

Playable On: Switch

Rough Average Playtime: 82 hours

Cult of the Lamb expertly balances two genres—the action roguelike and the management sim—with aplomb. You, as the last living lamb in the game’s canon, are the figurehead of a cult of anthropomorphic animals (think: Animal Crossing by way of Hot Topic). For half the game, you tend to the other animals’ needs, constructing shelters, cooking meals, and warding off illness. For the other half, you plunder procedurally generated dungeons, using randomized weapons to fight occult-themed enemies. It’s all in the service of growing your cult, and killing the old gods who forced you into this mess in the first place.

Playable On: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC

Rough Average Playtime: 16 hours

To label Neon White any one genre is reductive. It’s partially a first-person shooter, yes, but it’s also a visual novel, and a dating sim (kinda), and a speedrunning platformer (way more than kinda). You play as a so-called Neon—a dead assassin, summoned from hell to purge heaven of demons—named White. You’re tasked with running through bite-sized levels that last anywhere from 30 seconds to two minutes. There’s a “fastest” route through each stage, and you can compare your times against friends and the wider world. Play attentively, though, and you’ll find a hidden secret solution on each level which can slash your time. In the process of the hunt, you slowly realize the one thing Neon White may be most in line with: a puzzle game—and arguably the best one of the year.

Playable On: Switch, PC

Rough Average Playtime: 18 hours

Sure, there are more Warhammer 40K games than, well…look at the number in the name. But every so often, one stands head and shoulders above the rest. This year, that’s Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters, a turn-based strategy shooter that’s remarkably like XCOM, Gears Tactics, and other greats in the genre. Really, this is a shameless clone of Firaxis’ landmark tactical game—right down to the control scheme and core systems and even parts of the UI—to the point where it probably should’ve just been titled “XCOM with space marines.” This isn’t a slight! We’ll take any excuse to play more XCOM.

Playable On: PC

Rough Average Playtime: 50 hours

Hubris is the heart of monster story The Quarry, Supermassive Games’ interactive horror game and cousin to Until Dawn. The characters—rendered faithfully by motion capture, including Evil Dead’s Ted Raimi and Twin Peaks’ Grace Zabriskie—keep their secrets, often to their detriment. But it’s up to you whether these characters end up with their brains across the floor or in one piece for freshman year. Gameplay comes down to quick decision-making, and you need to determine what parts stubborn, brave, and horny your characters should be in pursuit of one of 186 endings. Thin-skinned monsters also howl impressively in this summertime slasher, but what really sticks with you after playing The Quarry is how fucking stupid people are. Most people aren’t equipped to shoot a bunch of ghouls in Upstate New York. Same goes for The Quarry’s characters, but that won’t stop them from trying and kissing and failing along the way. This game, which often operates like an audience-informed movie, is about pride, and more crucially, putting it aside in defense of humanity. The gore is pretty good too.

Playable On: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC

Rough Average Playtime: 9 hours

It’s pretty rare for a game to be so specific in its characters and storytelling that it feels like it reached right into your memories to construct its narrative. But that’s the kinda game Meredith Gran’s Perfect Tides is. A point-and-click coming-of-age adventure about the ephemerality of adolescence, Perfect Tides is just short enough to be played in a weekend and just challenging enough to stump you for a few minutes—if not a few hours. The real draw, though, is its complex story tracking a teenager growing up online. There are some seriously effective story beats here, topics of abuse and heartache and loneliness, that all go over with aplomb. There are multiple endings depending on the puzzles you solve, and some pull on the heartstrings so hard you may be reduced to tears.

Playable On: PC

Rough Average Playtime: N/A

It might seem odd to include a licensed Lego video game on this list of great games, but Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga isn’t some tiny, rushed cash grab. Instead, it’s one of the best Star Wars games ever made. Seriously. It effortlessly combines all nine mainline films into a mega open-world action-adventure that is both a treat for Star Wars fans and perfect for kids and families to play together. It features hundreds of puzzles, characters, planets, spaceships, and loads of funny jokes and gags. And all of it looks amazing, with every Lego character and ship covered in details like scratches, dust, and dirt. If you love Star Wars, you should immediately stop reading and go play Skywalker Saga. And if you don’t love Star Wars, well it’s weird you read all the way to the end of this long paragraph exclusively about a Star Wars game…

Playable On: PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Rough Average Playtime: 19 hours

When you think of immersive sims, you probably imagine a first-person game with densely packed environments. Weird West bucks expectation—it’s an isometric shooter—but make no mistake: It is definitively an immersive sim. Developed by the co-creator of Dishonored, Weird West is an alternate-reality western where humans live alongside werewolves and other creatures of the night. The narrative is broken up into a sort of anthology across five distinct characters (a bounty hunter, a mage, a “pigman”). And even though your choices have steep consequences, like any solid entry in the genre’s canon, there’s a handy quick-save option that allows you to go wild, experiment, and make as many mistakes as you want.

Playable On: PC, PS4, Xbox One

Rough Average Playtime: 24 hours

Kirby and the Forgotten Land is one of the best Kirby games of all time, which easily secures it a spot in the best games of 2022. Everything that makes Kirby’s adventures great can be found here: adorable visuals, fun-to-use powers, and a gentle learning curve that steepens only when you want it to. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is the kind of game in which you can spend hours searching for hidden treasures and grinding for better times in the boss rush arena or boot up right before bed for a quick romp through its gorgeous, post-apocalyptic levels. Forget that Italian plumber; Kirby is Nintendo’s true masterpiece, and Forgotten Land is a worthy successor to the pink puffball’s decades-long legacy of greatness.

Playable On: Switch

Rough Average Playtime: 15 hours

Few games on the planet trust you as much as Tunic does. The twee isometric adventure game, which casts you as a baby fox, barely explains a thing. You soon find a stick, then a sword, then a shield, then a magic staff, and use that gear to beat up Zelda-inspired foes. Along the way, you piece together an in-game instruction manual, deliciously styled like an old-school booklet, although even that doesn’t help clarify anything, as it’s written in a purposefully abstruse runic language. Tunic is confusing. It’s tough (bosses in particular). You always feel like it’s one step ahead of you. But it’s also the sort of game that unspools at a carefully plotted pace, that slowly unveils its secrets, every one more deliciously mind-bending than the last.

Playable On: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Rough Average Playtime: 15 hours

Shredders isn’t a snowboarding game. It’s snowboarding. Clearly drawing inspiration from measured action sports hits like Skate, Shredders makes use of a twin-stick control scheme—the left thumbstick moves your body, the right moves your board—that’s tougher to get the hang of than “press A to jump” but magnitudes more authentic. The result? Fewer triple flips 1800s. More cork 720s. Shredders even features parks designed by a real-world terrain park designer, all the rails, kickers, and spine transfers laid out with natural flow. Like snowboarding on actual slopes, it takes some time to master Shredders’ quirks. But once you get into a flow, you don’t leave it. Consider yourself warned.

Playable On: PC, Xbox Series X/S

Rough Average Playtime: 5 hours, not accounting for the time you’ll spend messing around after rolling the credits

Norco is a Southern Gothic point-and-click adventure with a quality of writing all-too rarely seen in video games. This is a tale about returning to a childhood home in the wake of a death, and discovering a community that is fracturing at its seams. Its magical realism-led depiction of the real-world town of Norco, on the banks of the Mississippi, delivers a subtle science fiction take on our current plight of poverty, environmental destruction, and isolationism. And yet, it does all of this without ever wagging a finger, or feeling like it’s delivering a “cautionary tale.” It’s compellingly smart, superbly told, and features some stunning pixel art.

Playable On: PC

Rough Average Playtime: 7 hours

Horizon Forbidden West is the pinnacle of so-called “map games.” Lest you get the wrong idea, that’s unequivocally a compliment and a selling point, even if you’re burnt out on the format. Nearly every point of interest in Horizon’s world—a post-apocalyptic rendition of the American west—is worth checking out, whether you end up finding a surprisingly complex tactical mini-game or the first mission in a riveting chain of side-quests. Then there’s the inventive combat system (based around futuristic bows and arrows) which pits you against some of gaming’s coolest cannon fodder (robots modeled after prehistoric beasts), all set against the backdrop of a truly a bonkers story anchored by an all-star cast (Lance Reddick, Angela Bassett, Ashly Burch). Also: You get a hang glider. Take that, BotW.

Playable On: PS4, PS5

Rough Average Playtime: 52 hours

There’s never been a Pokémon game like Pokémon Legends: Arceus. It’s not quite an open world. Its story beats are nothing revolutionary. It’s not even in the running for prettiest game on the Nintendo Switch. But somehow it does capture the magic of seeing a fire dog, fencing bug, or whatever other weird creature stomping around on the horizon like no game before it. Pokémon roam mountains, valleys, and forests ready to destroy you, but also befriend you and show off their personality once you’ve mastered the game’s slick crafting economy and combat. Arceus is the best parts of Pokémon Snap and of the main series under one roof, transcending the limitations, which cast a shadow over so many of its predecessors, of adhering to rote tradition.

Playable On: Switch

Rough Average Playtime: 40 hours

Elden Ring is the culmination of the FromSoftware ethos established almost 30 years ago with the original King’s Field. But despite being the company’s biggest game to date, both in terms of scale and popularity, it also knows how to get out of its own way. While Souls newcomers may struggle with Elden Ring’s vague goals and overall challenge, every minor frustration serves to make its environmental storytelling and moments of triumph all the more compelling. Elden Ring is not a game that gently caresses your tired shoulders but one that latches onto your back like a demonic monkey, an obsession made all the more difficult to shake by its copious checkpoints and the ease with which it allows you to drop in for a quick adventure, and then jet. If you previously wanted to get into the Souls series but bounced off its lengthy dungeons and backtracking, Elden Ring may just be the FromSoftware game that finally gets you over that hump.

Playable On: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Rough Average Playtime: 77 hours

At its core, Nobody Saves the World is about making numbers go up. You play as a magician with shape-shifting powers. Initially, you can only transform into standard fantasy fare—think: guard, ranger—but the more XP you earn, the more forms you can morph into, eventually turning into a horse, a mermaid, a dragon, or a freakin’ zombie. Every form has its own set of abilities, but you can mix and match moves across all of them, and swap between up to eight forms on the fly. For those who love a min-max grind, the one in Nobody Saves the World is as compulsive as they come. The whole game is set to an earworm soundtrack by Jim Guthrie (known for scoring Below, Sword and Sworcery, and Indie Game: The Movie) that never gets old, perfect for a grind that doesn’t get old either.

Playable On: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Rough Average Playtime: 19 hours

A game about a Viking who dates villages (no, not villagers) sounds like it’s either going to be too goofy to be rewarding, or too creepy to be comfortable. And yet it is absolutely superb, a genuinely funny, sweetly progressive game about ransacking fields and burning down farms, all in the name of love and pillaging. What’s most crucial here is just how lovely it is. It’s a warm hug of a game, without any unwanted wandering hands. It’s also, we’re confident in saying, the only game in which you can get friend-zoned by a capital city. Doki Doki Ragnarok’s an absolute treat, from so far left of left field, with many big laughs on offer.

Playable On: PC

Rough Average Playtime: N/A

You likely won’t have heard about Wordle. It’s an obscure little online puzzle game in which players must attempt to guess a five-letter word with Mastermind-like hints. What’s neat about it is there’s only one puzzle every day, so you can compete against any friends you’ve let in on this little secret. Maybe don’t tell too many people, though, because if this blows up you just know it could get spoiled. Something ridiculous might happen, like The New York Times deciding they want to own it, and then removing all the rude words. So check it out, it’s amazing, but maybe keep it under your hat for now.

Small print: Yeah, Wordle technically came out in 2021, but the world didn’t start freaking out over it ‘til this year. So it fits!

Playable On: Your web browser of choice

Rough Average Playtime: Lmao

If you’ve written off Destiny in the past, it’s time to change that. Destiny 2: The Witch Queen features the best campaign the series has ever had, full of moments that go toe-to-toe with the likes of Doom Eternal and Halo Infinite, and some that even surpass them. It’s the kind of expansion that reminds you of what Bungie was before it became the engine behind one of the most successful (and demanding) live-service games in the modern era. The Witch Queen is a stunningly original take on gothic sci-fi from top to bottom with a story to match. Best of all, it lets you ignore as much of the MMORPG grind as you want to.

Playable On: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Rough Average Playtime: 13 hours

For a game about the end of the world, Far: Changing Tides is remarkably chill. You, as an unnamed protagonist, are tasked with traversing through the world of a waterlogged apocalypse. Your goal, simply, is to keep heading toward the right side of the screen, obstacles be damned. Far: Changing Tides ebbs and flows between quirky environmental puzzles and slower-paced sailing segments, in which you raise a mast to catch a breeze or jump up and down on an Industrial-age bellows to fire up an engine in a rhythmic sequence that veers on repetitive but ends up engaging enough to keep you rapt.

Playable On: PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Rough Average Playtime: 6 hours

Triangle Strategy is an engrossing tactical role-playing game that makes the most out of its emotional Octopath Traveler roots. The story is comfort food for anyone who enjoys soap opera antics or a plot with actual politicking. Its unique party vote system also ensures that every path divergence feels meaningful. The pixel animations are among the best in recent games, and the map art takes full advantage of its Final Fantasy Tactics appearance. The tactical system is very simple to learn, but also difficult to master. Even longtime tactics fans will struggle with the maps that appear in the middle to late-game, but the AI is fair. As a bonus, Triangle Strategy is the type of game that’s easily replayed after a first run.

Playable On: Switch

Rough Average Playtime: 37 hours

By all rights, Vampire Survivors should not be as good as it is. It very clearly rips off Castlevania aesthetics; utilizes a boring, blocky user interface suited more for mobile devices; and asks little of the player apart from walking through endless hordes of bats, zombies, and other assorted ghouls. And yet, Vampire Survivors may just be one of the greatest games of 2022 so far. Vampire Survivors’ power lies with its near-constant dopamine rush. It’s the perfect game to pull up during a boring work meeting or while waiting in lengthy Final Fantasy XIV queues. Few experiences in gaming today feel as satisfying as clearing the screen of baddies, opening a chest, and being showered with items and gold. Even better, Vampire Survivors doesn’t try to nickel and dime you with mobile-style monetization, even though it would be the easiest thing in the world for its solo dev to do. That alone deserves some praise.

Playable On: PC

Rough Average Playtime: 11 hours

Roll7's OlliOlli World is a super-cute skateboarding platformer, but don’t let the vibrant color palette and charming characters fool you. Like real-life skateboarding, this game is tough. It requires immense diligence and focus to pull off the many gravity-defying moves in the game’s extensive tricktionary. But even if you slam—and you’ll slam a lot—OlliOlli World is a joy to play, particularly because of its Adventure Time aesthetic, chill soundtrack, and simple controller scheme. It’s steezy as hell, and the multiple paths and challenges ensure you’ll keep coming back to land the highest scores and sickest tricks possible.

Playable On: PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

Rough Average Playtime: 9 hours

Games about programming code are often about as interesting as books about binding pages to a hardback spine. Not One Dreamer, which if anything is a game about learning how to code badly. It’s the story of an indie developer whose creation has become toxic to him and its players, and his inability to escape its clutches. As it deftly jumps about through time, you learn the history, the present, and fear for the future, all while learning how to bodge code to just about work for now. And it does all this in a brutally intimate and evocative tale about when it’s time to give up.

Playable On: PC, Mac, Linux

Rough Average Playtime: 7 hours

Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between is one of those games that stays with you even when you’re not playing it. Random bits of dialog, exchanges you have with its many NPCs about the meaning of life, what it’s like to move on from a painful relationship, queer identity, the pain and grief that often just comes with living, it’s all here. It’s the liminal space game we’ve always wanted to play.

The concept of “liminal space” takes on many meanings in internet culture, sometimes just to refer to creepy photos. But it’s so much more than that, especially if you’re prone to deep, long sessions of wandering contemplation as you move through life. Glitchhikers gets that and has become a companion to those thoughts whether we’re playing the game or not.

Playable On: Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac

Rough Average Playtime: 2 1/2 hours