My favorite games of 2023 | The DeanBeat

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I was once again much more of a game industry business writer and event coordinator this year than I was a game reviewer. But I did dip my toe into playing games enough to come up with my annual list of favorite games.

The competition for my time was more severe than ever, with more events to organize and more travel to do during past years thanks to the global nature of the gaming business.

While on the road, I poured a lot of hours into mobile games like Idle Siege and Total Battle, and Total Battle came out the winner. Still, I managed to sink my teeth into games that commanded my wholehearted attention. I didn’t try to play exhaustively. Rather than focus on every new release, I spent my time on the games that I wanted to play and tried out the ones everyone was talking about. So, take this list with that in mind.

In contrast to last year, we had a ton of highly rated triple-A games ship this year. There were some disappointments, for sure, like Redfall, and there were some big delays like Skull & Bones, Six Days in Fallujah, Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Homeworld 3, Star Wars: Hunters, and more.

But having enough games to play wasn’t my problem. I poured the most hours into my perennial favorite, Call of Duty: Warzone, as well as this year’s title Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. But I also had a chance to play the nerdy and eclectic military sim games that I’ve always loved since I was a kid.

And I was ecstatic to see the success of game adaptations for the movies and TV, like The Last of Us, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Gran Turismo, Dungeons &