The best video games of 2023 so far
By some bizarre accident in the space-time continuum, we stepped out of 2022 and back into the early aughts. Everyone is playing Metroid Prime. The internet is in love with Leon S. Kennedy. Even Isaac Clarke is back, fully voiced and ready to express the thoughts he’s been keeping to himself since 2008.
These remakes from Retro Studios, Capcom, and Motive Studio serve as a reminder that everything — even in video games — is cyclical. Old ideas, which may have been ahead of the technical capabilities of their time, can reemerge with more pixels, better hardware, and more experienced developers to flesh them out. Action-oriented survival horror plays like a dream in 2023, and the Switch has proven to be a more than suitable home for Samus Aran’s exploration-based adventure.
Even Octopath Traveler 2, Company of Heroes 3, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty prove just how well a group of designers can improve upon their previous ideas. We’re only three months into the year, but we’ve already seen remakes and sequels that show a deep understanding of their source material and prequels, and a willingness to question what came before in service of making the next great game.
It’s easy to point to remakes, sequels, and spiritual successors as evidence that we’re in a stagnant period — but so far, three months into 2023, the game release schedule has been anything but. Patch Quest, Phantom Brigade, and Season: A Letter to the Future, among others, have emerged from “under the radar” to make a name for themselves in their own right. It’s already been an exciting year for video games (which year in recent memory hasn’t been, by this point?) for original titles, daring sequels, and bold remakes. Here are the best so far. —Mike Mahardy
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