Top 5 Games You Shouldn’t Overlook In 2023

With so many games being delayed from 2022, it’s arguably never been easier for games to fly under the radar than it will be in 2023. Heck, with such massive releases as Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Minecraft Legends, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Diablo 4, Street Fighter 6, Final Fantasy 16, Starfield, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 all at least tentatively scheduled to release this year, even notable titles from major publishers like Pikmin 4, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Redfall, and Alan Wake 2 may arguably be overlooked to a certain extent. However, we here at FilmIronic pledge to dig deeper and find you the best games that very few are talking about with excitement (or at all) as we head into a packed year of video game releases. We love shining a light on games that might otherwise be overlooked! Obviously, not all of the games I’m going to include in this list will get released this year – if my track record of writing about yet-to-release games holds, only about half of them will actually come out in 2023. Check out my lists from 2022 and 2021 for games that still haven’t come out if you’re looking for bonus recommendations. (Yes, as you may or may not be surprised to learn, there are some from the 2021 list that still haven’t been released at time of writing.)

Also, I feel the need to remind you all that these will be new games rather than remakes, re-releases, or remasters, so although I’m sure the Dead Space remake is very good, it is disqualified both for being a remake and for already being released because I have taken far too long to get this list published and it’s already nearly the end of January. Hey, at least by delaying I don’t have to talk about Forspoken, eh? With all that said, let’s get on to some…

Honorable Mentions

Crime Boss: Rockay City

I’m going to level with you, reader: I had never heard of Crime Boss: Rockay City until I started doing research for this article, which is kind of concerning with all the people I have heard of who are in this game: Michael Madsen, Kim Basinger, Damion Poitier, Danny Trejo, Danny Glover, Michael Rooker, that one-hit wonder behind “Ninja Rap” and the original meme guy. This game, developed by Ingame Studios, definitely has some GTA vibes to it, both from the period setting and the organized crime heist-based gameplay, which can be played solo or with up to four players online. Since publisher 505 Games partnered with Epic Games, it will be a PC exclusive at launch with console releases targeted for later in the year. The relative lack of fanfare for this game has my expectations somewhat low, but if it allows you to pit Merle Dixon and Machete against Roger Murtaugh and Walker, Texas Ranger without drowning in a sea of microtransactions to make up for the all-star cast budget, it’ll be worth a look anyway.

Hell is Us

On the polar opposite of the scale tonally, we have Hell is Us, which dares to pose the question “What if violence is…bad, maybe?” (Crime Boss: Rockay City‘s answer, presumably, would be “What’s that? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of this machine gun I was using to murder a bunch of rival crime lords.”) Developers Rogue Factor plunge the player into a civil war (not the American one) where a supernatural outbreak known simply as “the calamity” has unleashed monsters that can only be fought with special melee weapons from outside of time. The lack of information on this game, unlike the previous entry, is actually a positive sign in my opinion – this is the kind of game where revealing too much too soon would spoil the mystery and intrigue of what exactly is going on, but creative director Jonathan Jacques-Belletete has stated that the game is fundamentally about the idea “that human violence is a perpetual cycle fueled by human emotions and passions” so expect something deep and profound about how the real monsters are totally us, man.

Four crowdfunded games

I tried really hard to limit myself to just three honorable mentions as usual, but there are just a lot of games that look cool set to come out in 2023, so we’re going to group a few together here and be done with it. Nine Sols, from Taiwanese studio Red Candle Games, is a 2D action platformer inspired by Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice that sees the player character Yi questing to rid the world of a series of bosses (nine of them, naturally) to restore the dystopian cyberpunk world of New Kunlun. Afterimage is a 2D Metroidvania developed by Aurogon Shanghai with a striking hand-drawn art style and an amnesiac protagonist who is looking to recover her memories of the catastrophe that brought her civilization to ruin. Sea of Stars, from The Messenger developer Sabotage Studio, is a turn-based RPG set in the same universe that draws inspiration from classics of the genre but seeks to bring a thoroughly modern take just as the developer’s previous game was an updated homage to Ninja Gaiden. Midautumn is a roguelike dungeon crawler in which the player character is tasked with keeping the spirit world from overtaking their hometown of Nambo Quay, which it is linked to via a subterranean portal. Don’t let the single-sentence summary for each of these games fool you – they all look great in their own way and have a cool retro aesthetic that may have been utilized plenty in recent times but show enough promise to be recommendable as standouts from the pack.

Now to the top 5!

5. Dredge

Have you ever wanted to leave your humdrum existence on land for an exciting career on a deep-sea fishing vessel that only occasionally pulls in a grotesque monster or Eldritch abomination? Of course you have – we all have those incredibly vivid dreams that seem entirely real until you suddenly snap awake and realize that fish monsters don’t exist and there absolutely isn’t anything suspicious about that isolated village that you could have sworn isn’t on any map! …Right? We…we all have those dreams, definitely. Well, the developers at Black Salt Games definitely have those dreams too, or they’ve secretly been reading my dream diary…I mean, I don’t have one of those because my dreams are so normal, right? Who would need to document dreams about something unfathomably huge and ancient lurking just below the black waves that only appears when you aren’t fully looking and the mere thought of it brings on a shuddering dread that you can never fully push out of your mind? Those are totally normal things for the unconscious mind to conjure up, which is why I’m sure Dredge will be a huge hit – because it’s such a relatable concept! We’ve all been clamoring for a totally normal fishing RPG about dredging (ah, now I get it!) the inky depths for totally normal fish that only sometimes seems to stay fresh for an unnaturally long time or look to have been infected by something beyond comprehension. Thankfully, we’ll finally get it when Dredge releases on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC (probably) sometime in 2023.

4. Atlas Fallen

Are you a fan of the Monster Hunter or Darksiders franchises? Are you interested in hacking and slashing your way through a barren desert full of gigantic beasts that threaten the survival of the human race in a desolate environment scattered with the ruins of a once-great civilization? Does the prospect of gaining customizable superpowers to fight the gods themselves excite you? Developer Deck13 certainly seems to hope so, as very little has been released about this game so far, other than a trailer and some vague descriptions of gameplay and lore that sound pretty standard for high fantasy action RPGs. So what makes it stand out enough to be worthy of a mention on this list? Well, in part it’s the fact that the game will apparently be solo or co-op only – games like this often fall into the trap of wanting to be MMOs or otherwise multiplayer-focused, so it’s refreshing to see one that will seemingly stick to the simple formula of building an intriguing world with an actual story that can be experienced without the raids and the looting and all that nonsense that plague games like Destiny or Anthem. Apart from that, well…I’m not sure what else I can say. It just looks neat, okay? Can we just have games that look cool and will probably be cool if and when they actually release? Is that enough in the year of our Lord 2023?

3. Mina the Hollower

If you’re already familiar with one game on this list, it might very well be Mina the Hollower, since it is being developed by Yacht Club Games, who brought us a little game called Shovel Knight. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Like their previous project, MtH looks to have a retro-inspired art style and gameplay, though unlike its platforming predecessor this game appears to share more in common with old-school Zelda and Castlevania games. There also appear to be some modern Soulslike touches as well, with the protagonist able to earn the ability to use healing flasks by defeating enemies and a mechanic similar to souls or their ilk in most From Software titles where the player must return to where they died to recover a life lost. Some might be turned off by its art style – this game absolutely won’t push modern consoles or high-end PCs to their graphical limits – but with the developer’s pedigree for making exceptional throwback games with modern sensibilities and quality of life upgrades, it is sure to be a hit with the “gameplay over graphics” crowd.

2. Goodbye Volcano High

If you’ve watched the trailer above (and if you haven’t, what are you even doing here? Stop reading these words and watch the video first – that’s literally why it’s there) you might be wondering, as I did, why these anthropomorphic dinosaurs are so angsty. I mean, what ever happened to the dinosaurs that was so bad? Sure, high school is tough, but it’s not the end of the world…oh. I think I remembered something bad that happened to the dinosaurs, y’all. Well anyway, Goodbye Volcano High puts you in the shoes (er, hooves? talons? claws? wait, do these dinosaurs wear shoes and I was right in the first place?) of non-binary high schooler Fang, who must balance studying and socializing with their prospective musical career and, y’know, that whole “asteroid coming to wipe out the population” thingy. I have to say, out of all the games on this list, I am probably most rooting for GVH to be released this year – it seems developer KO_OP has high ambitions for this project, with the game being delayed all the way from its originally intended release date in 2021 to the summer of 2023 due to COVID-related issues but also the sheer scope of the game, which has already been rebooted once during development, reportedly, and figures to be fully or at least mostly voiced. For such a small development team, everything about this project looks incredibly impressive – the music, art style, dialogue options, and rhythm mini-games all seem top-notch from what has been revealed so far. It’s the most eagerly I’ve anticipated an apocalypse since, like, at least 2016. A fictional apocalypse, I mean. Obviously.

1. Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn

I feel like my proclivity for Soulslikes is pretty well established at this point – they made up 2/5ths of my most overlooked games of 2022 list – so it should come as no surprise that a challenging action RPG like Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is #1 on my list of games to watch out for in 2023. There’s a good reason this one has captured my attention and interest, however – most Soulslikes give you the option of melee weapons or magic. Some even give you the option to use melee weapons and guns. But developers A44 Games dared to ask the question: what if we gave players melee weapons, magic, and guns? *cue blown mind gif* Yeah, that’s a big deal. Beyond that, the gameplay looks fluid with numerous available approaches to each combat encounter, the graphics look fantastic (if a little heavy on the earth tones), and the bosses look hard as nails but in a “fun challenge” way not an “I’d rather put my forehead through a brick wall” way. Plus, on the often controversial topic of difficulty, there is some good news for players who may not be fans of the conventional FromSoft formula – you can set the difficulty level for yourself, though there is a recommended setting for veterans of the genre. In addition to player character Nor, there is Enki, who like the weapon choices available in the game seems to have been given the “I’ll have a little of everything” treatment, as it mainly looks like a fox, except it has horns, feathers, giant ears, bird claws, and monkey paws. Oh, and Enki can communicate telepathically in addition to teleporting around the game world. In typical Soulslike fashion, players will be tasked with saving the world from an invading army of evil undead gods, which I haven’t looked forward to this much since at least 20…y’know, I already made this joke. It made more sense the first time. Suffice to say, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn looks great and will hopefully release this year, so…yeah, that ticks all the boxes for inclusion on this list. Job well done, me.

So those are the games I think you should keep an eye out for in 2023! Will all of those games release this year? Almost certainly not! Will they all be as good as I expect them to be? Eh…a guy can dream, I guess. What did you think of the list? Were you expecting me to hyperventilate over Hollow Knight: Silksong again or mention that Atomic Heart is maybe finally coming out this year for the millionth time? What games are you looking forward to this year? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter @FilmIronic! Make sure to check out the rest of our entertainment content on FilmIronic.com! Game on, gamers – have a great 2023!