Top 5 Most Overlooked Games of 2023

We’re nearly at the end of another year of video gaming, and what a year it was! Headlined by such massive releases as Baldur’s Gate 3, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Marvel’s Spider-man 2, Super Mario Bros Wonder, and other significant accomplishments in the world of virtual interactivity, it’s safe to say 2023 was a banner year for gamers. But you know the drill by now – you’re no novice to this whole FilmIronic thing, right? Well, if you are, or just want to re-experience the wonder of all our previous lists like this, have no fear, I’ve got you, friend. But if you’re not new to this sort of thing, you know that we don’t bother with “best” or “worst” around these parts. Instead, we look for games that deserved more critical and commercial attention from the year that was and tell you why they deserve to be played as we wrap up the year and head into a new one. Once again, I must emphasize that the games I’ve selected to highlight here are not necessarily the best games or even my favorite games (though some of them are) but simply that they deserve a second look if you happen to see them in an end-of-year sale or on Game Pass or if you’re just looking to spend some of your Christmas money on some such discounted game tomfoolery. As always, before we get onto the actual top five, we’ll start with some games that nearly made the list but didn’t, too bad so sad. But before that, for the first time ever, we’re going to look at an…

Honorable honorable mention

Gylt

Putting this game on the list would be cheating because it was technically released way back in 2019 as a Google Stadia exclusive. But c’mon, nobody played it back then because nobody had a Google Stadia. I have to say, anytime I get pessimistic about the state of modern video gaming, I remember how we all collectively took one look at the Stadia, video gaming’s version of NFTs, and decided “nah, we’re good.” It warms my heart. Anyway, Gylt was probably the only good exclusive ever on that aggressively misguided streaming service/videogame platform, so it was great to see Tequila Works’ game get a second lease at life when it was released on platforms people actually own and use in July of this year. Again, it doesn’t count as a game of 2023, but since there is actually a ghost of a chance that anyone would actually play it this year, it merits a mention anyway. It’s not the scariest horror game nor is it the most puzzling puzzle game or the adventuriest(?) adventure game, but it manages to blend those elements together successfully enough that the result is more than the sum of its parts. Anyway, let’s get on to some actual, official…

Honorable mentions

Storyteller

As a former English teacher and avid video game fan, it’s safe to say inventive ways of presenting a narrative are something of an interest of mine. So it’s probably not surprising that Storyteller, from developer Daniel Benmergui and publisher Annapurna Interactive, was such an instant favorite of mine in 2023. The basic concept is that the player is given a three-panel structure, some basic narrative elements like setting and characters, and a leading prompt like “Heartbreak with a Happy Ending” or “Murderer is Arrested” and the player has to fill in the blanks. It’s a clever little puzzle title that ramps up the complexity (by adding more frames and narrative elements) at a comfortable pace and leaves plenty of room for experimentation, unexpectedly funny plot twists, and Easter eggs for literature nerds like me. (Seriously, there are achievements for recreating The Sorrows of Young Werther, William Tell, and Romeo and Juliet. Heck, two of the main recurring characters are named Edgar and Lenore; if you know, you know.) A relatively short indie puzzle game was never going to win any awards or sell millions of copies, but Storyteller‘s concept is so unique and the art style is so perfectly suited for its purpose that it ranks among the most well-realized games of the year. If you have any interest in a game like this (and why wouldn’t you?) it’s well worth experiencing for yourself.

Terra Nil

I’m going to level with you, reader. I could have sworn I wrote about Terra Nil at some point, but in reviewing my previous lists I couldn’t find a mention of it anywhere. So perhaps the person who is most guilty of overlooking this game is, in fact, me. I was as wrong not to hype this game up prior to launch as the general gaming audience is for overlooking it, because developer Free Lives and publisher Devolver Digital have created an absolutely gorgeous, low-stress strategy game with both innovative mechanics and a social conscience. (It was a runner-up in the Games for Impact category at The Game Awards to a game that will appear later on this list. Also, we don’t care about The Game Advertisements around here.) The basic premise is that the player is tasked with rebuilding, or more precisely re-foresting, a world that has been devastated by environmental collapse. You do this by deploying different mechanical contrivances to bring back water, air, and soil to be able to support life once again. From there, you cultivate plant and animal life to bring the planet back to lush life before removing all trace of your influence so the natural environment you’ve just painstakingly recreated can survive on its own. Yes, just including this game on my list has caused me to spontaneously sprout a tie-dyed shirt and blond dreads, but I don’t even care. Terra Nil is a great game even if you don’t care about its environmentalist message – a strategy game for people who don’t play strategy games, a perfectly chill game that you can invest as deeply or as shallowly as you care to, and a fantastic game to play with a big bowl of non-GMO granola while smoking a doo…nevermind that last one.

Viewfinder

It was a really good year for indie puzzle games, apparently, as all of my official honorable mentions fall into that general category. Viewfinder is kind of in that Superliminal category where you immediately grasp what the game is going for while never fully understanding how it works – you manipulate objects and/or your perspective of them to make things happen in the game world in a way that seems like magic. The visual style of Viewfinder is lovely, and its mechanics are revealed to the player without feeling overly tutorializing. The simple joy of figuring out how to get from where you are to where you want to be, or even finding a secret way of utilizing the game’s mechanics to do something you didn’t initially realize you could do, is this game’s biggest selling point. The game may not be the longest in the world – just like the other indie games I’ve mentioned already – but as a focused experience in which each new mechanic is introduced, implemented, and briefly iterated upon without overstaying its welcome, I can’t imagine it would have been improved by being padded out with more repeated uses of each basic mechanic or some combination thereof. There’s only so many times that the solution to a puzzle can be “take a photo of this thing, take that photo over there, and use the thing in the photo to get somewhere you couldn’t get before” before it starts to lose some of the wonder. Thankfully, Sad Owl Studios have managed to avoid that problem as the game never runs out of fresh ideas throughout its entire runtime.

Now to the top 5!

5. Jusant

Don’t get me wrong, I get why a rock climbing game might not be the most high-profile release of the year. Especially if that rock climbing game was made by Dontnod, a studio primarily known for games like the Life is Strange series and Tell Me Why which *checks notes* have both previously been featured as games not to overlook. So an overlooked studio with a track record of overlooked games made a game outside of the typical AAA formula, and it was largely overlooked. Shocker. But Jusant is so much more than just a indie-ish rock climbing game. Though of course it literally is that – most of the minute-to-minute gameplay is devoted to traversing up the mountain using the controller’s triggers to to alternate gripping onto handholds or swing from your rope to another climbing point. There are no deaths in this game, but you can lose progress by falling, so mastering the base mechanics is crucial to success. Your character also has a companion named Ballast who can open up new traversal options by causing vines and other plants to grow. But beyond just the mechanical interactivity of the game, you begin to understand how your actions are shaped by and give meaning to the world around you – your purpose in this climb is to discover why all the water has gone out of the world, which is why so many of the landscapes you traverse seem to have been underwater at some point in the past. Thankfully, this post-apocalyptic landscape isn’t all browns and greys, as seems to be standard in most post-apocalyptic video games, and the soundtrack is just as much a part of the setting as the visual design. Another relatively short game (it’s almost as if I didn’t play a lot of super long games this year for some reason) Jusant is nonetheless a worthwhile experience regardless of whether you seek out all the backstory-revealing collectibles or just head straight for the top and call it a day. It’s the kind of foot wide mile deep experience that rewards exploration and completionism, but its aesthetics and engaging gameplay make it worth your time even if you skip all the side content.

4. Tchia

You could argue that Tchia winning the Games for Impact award at this year’s Game Awards would preclude it from being on this list, but you’d be wrong because that award’s title should really be the “Important” Game That Nobody Played award. It was deserving of both parts of that title, however, as it both tells a story of an underrepresented population and, well, almost nobody played it. The game is both brightly colored, thanks to its tropical island setting, and surprisingly dark, which belies the evil forces at work just below the surface of the cheerful, almost cartoonish animation style. What shines through most, beyond the striking visual design, is the developers’ passion for the folklore of New Caledonia that forms the basis for the setting and story of the game. Developer Awaceb may have been founded in Bordeaux, France, but there is no trace of earthy wine or runny cheese here – the studio founders are New Caledonian through and through, and the folklore and culture of the Kanak people heavily influenced the development of this game. Even if you disregard the cultural representation, which you shouldn’t, the game’s themes of a daughter trying to save her father from demonic forces seeking to corrupt this island paradise would still resonate with the player. Probably the game’s greatest innovation, though, is that so much of it is optional, and not just in a side quest kind of way – traversal and “soul-jumping” to take control of various wildlife and inanimate objects are still the bread and butter of the experience, of course, but playing the ukulele minigame that prompts when playing “Soul Melodies” can be skipped, and even entire sections of gameplay can be skipped, an accessibility feature that I can’t say I’ve ever seen before. Overall, Tchia deserves to be played even outside of its own “impact” as a piece of cultural representation and accessibility – it’s a fun, vibrant, quirky, surprisingly deep and even dark experience that you really should try for yourself.

3. Bramble: The Mountain King

Based on my history with these lists, there’s almost always an indie horror game, and Bramble: The Mountain King reminded me of some of my absolute favorite indie horror games like Limbo and Little Nightmares so it was probably one of the more obvious choices on this list. (Also, will this be the only horror game on this year’s list? I’ll never tell…well, I will tell indirectly in two more entries because the list will be over whether there is or isn’t another horror game.) I’m also a sucker for dark fairy tales, so this game really ticked a lot of boxes for me. That said, maybe my tastes are trash and that’s why more people don’t play the games I like? Regardless, I do genuinely think Bramble is a recommendable game for its overall vibes and darkly compelling story. The puzzles aren’t exceptionally challenging, but they don’t really have to be – the dread of what might be behind you or around the next corner makes them stressful enough. The narrative presentation is also a highlight, with the narrator ramping up the spookiness while filling in some sweet, sweet lore inspired by Scandanavian folklore. Developer Dimfrost has done a remarkable job of blending darkness and whimsy in the way of a Pan’s Labyrinth or American McGee’s Alice. The character designs may not be the scariest things you’ll ever see – there is some definite Euro-jank at play here – but the atmosphere as a whole works to obscure the lack of truly terrifying visuals. Bramble doesn’t so much reinvent the wheel, but it does deliver a smooth ride over unfamiliar terrain, and within an indie horror space that often delivers very same-y experiences, that makes it stand out from the rabble.

2. Venba

Why did so many people sleep on this game? I specifically requested you not to! (RIP Andre Braugher.) Okay, okay, so I was wrong about what year it would release, but I’m still disappointed in you all. Go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done. Oh, but take your phone with you so you can read the rest of this article. Anyway, I generally try to avoid repeating games from a previous “games not to overlook” list, but I truly think Venba is such an exceptional game that it deserves more attention. Plus it gives me an opportunity to pat myself on the back for being so totally right about this game. Not that I need that excuse since my success rate with video game predictions is basically 100% (don’t check me on that). I won’t recap the plot in too much detail as I’ve written about it before, but the basic gist of it is the titular Venba, her husband Paavalan, and their son Kavin (with whom Venba becomes pregnant near the beginning of the game) have moved from India to Canada, and she attempts to keep their Tamil culture alive in their hearts through cooking traditional recipes for her family. Let’s be real here: the food is the star of the show, with the art style depicting each ingredient and finished recipe in mouth-watering if stylized rather than photorealistic detail. If you finish a play session without feeling the urge to order takeout from your local Indian restaurant (or even better to try your hand at preparing the recipes for yourself) I’m genuinely not sure how. There is also a surprising amount of character development, as Venba and her family have to deal with loss, cultural assimilation, and interpersonal strife as the game progresses. Another Games for Impact nominee, the main drawback is once again its relatively short runtime, but in a year with multiple 60+ hour experiences, that doesn’t seem too significant to me. Still, I would love a sequel or a similar take on the same formula with a different family, maybe from a different cultural background, just to experience more of its mechanics. Figuring out how to prepare each recipe is always fun, never frustrating, and the art style and soundtrack combine to make it a beautiful experience. Venba is like the perfect appetizer in video game form – sumptuous to look at, appealing to experience, and leaves you wanting more when you’re done.

1. Dredge

I know I said just a moment ago that I generally don’t recycle games in these lists, but I truly think this game was the best hidden gem I’ve ever written about ahead of release. (And, unlike Venba, I actually got the release year right!) Dredge absolutely nails the vibe of cosmic, Lovecraftian horror that its premise implies. It looked creepy in previews, but actually experiencing it for yourself brings an unparalleled sense of dread but also intrigue as you try to figure out just what exactly is lurking out in the briny darkness and what is up with all these vaguely sinister weirdos you keep encountering as you sail from port to port. Black Salt Games have accomplished something special with this game – the art style is beautiful and the soundtrack is suitably atmospheric, which makes the minute-to-minute experience of the game as pleasant as it can be given all the *gestures vaguely at the Eldritch abominations and general unpleasantness* So okay, this game is great, but why is it number one on this year’s list? Well first of all, thanks for reading my pre-prepared questions, Carl! You truly have made this end-of-year list extra special by simply following directions as I absolutely demand you do. But to answer your question which is actually my question, Dredge is the best overlooked game this year because when it was released, it landed on lots of “best of the year so far” lists, yet by the end of the year, it couldn’t even score a game of the year nomination (which I must remind you doesn’t actually matter) or even win best indie game, though Sea of Stars (another game I told you not to overlook) was also a deserving choice. I get that a lot of games released between March and December, but it’s truly sad how quickly this exceptional game was seemingly forgotten. It even received a DLC expansion, The Pale Reach, in November, and even that wasn’t enough to rekindle interest from the general gameplaying public. To be honest with you, I really need more people to play this game. The nightmares…they won’t stop. The eyes in the briny deep sear their way into my very soul. They see all and never sleep, and I’m quite sure the only way to make them stop haunting my unconscious mind is for more people to play more Dredge. How many more? I can’t say. Only more. More. MORE. Please, I haven’t slept in months. Please play Dredge.

And that’s it for 2023 in overlooked video games! Thanks again for reading all our silly content all year, and please go back and read anything you might have missed as a fun festive treat to yourself (and, y’know, me) – we’ll see you soon as we look ahead to games that *will come out in 2024 that we should all be looking forward to. Have a safe holiday and a very happy new year!

*almost certainly will not, but hopefully a few will