Best Games Of 2024 So Far [Updated June 2024]

2023 was a great year for games, and the first quarter of 2024 has continued to deliver some knockout hits. Be it remakes of fan favorites or new titles that came out of nowhere to deliver fantastic gaming experiences, this year has been pretty exciting so far.

We have been keeping track of all these games and decided now would be a good time to put together what we think are the best games of 2024.

11. Balatro

Release Date	Feb 20, 2024
Developer	LocalThunk
Platforms	PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, Switch

If someone told me that a game combining deck-builders with rogue-like was one of best games of 2024, I would start worrying about the state of the industry. But Balatro over-delivers and precisely combines the above two genres.

The visuals do not consist of much other than a few cards and instructions, yet the game stands shoulder to shoulder with massive AAA titles backed with sweeping orchestral notes and outstanding visual graphics. Yes, that is how good Balatro is.

What starts as a simple iteration of poker requiring you to hit a particular score soon extends into something that requires a lot of planning with joker cards, tarot cards, and spectral cards. They quickly become deciding factors in what kind of a hand do you want to play. The game also does a fantastic job of guiding you through the entire learning curve, making it accessible and fun even to players not familiar with cards.

Trust me on this one — this game will sink it’s claws deep with its simple and addictive gameplay.

10. Pacific Drive

Release Date	Feb 22, 2024
Developer	Ironwood Studios
Platforms	PC, PS5

This is another game which combines different genres to give a unique and fascinating experience. Pacific Drive puts you in the shoes of The Driver, who has been tasked with investigating mysterious anomalies in the Pacific in … a station wagon. And that is where the survival genre kicks in big time.

You begin first in a small pitstop where you can do basic repairs and which, over a period of time, evolves into a big workshop with several systems to keep track of. You then find yourself with a big checklist of bits and parts to collect from the outside world. All of this is required to craft the next set of upgrades and car parts to help survive dangerous storms and electrical strikes.

The game makes all of this suitably difficult and complex so that finishing a run or getting that upgrade gives you a feeling of accomplishment.

9. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Release Date	Jan 18, 2024
Developer	Ubisoft
Platforms	PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, Switch

Ubisoft has not been having a great time recently. Since AC Valhalla, Far Cry 6, and AC Mirage, they were criticized for either being too bloated, too similar to earlier games in the same franchise, or offering a bland storyline.

But amid all of this, Ubisoft came up with a gem of a Metrovanoid re-imagining of an old classic and delivered one of the best games of this genre with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. The game also had unforgiving but responsive and intense combat with parrying, dodges, and special attacks. It brought a bit of souls-like flavor as well to this genre, which made it shine all the more.

8. Tekken 8

Release Date	Jan 25, 2024
Developer	Bandai Namco, Arika
Platforms	PC, PS5, Xbox Series S/X

Tekken 8 has taken a system that was pretty much as good as it gets in the genre and successfully managed to up the ante by bringing neat innovations like the Heat system and an impressive roster (32 characters) to the table. All this in addition to an impressive number of modes and character customization options make Tekken 8 one of the best games of 2024 so far. It is one of the few games to have scored a 90 and got the coveted Must-Play badge on Metacritic

7. Palworld

Release Date	Jan 19, 2024
Developer	Pocket Pair, Inc
Platforms	PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X

Initially derided as “Pokémon with guns” (it’s not! – argues our staff here), Palworld became the sleeper hit of 2024, much to the surprise of the developers themselves. Pocket Pair had to scramble to get servers and capacities increased to accommodate the number of gamers who lined up to play this game, with the number hitting a whopping 2 million simultaneous users on Steam.

The game also helped Xbox get the maximum number of playtime hours in a month for any game. The game continues to sustain interest with an eagerly awaited PVP launch promised sometime this year.

6. Stellar Blade

Release Date	April 26, 2024
Developer	SHIFT UP Corporation
Platforms	PS5

Very long game development cycles are not the best news for the game under question – with a few exceptions to this. Thankfully, Stellar Blade, that changed names and platforms over the course of 5 years since it was first announced on Apr 4, 2019 for PS4, Xbox One and Windows as ‘Project Eve’; gets slotted into the exception category to this. Rousing orchestral music, great boss design, flashy graphics, and tight, responsive combat that picks up all the good elements from Souls-likes make this one of the best games of the year so far, and one more addition to the already stellar PS5 exclusives line up that Xbox needs to find an answer for.

5. Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth

Release Date	Jan 25, 2024
Developer	Ryu Ga Gotoku
Platforms	PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X

The Yakuza games have enjoyed a bit of a much-deserved revival. You will be hard pressed to find a game that is bad or even average in the Yakuza or the Judgment series. The studio managed to pull off introducing a new protagonist and a new turn-based combat style in Yakuza: Like A Dragon last year pretty successfully. And like Square Enix did with Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, Yakuza makers came up with a refined and polished version set in a bigger world in this year’s Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth.

The game also brought back Kazuma Kiryu from the Yakuza series and somehow managed to fit in his more freestyle combat into the overall turn-based combat system. Add some really whacky jobs and skills, the trademark funny side quests and sweeping story narrative that the studio is known for, and it is easy to see why this game sits among the best 2024 games so far.

4. Dragon’s Dogma 2

Release Date	Mar 21, 2024
Developer	Capcom
Platforms	PC, PS5, Xbox Series S/X

The most recent game release from Capcom brought back the thrill and joy of exploration that the genre was missing bigtime. In Dragon’s Dogma 2, you are never sure what you will come across as you explore the open world.

You could be fighting goblins, and suddenly a griffin or a troll is likely to come to make things that much more frenetic. Or you decide to travel by carriage and are about to doze off when suddenly you find the carriage under attack from thieves. Add in a great variety of jobs (classes), some great monsters to tackle and defeat, a decent storyline, and a great pawn system (high-fiving your pawns after an intense battle never gets old).

3. Persona 3 Reload

Release Date	Feb 1, 2024
Developer	Atlus, P Studio
Platforms	PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X

Persona 3 Reload, a remake of the 2006 fan-favorite, manages to retain what made the original game so great. It then adds new bits like new social events, all fully voiced social events, visually impressive limit break style fury attacks, new enemies to keep combat fresh, and so on. All these elements easily make Persona 3 Reload one of the best games of 2024 that you can easily sink 70+ hours into and still not be done with.

2. Helldivers 2

Release Date	Feb 8, 2024
Developer	Arrowhead Game Studios
Platforms	PC, PS5

Helldivers 2 brought in all that makes for a good co-op shooter: tight combat, good variety of guns, intense fights- and to that it added something which does not come along often in this genre. It brought great world-building, biting satire on the lines of the cult-classic movie Starship Troopers. This moved the game several notches up from good to really, really good.

And then, it bought to the table one feature which moved it into the great category: friendly fire. Hitting your friends accidentally or even purposely in the middle of a tense enemy firefight led to some hilarious moments in Helldivers 2 and brought the fun back into co-op shooter genre in a way that few games before have been able to do.

1. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Release Date	Feb 29, 2024
Developer	Square Enix
Platforms	PS5

Square Enix had hit it out of the park with an absolutely brilliant re-imagining of the fan-favourite Final Fantasy VII last year with the Final Fantasy VII Remake. Keeping intact the basic building blocks of what made last year’s release a super hit, Square Enix released the sequel, FF7 Rebirth.

And as is the tradition with successful sequels, this one was bigger for sure, and many would say better. The open world was that many times bigger, the number of side activities were ridiculously high and varied, the world-building that much richer, and key beats of the storyline delivered in suitably grand and sweeping cut scenes.

And that brings us to the end of the list for the best games of 2024. With several big potential blockbuster AAA games announced and many more promising indie games lined up, it will be interesting to see which ones from this list hold on to their positions when we approach the end of 2024.