How do you even begin to talk about what happened in the video game industry in 2023?
From January all the way through to December, 2023 was one of the best years for games ever. New classics literally appeared out of nowhere, while dozens of other hotly-anticipated new releases absolutely lived up to the hype. But it was hard to celebrate last year’s triumphs without also looking back at the seemingly endless parade of developers who lost their job in 2023. Multiple times per week, we would hear about a mass layoff or studio closure at yet another company.
Farhan Noor, an artist who previously worked with Telltale and Activision, has been tracking these job losses at Game Industry Layoffs and he estimates that at least 10,500 people were laid off in 2023. The final tally is most likely quite a bit higher and things don’t seem to be slowing down as we head into 2024.
One outlet, But Why Tho?, directly confronted this grim reality by selecting “The People Who Make the Games Industry” as their “Top Video Game.” Picking the developers, artists, and writers who lost their jobs over any of the games they played in 2023, it’s hard to argue with their reasons for making this choice:
Many of the games on this list and on lists across games media were made by people who are no longer employed by the studios that developed, published, or are the owners. We saw the shuttering of not only studios but also of websites dedicated to covering video games. We can not celebrate a stacked year of fantastic games without trying to honor those who deserve to be respected as talented people who have given us hours and days of play in fantastic worlds. They matter, their futures matter, and the beauty of the video games we love so much is only possible when the developers are respected, cared for, and fought for, too.
So with that in mind, let’s take every chance we can to honor the actual people behind our favorite games, and the fabulous work they did in 2023 while mired in chaos.
Any discussion of 2023 will begin with a trio of games… Baldur’s Gate 3, Alan Wake II, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Fans spent years waiting patiently as each game slowly moved through the development process and all three delivered (including a full sweep of the major “Game of the Year” awards for Baldur’s Gate 3).
Larian (including Director Swen Vincke, Producer David Walgrave, and a talented troupe of voice actors) first unleashed Baldur’s Gate 3 in Early Access in 2020, but the expansive RPG still seemed to come out of nowhere. Likewise, Sam Lake and Remedy had been slowly building out a sequel to Alan Wake since its launch in 2010. Most of this work was done away from the public, but it likely won’t take 13 more years to get the next chapter in Alan Wake’s story.
And then there’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Eiji Aonuma and his team at Nintendo EPD poured everything they had into this Breath of the Wild sequel and redefined what a console like the Switch can offer players in its waning days. Its seemingly-limitless world mesmerized critics and players, and left other developers wondering exactly how Nintendo was able to pull it off.
But dozens of other games also competed for attention and accolades, including Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2, Capcom’s Street Fighter 6, Geometric Interactive’s Cocoon, Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Capcom’s Resident Evil 4, Tango’s Hi-Fi Rush, Square Enix’s Final Fantsasy XVI, From Software’s Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, Blizzard’s Diablo IV, Mintrocket’s Dave the Diver, and on and on and on.
Even the long shadow of Wordle continued to inspire new daily browser-based games, including the time-gobbling Connections, Puzzmo, and Immaculate Grid.
Altogether, more than 25 games were selected by at least ten publications, and a total of more than 200 games appeared on at least one list. It was truly an historic year for video games, and you can see how it all shook out by viewing the 2023 GOTY Scoreboard after the break.
After wandering in the wilderness during the early part of the PS4 era, the God of War franchise came back in a big way with God of War (2018). With a new pantheon to slay, Kratos slashed his way into our hearts, and he helped Sony Santa Monica collect a decent chunk of accolades from reviewers and players alike during the 2018-2019 “Game of the Year” season (including a sweep at all five of the major year-end awards shows).