With the Game Awards out of the way and looking at back at a year that brought us the next huge Zelda experience, I thought that it was the perfect time to update my games of the year list from six years ago, back when Breath of the Wild blew everyone's mind and scored all the awards. What games have really made my years since then? See for yourself:
- 2018: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
- 2019: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
- 2020: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
- 2021: Metroid Dread
- 2022: Death's Door
- 2023: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
If you have followed this blog or just browse through the posts during the respective years, then there shouldn't be many surprises here. There's probably only one title that I need to explain, but let's briefly go through this list...
After Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS & Wii U failed to captivate me in 2014, losing big time against Hyrule Warriors, my love for Nintendo's crossover fighting game was instantly reignited with the "Everyone is here!" trailer at E3 2018. And Super Smash Bros. Ultimate then kept me on my toes for the next three years with its character additions, where I still play the game (ir)regularly today.
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening was my first Zelda game and my first big love in video games, where it will always have a special place in my heart. And the remake from 2019 did so many things right that I consider it to be among the best what the Zelda series has to offer, right next to Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. It's also something that I can play again and again.
Curiously, while both my favorite games of 2018 and 2019 were Nintendo Switch titles, I didn't have my own Nintendo Switch in these years yet, because I was still waiting for that inevitable Zelda edition at the time, which didn't arrive until this year. The game that finally made me buy a Nintendo Switch despite this was Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity in late 2020, which came as a big surprise and combined some of my previous games of the year into one epic package, where the addicting action of Hyrule Warriors makes fantastic use of the world of Breath of the World.
2021 then marks the first Metroid title on my list. Since I hadn't discovered the series before 2008, the only real contenders so far have been Metroid: Other M and Metroid: Samus Returns, where the former wasn't exactly the best choice, even though I liked the game quite a bit, and the latter had no chance against Breath of the Wild in the same year. Metroid Dread on the other hand didn't have much competition and also became my favorite title in the series to play, where it's just a blast.
Well, it's not entirely true that Metroid Dread didn't have any competition, because there was also Death's Door. But I did play this at the very end of the year, where it really bleeds into 2022 for me and I've decided to make it that year's entry, because I didn't actually play any new games otherwise. I was mainly busy with Hollow Knight, which technically was my big game of the year 2022 when it comes to pure play time, but it's in a weird spot as a 2017/2018 title. While there is some leeway with this list, this is stretching things.
And Death's Door really was the game that has brought me into the realm of smaller indie titles to begin with, which then led me to explore Hollow Knight. I've also already played through the game three times in total by now, where for me it has a similar level of replayability to Link's Awakening, which is a high praise. I have a feeling that Death's Door really will stay with me and therefore deserves the spot on the list.
Another contender for 2022 was Quake Champions, which I have been playing a lot for the last three years and which went out of "early access" last year. But the content updates during 2022 weren't that great and I don't think I want any service game in this list, because all the other entries are something that I could still enjoy today to some degree. It's more something for the category of "best ongoing game".
Anyway, this brings us to this year, 2023, which was dominated by Tears of the Kingdom and should be smallest surprise here. At least there wasn't a new Metroid game under its shadow or anything similar, where luckily Hollow Knight: Silksong still escapes us and therefore could become a contender for one of the next years, maybe already in 2024.
It's also of note how the Zelda series is now clearly in a six-years-cycle with its 3D installments. My graph makes this quite visible with three main titles in one column. Skyward Sword came out in 2011, Breath of the Wild in 2017, and now Tears of the Kingdom in 2023. At this rate we shouldn't expect the next big Zelda before 2029...
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