Destructoids

The year 2023 is coming to a close. And as time carries on into the new year, we’ve got even more games to fill our endless backlogs, ranging from small surprises to our most anticipated known launches. Really, 2024 is already shaping up to another big year for games. Right off the bat in the first quarter, we’ll see RPG fans eating well with the likes of Infinite Wealth, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Dragon’s Dogma 2, and Persona 3 Reload. Princess Peach gets to take the stage, and Ubisoft might deliver a bit of a…

Although Pokémon TCG had a busy year, it wasn’t one I enjoyed too much, in part because Paldea never really captured my heart. Despite this, there have been a few gorgeous cards released, and you should consider yourself lucky if you managed to score one. For collectors and players, there were a few changes to get used to this year. Some were aesthetic; for example, the cards from the Crown Zenith set, which was released in January, are the last to feature yellow borders. Additionally, the name of each Energy card…

Each year, we’re treated to a new collection of lovable characters in video games. Some of them might be returning, familiar faces or mascots. But plenty of new characters made our favorite games of 2023, too. Within a single character, there’s a huge amount of work done behind-the-scenes. It’s not just design, or writing, or even direction. The actors themselves put themselves into it, and in a time where stabs at so-called AI are propagating at an uncomfortable rate, celebrating all the minds that make these…

After cleaning up the Nintendo Switch 2023 Game of the Year contest (with one of the biggest sweeps of the year), Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is back for the Overall 2023 Game of the Year award here at Destructoid. Act surprised! Look, as much as I’d like to talk about Tears of the Kingdom at length again, I figured it was a good time to point out some past winners and highlight some high hopes for 2024. Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is one of four Nintendo-published GOTY winners In the history of Destructoid’s Game…

There’s just a couple of winners left to announce as Destructoid’s GOTY awards wrap up for the year, and that includes our staff pick for the Best PC Game of 2023. This year offered a healthy spread of genres, and studios big and small wound up making our cut. Some of our favorite indies that didn’t wind up competing for that genre’s award wound up here, as Slay the Princess, Cocoon, and BattleBit Remastered compete for a spot among PC greats. Starfield is competing here too — there’s no reality in which I’m playing…

It couldn’t have gone any other way, right? Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was a perfect crescendoed sonata of how to wow an audience. At first, I was just impressed with how magnificent and sprawling the sky islands were. By the time I had brute-forced puzzles with unique object manipulation mechanics and discovered the depths of the underground, I was completely enamored. Breath of the Wild managed to sing a similar song back in 2017, but this felt considerably different. That’s worth talking about because at first,…

Final Fantasy XIV. I’m not going to even try to build suspense for our Best Ongoing Game winner. Destructoid has too many FFXIV sickos for anything else to take the crown, which is fitting given that our own Chris “Eorzea’s Finest” Carter was an early adopter of the now-legendary MMORPG. This, inadvertently, presents a bit of a conundrum in terms of selecting the “Best Ongoing Game” of any year. Live service games typically demand a lot of time. So it’s difficult – if not impossible – to find anyone who has played…

The year is coming to a close, and so we’re looking back at all the media we’ve engaged with, in an effort to find the best, or maybe even our favorite. And today, we’re looking at a list of our favorite anime from 2023. Well, a selection of our favorite anime, managed by me. Hi, I’m Eric. I’ve been working on getting an anime beat going here, none of which would have been possible without the hard work of writers and contributors. It’s an area that doesn’t seem wholly outside our purview, and as games overlap even more…

2023 brought a lot of classic games back into the fold, but I always knew one certain title would inevitably take the crown for best remake/remaster. Resident Evil 4 rides a fine line of feeling old and new to an impeccable degree, and I’ve got to admit, it’s a heck of a remake. Resident Evil 4 is one of those games that transcends the legacy of the Resident Evil series itself. Personally, it wasn’t the first Resident Evil game I played, but it was the first one I finished. Its combination of action, RPG elements, and…

It’s 2023 and my miles-long PlayStation 2 backlog is still eyeballing me, but there sure were a lot of good games on PS5 this year worth jumping on — with a few of those available on PS4, too. Over the last few weeks, the Destructoid crew has been juggling around nominees and winners for our GOTY 2023 picks, and this year’s line-up didn’t make those conversations very cut-and-dry. On the PlayStation front, our best PS4/PS5 game nominees list could easily pass for something over a decade old; it’s very Destructoid.…