Tt’s the end of March 2025, but I didn’t yet have a gaming blog at the beginning of the year, so here I am playing catch-up and writing about my favorite games of 2024. I love reading folks reflecting on the games they played, and this post is my take.

Hand-drawn icons for Shadows of Doubt, Vintage Story, Chants of Sennaar, Pharaoh: A New Era, and Total War: Warhammer III.

I don’t always play games as soon as they come out, so the list include titles over the past couple of years. These are the games I played in 2024 (and not necessarily for the first time), and have left a lasting imprint. In fact, while some of the games on this list received updates in 2024, I believe none of these games first came out in that year. Oh well.

Innovative detective gameplay: Shadows of Doubt

Shadows of Doubt is a procedurally generated detective game which thrusts you into the shoes of a grizzled detective. Finding a suspect in a city of hundreds, even thousands, can feel like finding a needle in a haystack, but it is achievable through good old detective work - which often involves breaking in, hacking, and sleuthing your way through the ventilation systems to find more information and connections for your ever growing murder board.

A pixelated street of Shadows of Doubt: a brick road, lamp post, and buildings. Shadows of Doubt is a deeply atmospheric experience with its rain-slicked, neon-drenched, and oppressively industrial city, immersing players in a gritty, dystopian 1970s sci-fi detective noir. Don’t forget to check the trash cans and street surveillance cameras!

While its 2024 full release from early access likely signals the end of major updates, I don’t believe the game has yet reached its full potential; some mysteries play much better than others, and the game lacks polish. It’s still a worthwhile experience, you can pick it up on Good Old Games for $25, but it often goes on sale for under $15.

Throwback: Pharaoh: A New Era

The original Pharaoh was an isometric city builder from 1999, of which I have fond memories. It was installed on a PC at my uncle’s house, and young me would trek across town to play Pharaoh alongside Serious Sam: The First Encounter, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and Test Drive 4x4. My uncle had pretty good taste in games, the last one notwithstanding. My younger self was also obsessed with Ancient Egypt - I’m sure that helped.

Pharaoh: A New Era: Mission in Timna. Each mission of Pharaoh: New Era focuses on a specific mechanic. This mission has you set up a copper mining outpost: you’ll need to trade for food, and military development is imperative to protect against Bedouin attacks.

Yet, the mechanics of the 2023 remake Pharaoh: A New Era feel fresh even today. Each city service building has “walkers” that must physically visit each building they service, incentivizing thoughtful district and road layouts. Resource management is well-tuned, and trade is critical for prosperity. You have citizens to feed, gods to keep happy, and monuments to construct.

Each map presents its own challenges – you might have limited access to certain resources or face special victory conditions that change the game’s flow. It’s certainly less forgiving than many modern city builders, but that makes victories feel well-earned and truly rewarding.

You can pick up Pharaoh: A New Era on Good Old Games (non-affiliate link) for $23, although it often goes on sale for under $15.

Cozy ruthless survival: Vintage Story

Vintage Story is a hardcore survival experience that takes Minecraft’s survival mode to the extreme. You must knap basic tools from flint, meticulously manage food preservation, brave truly dark and terrifying nights filled with eldritch monsters. You will spend good thirty hours of the game preparing for your first winter, which is a brutal test of your planning skills. The game is slow, methodical, and deeply rewarding.

Vintage Story in Autumn: a few structures and a farm. In Vintage Story, Autumn signals inevitable arrival of brutal and unforgiving winter. Ensure your larders are full, your firewood chopped, and your clothes warm!

While technically on version 1.20, the game can still be considered somewhat in early access - there’s more story content planned, and the developers aim to lean further into survival realism. I typically avoid early access games until they’re released, but I couldn’t keep my hands off of Vintage Story. Vintage Story is available on Humble Bundle (non-affiliate link) for $27.

Exploring lost cultures: Chants of Sennaar

Chants of Sennaar drops you into a decaying tower, home to distinct tribes each speaking their own, alien tongue. You begin the game utterly clueless, staring at incomprehensible symbols. By the end, you’ll have mastered each language, gaining profound insight into unique linguistic structures and rules, but also insight into the lives and values of the cultures that use them.

A hooded protagonist of Chants of Sennarr standing in front of a door. In Chants of Sennaar, you use contextual clues from your environment to decipher the languages.

The world of Chants of Sennaar is fractured, a place steeped in decay, and the theme of the game is the one of empathy and connection. But man, does this game nail that sense of wonder and exploratory joy, the kind Outer Wilds delivers. And the satisfaction of cracking a language puzzle? It’s right up there with solving a mystery in Return of the Obra Dinn. This game doesn’t hold your hand; every discovery feels hard-earned, and damn rewarding.

It’s hard to talk about Chants of Sennaar without spoiling the puzzles, but if that sounds interesting - the game is available on Humble Bundle (non-affiliate link) for $20, but can be picked up for under $13 on sales.

Go-to comfort game: Total War: Warhammer III

Having clocked over 500 hours across the three Total War: Warhammer titles, it’s my go-to comfort game. While I never got into the tabletop Warhammer, I deeply enjoy dreadful and eldritch aspects of Warhammer lore.

Emperor Karl Franz of the Total War: Warhammer III facing undead hordes, with artillery explosions in the background. Emperor Karl Franz, fearlessly leading his troops into battle, probably because he’s backed by the Imperial Helstorm rocket batteries.

Despite playing Total War: Warhammer games since the first installment, this year was the first time I actually finished a campaign.

In 2024, I revisited the first game, played through Balthazar Gelt’s Immortal Empires campaign and had a blast! That kicked off renewed passion for the series: I booted up Total War: Warhammer III and played through over a dozen campaigns to completion.

Despite so many whimsical factions, my all time favorite playthrough this year involved Emperor Karl Franz securing The Empire from both internal and external threats, and tackling vampire end-game crisis once the borders were secure. It’s my favorite campaign to date.

Total War: Warhammer III is available on Humble Bundle (non-affiliate link) for $60, but you can pick it up during holiday sales for under $30.

Honorable mentions

First and foremost, I should bring up Dread Delusion. I started playing it at the end of December and didn’t finish till mid-January, but otherwise it would’ve definitely been a pick for the best experience of the year for me. I wrote about Dread Delusion in the first post on Unmapped Worlds, so it did get the spotlight it deserves.

Throughout the year I also enjoyed descending into xenomorph nests with Aliens: Dark Descent, outsmarting my opponents in Total War: Pharaoh, slaying monsters in Dragon’s Dogma II, sailing away from monsters in Dredge, defending my base in Stranded: Alien Dawn, and of course establishing cannibal cults in Rimworld and building volcanic strongholds in Dwarf Fortress.