This year, as last year, we at Gamer.no have taken a look at the games that have defined the past year, and highlighted the year’s best gaming experiences across various platforms.
We have a total of nine categories: Best Single Player Experience, Best Multiplayer Experience, Best Original Idea, Best Music, Best Sound Design, Best Visual Experience, Best Story, Biggest Disappointment and Biggest Surprise. As always, we have named one winner in each category, and two games that were a little behind.
The evaluation is divided into three. Thus, you get the first three categories in this article, and the six remaining categories in separate articles on 27 and 28 December.
At the beginning of 2023, you get to see what ended up being the writers’ personal favorites. It is there that we get an outlet for our own experiences, with games of both a familiar and more unfamiliar kind.
We begin the selection with the single-player games:
Best Single Player Experience:
Fire Ring
Available for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One Windows, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4.
When FromSoftware unveiled Elden Ring in 2019, the developer promised a Dark Souls-like experience in a large, open world. However, few expected just how huge this game would become.
Not only did the developer deliver a world that only gets bigger every time you think you’ve seen it all. The gaming experience itself is also insanely good. Whether bracing yourself for Elden Ring’s grueling battles or exploring the game’s many, many secrets, there is always something exciting – albeit life-threatening – to discover in The Lands Between.
This time, FromSoft also focused far more on accessibility than in its previous games, with, among other things, computerized assistants and an extended guidance system. This in turn helped bring the Souls experience to more players, with 12 million copies sold in two weeks, and few games received as much attention in 2022 as Elden Ring.
Bubblers:
God of War Ragnarök
Available for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5
God of War Ragnarök.
Santa Monica Studio
The revival of God of War in 2018 was one of the strongest gaming experiences PlayStation 4 had to offer, and expectations for the sequel were naturally high. Santa Monica Studio is apparently immune to pressure, and has created a new game that delivers to that degree! An almost perfect sequel that delivers more and bigger in all the right ways.
The game is based on the same recipe as the previous one, and we are served: raucous battles with some of the toughest weapons out there, an expanded role gallery that allows us to get to know more characters from Norse mythology, as well as more and more bitter intrigues. The cinematic way the story is told means you never see a loading screen, drawing you into the action in a way few games can match. Just bow in the dust for the craftsmanship of Santa Monica Studio.
Penitentiary
Available for Xbox Series X/S and Windows.
Penitentiary.
Obsidian Studios
What is important when we play games? Is it feeling the adrenaline pumping? Is it to laugh? Cry? Or is it as simple as the game must offer an experience we can remember for a long time? Many games, good games, offer incredibly engaging experiences that now and then give us a lot. Many of them, however, are quickly forgotten in favor of the next big, gorgeous game that awaits.
Pentiment is something else entirely. It’s a game that doesn’t bother to offer the best graphics, the most intense sequences, or the biggest challenges. Pentiment uses time to help, and tells a story that you can largely shape yourself. We travel to a small town in the 16th century where the artist Andreas Maler ends up having to investigate a murder. Who is judged depends on whether he does a good or bad job, and it is rare that we have known more of the moral anguish that wrong choices can give us.
Best Multiplayer Experience:
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
Available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Windows.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare II is the first game in the well-known game series in many years that we have thoroughly enjoyed. And most of that fun comes from the multiplayer, which is simply really good.
They have included a mix of new, well-known maps along with a whole bunch of new ones, and thus have a good mix of new and old. The pace of the multiplayer has been dragged down a notch with luck, and together with a huge arsenal of weapons that you can unlock, customize and modify at will, there is almost an insatiable amount of content here.
Modern Warfare II is a very solid step in the right direction for the massive franchise, and this is one multiplayer we’ll be playing through much of 2023.
Bubblers:
Overwatch 2
Available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and Windows.
Overwatch 2.
Blizzard Entertainment
It’s strange to think that it’s been six years since Overwatch came out. A number of other games have tried to copy Blizzard’s formula with varying degrees of success, but none have quite managed to live up to Overwatch.
The iconic, instantly recognizable characters, the engaging battles, the amazing soundtrack and the gripping, underlying story create a mix so far unbeatable in the hero shooter genre.
Unfortunately, the first game died out. Now Blizzard is back with the sequel.
The co-op mode is a long time coming, but despite a shaky start for the multiplayer mode, the developer has been delivering updates at a breakneck pace and helping to rebuild lost confidence among players.
The transition from six against six to five against five players was not as great as many expected. The core of the game is still the same. The balancing act is somewhat different, but the game has become more fun than before. This is largely thanks to fewer annoyances such as “stuns” and shields.
Overwatch 2 is more of a major update than a new game, but there’s little doubt that Overwatch has a much brighter future. The developer has taken the right steps and delivers one of the year’s most engaging multiplayer experiences.
Fire Ring
Available for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One Windows, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4.
Fire Ring.
From Software
Elden Ring is designed to be difficult, just like the many previous Souls games from developer FromSoftware. Then it is sometimes good to have a friend with you to share the challenges, and fortunately the game offers several good opportunities to get help.
The multiplayer system is, as usual, a bit clunky, but when everything works as it should, you can bring up to two other players with you. This makes way in the gruel, but also exposes you to new dangers. Summoning friends opens the door for you to be invaded by hostile players, who never refuse to ruin your experience.
Late in the year, FromSoft also rolled out an expansion to the Elden Ring multiplayer, with arena-based matches that have breathed new life into the game’s global fan base. Whether it’s two against two or all against all, you now have even better opportunities to measure your strength against each other and check exactly how effective your chosen style of play is against real players.
Biggest Disappointment:
Pokemon Scarlet/Violet
Available on Nintendo Switch.
What was supposed to be the start of a new era for the Pokémon series ended up having a strong aftertaste. The hope was that with Pokemon Scarlet and Violet fans would get their first open world in a main game in the Pokemon series – and they got that. Never before has a Pokémon game had this degree of freedom of choice, with the ability to explore the Paldea region in any order you wish.
The only problem is that Game Freak obviously hasn’t had enough time to iron out all the technical problems before launch. Things like a variable and low frame rate in certain areas, and that things don’t pop up on the screen until you get close to them, dampen the experience. In addition, there is also more serious technical trouble on the way, where the game crashes, or things fall through walls and slopes.
What is most frustrating is that at the bottom lies a very strong Pokémon game, which takes some new steps for the series (although we would also like to see more innovations). Here we are talking about a very good game that we are reluctant to play, and although updates should improve the problems in the long run, we are not there yet. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet thus ended up disappointing us the most this year.
Gotham Knights
Available on Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
Gotham Knights.
Warner Bros.
Great expectations were attached to Gotham Knights, which after a series of postponements was finally released in autumn 2022. And it was not quite what most fans had hoped for. One of the big problems, and by far the easiest for the developers to solve, was a number of performance issues.
But it’s not all that disappointed. A flat and sometimes rather bad story takes the game nowhere. The four unique game characters are far too similar in the battles, and you only do slight variations of the same attacks throughout. And the battle system is simply bad compared to other, much better games in the same genre. A disappointment and a very average game.
Tiny Tina’s Wonderland
Available for Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.
2K Games
It can be too much of one thing, and that’s definitely the case with Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. Gearbox dug up the golden cow when they launched Borderlands, but they really can’t reinvent the wheel, and the result is yet another blueprint of the same game they’ve made a little too many times now.
Sure, they’re trying some new things, but all things considered, it’s the exact same game we’ve played many times already. It’s the same humor, the same mechanics, the same focus on the same weapons, and there’s nothing new here. We had hoped that the new Dungeons & Dragons-inspired setting would breathe some new life into the series, but then no.
If this is your first encounter with the Gearbox formula, you’ll probably enjoy yourself, but for everyone else, unfortunately, it’ll just be “Oh, this. Again”.
That’s it for part 1! In the next article, you will see which games we have voted in the categories Biggest surprise, Best sound design and Best visual design.
