As we approach what has unquestionably been one of the best ever years for gaming, it’s got the Debate Council here at DS wondering: ‘Yes, but has it been the besteveryear for gaming?’
To figure that out, we’ve scoured back through the generations to look for years which have been similarly filled with excellent games, and landed on four key years that rival 2023.
While we didn’t coverevery single gamefrom each of the years in question, the below offers a nice snapshot of how our Top 4 nominated years - 1992 (courtesy of the wisest member of the team, Matthew Schomer), 1998, 2007, and 2023 - offered.
But it’s not just about the quantity of great releases. Past years have the advantage of us seeing their influence on subsequent years, which we obviously can’t account for yet in 2023. On the other hand, some of those years are alongtime ago now, so we’re trying to keep our historical monocles on and put ourselves back in those time periods to assess the significance of the games released, and steering clear of the nostalgia for yesteryear as well as the afterglow of 2023 as we make our objective(ish) conclusions.
Here are our thoughts:
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Matthew Schomer, News/Features Editor
Best Year: 1992
Matt:Look, 2023 has been a great year for gaming. I don’t dispute that, and I’ve still got a hefty back catalog of games that I’m waiting to dive into. It’s been a long time since I was able to say that, especially with the disappointment that 2022 brought me.
As the elder statesman on the editorial board, though, it seems like I’m looking back a bit further than the rest of my peer group, because for me, the best year ever in gaming was 1992. I’ll start my argument with Wolfenstein 3D. Generally regarded as the first first-person shooter, it laid the groundwork for not just the FPS genre, but just about every game you’ve ever played from a first-person perspective.
RPGs certainly don’t look the same as they did in the ’90s, and if you enjoy games likeSkyrimor post-Fallout 3Fallout, you’ve got Wolfenstein to thank for that. And even without the bells and whistles of modern FPS titles, it still holds up. I didn’t even discover it until a couple of years after I’d first playedDoom, and it was fascinating to see what I’d been missing.
Next up was Super Mario Kart. Yeah, the roster of just eight racers is really basic by today’s standards, but it was the first time I’d seen vehicular combat presented in this way. I suppose Road Rash came out a year earlier, but there’s a big difference between a racer on a linear track that lets you whip other bikers with a chain and fully realized tracks where you may lay banana peel traps and shoot turtle shell projectiles at your opponents. Again, it was like nothing I’d seen before, and that innovation is still living on today in every cartoon racer we see.
Not quite as innovative, but still genre-defining games: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past introduced dashing and let Link move in more than the four cardinal directions for the first time; Sonic 2 introduced Tails and added verticality to the high-speed platforming series; Shin Megami Tensei laid the first bricks for the mega-popular Persona series to shoot off from; andMortal KombatandStreet Fighter 2finally came to western consoles, setting up the argument for which is the best fighting series on the market, which is still going on with both series' 2023 releases.
RPGs certainly don’t look the same as they did in the ’90s, and if you enjoy games likeSkyrimor post-Fallout 3Fallout, you’ve got Wolfenstein to thank for that.
I know by that logic, you could push the argument all the way back to the ’70s and say Pong influenced every game to come after it, but I’m trying to balance innovation with what truly makes games great, because coming back to these games 31 years later, they still hold up, even if they’re a little on the bare-bones side compared to modern releases. Long story short, 2023 has the highest number of truly great games I’ve ever seen, but none of them had quite the wow factor as the leaps forward that 1992 showed me.
[Rob: I do like an underdog, so I can’t resist giving Matt a bit of backup here by pointing out a few more seminal games from this period. Ultima Underworld basically birthed the ‘immersive sim’ genre that I love so dearly, introducing a playfulness and freedom to Ultima’s well-established RPG formula at this time. So much of what I love in great modern games, like Arkane and Larian’s work, can be traced back to this game.
Speaking of: Ultima VII is widely regarded as the best of the mainline Ultima series, and beforeBaldur’s Gateand the Infinity Engine came along in the late 90s, it was this series, peaking in 1992, that shone the way for western-style RPGs in gaming. It’s a bit rough to go back to today, but at the time gamers were really spoiled with the bifurcated path that Ultima took with VII and Underworld.
Finally, Sensible Soccer was the first truly great football game, and with its top-down simplicity is something that can legitimately still be enjoyed today. Patches still exist for its 1994 successor, Sensible World of Soccer, that let you plonk modern players and stats into the game, speaking to the enduring appeal of the series].
Robert Zak, Features Lead
Best Year: 1998
Rob:It can be hard to separate yourself from the recency effect, and the afterglow of what’s been an excellent year in video games in 2023 (on the other hand,nostalgia is a powerful force too). But a bit like Matt with 1992, I benefit from having actually been there in 1998 when the medium changed forever, and absolutely blew our minds with what was possible.
Gahhh, what a time it was, with genres and storytelling structures and open worlds being set on the path leading up to this very day. The freedom offered in RPGs likeBaldur’s GateandFallout 2; the chilling horror ofResident Evil 2; the exploration inOcarina of Time; the environmental storytelling ofHalf-Life, and the cinematic storytelling ofMetal Gear Solid, while first-person shooterUnrealwas a spectacular showcase of what a high-end PC was capable of, establishing it as a powerhouse force in the gaming space.
1998 came at this fascinating border between 2D and 3D graphics, with trailblazing games either side of that border.
On the 3D platformer front we hadSpyroon PS1 andBanjo-Kazooieon N64 pulling people towards their respective consoles (and this may be a hot take, but I think both games were actually superior to console flagbearers Crash Bandicoot and Super Mario 64, respectively). Tekken 3 was a massive jump from Tekken 2, setting up the template for 3D fighters today. Same goes for StarCraft and real-time strategy, and Pokemon Red/Blue and, well, Pokemon. It was kind of unfathomable how many bold new directions games were suddenly being pulled in.
Then there’s my beloved Thief: The Dark Project, made by a who’s-who of the biggest designers in modern gaming. Emil Pagliarulo went on to design the stealth inSkyrim, its writerKen Levine went on to make BioShock, its director Harvey Smith went on to lead Arkane Studios. Beyond that, it’s a remarkable and singular stealth game that’s literally just had a 10-mission expansion released by a team of modders that include Arkane Level Designer Romain Barrilliot, speaking to how strongly today’s creators still feel indebted to it.
2023 has been wonderful, and I think the likes ofBaldur’s Gate 3andAlan Wake 2will influence games for years to come, but some of the biggest games, likeDead Space RemakeandRE4 Remake, are faithful retreads of what came before rather than seminal games in themselves, while Bethesda’s much-anticipatedStarfieldfeels more like a signal that the Bethesda RPG template is running its course rather than charting a bold course for the future (a similar case could be made forDiablo 4).
1998 was Ground Zero forsomuch of gaming, and crucially you can still go back and enjoy these games in a way that’s a bit tougher when going all the way back to ‘92. It came at this fascinating border between 2D and 3D graphics, with trailblazing games either side of that border, and I don’t think there’ll ever be a year quite like it again.
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Matthew O’Dwyer - Evergreen Editor
Best Year: 2023
Matt:I remember 1998 fondly. I have distinct memories of standing in Target playing Ocarina of Time at one of their gaming stations. However, I’m trying to imagine what it would be like to be a kid today. Due to things like Game Pass, our access to games has never been higher. The ability to try games has never been better. If I were a kid today, this year would have been a slam dunk.
As an adult, I couldn’t keep up with all of the high-quality new releases this year. I wanted to. I tried. Plenty of years have a lot of good games, but this year had a landslide of amazing games. My love affair with 2023 and its games will stretch far into 2024 and beyond.
Tears of the Kingdomhad developers scratching their heads in awe at what Nintendo had accomplished. They marveled at the ability to dive from the highest sky island to the deepest depth without a load screen.
Starfieldbecame a heavily memed joke this year and it’s a good game. Any other year that game would have shined. But in the face of this year’s offerings, it was nearly forgotten, especially at The Game Awards.
If I were a kid today, 2023 would have been a slam dunk.
Baldur’s Gate 3 was so good that other developers publicly told audiences not to expect such quality from other games. When have we ever even seen that before? They then had to walk back those statements later.
This has been the best year for the action-adventure genre,the horror genre, and the RPG genre. You could argue for plenty of other genres as well. We’ll see how influential this year becomes in the future, but this year has set a new bar for gaming.
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Some of the most highly anticipated games of the decade - Tears of the Kingdom, Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield, and Diablo 4 - all came out this year, fighting for their moment in an already packed release schedule, but despite the hype or their technical prowess, collectively this year falls a bit short of the insanity that was 1998.
Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, Half-Life, StarCraft, Baldur’s Gate, Resident Evil 2, Fallout 2…just as many incredible hits came out in 1998, but what really sets this year apart from all others is how many of those hits were the first entries in what would become fan-favorite series spanning generations.
Some of them were also the first of their kind, like Ocarina of Time setting the standard for open-world adventure in a time when 3D games were just barely starting to find their footing. Similarly, Metal Gear Solid took the stealth-action-adventure to a brand new level, in many ways creating a new genre fully realized in a 3D world while taking advantage of console mechanics to engage viewers in a unique, real-world way - I’m looking at you, Psycho Mantis.
And StarCraft set a new industry standard for real-time strategy games, with the subsequent games in the series still serving as the pinnacle of the genre even today. In short, both 2023 and 1998 were phenomenal years for gaming, filled to the brim with some of the best games we’ll get for the next decade. But 1998 broke more new ground, inspired more developers to strive for higher standards and innovation, and had a larger impact on the gaming industry as a whole.
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Jeff:For me, the tightest race comes down to 1998 and 2023. 1998 was such a pivotal year not only for some incredible games and franchises, but also just for me as a gamer. It wasn’t until 1998 that I really identified as a gamer, and that came with two huge influences on my life: Ocarina of Time and Starcraft. Ocarina of Time opened my eyes to the Action-Adventure genre, which continues to endure as my favorite type of video game experience, and while I can’t say my RTS love really extended beyond Starcraft and Warcraft, I was absolutely obsessed with them.
1998 was packed with hugely influential games, some establishing genres that still endure and thrive to this day.
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2023, though, is such an incredible year: Tears of the Kingdom is my favorite open-world adventure (and the best Zelda game); Baldur’s Gate 3 is my favorite RPG of all time; Alan Wake 2 is my favorite narrative-driven Survival Horror. I’m focusing my thoughts toward these, but so many games came out this year that just blew me away. If I were to make a top 20 favorite games of all time from before this year and then after this year, I’d be looking at two very different lists at this point.
I know recency bias is something to keep in mind and consider with all that, but even accounting for that, it’s been just a hallmark year. I’m loving it as an adult with decades of gaming under my belt, but I can’t imagine how amazing this year has been for younger kids first getting into video games. The sheer variety of top-tier entries in their genres is just incredible.
The two years (1998 and 2023) really feel neck-and-neck for me in the aggressive cadence of awesome releases.
I will admit, the one hang-up I have with 2023 is it feels so much like the year of sequels. So many incredible games came out that furthered already established stories or franchises, which for many can make this year of games feel less innovative, offering more incremental evolutions to their genres, whereas 1998 offered so many first-of-their-kind masterpieces. The two years (1998 and 2023) really feel neck-and-neck for me, not only for their influence on me and my love for gaming, but also just in the aggressive cadence of awesome releases. 2023 ultimately edges out a win here for me due to how much they personally appeal to my tastes.
I’ve played so many of my favorite games of all time over the past year, have had to make hard choices between which incredible game to play and which one to add to my backlog all throughout the year. I feel like I’ll be revisiting 2023’s slate of games quite a bit over the coming years, whether to replay my favorites or to finally get around to checking out some missed masterpieces.
So two votes apiece for 1998 and 2023, though our Big Boss Sam Woods is also putting his claim in for 2023in absentia. What do you think? Has the glory of 2023 clouded our judgment with all the graphics, great designs, and tech that modern gaming offers, or is it really the greatest ever year in video games?
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