Baldur’s Gate 3, Lego Fortnite, and 7 other games that defined 2023

Gamers have been spoiled for choice in 2023.

The past 12 months have produced so many hits you’d have struggled to complete half of them, let alone all of them.

That did not necessarily mean a good year across the whole industry: thousands of staff in hundreds of companies lost their jobs, and we also witnessed the permanent end of E3, the massive conference that was once the biggest event in the gaming calendar.

In such an eventful year it is easy to lose track – so here are some of the biggest games of 2023.

This role-playing game stunned players and critics with its depth – many players easily racked up 100-plus hours in the Forgotten Realms, the Dungeons & Dragons-based setting for the game.

The level of detail, vast customisation options, and flexible story impressed critics most: Belgian developer Larian made it possible to experience a completely different set of characters and choices each time you play.

Few were surprised when, in December, it picked up Game of the Year at the gaming industry’s biggest awards ceremony – but it wasn’t an outcome many would have foreseen at the start of the year.

“Baldur’s Gate 3 was an unexpected success that took the world by storm,” said gaming journalist Helen Ashcroft.

“There’s a strong narrative, choices that matter, a beautiful open world, an incredible score and voice acting, interesting and varied quests, and so many different ways to play and story threads to explore.”

When the rest of the world said that Nintendo’s handheld console, the Switch, was too old to impress, the Japanese company said: “Just watch this.”

Tears of the Kingdom is a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild, which is considered one of the best games of all time. This new game took the original’s vast open world and added the ability – called ultrahand – to craft contraptions by fusing together pretty much anything you can find.

That sort of freedom usually terrifies developers because it creates so much room for things to go wrong. But it worked, despite the ageing Switch hardware.

“Ultrahand is one of the best additions to the series and the things we can make with it are hilarious and useful,” says Scottish Twitch streamer Argick.

“There’s so much to do in the game and you can do it in pretty much any order you want without the game trying to push you elsewhere – I’ve still got to explore the rest of the depths.”

Just when we thought triple-A games were becoming safe and stale, along comes Alan Wake 2.

It is a bit like Finnish studio Remedy’s previous leftfield works, but with an extra layer of weirdness splodged on top.

The supernatural horror narrative, told through the eyes of two main characters, made a lasting impression. The sumptuous presentation, mix of gameplay and live action, and wider themes made it feel like one of a kind.

And one memorable musical sequence – featuring the fictional band Old Gods of Asgard – became one of the most-talked about gaming moments of the year.

“That is one of the best set pieces of 2023 for me,” said Argick. “The song and the way it’s all intertwined in the game world.

“It just makes that entire moment something special.”

Spider-Man 2 had a huge weight resting on its shoulders.

The current release slate for Sony – which makes the PlayStation 5 console – is thin and so it needed a win from Spider-Man 2, a game developed by PlayStation studio Insomniac.

Thankfully, it got it. This tightly crafted adventure landed exclusively on the PlayStation 5 to excellent reviews and became the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever.

It was a cinematic, technical showcase. Plus, players enjoyed the diverse cast of characters and moving story, even if the gameplay wasn’t a huge departure from other Spider-Man games.

Some players griped about the relatively short playtime, but the developers insisted it was worth the price of entry.

Insomniac ended the year as the victim of a huge ransomware attack, but until then, most of the discussion about the studio was people praising its latest, greatest title.

Fortnite, the last-player standing shooting game, has more than 400 million registered players, but its makers aren’t shy about wanting more.

That’s probably even more true after its maker, Epic Games, laid off 800 staff earlier this year.

One big bid to draw in new users was its high-profile collaboration with Lego for a new mode called Lego Fortnite. Twitch streamer Dando said the mode – which replaces Fortnite’s existing crafting materials with the famous bricks – was “amazing”.

“It brings in that element of crafting, building and gathering resources – it’s just one of those games you can turn on, switch off, and just be in another world.”

Lego Fortnite launched alongside Rocket Racing and Fortnite Festival – two other modes designed to attract more people.

Dando said: “Eventually you’ll just launch Fortnite and if you’re feeling a certain genre, you don’t need to leave the game.”

Everyone loves a redemption arc, and that’s what they got with this expansion to Cyberpunk 2077.

Polish studio CD Projekt Red has been on a quest to repair its reputation after the disastrous 2020 launch of the base game.

Expansion Phantom Liberty – as well as a 2.0 update which fixed the main game from top to bottom – was hailed as delivering the version of the game players should have had first time around.

Having Idris Elba in the starring role, and a story many players called genuinely moving, certainly didn’t hurt.

It’s not quite an underdog story (the main game sold more than 20 million copies) but it was happier ending to a turbulent tale.

“This is the kind of thing I love – seeing a game come out the other end like that,” said Dando. “It is almost like they’ve revived themselves.”

It was perhaps the most divisive game of 2023, with some outlets refusing to review it at all because of Harry Potter author JK Rowling’s public comments relating to transgender people.

The author was kept at arms’ length from this project, but it didn’t stop loud calls for boycotts around the game’s release.

Some critics gave it low scores, arguing it was impossible to separate art from artist, and some streamers opted not to play it despite the huge viewership numbers it generated. Ten months on from release, feelings are still strong.

As for whether it was any good, detractors criticised its repetitive combat and missions – but fans would tell you that it was enchanting to explore detailed replicas of their favourite locations from the stories.

And despite the protests, analysis from GamesIndustry.biz suggests that, in terms of physical copies, it was the best-selling game of 2023 in both the United Kingdom and United States.

Pre-release hype for Starfield promised players the universe, but when they finally got the game its galactic exploration was not quite what many expected.

They got plenty of space – in the form of empty planets – but navigating between worlds was mostly hands-free and menu-based.

“It was immersive and it was really pleasant to just run about but then some of the mechanics themselves just felt a bit clunky,” said Dando.

Many fans felt Starfield didn’t live up to previous titles from studio Bethesda – the makers of the beloved Fallout and Elder Scrolls series.

But it broke records for the developer and for publisher Microsoft – no doubt driven by its availability on the Netflix-style Game Pass service.

Since that initial wave, Starfield’s had a hard time on digital storefront Steam, where it’s been hit with negative reviews.

Bethesda’s promised regular updates and new features in 2024, so the adventure might not be over just yet.

One of the biggest gaming stories of this year concerned something that’s not expected until 2025: Grand Theft Auto VI.

A 90-second trailer released in early December racked up 90.4 million views in 24 hours.

It confirmed much of what we already knew from leaks, such as the presence of the series’ first voice-acted female protagonist.

But finally seeing the Rockstar-approved version of its debauched, riotous virtual Miami after almost 10 years of waiting sent fans wild.

Argick said: “GTA VI going back to Vice City and looking like it has a Bonnie and Clyde theme going on has me thinking about grabbing it – it’s absolutely going to be one of the biggest releases of the year when it drops.

“The trailer is sending waves throughout the gaming community.”

When the game proper releases, you can expect the effect to be seismic.