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Gaming can be a fickle, fast-moving hobby. You download something new, play through it, love it, then move on to the next new shiny thing. 2023 was a huge year for shiny gaming things, with some of the highest highs and lowest lows the industry has ever seen, and never a dull moment for those that like to chase new releases.
In April, after a comical number of years in development hell and a couple of false starts, Dead Island 2 somehow came out. I played it, gushed about it twice on the internet (here and here), then got distracted by other things that came out. It had the entire proverbial deck stacked against it from the start, shifting away from the franchise creators at Techland and going up against its own spiritual follow-up in the Dying Light series…then shifting developers again after years of development. Somehow, not only did the game come out — it’s also legitimately one of the best-playing first person action games on the market.
In fact, Dead Island 2 almost certainly deserved to make it on my “Top Ten Games of the Year” list, as I liked it that much. I was already hesitant to put Starfield in the number ten slot after all the stupid behavior Bethesda has thrown out into the world in the wake of the…
