Folks have been talking up that 2023 has been one of the best years for video games ever. But between massive layoffs, horrible thinly veiled commercial that is the game awards, the increasing lack of discoverability for small games, and all the other stuff around video games this year, I figured it might be nice to run an informal survey of Cohost's favorite games of 2023 (and what 2024 games are folks here most excited for.)

Link to the Survey!

After this survey ran for around 2 months I am releasing the results of Cohost's Favorite Games of 2023!

First off, thank you to the 121 people who filled out this survey. That was around the amount I was hoping for. It's been very fun to do this project so I might continue doing it each year if folks are interested.

Secondly, Want to take a look at the data yourself? Feel free!

You can find it here!!

Here's the LISTS!

Top 20 Games 2023:

20) Bomb Rush Cyberfunk 

19) Cocoon

18) Hitman 3

17) Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

16) Cobalt Core

15) Outer Wilds

14) Chants of Sennaar

13) The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

12) DREDGE

11) Slay The Princess

10) Marvel's Midnight Suns

9) SNAKE FARM

8) Super Mario Bros. Wonder

7) Street Fighter 6

6) Alan Wake 2

5) Void Stranger

4) Hi-Fi Rush

3) The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

2) Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon

1) Baldur's Gate 3

Top 20 Games Cohost is Most Excited to play in 2024

20) Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes

19) Super Mario Bros. Wonder

18) Slay the Princess

17) Another Crab's Treasure

16) 1000xResist

15) Unicorn Overlord

14) Balatro

13) DELTARUNE Chapter 3

12) Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

11) Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon

10) Alan Wake 2

9) Homeworld 3

8) ENA: Dream BBQ

7) Baldur's Gate 3

6) Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

5) UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH 2 Sys:Celes

4) Hades 2

3) Hollow Knight: Silksong

2) Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth

1) Dragon's Dogma 2

Why Top 20?

Mostly because it was a clean-ish cut off point for the way scoring worked out. At least moreso than the top 10.

Cohost Recommended Games

Please refer to the spreadsheet for the list of 99 games that were recommended. I did my best to track down links for each of them. In the case of older games I linked to a wiki page where you could read about the game. You're more than welcome to do your own work on where you can find those games to buy or emulate, that's beyond the scope of this project. (but really shout outs to the person who recommended PS1 game Koudelka. That shit rules and you should check it out.)

Excluding "N/A" responses, 99 games were recommended across 114 entries. The games that were most recommended were "The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood" and "Void Stranger" both with 4 recommendations.

It's kinda amazing how almost everyone had a different game to recommend. They cover a wide variety of genres, platforms, and eras too. I highly recommend looking at the list when you get a chance.

In Closing

I don't think I'm completely done with this project. I kinda want to go through and do some more complex analysis of this data or put a big post of games I hadn't heard of that were submitted. If you have an recommendations of what I could do with this data or what to do your own analysis feel free!

Thank you all again!