The video games you may have missed in 2024
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A returning classic, a Love Island send-up and an answer to the age-old question: can you fry eggs atop Mount Everest? The year’s best games that might have passed you by. More on the best culture of 2024. PS4/5, Xbox, PC, Nintendo Switch. Taiwanese studio Red Candle Games broke through in 2019 with the first-person horror game, Devotion. Its follow-up, Nine Sols, is less grungy but no less distinct, a robust 2D action-platformer with an exquisite “taopunk” aesthetic. This vivid sci-fi world feels as if it is constructed as much from bamboo and jade as steel and microchips. Lewis Gordon.
![[Manor Lords]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ea041380ac779dff0726c59911667b497530dcb4/242_0_3598_2160/master/3598.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
PS4/5, PC. In a year of great Metroidvanias, the psychedelic sci-fi platformer Ultros trod a distinct and unusually green-fingered path. Alongside absorbing exploration and blistering combat, you study and grow various strains of alien flora found aboard a labyrinthine spaceship. The ultimate goal is escape, but you may never actually want to leave the strange, bioluminescent garden you come to cultivate. LG.
![[The Crush House]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/fd32d6b43c001bc75b16602cd5b856f0836cd5f8/83_0_1799_1080/master/1799.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
PC. An unexpected breakout hit, despite still being a work in progress, this strategy game mixes economic management and city survival, with an eye towards historical authenticity. Content updates haven’t arrived as fast as some would have liked, but there’s no denying the meditative romance of shepherding a medieval hamlet through famine and fortune. Callum Bains.
![[Wilmot Works It Out]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dd2748083aca2a88f1cd586826655142c8c80977/134_0_3596_2160/master/3596.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
With fetching hats and tactically varied turn-based gunfights, this nautical sequel proves once again that two-dimensions needn’t feel flat. You can explore the world in your submarine this time around, but nothing beats the simple joy of lining up a shot to send laser beams ricocheting around the room. Wonderfully silly steambot shootouts. CB.
![[The Plucky Squire]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/44938af9a1e463a4494950ff6f22adb279611895/5_3_3589_2154/master/3589.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
