PC Gamer’s 100-Or-So Most Wanted Nominees for 2024, But I’ve Ranked Them
Here’s a slightly different topic. PC Gamer, one of those gaming news-type things that often becomes a bunch of advertisements for random things like any other gaming news site, for when they’re not reporting on the collapse of the industry or weird mods or whatever the hell they get paid for, has one of those recurring game highlight show things that’s one of the things that’s replaced E3. Also people still look forward to games despite everything. Even I do sometimes, like wondering how Dreamsettler is coming along while everyone else is clowning up for Silksong. Therefore, they have this list of games that gets voted on by this Council of Gamers or something, and for whatever reason I figured, I’m some kind of game-type player-type someone, I guess I should try this out for myself.
Not only have I alphabetized the list, I’m using a different 5 point scale than they are:
5: I want this around launch or maybe within a year
4: I certainly want this but can wait a bit
3: I’m at least interested enough to make a note of it
2: I’d like to see where this goes before I put it on my radar
1: Most likely not for me
This is all considering “if game comes out and is good” for anything rated 3 and up, of course. There’s also the option for a 0 for if the game has no or little actual footage out yet and I haven’t rejected the game on presentation or concept alone.
- 2XKO: 1/5
Of course here’s another League spinoff. I don’t want anything to do with League.
- All Systems Dance: 2/5
Some kinda indie thing where instead of combat it’s dancing. But not quite like Space Channel 5 it seems like. Might be neat.
- Among the Wild: 1/5
Another farming game. My mood on those in general is flighty no matter how good they are, I really just have to be in that kinda mood. Though with slimes it’s easier.
- Aquametsis: 1/5
ARMA but you’re on oil rigs or something. I don’t usually play this type of thing.
- ARC Raiders: 1/5
Oh boy another extraction shooter is what people will probably say, if those people are like me. I don’t even play these either.
- ARK 2: 1/5
Is this another reboot attempt or is this an actual sequel? I swear whenever Ark comes up it’s not for great reasons and this is a game where you can tame dinosaurs and fight them, I don’t know how you screw that up aside from making it an MMO I guess.
- Arma 4: 1/5
As mentioned above I don’t really play this sort of thing. Or its spinoff mods about zombies that became more about fighting people in circles and I definitely don’t like to play those.
- Atomfall: 2/5
Stalker but Britain I guess? I guess see if this one works. I haven’t really played Stalker games yet though but I should.
- Avowed: 2/5
Obsidian’s own Skyrim I guess. All they have to do is beat Bethesda at their own literal game but ideally just good on its own. Though it hasn’t quite jumped out at me yet.
- Battle Aces: 1/5
Free-to-play RTS/MOBA thing. Yeah, no thanks.
- Beautiful Light: 1/5
This sounds like a combination of all those recent multiplayer shooter trends, being all extraction-y and asymmetrical and whatnot.
- Big Walk: 3/5
Might be multiplayer-only but seems potentially weird and interesting. Especially given the duck-looking folks as the players.
- Blade: 0/5
Can only find an announcement on this.
- Blight: Survival: 1/5
Apparently “extraction-like” is now a genre, great. This is also some kinda medieval fantasy thing?
- Borderlands 4: 1/5
This game barely even exists and I already know I’m probably not wanting to play it. I tried playing the first and second and didn’t get far before I dropped out. Though I was still going to look more at Tales of the Borderlands.
- Cairn: 3/5
A climbing simulator, but not a wacky one like Getting Over It. Perhaps it’s the next strand-type game? I’d kinda want this in VR honestly, I’ve seen maps in VRChat about climbing stuff that are interesting.
- Canyons: 1/5
Another extraction zombie shooter, got it, next.
- Citizen Sleeper 2: 1/5
I played a bit of the first, and while it’s easy to play with just managing dice rolls and hoping RNG doesn’t screw things up, I didn’t quite latch onto it, probably something about the setting being that usual dystopian space thing and the presentation being low-key like some kinda lo-fi beats to sleep to or whatever. Interesting idea but not for me.
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33: 2/5
A sorta turn-based RPG thing that might have potential if it doesn’t get too modern Final Fantasy-y I guess.
- Crescent County: 2/5
Witches drifting brooms and making deliveries. Sure, I haven’t quite heard that combination before outside of an anime movie.
- Cruel: 1/5
Another retro-styled roguelike shooter thing. I like to check out old-school type shooters but am turned off by the whole “everything has to be roguelike” thing.
- D.O.R.F. Real-Time Strategic Conflict: 1/5
This just looks like a classic RTS back in the classics of PC gaming. Which is cool, but I haven’t really gotten into RTS.
- darkwebSTREAMER: 3/5
Looks like part World of Horror and part one of those web simulator things. Potential to be pretty cool here.
- Death Stranding 2: On The Beach: 4/5
I know this game will be weird as hell, but given it’s a PS5 exclusive, I’ll have to wait. Plenty of time to play more of the previous game which I have enjoyed for its weirdness. I just wonder how much weirder this could get.
- Deltarune: 4/5
I’ve played a bit of this and a bit of Undertale. They’re neat games with a questionable fandom like with anything popular. I just like to enjoy things without specifically being in fandoms.
- Den of Wolves: 0/5
Not much to go on aside from this being one of those projects from people who worked on a game people liked and that series went on to become garbage while these people swear they’ll make this one actually good. In this case similar to Payday.
- Descenders Next: 1/5
Extreme sports simulator thing. In all honesty I have trouble getting into this sort of thing unless it’s like Tony Hawk or maybe Skate but not too much like Skate.
- DOOM: The Dark Ages: 2/5
Why is Doom wanting to become more like Dark Souls? Especially the medieval angle, but apparently the later reboot games and the expansions lean more into the strategic dodging and ammo conservation rather than rip and tear until there’s no more things to rip and tear. I guess see what happens with this one, but for now I’ll look more into previous Doom games. Which run on anything.
- Dread Dawn: 1/5
This game’s already out, why is this on here. It’s another top-down open world zombie survival thing. Not sure what else this will do that Project Zomboid hasn’t done. Can you microwave your shoes in this one?
- Dune: Awakening: 1/5
A survival crafting MMO thing. I’d be more interested in a Dune game that’s not that, even if it’s one of the old RTS/point-and-click thingies for sake of checking out interesting old stuff.
- Dungeonborne: 1/5
An early access free-to-play thing that combines too many genres and according to Steam reviews is complete garbage.
- Dying Light: The Beast: 1/5
I haven’t been interested in any of these games in this series.
- Eclipsium: 3/5
Crusty retro sorta first person adventure. These can be neat even though so many indie games look like this now. It has realistic hands and a demo.
- Eternal Strands: 1/5
This looks like an MMO but it’s not and it’s more like Shadow of the Colossus maybe? I don’t know and I don’t entirely care.
- Exoborne: 1/5
Yay, extraction shooter based on the setting of that Battlefield game that sucked where the weather destroys all the maps.
- Exodus: 0/5
All I see are cinematics about this yet another spiritual successor, this time to space RPGs with spinoff team members from Bioware.
- Fable (the reboot): 0/5
Without really any gameplay to go by, this reboot seems too realistic. I prefer more stylized approaches to a series as weird as this, but also I guess they didn’t want it to look too much like that game that was about forts until it wasn’t because of how much that dominates style conversations. This comes from the people who make Forza Horizon so that might be why it’s hyper realistic, because traditional car games usually look as realistic as possible on the hardware unless it’s something like Auto Modellista or Motor Toon Grand Prix. Even with as much as I can get into Forizon sometimes since it’s an actually interesting car game when it lets you drive across everything and ignore walls, I’m really not sold on this one.
- Fairgame$: 0/5
Also known as Fairgamedollarsign, we know Jack and shit about this game and Jack just got stolen. Mainly it’s another heist thingy I guess.
- FUMES: 3/5
Vehicular combat, where the gameplay looks modern but the presentation is of course a retro-type thing. I feel this should have less graphics if they want retro looks, and the UI looks fairly temporary outside of the main game itself. It also says it’s single-player, which is nice that it’s not just a multiplayer-focused mess, but the issue is this also looks like the kind of game I’d want to play with friends, like the previous console iterations in split-screen. Just as long as it would stay classic and not involve currencies and progress experience to unlock things, even without microtransactions, just normal unlocks like “do this 100 times” or “find the secret thingy” or just “beat the whole damn game”. It also has a demo.
- Gears of War: E-Day: 2/5
Tiny-headed omega-buff men in armor having emotional moments together. I still think it’s weird how much they play up the emotional angles for a game that looks like it should just be a lot of yelling and explosions. Like when they used that “Mad World” song for a commercial and I thought it was kinda funny because the music didn’t seem to match. I’ve played a bit of Gears games before. Not that Pop one with the rectangular giant heads though.
- Generation Exile: 1/5
City builder kinda thing I guess. I don’t usually play these outside of sometimes messing with SimCity.
- Goat Simulator Remastered: 3/5
This one’s already out, and I’ve played through all of Goat Simulator’s expansions as well as 3 from Game Pass and I also have the phone version, so I don’t really need to get this one. I might play it if I got it in a bundle or something.
- God Save Birmingham: 1/5
Zombie open world survival craft. But medieval. Wait I swear I’ve seen this on this list before but I still don’t care.
- Gothic 1 Remake: 2/5
A remake of a game I never played for whatever reason, probably because I didn’t hear about it much until much later on. Just have to see if this remake is worth it or if I should look into the existing GOG versions.
- Grand Theft Auto 6: 2/5
I don’t play much of modern GTA, or really GTA in general. At this point they really only have three places, which are Liberty City, San Andreas, and Vice City, plus however they alter those between games. This is another Vice City one but with more backwater Florida thrown in. All I know is this one will sell billions but I don’t know that I’d be one of those so soon.
- Haunted Chocolatier: 0/5
A still very in-development game that keeps getting set aside to update Stardew Valley. It even looks a lot like Stardew since that’s just the style I guess.
- Heart of the Machine: 1/5
A weird turn-based strategy about robot armies I guess, but offering more than just combat, but seems to involve a lot of combat.
- Hollow Knight: Silksong: 2/5
I haven’t really played Hollow Knight, but all I know is there’s a horde of clowns waiting for this game, where despite it being not as long as the wait for Duke Nukem Forever or even Half-Life 3, they’ve been driven to new depths of insanity. At the very least the result of that has to have some entertainment value, even if I end up not getting into some kinda Souls-like Metroidvania thing by the virtue of that first bit alone. At least the bugs are cute.
- Hyper Light Breaker: 1/5
I don’t really know what most of this company’s games are, but this is apparently an online open-world roguelite so therefore I’m not interested for two of those descriptors, and the second descriptor in that order is a bit hit or miss.
- Judas: 3/5
Bioshock but in space. But not System Shock either. I have enjoyed playing Bioshock games before. The whole wielding powers and guns in a collapsed attempt at a utopia just works.
- Kiborg: 1/5
Yet another roguelike, but featuring punching people with augmentation.
- Killing Floor 3: 1/5
Didn’t 2 just come out? I don’t even know if people played that much.
- Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2: 1/5
No dragons here, imaginary or otherwise. Nothing like medieval simulator where people yell at you for looting corpses and you can’t just magic their asses. Aside from the “fun police” in RDR 2 who kick you out of town for running someone over with a horse and not even entirely, just a slight bump while also shooting them in the face.
- Kingmakers: 2/5
A big medieval fight simulator that has nothing to do with the Pathfinder campaigns. Or the video game based on those. Also there’s time travel and guns for some reason. Though not quite as wacky as those other big fight simulators that let you give rocket launchers to chickens or whatever.
- Light No Fire: 2/5
No Man’s Sky 2 from the No Man’s Sky people, now just one planet and more fantasy. Will this one launch correctly or will it take several years to match the concept?
- Little Nightmares 3: 1/5
I wasn’t interested in the first two. Platformer things reminiscent of Limbo and Inside where either way it involves some kid either fighting or avoiding giant boss things and also whatever else happens in platformers.
- Mafia: The Old Country: 0/5
Not much aside from a rendered trailer and a gun packed in with some lemons. I tried playing the first game remaster thing but didn’t have fun with it because there was too much obeying of traffic laws and even with that setting turned down.
- Marathon (the reboot): 1/5
Not to be confused with the classic weird Mac FPS games, which have now been ported to modern computers and are even free on top of that, so feel free to check those out. This one however is yet another extraction shooter nonsense thing so feel free to ignore it.
- Mariachi Legends: 2/5
Indie pixel Metroidvania thing. Now in Mexico.
- Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra: 0/5
Some kinda game probably, naturally during WWII and it’s like the Avengers of olden times I guess.
- Marvel Rivals: 1/5
Superhero shooter kinda thing that I can only guess rips off Overwatch which means subsequently it rips off TF2.
- Masters of Albion: 2/5
Molyneux is back. I wonder what this game will actually turn out to be if it comes out. And of course keeps using the “Albion” name for the place just like in Fable.
- Menace: 2/5
Turn-based tactics in some sci-fi setting. It’s worked before. It’s a neat genre that I hardly play even though it’s one I think is good.
- Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater: 2/5
I just want to see how this one turns out without Kojima. This is some kinda advanced remaster of MGS3. I wonder how much charm will be kept through the modern super HD filter.
- Miegakure: 3/5
4D puzzles. Could be neat. Could be brain-hurting. How do you even design levels in 4D?
- Mixtape: 1/5
One of those emotional narrative kinda things that I probably won’t pick up, also there’s that weird dissonance between high FPS motion but the characters run at a low framerate that I don’t know if it’s meant to be claymation.
- Monaco 2: 2/5
I haven’t played the first one but there’s been some time between the games. It’s some kinda heist thing that I think works better with multiplayer probably.
- Monster Hunter Wilds: 2/5
Monster Hunter is a game where I like the monster designs and the cats are cute but I usually don’t feel like grinding out countless hunts to upgrade everything because of drop rates or something. It’s had an open beta before and it has a weird arachnophobia mode that turns bugs into slime things.
- Nightmare Operator: 1/5
A third-person retro-looking shooter where for some reason Street Fighter inputs are required to switch gun modes. Instead of it just being like switching guns or whatever with a button. I’m not sure what the point of that is unless it’s going for a weird thing like typing controls like this one horror game demo I played.
- Nivalis: 2/5
The sequel to Cloudpunk but not entirely since it’s a different kind of game. Seems to be a business simulator but might not be entirely focused on that, since Cloudpunk was more of a narrative delivery thing.
- Paperhead: 3/5
A violent cardboard FPS. Weird idea but also not sure why I haven’t really seen this kinda thing before, at least much if at all.
- Path of Exile 2: 1/5
Diablo kinda thing. Also free-to-play so not sure how that will fare.
- Perfect Dark (the reboot): 2/5
Similar to Fable, I’m not sure how much charm can be kept in this kind of reboot. I’m not sold on the current gameplay really. Yes I’d still take the weird old N64 game over this so far.
- Project 007 (working title): 0/5
Nothing is known about this except it’s IO Interactive and there’s James Bond. Will it be James Bond Hitman? Maybe.
- Project C (probably also working title): 0/5
A Cronenberg joint, so I’m interested at least, but not really sure what the game itself will be. A movie?
- Project DOSA (may or may not be working title): 2/5
It’s a maybe here, with turn-based combat that might involve mechs, but is also about family and cooking, and also fishing is there? Is this just a bunch of indie things mashed together, but thankfully leaving out the obsession with roguelike stuff?
- PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant: 2/5
That’s a hell of a name. Papers Please sorta thing about firing a giant cannon at distant stuff. But with deeper secrets or something.
- Quartermaster: 1/5
Some kind of low-poly business lab simulator thing about making spy gadgets and trying to not kill all your customers by accident.
- s&box: 3/5
A new Garry’s Mod in Source 2 would be cool, but this looks to go even further and just be its own game engine on top of a game engine I guess. I’m just wondering how they’ll manage it, but they’ve been working on this since before Source 2 was available to develop with. And for whatever reason they went with weird sausage-shaped people as default player models but have insisted many times that there will be alternatives.
- Sand: 1/5
PVPVEVPVEVE or whatever survival crafting in some giant desert. Also it’s all steampunk-ish.
- Sid Meier's Civilization VII: 2/5
I have never gotten into these games but I’m open to see what they are in person. Probably through an older version though.
- Skate (the reboot): 2/5
A more multiplayer version of the Skate series that will also be in early access to start. I have many doubts but we’ll see how they handle this.
- Skin Deep: 2/5
The most immersive sort of FPS apparently down to sneezing and being stank. Coming from a developer with a history of weird games.
- Slay the Spire 2: 1/5
If you like card-based roguelikes then this is yet another game for you.
- South of Midnight: 2/5
Some kind of action adventure thing with framerate dissonance and a developer with a shaky history in game quality.
- Splitgate 2: 2/5
Online free-to-play FPS with portals. Apparently the first game was well-received, so this one has that to live up to at least and ideally not get caught in that pit of other things that other FPS games get caught up in usually.
- State of Decay 3: 1/5
More zombies and driving between camps. I forgot this series existed because I was just like never mind. Haven’t been in the mood for this.
- Streets of Fortuna: 2/5
From the publisher and consultation from Dwarf Fortress, some kinda procedural Rome simulator.
- Subnautica 2: 2/5
The previous games seem cool though I haven’t played. Underwater survival type stuff in an alien environment.
- Sumerian Six: 1/5
Some kinda tactical shooter set in the occult part of WWII but I’m just not feeling this right now. Also it’s already out so why was this on here?
- Super Fantasy Kingdom: 1/5
Roguelite city builder. If I want that kind of thing I’d rather play Dwarf Fortress.
- Tenjutsu: 1/5
Yet another roguelikelite, this time about punching people in pixel 2D top-down stuff which has also been done as roguelikelites.
- The Looter: 1/5
I guess it’s a gritty reboot of Larry the Looter. Looks Metroidvania-y with crafting of course.
- The Outer Worlds 2: 0/5
There’s nothing about this game. I don’t even know if it’ll come out given the first game’s lukewarm reception. More people wanted to play Outer Wilds than this. I played the first game a bit and while I appreciated the option to murder everyone and wanted to see how far I could get with that, I didn’t feel like getting far.
- The Sinking City 2: 0/5
I don’t see gameplay right now, but ideally this one goes much better than the last without being screwed over repeatedly by a publisher, given this is being self-published now.
- The Thing: Remastered: 2/5
A Nightdive remaster of a crusty PS2-era game that wanted to innovate with dynamic squadmate stuff including managing trust levels and picking out who’s a Thing without just blowing everyone’s heads off, and also anyone can become a Thing at any point, generally if the AI runs into enemies too much. As long as this isn’t worse than the original this should be interesting.
- Titan Quest 2: 1/5
Top-down Diablo-looking thing minus the two-ball UI at least from what I can tell. Unless they just hid that for the footage. I don’t really get into these though.
- Truckful: 1/5
Kinda driving simulator from the side? Might be more narrative but not really sure but not really sold either.
- Twisted Tower: 2/5
Classic style FPS but not retro style from what I can tell, something about a haunted resort thing.
- Usual June: 2/5
Action game with more framerate dissonance about a spooky haunted cave or there’s aliens or I don’t know.
- Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines 2: 2/5
Troubled development for a long-awaited sequel, this always goes well. If it actually does go well then maybe I’ll check it out.
- Wanderstop: 2/5
A bunch of known people from games I’ve played before and have found interesting make this tea shop management simulator involving a caretaker who doesn’t want to do this at all. And I’m not sure that I want to do this at all either, but that somehow became a double negative and now I’m slightly interested. I wonder if that’s too meta.
- Witchbrook: 1/5
I’m not exactly sold on the concept of witch simulator with magic classes and having to pick dates. There’s potential but it doesn’t seem like the game for me.
- Wolverine: 0/5
All I know about this game is they have a trailer for it. It will probably be action-y and maybe like the Spider-Man games.
- Wonder Woman: 0/5
Apparently this will be like those Shadow of Mordor/War games complete with a Nemesis System thing. That’s all we know so far.
- Wreckfest 2: 2/5
The actual sequel to the actual successor to FlatOut instead of the weird bootleg sequels that have been developed under that name. Also previously known as Next Car Game, this would make this Next Next Car Game.
- Wrekless: 3/5
What if Skate reboot but indie and Tony Hawk? This is much more in like with what I’d want with a skateboarding game. While glitching out physics in Skate is its own fun, if I want a skateboard simulator I’m more wanting one in this style. And likewise this seems to be built more around custom parks than an open world. I still feel like I’d want levels outside of the custom park style though, like how the various levels in Tony Hawk games past became memorable for their layouts and décor.
So, those are games that may or may not become full games. Ideally most of them turn out well but I’m not confident in the industry. Indies could go either way depending. I also don’t think I gave any of these a 5/5 must get as soon as resonable. Some 4/5 though. But not all 1/5 so I’m not that pessimistic about modern games thankfully. And again any 0/5 are just “we know practically nothing”. Something about not counting chickens before they hatch because there might be some that don’t hatch and some that hatch into multiples or multi-headed ones and some might turn out to be dinosaurs somehow. Anyway, I guess now we just see if a DLC gets Game of the Year somehow, and if that award will be dedicated to Bill Clinton again.