Games to look forward to in 2023

These are some of the game releases we are impatiently waiting for this year.

2022 was a great year for video games, but 2023 looks to be a massive one. We could spend the next several hours listing games we’re excited for next year, and we’d probably only get as far as March, but there’s so much happening that we had to trim the list down. This list is by no means exhaustive, and just because a game isn’t listed here doesn’t mean we’re not impatiently tapping our feet waiting for it. 

Starfield

Bethesda

Starfield has been described by game director Todd Howard as “more than just Skyrim in space”, but I mean, come on, we all know what’s going on here, right? Starfield is Skyrim in space, and that’s great. We know surprisingly little about it from a gameplay perspective, beyond a few relatively short-ish sequences that show us, yeah, it’s Skyrim in space. Skyrim is great, and so is space, and combining those things? Well, it’s hard to imagine much better than that. Bethesda has a bit of a spotty record with releasing games, on account of the whole, y’know, bugs that have plagued games like Skyrim for over a decade despite re-releasing it on eleven-billion different platforms. But maybe this time, just this once, Starfield will be different. And if not, it’s still Skyrim in space, so who are we to complain? 

Redfall

We promise this isn’t going to all be Microsoft games, although Microsoft does look to be coming out swinging in 2023. No game is a better example of this than Redfall, which looks utterly incredible. For the uninitiated, remember beloved zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead? Well, take that, replace the zombies with vampires, and then give all the players cool magical abilities, and that’s basically what we’re getting with Redfall. Plus, it’s made by the people who made Prey (2017), and we all love Prey (2017), right?

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Sony Interactive Entertainment

We told you this wasn’t going to be entirely just Microsoft games. Spider-Man was the best superhero game to release in… gosh, maybe ever. It may just be the best superhero game of all time. It got web-slinging absolutely perfect, the writing was spot-on, and even though the MJ parts kinda sucked, everything else was about as close to perfect as you can get. It was followed up by the equally fantastic Miles Morales, and Spider-Man 2 seems to be bringing them both together for one special Spidey spectacular. Between Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man fans are eating incredibly well in 2023.

Hollow Knight: Silksong

Hollow Knight is probably the best Metroidvania that exists that doesn’t include “Metroid” or “-vania” in the title. It was filled with snappy combat, incredible movement, some subtle and nuanced storytelling, and aesthetics to die for. Its sequel, Silksong, was announced a long, long time ago. Some say its developers Team Cherry announced it as a joke and then realized way too late that people took it seriously. Others say it was a collective fever dream that we all made up at some point during the pandemic. Maybe the real Silksong was inside us all along this whole time… but Microsoft’s Twitter account said it would be coming before the end of June in 2023, so it’s probably a real thing, and it will probably be amazing.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Nintendo

It’s a sequel to Breath of the Wild. You don’t need to know any more, and we don’t need to elaborate.

We will anyway, because that’s the whole point of this list. Tears of the Kingdom is one of very few direct sequels to a 3D Zelda game, a list which contains basically just Majora’s Mask, one of the all-time greats of the series. It looks like we’ll be getting another banger, as Tears of the Kingdom seems to be taking everything we loved about Breath of the Wild and turning it up to 11. There’s new Sheikah Slate abilities, all-new locales, an entire sky space to explore, and Link has a robot arm. Why? Doesn’t matter, it’s more Breath of the Wild, and that’s all there is to it. 

Gunbrella

Gunbrella is a game about a gun that’s also an umbrella. We could have included this game solely for the name alone, because it is an incredible name and it’s similarly incredible that it’s not what everyone is talking about all the time. But in addition to that frankly perfect name, Gunbrella also looks like an absolutely wonderful side-scrolling action-adventure game. We don’t know when, exactly, Gunbrella will come out next year, but we know we’ll be there day one, gunbrellas in hand. 

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code

This might be a little bit of a niche pick, but bear with us for a moment. Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is from the creators of the critically acclaimed Danganronpa series, so that’s already a huge check mark. It has an absolutely gorgeous art style, the music (from Danganronpa composer Masafumi Takada) sounds incredible, and the characters seem fascinating. There are mysteries to solve, secrets to uncover, and riddle-based action combat that genuinely seems like nothing else that’s ever existed in a game before. There’s a little bit of a question mark above this one for now, but from what we’ve seen so far, this could be shaping up to be a wonderful little detective game. It’s absolutely worth keeping an eye (and the customary detective’s magnifying glass) on this one.