Our individual Game of the Year articles allow our lovely team of writers to share their own personal PS5 and PS4 picks for 2023. Today, it’s the turn of video producer Aaron Bayne.
My first proper go of the Diablo series, Diablo 4 scratched that level-up itch for me in 2023, with a fun gameplay loop and a continually improving character. It’s a game I’ve admittedly not played anywhere near as much as I would have liked, but my sporadic sessions with pals took up the majority of my online activity for the year, and it’s proven to be a favourite wind-down game before bed with my PS Portal.
As the resident Avatar guy at Push Square, this shouldn’t really come as a surprise but I loved my time with this game. It’s easily one of the best looking PS5 games out there, but interestingly it went for a more natural approach to content completion. It still has some Ubisoft checklisting in there — which I am guilty of enjoying anyway — but it weaves it all together in a way that encourages you to immerse yourself in the world even further. Plus a fully explorable Pandora in video game form is a match made in heaven, in my opinion.
This one really came out of the blue, but after shadow dropping at The Game Awards, I haven’t been able to pull myself away from The Finals. It’s the most frenetic shooter on PS5 at the moment, that truly feels next-gen by mixing in elements of Battlefield and Titanfall and dialing them up to 11. I’ve been in a real funk with FPS multiplayer titles in 2023, so I’ve just been ecstatic to have a game like The Finals crop up so late in the year.
Having only played the second and third game in the series, I was already pretty excited to finally check out Dead Space with the PS5 remake, but I really didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Relishing in all the little details, the sci-fi horror fan in me could not get enough of the USG Ishimura, and the high of forcing yourself through the next horrifying section of the ship will stay with me for quite some time.
If you give me a game with a dark murder mystery and some True Detective visuals, it’s inevitably going to be up there on my list. Yet even then, Alan Wake 2 blew me away. I’ve never played a game with such surefire direction, and thanks to Remedy’s distinct style I just couldn’t put the controller down. I’ve been thinking about that ending ever since as well, and I can’t wait to dive into New Game+ and the eventual DLC.
What do you think of Aaron’s personal Game of the Year picks? Feel free to agree wholeheartedly, or berate relentlessly in the comments section below.
