Forget triple-A GOTY, 2023 is the year of the “B game”

2023 is often cited as one of the best years in a while in terms of the quality of video games released throughout the year. But what I’m trying to say is that this is a year where a lot of B-games are no longer just something you skip when you look at your calendar.

The definition of a B game is something we could debate all day, so I’m going to present what I think is a fair assessment of a B game. First, it’s important to remember that this term has nothing to do with the quality of the game.

In my opinion, B-games are genre games. That said, games focus very explicitly on replicating specific content, offering a core set of mechanics, and generally favoring a limited but tailored experience that ignores popular tropes and sometimes even modern versions of the same genre.

For this reason, B games need to have a modest budget, especially compared to AAA games. The bigger the budget for a game, the bigger its appeal needs to be. In short: not a lot of money, but focus on a single experience.

ruins 2

I’ll start with my favorite B-level game of the year: Remnant 2. Gunfire Games strikes gold with the first Remnant. It’s an ambitious and unusual attempt to blend Souls-like elements with third-person shooter mechanics. Relic isn’t the first to do this, which makes it even harder to prove that undiscovered talent can be unearthed through this combination of influences.

It was popular, but more importantly, it proved that, yes, this approach makes sense. All Remnant 2 needs to do is build on that and focus on which areas are thriving and which areas need improvement – and it does that and more. Remnant 2 doesn’t just add new content to a game you’ve already played. It overhauled so many systems to better align them with the original vision that it might actually risk alienating those who admired the original.

But things ultimately work out in their favor, as the purpose behind all the changes isn’t to simply make the game more attractive to new players – although it will only help grow the player base. Few Souls-like games not made by FromSoftware understand why the most interesting aspect of these games is the emphasis on exploration. The original Remnant understood this, and Remnant 2 builds on that game’s brilliant ideas by combining the order of the worlds you visit, the layout of each level, and even the encounters you may encounter, as well as what you can only do online. What is read is randomized.

It is perhaps the most successful B-game, able to achieve its goals and adapt completely to its own circumstances.

Wanted: dead

Wanted: Dead represents what’s left of the modern video game industry. When mid-sized publishers (Midways and THQ) can no longer survive, we lose the experimentation and commitment to the misguided ideas that (sometimes) mid-budget games are so good at. You might not like Stranglehold, Wheelman, the Spy Hunter remake, or Jackie Chan Stunt Master, but I bet you played them and probably enjoyed them.

Many series from THQ’s classic catalog are still alive and well, and some are even getting sequels in 2024. The Legacy games probably wouldn’t exist without Darksiders, and I still have fond memories of Battlefront: Fuel of War multiplayer because of its Battlefield legacy.

These games, and many like them, may not end up on any GOTY lists, but they left a mark – if only as a curiosity that provided a respite from the deluge of triple-A games at the time. Wanted: Dead is the best reminder of those days, and I almost see it as a long-lost project that was discovered, completed, and released in 2023.

Wanted: Dead offers a ridiculous plot (which sometimes relies on equally ridiculous FMV) in a shooter, third-person action hybrid. It does both of these things well enough to force you to keep going and see more of the world. Was this scene poorly translated from Japanese or was it intentionally embarrassing? I don’t know and I don’t care!

Wanted: Dead has an inconsistent tone, with an unusually large number of mini-games, the occasional impressive boss fight, and a hub where you can spend more time with the characters and complete most of the game Trivial tasks that are too lazy to do. You haven’t played a game like Wanted: Dead this year, and I suspect we’ll be getting something similar soon.

Maybe Wanted: Death is what Tomonobu Itagaki imagined when he was making Devil’s Third.

dead island 2

The fact that Dead Island 2 makes the list of famous games in any given year is an impressive feat in itself. Struggling in development hell for a decade and changing developers three times usually means you end up on YouTube thumbnails for videos about “the worst games ever made” alongside Duke Nukem Forever and other similar games.

However, Dead Island 2 not only manages to be a competent zombie-slaying game in an era when everyone is clearly tired of zombies in video games, but it also provides me with the undead I’ve spent years killing in Dead Island combat. Some of the most interesting experiences with living things. game.

“Dead Island 2” is not a complicated game. It is not complicated to describe and not difficult to play. It flirts with modern trappings like skill trees and character abilities, but they ultimately don’t distract from the core premise; focus on providing opportunities to kill zombies in increasingly wacky (and sometimes brutal) ways.

Extensive weapons crafting system and deliberate no The open-world nature of its levels really brings that sense of focus home. There’s a more expensive Dead Island 2 that’s always online, has daily missions you can get from a hub, and has some Hollywood stuntmen that exist in an alternate reality, but it’s not the game I want to play.

know your creator

Meet Your Maker may not quite fit the description of a B-game, but it has the spirit of a B-game, and most importantly, it does what B-games are traditionally very good at. Many of the most popular B-games are formed around an idea, a mechanic, or some core theme that makes up the entire gamble. In this case, it’s passive multiplayer.

The whole concept of Meet Your Maker is for players to build a death trap maze and hide something valuable at the end of the maze. Every time you log in, it lets you navigate a fresh hell created by someone on the other side of the world, which you must successfully conquer and survive to access its hidden resources.

You’ll use resources in your nightmarish creations, upgrade your hubs, research insidious new trap techniques, and even improve your chances of survival when failure is inevitable. It’s a game with carefully calculated action, and its stakes rub shoulders with those of an extraction shooter.

Building something around this idea means you don’t have to spend a lot of money. However, unlike most B-tier games, Meet Your Maker is an ever-evolving game that uses the money it makes to expand its offerings. Perhaps this model can solve the industry’s all-or-nothing death march for real-time services. A lively game aimed at a niche but active audience.

hi-fi dash

Remember when music used to play a bigger role in the games we played? I don’t just mean games with eclectic soundtracks or stunning menu themes, but games that make music play a central role in the immediate gameplay.

You know, games like Brutal Legend, PaRappa the Rapper, Gitaroo Man, and even recently released games like Metal: Hellsinger, Sayonara Wild Hearts, and Tetris Effect. Do you know what is the most common feature in all these games? They are all mid-range B-level games.

Hi-Fi Rush doesn’t fall into that category, pushing (thanks to Xbox’s funding) the budget and quality ceiling for B-tier games. What’s even more impressive is that it does a much better job of realizing its potential and turning the half-baked ideas that fill B-tier games into meaningful mechanics to the extent you’d expect from a AAA game.

This is the most expensive, polished B-grade game to come out this year, and I’d like to see more like it – just please don’t over-fund any imitations so you can turn around later and add unnecessary crap to them to justify Its reasonable cost.

Lord of the Fallen

I consider the Souls games, and the FromSoftware games that inspired them, to be B-games to varying degrees. Yes, we have PlayStation-funded Demon’s Souls remasters, but for the most part, these games focus on their specific type of experience, and almost always achieve it with the help of a modest budget .

Elden Ring may have broken sales records and penetrated mainstream discourse in a way that no other Souls series has, but it also did that in part because it took on the open world and attached To George R. R. Martin. It was never meant to appeal to everyone, but standing on the shoulders of 13 years of work, its impact is certainly much greater than those giants.

By this standard, Lords of the Fallen is a B-grade game. It was made by a fairly small team using Unreal Engine’s many built-in tools to deliver something that punches above its weight. It’s rushed, needs technical work, and you might say its game design fails to understand why Souls’ difficulty is compelling.

But like all good B-games, it knows what kind of experience it wants to deliver, and although it falters, the good ultimately outweighs the bad. Games like the Souls series are hard to make, and while it sometimes seems like we’re just getting games that fail to live up to their potential, the attempt is reason enough for us to praise them – after all, that’s what B-level games often do.

RoboCop: Rogue City

RoboCop: Rogue City is another great reminder that being competent, interesting, and occasionally entertaining is enough to succeed. B-level games rarely succeed, but some try to go to the moon no matter what.

This also applies to games based on popular movie licenses, as not all games require EA or Square Enix funding to do well. RoboCop: Rogue City makes a compelling case that you can craft an homage on a budget that doesn’t stop you from making an impact.

Most of what you do in Rogue City is walk around, do police work, talk to people who guide you to do more police work, and occasionally get caught in the crossfire. Yes, RoboCop’s clunky action doesn’t lend itself well to action, but developer Ty Young somehow manages to create exciting combat encounters that provide moments of strength in between the times you need to fend for yourself.

In true B-game fashion, Rogue City’s makeup doesn’t always work, and the game definitely runs out of ideas by the second half – but I was never bored. What’s more, I’ve never once questioned why this game exists, or why it decides to do things the way it does – two things I’ve done in more games than I care to count, most of them cost less to produce than Rogue City.

Rogue City is the best RoboCop game until the next RoboCop game.

Honorable mention

Before we end this article, I’d like to recognize some other games releasing in 2023 that are clearly B-tier games, even if they don’t have the same impact. Yes, many of these games are on our list of games releasing in 2023, but they still deserve some love to keep the midrange dream alive.

To Atlas Fallen, Exoprimal, Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, Atomic Heart, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Amnesia: The Bunker, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Ghostrunner 2 A tribute to the makers of Stray Blade.

That’s it, folks, some of our favorite B-grade games of 2023! Happily, while the mid-tier publishers of the world no longer exist like they once did, B-level games have found their way into the mainstream. Hopefully 2024 will bring us more exciting B-games.