Top video games and more from a tumultuous year

Each year, I poll NPR staff and contributors on their favorite games. In 2023, we featured more than ever: a whopping 97 titles, up from 60 in 2022.

That quantity speaks to the network’s diverse range of opinions, and to the strength of the release calendar which brought new blockbusters and indie standouts every month. According to Axios analysis of the review aggregator site Metacritic, 2023 had more titles with a 90/100 rating or above than any year in the past two decades.

Critical and commercial success, however, didn’t always trickle down to industry workers — an estimated 10,000 game developers lost their jobs by the close of the year. Meanwhile, the industry’s largest companies consolidated further. Microsoft finally cleared antitrust hurdles to acquire Activision Blizzard for a mind-boggling $69 billion.

Despite such tumult, 2023 will doubtless go down as one of the most significant years in the medium, boasting hits like “Tears of the Kingdom,” “Baldur's Gate 3,” and “Hogwarts Legacy,” along with massive crossovers with TV and film, from the “Super Mario Bros.” and “Five Nights At Freddy’s” movies to HBO’s acclaimed “The Last of Us” series.

While we don’t rank games for NPR’s annual Games of the Year list, some are more popular than others. I ran the numbers on the most submitted titles out of nearly 200 entries. Here are the top 13:

“Baldur’s Gate 3”

“The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom”