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By Nelson Schneider - 01/21/24 at 03:58 PM CT
Welcome back to MeltedJoystick’s not-so-annual feature in which we take a look ahead at the entire upcoming year and determine if there’s anything on the release schedule at all to get excited about. Why is this feature so inconsistent? Well, there are many years in which the MJ Crew has difficulty coming up with 5 Game of the Year awardees, let alone any titles to get excited about before the fact. However, 2024 has a few that could be real winners. Let’s get into it!
6. Dragon’s Dogma 2
The original “Dragon’s Dogma” was… okay. With its large open world, unique Pawn system for asymmetrical co-op, giant monsters, and plethora of playable (and swappable) classes, the ‘Dragon’s Dogma’ IP earned a following amongst fans of Dark Fantasy Action games who just can’t tolerate the quantities of bullshit found in From Software games. I didn’t love “Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen” when I played it back on the PS3, but I also didn’t hate it enough that I’m unwilling to give it a second chance. That said, with Capcom’s new anti-mod stance, this game will definitely suffer.
5. World of Goo 2
Holy crap! 2D Boy, the Indie developer that made a splash with their stylized bridge-building puzzle game way back in the Wii era is back with a true sequel! Not only is the original “World of Goo” team returning to work on the sequel, they’re claiming it will be even bigger than the first game.
4. Greedfall 2: The Dying World
Eurojank developer, Spiders, is back, and under the management of a new Eurojank publisher, BigBen – now calling itself Nacon. The original “Greedfall” was an absolute masterclass in Choices Matter game design, and honestly impressed me more with its narrative, characters, quest structure, and semi-open world than much-more-highly-praised games, like “The Witcher 3.” I expect more of the same as what we got in the first “Greedfall,” but with Eurojank developers and publishers, you never really know what you’re going to get, especially with Spiders just coming off of their Soulslike debacle, “Steel Rising.”
3. Zoria: Age of Shattering
Well, “Baldur’s Gate 3” has officially released and has officially won every Game of the Year award. What are RPG nerds to pine for now? Definitely not any “official” D&D games commissioned by Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro from the variety of mobile/hack studios they seem to enjoy using. No, we need to hang our hopes on Tiny Trinket Games and their new “Zoria: Age of Shattering,” which started out as a 5E-based D&D game, but has since morphed into a so-called ‘squad-based Tactical RPG.’ Okay, that still sounds fine, along with the advertised expansive fantasy world and narrative-heavy SINGLE PLAYER campaign, which I can enjoy without the other MJ Crew goons covering me with anchors, menhirs, and giant stone wheels to the point of burning out my brake pads and ruining any sense of pacing.
2. Unicorn Overlord
Yay! Vanillaware is back with a new game, and they’ve returned to their bread-and-butter Fantasy setting after dabbling with the oh-so-Japanese “post-modern schoolchildren and mechs” setting of the flop, “13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim.” “Unicorn Overlord” also represents the studio forging new ground in that it’s a Tactical RPG instead of a sidescroller. It’s just a shame that the studio can’t get out of an early ‘00s mindset when it comes to multi-platform releases. Yeah, they’ve started releasing their games on PlayStation AND Nintendo platforms now, but Steam is just begging for these. Oh, well, I guess I’ll just have to make do with the Limited Edition Switch version I pre-ordered…
1. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes
After a long time in development, the spiritual successor to the ‘Suikoden’ series – which is, not coincidentally, also getting a remaster of its best two games this year – is set to either fulfill all the desires of long-time series fans, or disappoint us completely. It’s 100% a coin-flip at this point, what with the prologue game, “Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising” being an incredibly boring fetch-quest simulator. Let’s hope that the main event redeems the developers and vindicates all the people who crowdfunded it.
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