In no particular order:
- Blue Prince
- The Roottrees Are Dead
- Hollow Knight: Silksong
- Dispatch
- Avowed
- The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy
- Nurikabe World
- The Seance of Blake Manor
- Strange Jigsaws
- Fantasy Life I: The Girl Who Steals Time
In no particular order:
The one surprising bit about this is the lack of E33. I know it’s not Jason’s fault but it irks me that every game news outlet repeatedly highlights the same dozen games or so. I’m following four of them and 80% of coverage and reviews is for the same games over and over again. Only digitalfoundry strays off on occasion, and that’s because they aim towards a more technical discussion. There were literally 19000 games released on steam alone last year, and everyone seems to only cover E33, BG3, Blue Prince, Hollow Knight, Elden Ring, Avowed, CoD etc. I have to subscribe to obscure subs or youtube channels just to get coverage of the occasional forgotten indie.
He’s kind of a JRPG traditionalist, so I’m not surprised he wasn’t big on the game.
That all makes sense though. By definition, popular games are liked by many people. Popular games are talked about more. People expect popular games to be listed. Many people will doubt these publications if they fail to list several of the most popular games.
I’m sure there is some money changing hands too, but that can only do so much (maybe move a game a little higher on these lists).
Popular and good (for you) are not the same thing. Games can either, both, or neither of those things. It is only when we think about large numbers of people that popular and “good” become correlated.
I agree but these are usually supposed to be the first line when games/news hit the web, and sometimes it appears that the only decent journalist left is Schreier, with everyone else seemingly following him and his direction. Paid coverage definitely accounts for some of the overlap, but like you said it’s probably just reviewers aiming for a greater audience.
There’s always steam curated lists for the rest, I suppose.