The 12 best video games of 2023 (so far)

If there’s a theme to our favorite video games of 2023 to date, it comes down to two conflicting ideas. On the one hand, refinement: As the steady tide of video game remakes continues, apparently unabated, we can at least take some solace in the fact that developers seem to be getting better at the form. Two of the best games of the last few months have been remakes of old classics that manage to preserve what was good, while making room for what was new, both managing to justify their existences both new and old.

Meanwhile, a streak of wild creativity continues to bubble up from both the margins and, unexpectedly, smack dab in the center of the industry. This is, after all, the year when Nintendo released one of the most creatively ambitious titles in its entire history, while other developers bent the power (and trap goblin mentalities) of their own players to the dark aims of pushing the medium to its creative limits.

Here, then, in a spirit of, let’s call it, refined creativity, are the 12 best games of the first half of 2023, listed in alphabetical order, as chosen by A.V. Club staffers.

Dead Space

We liked because it was the ideal kind of video game remake. Far too often, remakes feel like soulless cash grabs that take something that was successful before and try to squeeze more money out of it. But was an under-appreciated horror game the first time around that didn’t really meets its potential until its bigger/better sequel. This remake adds those bigger/better elements to the original game, cleans up some things that didn’t work initially, and throws in some fun canonical quirks for players who still remember its late-game twist. [Sam Barsanti]