Seven games we’re looking forward to on PS5, Xbox, PC and more in 2024

January, then. The month where we all share memes about having forgotten how to do our jobs and wrestle our twin motivations of trying to look like Thor this year but also see off the last of the Quality Street and those little Lindt chocolates. There are three hours of sunlight. It’s raining. Permanently.

Thank the heavens for videogames. Not only do they provide us wonderful virtual escapes from January’s grey-ish reality, they give us something to look forward to throughout the year. Little golden clusters of child-like excitement. Recently we covered the racing games we’re most excited about in 2024, but there’s plenty else going on this year in games that don’t have have an ignition button. Here, then, are TG’s most anticipated gaming releases coming up in this new year we find ourselves in.

Until Square Enix began the epic undertaking of remaking it, Final Fantasy VII had become an abstract nostalgic concept whose precise qualities were lost in time. It was like Crystal Pepsi or All Saints - fun to have a good old ‘90s reminisce over, but nobody could quite remember what it was actually like.

Then the first part dropped in 2020 of what turns out to be a trilogy of completely spellbinding remakes, and we remembered. The freewheeling sense of adventure you get from Cloud and his friends’ perfectly paced story. The sharp characterisation, making you feel ready to die for your party members even though they are, in reality, just silly old lumps of polygons. And then it ended abruptly.

Part two, Rebirth, really only needs to maintain that bar: you know, retina-melting visuals, perfect balance of nostalgia and modern sensibilities, scintillating real-time combat, just that standard stuff, basically. It’s out on 24 February, and we’re already pre-heating our hair straighteners, ready to get in character.

Listen, the original Dragon’s Dogma was absolutely mental. In an era of dead-eyed Dragon Age Clones, here was an RPG that had you clambering about on giant beasts while your companions told you how to fell them. Because they’d done it before, in someone else’s game.

The Pawn system that allows you to import other players’ created party members is one of the best and most unsung innovations of the PS3 era, and it was only the brightest gem in a 100-hour feast of beautiful details and brilliantly esoteric design. For example: you know how NPCs in fantasy villages warn you not to go wandering out past dark? Well in Dragon’s Dogma they really mean it, because without a torch it’s pitch black outside settlements.

The Pawn system is back and expanded in this sequel, due on 22 March, and the open world map’s four times bigger now. We reckon there might be dragons, too.

Ukrainian studio GSC Game World has been developing this one while enduring the horrifying reality of its home country being invaded, and if you were expecting a pithy payoff to this sentence we can only apologise. Suffice to say the fact that Heart of Chernobyl exists at all is miraculous, and that it looks this good - well, there are no words.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has always been about freedom and atmosphere. Roaming the radioactive wasteland years after a nuclear disaster, experiencing singularities, mutants and militia, and choosing how involved you want to get in the melee. We’re sure that’ll hold true this time too, but in addition there’s some rather cinematic storytelling and NPCs with impressive facial performance capture, emoting their way through the plot. 

It faced delays, understandably, since GSC Game World had to relocate from Ukraine to Czechia to finish the game and since then it’s faced numerous cyber attacks. Now slated for a Q1 release this year, whatever the final product is like to actually play, it’ll be a triumph.

Obsidian knows how to build a world and then tell a story in it. The Californian studio’s been proving that since the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games of the early Noughties, so new first-person RPG Avowed is one to take notice of.

It’s set in the same universe as their isometric Pillars of Eternity series, where arrogant gods run rampant in a world that feels just a few doors down from Tolkien territory. A perfect setting for some Skyrim-style adventuring. On paper it sounds like standard-issue stuff - a mysterious plague, copious skill trees and dialogue options - but you just know every facet’s going to have a clever twist. Having a natter always feels enriching in Obsidian’s work, from Pentiment to The Outer Worlds, and oddly enough in a game with magic-wielding and brutal melee combat, that’s the bit we’re most looking forward to come release day later in 2024.

Playing Tekken for the story is like playing The Last of Us for the gags, but here goes anyway: Jin has lost his famed ability to turn into a devil. Kazuya is growing stronger by the day, having killed his dad Heihachi at the end of Tekken 7 let’s not forget. There are skyscrapers blowing up for some reason and somehow, the only solution is an elaborate flurry of stylish punches and kicks.

There are mechanical tweaks aplenty this time, including an all-new ‘heat’ system that buffs your attacks for 10 seconds every round and can be extended by downing and stunning opponents, and a reworked rage system that kicks in automatically when you’re at low health. Speaking of that all-important gauge of lifeblood at the top of your screen, it’s recoverable now. Kind of. Blocking power or aerial attacks gives you back a chunk of health bar that can potentially be recovered if you land attacks. It’s obviously intended to make you more aggressive and take risks - but will it save TG from online lobby humiliation when it arrives on 28 January? It’s probably best you look away now to save all our blushes…

People forget that Alone in the Dark was the original survival horror game. Long before evil took residence, before the hills fell silent, back in 1992 Edward Carnby frightened the sweet bejeezus out of a generation of kids who developed a Pavlovian aversion to mansions, poorly lit rooms and waistcoats.

32 years on, Pieces Interactive looks to rekindle some of that old juju, with a tale about long-time protagonists Carnby and Emily Hartwood searching for Emily’s uncle Jeremy in a home for the mentally fatigued called Derceto Manor. Something tells us they need to check the fuse boxes in that place.

Expect to never have quite enough ammo and an earful of gloriously hammy American Southern accents come 16 January when this one’s out.

Strap in - Ubisoft’s about to drop the first ever open-world Star Wars game on us. Set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (aka ‘peak leather jacket era’) the plot sees you play loveable scoundel Kay Vess as she plots the biggest heist the Outer Rim has ever seen in a bid to start a new life with her questionably gotten gains.

Creative Director Julian Gerighty says the open world map size will be akin to several of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s zones, and given the latter’s hair-raising scale that sounds formidable, but let’s remember those zones varied massively in size. Besides, it’s all about quality over quantity. We’d take a few exquisitely crafted locations over miles of brownness (no offense, most Ubisoft open world games) any day.

This one’s coming late in the year, and the franchise name alone means it’s guaranteed to be one of the events of 2024. Let’s all get practicing our Jean-Luc Picard quotes nice and early to boil some fanboy blood.