The last few years have been, to put it mildly, rough. And 2023 continued to bring sad tidings. Amid the humanitarian crisis that is the Palestine-Israeli conflict, plus increased fears around the credibility and reliability of AI and Elon Musk’s ongoing meltdown, tech’s biggest players also suffered their fair share of losses. This year, we saw the demise of the E3 gaming convention, the deterioration of popular online forums and the decline of cryptocurrencies, Silicon Valley banks and financial institutions. Not to mention the poor neighbors of the Twitter office in San Francisco who had to endure obnoxious, potentially epilepsy-triggering lights flashing from the building. While we can happily say “good riddance” to many of these things, it is with some sadness that we bid farewell and condolences to some of this year’s worst developments.

The X, Twitter and Elon Musk fiasco

No “Losers in 2023” list is complete without mentioning the fiasco that is Elon Musk’s Twitter (or X). Last year, shortly after Musk acquired Twitter, some of us were asked to make predictions about how Musk’s new venture would fare. I felt that it was a high-risk, high-reward move that might work due to Musk’s combination of luck and smarts, based mainly on his previous success heading up Tesla and SpaceX.

However, I also said that Twitter might devolve into the most chaotic social media platform around, which is pretty much what happened. In hindsight, what I failed to account for was that unlike Tesla and SpaceX, Musk doesn’t seem to give a crap about running X like a business and has treated the company more as an expensive toy meant to call attention to the sins (at least in his mind) of social media. And when you combine his increasingly unhinged personality with shortsighted decisions, what you get is an organization in turmoil. So while not all of these things occurred in 2023, here are just a few of the dumbest things that Musk and X have done in the last 18 months.

A little over a year ago, Musk blew up Twitter’s verification system, which promptly led to fake accounts sporting seemingly legit handles doing things like posting an image of Mario flipping the bird, the pope spreading conspiracy theories and more. Then earlier this year in June, Musk decided to block users who weren’t logged in from seeing tweets, which caused Google and others to remove Twitter content from search results. That’s not a very smart move for a company that relies heavily on traffic to generate ad revenue, so it wasn’t a big surprise when Musk backtracked a week later.

But perhaps Musk’s biggest blunder was changing Twitter’s name to X in July, a move so silly that most people continue to pretend like the rebranding never happened. Oh and let’s not forget that the name change was commemorated with a sign that was mounted on the company’s HQ in San Francisco that blinded its neighbors and didn’t have proper permits, resulting in an installation that lasted barely more than a weekend. More recently, citing a rise in hate speech, major companies including Apple and Disney decided to pull ads from X, which later prompted Musk to tell Disney CEO Bob Iger to “Go fuck yourself.” Another clearly wise business move made by a very grounded individual. (That’s sarcasm, in case it’s not clear.)

At this point, it’s hard to imagine how much worse X can get, but given everything that’s happened in 2023, it’s plain that the company formerly known as Twitter hasn’t even hit rock bottom yet. — Sam Rutherford, Senior reporter

David Imel for Engadget

Microsoft’s Surface tablet

No offense to the Surface Laptop Studio 2, which is a mighty powerful and uniquely convertible laptop, but this year felt like a low point for Microsoft’s iconic Surface tablets. The Surface Pro 9 hasn’t been upgraded at all since last, so it’s still running either an older 12th-gen Intel chip. There is a 5G-equipped model with a custom ARM-based Microsoft SQ3 chip, but we recommend staying far far away from that thing. And beyond the Laptop Studio 2, we only got the Surface Laptop Go 3 for consumers(the tiny Surface Go 4 tablet is now firmly targeted as business users, it doesn’t even show up on the main Surface site).

It almost seems like Microsoft’s dream of creating a true tablet/laptop hybrid is dead – or at the very least, it’s on pause as the company focuses on shoving its AI Copilot into all of its products. Let’s face it: While the Surface business has earned a bit of money for Microsoft, it’s a pittance compared to what the company sees from its Azure cloud revenue. Instead, the Surface devices proved that Microsoft could produce high-end Windows hardware that occasionally pushed the PC industry forward.

It’s been 11 years since Microsoft announced its first Surface devices, but it turns out most consumers didn’t want to replace their laptops with tablets. Simpler 2-in-1 convertible devices, like HP’s Spectre x360 16, are far less common these days (and notably, they also work best in their notebook modes). And it doesn’t help that Windows 11 is still far from tablet friendly. If you really want to get work done on a slate, it simply makes more sense to get an iPad and a keyboard case instead.

With Microsoft’s Surface visionary, Panos Panay, now at Amazon, there doesn’t seem to be much hope left for the company’s tablet concept. But who knows, maybe the Surface Neo will finally make a return as a true foldable some day. (Remember the Surface Duo, another failure?) A Windows user can only dream. — Devindra Hardawar, Senior reporter

Amazon

Amazon’s Halo hardware products

Speaking of dreams, mine were dashed by Amazon in July this year when the company pulled support for its Halo line of health-related hardware products. In fact, my sleep itself might have been affected, since I had just gotten used to checking my Halo app each morning to see the amount of rest I got the night before.

Amazon’s Halo division has been plagued with controversy since it launched the screenless Halo wearable in 2020. The device was a barebones activity tracker, but stood out for an opt-in feature that used onboard mics to listen to you speaking and tell if you sound stressed, upbeat or emotional. This caught a lot of attention, with people saying this was akin to Amazon trying to police your way of speaking. Many other reviewers, myself included, were more critical of the fact that, though the Tone feature did flag times when wearers sounded happy or sad, it did not present enough information for that data to be useful.

The Halo app also offered a way for you to use your phone’s camera for a body composition scan. You’d have to enter your height and weight, before stripping down to your underwear and posing for four pictures, showing your front, back and sides. The app would then tell you how much of your body is fat or muscle.

If it sounds dubious, it’s probably because it is. Though Amazon said its “Halo body fat measurement is as accurate as methods a doctor would use—and nearly twice as accurate as leading at-home smart scales.” Spoiler: It wasn’t. I used the Body feature every few months for about two years, comparing it to the bio-electrical impedance analysis (BIA) sensor on Samsung’s Galaxy Watch when that became available. Over time, as my body composition changed, I also got BIA scans at the F45 gym I go to, which uses a more sophisticated machine. Amazon’s scans were wildly off, while the Samsung watch came closer to the data gleaned from the machine at my gym.

Photo by: Cherlynn Low / Engadget

All that is to say that Amazon’s Halo products haven’t been great. But that seemed to start to change when the company launched the Halo Rise bedside sleep tracker this year. I loved it for the way it accurately detected when I fell asleep, calculated the different stages I was in (REM, Deep, Light etc) and more importantly how it did all that without requiring me to wear something to bed or install a new mattress. I finally had a feasible way to track my sleep and use that to figure out how hard or easy I should take each day’s workout, along with other activities and stresses.

Alas, that joy was short-lived. Despite Amazon acquiring healthcare companies and clearly investing more into becoming a pharmaceutical provider, it gave up on the Halo business this year. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, since one good product doesn’t an entire profitable endeavor make. Amazon not having access to my sleep, heart rate, steps and tone is probably for the best, as we contemplate a future where the online shopping giant is also our doctor and pharmacist. — Cherlynn Low, Deputy editor

E3

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been reading and talking about games, but the internet expanded my horizons beyond the confines of the UK magazine industry. In the late ‘90s, at age 13, I started writing (very badly) for a popular game site, covering release dates, special editions and other unimportant things.

Within a couple of years I’d lost interest in writing, but I still hung out in the same IRC channels talking about games with likeminded people. IRC started my obsession with E3 and the Tokyo Game Show; weeks where I’d talk about these huge events with a weird milieu of fans and industry professionals.

In 2000, the fever around Metal Gear Solid 2’s E3 debut was out of this world. The first-person reports from the show were unbelievably positive. When the trailer finally became available to download a few weeks later, it quickly spread across the internet. I can still remember the mix of frustration and excitement as I downloaded it from an IRC bot at 7KB a second to finally get a glimpse of “next-gen” gaming.

MGS2 was peak E3 for me, and in hindsight it was also the moment E3 began to die: Why did I need to read a 1,000-word breakdown of a trailer when I could just download and watch it myself? Why should Konami spend big money on a booth when it could just release a trailer directly to its potential customers?

Back then, I was the only person I knew IRL who was “extremely online.” Now, everyone is. By the 2010s, when I started to attend E3 myself, the role of press and the show had shifted. Nintendo E3 Directs were in full swing, and the big shows from Sony, Microsoft, Bethesda, Ubisoft and EA were all beamed live to fans. Sure, I got to play some games and interview some developers, but that’s something that happens throughout the year now.

E3 remained one of the highlights of my calendar, and there were always some memorable moments — the PS4 and Xbox One reveals were probably the highlight of my in-person years — but by 2019, my excitement was more tied to seeing farflung colleagues and old industry friends than it was the event itself. When the pandemic canceled the 2020 event, it was obviously it would never recover. We’d written about how the industry didn’t need E3 years before.

Summer Game Fest will happen again next year. It will never hit the scale of the show it’s replacing, but I hope that it becomes a strong enough brand to keep the idea of E3 going. There’s still something exciting for fans, and journalists, about a week of gaming announcements to predict and dissect. If more companies spread their events throughout the year, that last bit of E3 magic will be gone. — Aaron Souppouris, Executive Editor

Cryptocurrencies and finance in tech

Much as we pretend mathematics represents an immutable truth, we must remember it’s not without its loopholes. Centuries from now, historians researching crypto may assume humanity forgot that as it decided to substitute math for truth in its entirety. That the prodigies of this world sought to engineer out human fallibility between League of Legends sessions. Uncertain, wooly and hard-to-quantify concepts like “truth” and “trust” would be tossed out in favor of the certainty of pure math. That’s the PR line: The Bitcoin white paper describes the virtual currency as a “system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust.” It’s ironic, then, that so many high-profile people who hitched their mast to crypto are either in prison, or are awaiting trial for fraud.

Those same historians may wonder if crypto was merely a vehicle ripe for hijack by unethical types, or if its inherent fraudiness was written into its DNA. 2023 will offer plenty of material to scrub through given the number of figures who wound up face-to-face with law enforcement. Coinbase started the year accused of leaving gaps in its systems big enough to enable fraud, money laundering and drug dealing. Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky was sued and later arrested — alongside the company’s chief revenue officer, Roni Cohen-Pavon. Not long after, Terraform Labs was charged by the SEC for securities fraud after it wiped out $45 billion or so. Bear in mind, this is a year-in-review story, and I’ve only managed to make it as far as February.

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, dominated headlines this year much as FTX had in 2022. Regulators accused it, and its founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao of deliberately undermining its own controls and processes to not-so tacitly enable users to break the law. Zhou would plead guilty, step down as CEO and pay a hefty fine which enabled the company to keep running. Oh, and we should mention the Winklevoss Twins, their exchange and its partners, who were accused of defrauding investors to the tune of $1 billion. Ironic then, that Ferrari finally decided to try to appeal to the Lambo-and-Tendies demographic by opening up crypto purchases for its cars just as things started to get tough.

Of course, the real loser in all of this has to be Michael Lewis who, with an MA in Economics and experience as a bond trader for Salomon Brothers in one hand, and a ringside seat with Sam Bankman-Fried in the other, managed to miss what was going on at FTX. Lewis has doubled down in support of his latest muse but now that SBF has been found guilty of fraud, it looks like his reputation as the most credible financial journalist of the age is in tatters. — Daniel Cooper, Senior reporter

STRF/STAR MAX/IPx

Reddit

I've been a longtime Reddit lurker, occasional poster and always a first-party app user. But when the drama about the company's decision to start charging for API access started to unfold in April, my eyes were opened to the wonderful world of third-party Reddit clients. Too bad, though, that the company proceeded to then botch it all.

Because API access was no longer free, many apps like Apollo, RIF, BaconReader and Narwhal had to reconsider their pricing or shut down altogether. Reddit’s policy change didn’t just challenge these apps, which mostly offered superior browsing experiences to the company’s own. It also created problems for clients that were built for more accessible use, rendering them unusable unless their developers ponied up the fees, which could go up as much as tens of thousands of dollars (or, in Apollo’s case, an estimated $20 million a year).

While Reddit did eventually seem to concede that the API fees would shut out some users with disabilities and ended up working with some unnamed developers to give them free access, the company dug in its heels in the wake of public outrage and subreddit blackouts. In the second half of the year, subreddits all over the platform either stopped posting, changed their settings to private or NSFW or dedicated themselves to only putting up salacious images of Last Week Tonight host John Oliver.

Reddit didn’t just ignore the protests and carry on with its planned fees. It went as far as to forcibly take over some communities that went dark, while looking for volunteers to take over certain subreddits that it deemed to have violated its Moderator Code of Conduct.

According to internet analytics company Similarweb in June, Reddit saw a 6.6 percent drop in average daily traffic. We don’t have the latest statistics on how the company is doing now, but I can tell you from personal experience that the first-party app on iOS is a complete shitshow. Like many other Redditors have pointed out before, videos will autoplay unmuted out of nowhere for no reason, while I’ve encountered numerous infuriating bugs, including one where a video on a post was repeatedly going on and off mute while I was also trying to stream Spotify to a speaker. It just sucks.

After the mass subreddit blackouts spawned a bunch of duplicate communities with different moderators, the quality of posts have noticeably fallen, as well. Not to mention the company got rid of trophies and then attempted to bring them back again in a confusing format. Throw in the fact that the community now seems to be a mix of karma-farming bots and commenters who copy and paste the same jokes over and over again, the days of enjoyable Reddit scrolling seem to have come to an end in 2023. — Cherlynn Low

I know we say this every year, but it feels like just yesterday we were all crammed in a single room in Las Vegas eating mediocre takeout and voting for our best in show. But CES 2024 is actually just around the corner. The show officially runs from January 9 - 12, though we'll on the ground well before that, with the first CES-related events expected to kick off on January 7. Last year we saw a focus on accessibility and a rather disturbing amount of stuff that you were supposed to pee on or into. While we'll probably see a good amount devices designed to help those with hearing impairments and mobility restrictions again this year, we anticipate some new trends to steal some headlines. Here's a few predictions from our staff about what to expect from CES 2024 in Las Vegas.

User-friendly solar 

Jackery

I suspect CES 2024 will be full of clean energy technology, packaged in the form of consumer hardware. Solar panels have traditionally been the purview of professional contractors but standalone setups are gaining in popularity. Two or three years ago, this gear would have been targeted at RV users but now it’s cresting into the mainstream. Pop-up panels, coupled with inverters and batteries that look like air conditioning units, sitting unobtrusively in the corner, are all the rage. It’s a plus that most of these setups are plug and play, removing the need for a professional to get involved.

There are a couple of drivers for this beyond the niche audience of folks looking to get off of the electricity grid. In many places outside the US, the cost of energy has spiked dramatically and it’s folly to think the same won’t happen here. Not to mention that, in places like Texas, people have seen the power grid fail with devastating consequences. It’s going to be a big market in the next few years and I’d expect to see more and more consumer brands follow Anker and Jackery into the home battery world. — Dan Cooper, Senior Reporter UK

MEMS earbuds

xMEMS

If Engadget’s audience stats are any indication, audio nerds are extremely excited about MEMS earbud drivers. As my colleague James Trew has detailed in his reporting, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) may very well be the next big thing in headphones. A California-based company called xMEMS is the first to bring the solid state components to market, and the first true wireless earbuds that use them have recently gone on sale.

Some of the benefits of MEMS drivers are said to be improved response, better durability and more consistent fidelity. They also don’t require the calibration or matching that balanced-armature or dynamic drivers need on a production line. The only downside is that in their current state, they still need a hybrid setup with a secondary driver for bass. In its next-gen MEMS speaker, though, xMEMS is promising 40 times louder bass response.

The new model is called Cypress and the company will be demoing it for attendees at CES. xMEMS says its performance is consistent with the bass performance of “the best” 10-12 coil speakers currently being used in earbuds. What’s more, Cypress can improve ANC performance, which xMEMs says will cover higher frequencies – including crying babies. The company has already said the components won’t go into mass production until the end of 2024, so consumer products are over a year away. But the promise is too good not to be excited about a very early preview in Las Vegas. — Billy Steele, Senior Reporter

Wi-Fi 7 in everything

Netgear

While it may not be the most exciting development, I’m expecting to see a number of new devices with support for Wi-Fi 7 at CES 2024 — from laptops to TVs and everything in between. Currently, it’s still a work in progress, but with the official Wi-Fi 7 spec expected to be finalized sometime in early 2024, gadget makers are looking to get an early jump. Some benefits of Wi-Fi 7 include maximum speeds of up to 46 Gbps — more than twice as fast as what’s available using Wi-Fi 6/6E — along with a 320Mhz channel width that offers double the capacity compared to previous generations.

Another important feature is MLO (multi-link operation) which allows Wi-Fi 7 devices to use two bands at the same time, essentially turning a single wireless connection into a two-lane highway. For people with larger homes, this should improve the performance of mesh networks by allowing devices to switch bands without losing speed or connection. QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) is also getting a significant boost from 1024-QAM on Wi-Fi 6/6E to 4096-QAM with Wi-Fi 7 which allows devices to pack more information into the same carrier signal.

The downside is that while there are some gadgets on sale today like the Samsung Galaxy S23 that already support Wi-Fi 7, you’ll need both a compatible device and router (not to mention a sufficiently fast internet connection) to take advantage of the spec’s full capabilities. In short, you should keep an eye out for new devices that work with Wi-Fi 7, but don’t rush out and upgrade everything in your home until prices stabilize and they become more widespread. — Sam Rutherford, Senior Reporter

The year of the AI PC

Intel

If there’s one buzzy term you’re guaranteed to hear a ton throughout 2024, it’s “AI PC.” It’s a phrase both Intel and AMD are using to describe computers equipped with chips featuring NPUs, or neural processing units. Similar to the way GPUs speed up graphics processing for gaming, an NPU offloads AI tasks to handle them more efficiently. For Windows 11, that’s mainly limited to Microsoft’s Studio Effects, which can blur your video chat backgrounds or punch up your lighting. But more Windows AI features are rumored to be on the way (Microsoft’s push to bring its Copilot AI everywhere is a big sign), and companies like Adobe and Audacity are also developing NPU-powered features for their apps.

For years chipmakers have been chasing higher clock rates, smaller process designs and a wealth of other architectural upgrades like 3D transistors to make their hardware faster and more efficient. The move towards mobile chip designs, like Apple’s Silicon, is yet another way to reduce power consumption while also speeding up computational possibilities. Intel, AMD and other companies are also focusing more on GPUs to beef up basic gaming performance, while also offloading some creative tasks like media encoding. NPUs are the latest tool chip designers can rely on, and they also have the potential to change the way we use our computers entirely (or at least, deliver a bit more power and battery life for ultraportables).

While it’s easy to be skeptical of marketing terms, the phrase “AI PC” is at least functional. There are still plenty of laptops on the market without NPUs — Intel only got into the AI game with its new Core Ultra chips — so consumers will need an easy way to differentiate between different types of systems. After all, if you’re upgrading your laptop to take advantage of Windows Studio effects and AI powered software, you don’t want to be stuck with a non-NPU system for several years. — Devindra Hardawar, Senior Reporter

Truly wireless TV

Cherlynn Low / Engadget

Displace made a splash at CES 2023 with its truly wireless TV that could be mounted anywhere, even suction-cupped to a window. The company’s demo left us with a lot of questions as it wasn’t yet ready to discuss key details of the product since what it showed off were CES-specific prototypes. The company is returning to Vegas this year and it’s already announced what it plans to have on display.

First, Displace says two sizes of TVs will be demoed: the 27-inch Displace Mini and the 55-inch Displace Flex. The display we saw earlier this year was also 55 inches, but a key difference between it and the Flex is that this new version attaches to an optional magnetic wireless charging stand. Both the Flex and the Mini pack enough battery life to last a month if you watch six hours of content per day, according to the company. There’s no pricing available for these yet, but they go up for pre-order on January 9, so we’re bound to find out soon. Displace said it will also show off a 110-inch model at CES, although details are scarce.

The original version has gone up in price since last CES: it’s now $4,499 and orders won’t ship until mid-2024. The new Mini and Flex aren’t expected to ship until late next year either. The main thing we’ll be looking for at CES is a status update. Are the units any more polished? Have there been any notable upgrades since that first prototype? How much will the extra swappable batteries cost? Does it look like the company will actually be able to ship in the next 6-12 months?

Displace has also announced an AI-based shopping platform for its TVs. Using the same gestures that control TV viewing, the tech can analyze a paused scene for products that might be available for sale. The system also allows you to quickly make a purchase by either bringing a phone or watch near the NFC-enabled TVs or by using a mobile app. Displace says the goal for its products has always been ambient computing, and the first step towards that is this shopping platform. It’s also a way for the company to make money off the TVs after the initial sale. — Billy Steele

We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.

LG is trying to one-up its rival Samsung with the launch of the MyView 32-inch 4K monitors with built-in smart TV features. On top of performing regular monitor chores for productivity, content creation and light gaming, they have LG's webOS 23 built-in so that you can stream Netflix and other services — much like Samsung's M8 smart monitors. 

The three monitors (the 32SR85U, 32SR83U and 32SR70U) have similar specs with minor differences. All come with 31.5-inch 16:9 4K (3,840 x 2,160) IPS displays, 95 percent DCI-P3 coverage and HDR10 support. You also get webOS 23 on all models, with streaming services (Netflix, Disney+ etc.) along with productivity programs including Microsoft 365 and Google Calendar. They also support AirPlay 2 and Miracast for wireless screen mirroring, and have WiFi and Bluetooth built-in. 

However, the lower-end 32SR70U offers only 350 nits of brightness compared to 400 nits on the other models. And while all three have USB Type-C PD charging, the 32SR85U supports 90W, the 32SR83U supports 65W and the 32SR70U supports just 45 watts. The higher-end 85U and 83U screens also have slim bezels and an adjustable stand, while the 70U has a "low-profile base" that's likely fixed.

LG

The 32SR85U can be paired with a "detachable 1080p webcam" for video conferencing, but you have to buy one separately for the other two. Other features include 5W stereo speakers, a voice assistant, two HDMI 2.0 ports and a remote controller. 

The 95 percent DCI-P3 coverage is impressive, and even though 400/350 nits isn't very bright for HDR content, it's fine given that monitors tend to be just a couple of feet from your eyeballs. In addition, the 60Hz refresh rate won't allow for any high-end gaming. 

The MyView monitors beg a comparison with Samsung's M8 series, of course. LG is subtly digging its rival by saying they "raise the bar for picture quality in the smart monitor category," and that seems largely true. The IPS displays should offer better viewing angles than the VA panels on Samsung's monitors, along with much better color accuracy (Samsung boasts only 99 percent SRGB coverage).

Otherwise, they offer many of the same features, so attractiveness to buyers will depend a lot on the price. LG has yet to announce US pricing, but the 32SR83U will be 699,000 won (around $538) in Korea. Samsung's M8, meanwhile, is often on sale for as little as $400. 

LG is going to start selling a compact bipedal robot that can roll around your house freely. The AI-powered robot, which will debut at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, has a wide range of capabilities — from notifying you that you left the AC on while you're away to watching your pet while you're at work. Like stationary smart home aids, like Alexa or Apple HomePod, LG’s robot can also tell you the weather and remind you to take your medications on time.

The robot is powered by Qualcomm’s Robotics RB5 Platform, which entails a mix of hardware and software that run the bot’s AI program. Some of these include its ability to recognize faces and voices, process the emotions of those around it and engage in conversation. LG says the bot will be able to greet you at your door, analyze your emotions and play music to either boost your good mood or lull you to sleep. It can even “emote” by changing its posture thanks to its articulated leg joints. Although it's a cute feature, it might not have any practical use beyond making it approachable.

The robot is also equipped with a camera in its face, a speaker and various sensors throughout that give it the ability to navigate, speak and listen. It can also measure indoor air quality and temperature, however, it's unclear if it can actually be linked to a smart home system and control your thermostat. LG has not yet responded to comment on this and said the price of the robot will be announced at a later time.

Because the bot can move around freely, you can program it to look after your pets while you're gone and send your smartphone notifications “if any unusual activity is detected.” Using the same monitoring tools, the bot can act as a mobile “security guard” and send you notifications if there is movement in the house while you're away. Or more likely, just let you know you left the kitchen lights on.

Arkane Lyon’s time-bending FPS Deathloop is free on PC for Amazon Prime members. You have until January 10 to download the game. Additionally, you’ll need to link an active Epic Games Store account, but Amazon has made it simple to do that right on the download page. This isn’t a rental. The game is yours to keep.

This isn’t the first time Amazon has given gamers a holiday treat. Last year, it was Dishonored 2, another Arkane classic. The company also tends to give away games to coincide with its Prime Day events.

As for Deathloop, it’s a fantastic title that marries the harried frenzy of a first person shooter with the intrigue of an old-school adventure title like Myst. We compared it to an escape room in our official review, and that pretty much sums it up. You’re trapped on an island in a Groundhog Day-esque time loop and have to figure a way out. The game’s filled with thoughtful puzzles and the combat is satisfying, which is no surprise coming from the folks behind Dishonored.

In other words, this is one of the most unique and flat-out fun releases of the current generation. It’s a steal at full price, so free is a no-brainer. Deathloop is also available on Game Pass, if that’s your bag. Developer Arkane is currently busy working on a game based on Marvel’s resident vampire hunter, Blade.

It’s been a terrible year for game developers, but an amazing year for games. 2023 kicked off with a fantastic remake of Dead Space and the breakout success that was Pizza Tower, and by the end of the year we had dozens more games vying for our attention. There were some missteps along the way — if you'd asked me to predict this list a year ago, I would've mentioned both Redfall and Starfield — but overall it's been a packed year unusually low on disappointment.

We’ve never tried to name a single title as "the Game of the Year." Instead, it’s become a tradition to get the whole team together to talk about our individual favorites. So here are those games, presented in alphabetical order to avoid hurting any of our writers’ feelings. Feel free to sound off about what your favorites are in the comments; there are no wrong answers. Except maybe The Day Before.

Alan Wake 2

I rarely have time to finish games these days, but I devoured Alan Wake 2 in just a few weeks. For me and my limited gaming time, that felt miraculous.

I'll admit, I'm a mark for Remedy Entertainment. I've been following its work since the first Max Payne arrived on PCs in 2001, right as I was gearing up to head to college and building my first desktop PC. (It had a 1.3GHz AMD Athlon Thunderbird and an ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon GPU with a TV tuner. Yah, I was one of the cool kids on campus..)

Max Payne blew me away with its fluid slow-motion gunplay mechanics and immersive narrative. As a lifelong console gamer until then, it was a big step forward from something like Tomb Raider. Playing Alan Wake 2 brought me right back to my college days: Its storytelling is far more mature than Max Payne, but leagues more ambitious. I spent much of the game with a big stupid grin on my face, marveling at how the game balanced two different leads (Saga Anderson and Mr. Wake himself), an array of quirky characters, and some of the boldest gaming narrative choices in the last decade.

As Jessica Conditt said in her review, Alan Wake 2 works best when you're not in combat. I enjoyed chatting with the locals and digging up background details more than I did shooting a repetitive array of baddies. It also helped that I was playing it on LG's massive 49-inch UltraGear monitor, which at times made it feel like I was completely immersed in the game. It made the more idyllic environments in the Pacific Northwest seem all the more beautiful, while the scarier bits felt even more nightmarish. Get you a game that can do both.

Over two decades after I became a fan of the studio, I’m just as excited to see what Remedy is cooking next. It feels like college all over again. Maybe time really is a flat circle. Or maybe, as Alan Wake would say, it’s a spiral towards something greater, the accumulation of everything we’ve learned and all the mistakes we’ve made as we pursue the specter of perfection. Anyway, good game. — Devindra Hardawar, Senior Reporter

Armored Core 6

Elden Ring was my first foray into the FromSoftware universe since Chromehounds for the Xbox 360. Elden Ring is an all-timer and no more needs to be said about it, but coming off that I was a bit trepidatious about whether the developers could apply their learnings and innovations to something with a legacy like Armored Core. Silly me to ever doubt FromSoft, because they delivered a game worthy of their developer pedigree. While AC6 doesn’t feel like “Elden Ring with mechs" I'm honestly glad it doesn’t. The developers have done a masterful job of blending classic Armored Core depth, customization and combat with the scale, bombast and world-building they are known for.

Some of the bosses in this game felt impossible, like many of the best FromSoft bosses do, but as always there is a tweak to your gameplay style or strategy that can turn the tables in the end. The first actual boss fight with Balteus had me questioning if I was ever good at video games in the first place, and when I finally adjusted to beat him I had that same triumphant feeling of beating the best FromSoft bosses from games past. Something else less discussed, but still worthy of praise as well, is how FromSoft finds a way to make what is basically a radio play story feel important and impactful when mixed with the heavy action of the actual gameplay. In a game where you wouldn’t expect story or characters to have an impact, FromSoft does an excellent job making you care about its dystopian Mecha pilots and their handlers in a way I never expected.

AC6 is a game I couldn’t stop thinking about, and the one I probably felt the most fulfilled by following each session, after my heart rate dropped and my vice grip on the controller loosened. FromSoftware continues to prove that it's in a league of their own. — Justin Vachon, Lead Designer

Baldur’s Gate 3

The Game of the Year is my game of the year. I’ve dabbled with Dragon Age, spent a few nights trying to unravel 2002’s Neverwinter Nights, but Baldur’s Gate 3, while still unapologetically Dungeons and Dragons, smooths out the procedural part while still deciding the fates of heroes, villains and the world on the roll of a die. Plus modifiers.

The rules and numbers of D&D are all baked into BG3, but you can also just play it and let the rules take care of themselves. Even when I failed dice rolls (how things are decided in D&D games, pitting your character’s stats against “skill check” numbers), I was happy to see how this affected the story. Sure, you can save-scum (quicksave, fail, quickload and try again), but it eventually feels hollow when there are so many decisions to make.

I talked to a colleague about the game and he was leery about a game with so many options. He’d have to play, replay, choose different options, and feel short changed if he didn’t eke every plot twist of a game like BG3.

The game, the options, the side quests are all so dense with choices and branching paths that there are (almost) countless permutations, distractions and bad decisions to make. I found that oddly freeing. The game, divided into three parts, does block out parts of the world from act to act, but I never found that particularly limiting. In fact, it ensured I tied up the most exciting plot points or destinations before plowing further into the story.

Two tips: being evil is very much an option (as is a mid-game redemption arc) and be careful when you rest overnight, as that will tick the game’s internal clock over and could mess up your plans. Invaders, unsurprisingly, don’t wait. — Mat Smith, UK Bureau Chief

Cocoon

My day-to-day job is mostly behind the scenes, editing stories and scripts, dealing with technical issues and managing a fantastic group of reporters. All of which is to say I actually only have five bylines on the site this year. Two of them are about Cocoon — 40 percent, baby! It stands to reason, then, that it's my personal game of the year.

You can read my review of the game for some expanded thoughts, but here’s the summary, at least: Cocoon is a near-perfect puzzle game in which you play a bug and who has to jump between worlds to progress. It’s a laser-focused experience that only lets you play around with one or two mechanics at a time, but stretches each of its ideas to its natural conclusion. It's also dirt cheap and on Game Pass, so what do you have to lose? — Aaron Souppouris, Executive Editor

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is sexy, well-written and replayable, and it’s one of my favorite games of the year, from one of my favorite studios of all time. Deconstructeam is responsible for Gods Will Be Watching and The Red Strings Club, two vibrant titles about the limits of humanity and society, and The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood brings these themes to a new plane.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is about building tarot decks, manipulating an election from afar, betraying a coven of witches, gaining power and seducing everyone. It’s bigger than anything Deconstructeam has ever made, with layered characters, branching narratives and strangely beautiful art. The witches, behemoths and otherworldly creatures in The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood fill the game with life and interwoven relationships, while the deck-building mechanic is surprisingly dense and designed to encourage creativity. The game pulled me in and didn’t let go until it was done with me, and even still, I find myself happily returning to it. — Jessica Conditt, Senior Reporter

Dave the Diver

No matter if Dave the Diver is an indie game or not, it's still one heck of a good time. The pixel-soaked adventure breaks down into two main gameplay mechanics that shouldn’t mix at all, but somehow do. During the day you explore the sea, hiding from (or fighting) sharks and catching gobs of fish. At night, you run a sushi restaurant to sell those fish.

Each of these mechanics are completely different. When you’re under the water, it's exploration all the way, with mysteries around every reef and a constantly-shifting landscape. Running the restaurant is both a management sim, as you have to develop recipes and hire staff, and a fast-paced minigame that resembles the iconic arcade cabinet Tapper. This dichotomy is similar to another recent gem, Moonlighter. I loved Moonlighter, but Dave the Diver is even more addictive.

Both primary elements of the game are polished to a Nintendo-like sheen. In other words, it kept me up, night after night, as “one last run” turned into two and then three. But that’s just the beginning. As you progress through the occasionally hilarious story, Dave the Diver keeps adding new gameplay mechanics. Without giving too much away, there are mid-game additions that draw inspiration from Cooking Mama, Stardew Valley and others. Each of these elements are always a treat and never get in the way of the main gameplay loop. Also, you can hire a velociraptor as a server and Jason Vorhees as a sous chef. Good times. — Lawrence Bonk, Contributing Reporter

Dead Space

One of the best games of 2023 actually came out in 2008. The Dead Space remake landed in January and it stayed at the top of my GOTY list for the ensuing 11 months, slowly covering every other entry in globs of bile and blood. Developers at EA brought the terror and tension of the original Dead Space to modern platforms with thoughtful gameplay tweaks and a layer of visual polish, and in the process, they cemented the game’s reputation as an action-horror classic.

Dead Space spawned in an era of limitations. It was built for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, consoles that were powerful, but still constrained in terms of processing power and graphics; they couldn’t support massive, open-world games filled with procedural generation and AI-powered encounters. Innovation at the time had to stem from a game’s mechanics, and Dead Space was the first action-horror blockbuster to remove the HUD and the power of a headshot, creating an immersive and terrifying combat rhythm.

The remake paid tribute to everything that made the original Dead Space a living legend. The USG Ishimura was cold and maze-like, with a few more mysteries added to its corridors, and some boss fights were updated to take advantage of high-fidelity mechanics, but it still felt like the Dead Space I remember. It felt better, even. In an age of living games and open-world blandness, the Dead Space remake showcased the supreme power of restraint in game design. — Jessica Conditt

Diablo II: Resurrected

Aside from the quick turnaround following the original, the wait time between new Diablo games is more than a decade. So to my surprise, in a year when we got Diablo IV, I found myself spending more time playing Diablo II: Resurrected. That's not to say that the latest entry is a failure, because despite a drop in players and cratering views on Twitch, Diablo IV’s story is the franchise’s best yet and Blizzard nailed the look and feel of the game. Unfortunately, despite having faced similar issues with Diablo III, its endgame still needs a lot of work. This is why in 2023 I’ve had much more fun playing Diablo II, or more accurately Diablo II: Resurrected.

Thanks to a superb graphical overhaul, the game looks how I remember it in my head instead of the chunky low-res textures it actually had back in 2001. But more importantly, Blizzard fixed a ton of annoying glitches from the original (like enemy mana drain being way too strong) while implementing a bunch of handy quality-of-life upgrades such as automatic gold pickup and the shared stash. But the thing I like the most is that, since it came out in 2021, Blizzard has expanded upon the core game with additional patches and balance changes that have injected new life into the game while preserving its spirit. This year, specs like elemental druid and martial arts assassin suddenly went from being underpowered niche playstyles to top-tier builds, essentially undoing 20 years of neglect. The addition of Sunder Charms also made a ton of single-element specs way more viable and the addition of Terror Zones turned item farming into less of a grind while increasing the challenge.

Sure, melee classes still need a bit of love (maybe recalculate how attack rating works or add some more AOE abilities) and the cadence of new content has ground to a halt in the run-up to and subsequent release of Diablo IV. But for an update to a two-decade-old game, Diablo II: Resurrected feels like a great homage to an all-time classic and a wonderful example of a remake done right. Now I’m just hoping Blizzard finds some time to finally finish Act IV or maybe even add a brand new chapter onto the best ARPG ever. — Sam Rutherford, Senior Editor

F-Zero 99

Nintendo has carved out a little legacy of remixing gaming staples with its 99 (or 35) series, and F-Zero 99 is one of its most thoughtful battles royale yet. (I’d put it second behind Tetris 99.) From afar, it looks simple: the SNES arcade racer, but with 98 other people. But the addition of a persistent boost meter (which doubles as a health bar) and the ability to bank “Super Sparks” that you can spend to access a limited-time “Skyway” fundamentally changes how you play.

Do you throw caution to the wind, use more power this lap and try to hold on from the front? Do you hang back, try to increase your meter by knocking out other players and risk an insurmountable deficit? Where exactly on the track should you activate the Skyway? Winning still requires skill and track mastery — it’s F-Zero, after all — but there’s a new layer of strategy and resource management. What was once a sprint now becomes a horse race. You make more moment-to-moment decisions each time out. And decisions are what makes a game interesting.

All the other things that made F-Zero great 30 years ago still apply. The Mode 7 style. That iconic music. The distinction between the four supercars. The honest test of skill — this entry is a little more forgiving, but if you screw up, no Mario Kart shenanigans are going to come and save you. The course selection still has clear peaks and valleys, but F-Zero 99 doesn’t try to revise the past: It honors its source material, then makes considered changes that present it in a new light. In an industry that is constantly rehashing old ideas, that’s commendable. — Jeff Dunn, Senior Commerce Writer

Humanity

In Humanity, you play as a ghostly Shina Ibu who barks directions at a horde of humans to guide them toward a goal. That all seems simple enough, but like all great puzzle games, developer tha LTD plays around with the concept and keeps building on it until the very end. What starts as a fairly peaceful rumination about the controlled movement of humans soon segues into imaginative boss battles and mammoth lightsaber brawls.

There's a deeper story than you might expect from a game that's ostensibly about sheep herding mindless drones. What will stick with me from playing Humanity is a sense of optimism, an idealism that our species can achieve anything if we work together toward a common goal. That, and having the chance to take control of an adorable ethereal pup. — Kris Holt, Contributing Reporter

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a perfect game blending exploration, action, adventure, combat and puzzle solving. It looks and sounds beautiful, with Hyrule a wonderful clockwork world you just want to spend your days hiking through without a care in the world. The title’s standout feature, Ultrahand, enables players to construct anything they can imagine to help get them through tricky puzzles. Its technological prowess, given the limited hardware it runs on, has made it the envy of the game development and player world. I started 2023 having never played a Zelda title, and by the end, I’d sunk about 1,000 hours combined into Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

I don’t think it’s unfair to say that the game is also a lot.

Nintendo’s more-is-more approach means the triple-digit play times are a bug as much as they are a feature. This goes hand-in-hand with the freedom you’re given, which lets you play the game any way you choose. The two extra environments may have headed off complaints that it was a glorified DLC, but you can feel the stretching. The Depths is little more than a repetitious traversal zone while the Sky Islands are five puzzles repeated over and over. The company has found the limit of what a coherent single player experience can be, and then just wandered beyond it.

And then there’s the grinding, which extends well beyond the usual gripes around weapons degradation. If you want to reach the end game, you’ll need more than a wooden sword and shield, which means endlessly beating the mid-size bosses. Plus, you’ll need to put a shift in down the mines Depths to gather enough Zoanite to make Autobuild worthwhile. I kept my Switch offline ever since Nintendo nerfed the easy duplication glitch because I don’t have enough hours in the day to play. In fact, I’d pay good money for a “Grown Adult” version of the game where it respects your time more than the existing version does.

While I’m moaning, I might as well add that I hate how Lynels and Ganondorf can destroy your Zonai weapons during combat. If you’re not a gifted sword-fighter, and you’ve never quite got your parrying skill perfect, then crafting robot weapons was a neat workaround. The game lets you pick your preferred way to succeed, except when it really matters, when it eliminates all but the most tedious. I don’t think, after spending so long getting everything else done, I can be bothered to go back and defeat Ganondorf despite pledging to do it before the end of the year.

Still, perfect game, 10/10. — Daniel Cooper, Senior Reporter

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass

Even though Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will be seven years old next April, we don’t need a new Mario Kart game. The title is still just as entertaining as it was brand new, thanks in large part to the massive expansion of new tracks Nintendo began dropping in March 2022. And while the waves have been slightly annoying, mostly due to the constant questions about their release dates from my nine year old, the steady cadence that wrapped up last month meant new challenges were arriving regularly for over a year.

The Booster Course Pass is well worth the money at $24.99. It’s less than a new game would cost and you get a new game’s worth of tracks (48) for that price. Not to mention added characters like Kamek, Petey Piranha, Diddy Kong and Peachette – all Steele family favorites. But for me, the best part is revisiting modernized versions of tracks from older Mario Kart games, the ones that endeared me to the series.

Rainbow Road from Wii is an all-time favorite and one course that I’ll go straight to when I only have a few minutes to play. Courses like Waluigi Pinball and Peach Gardens from DS are a lot more fun expanded to a big screen and I’ve enjoyed the road trip through major cities from Mario Kart Tour, a game I never played as karting on my phone didn’t really appeal to me. There are duds, of course, like Mario Circuit 3 from SNES that don't really translate as well to modern racing.

Maybe there will be a new game that flexes the muscle of the new Switch, but I’m not sure what there is to improve. I’d be perfectly happy to keep paying $25 every few years for a collection of new tracks, whether entirely new or inspired by the past, as this is a perfectly fine way to keep the game fresh for those of us who still really enjoy it. — Billy Steele, Senior Reporter

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Like a lot of recent PlayStation sequels, Spider-Man 2 takes everything that worked about the original game and gives us more. There’s more of New York City to explore, two characters that you can swap between at almost any time, more moves and suits and superpowers to take on the many enemies you’ll encounter throughout the adventure. It feels like the kind of game that easily could have gotten overstuffed and collapsed under the weight of what Insomniac Games was trying to pull off.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen, thanks in large part to some of the best mechanics in recent gaming. Swinging around the city remains an absolute delight, and the fluid fighting really makes you feel like a superhero. The new web wings give you another new way to navigate Manhattan and its boroughs, and getting your hands on the fabled symbiote suit opens up yet another new set of battle mechanics. Similarly, the open world map feels vibrant and alive, with tons to do when you’re ready to give the main story a break.

Naturally, the symbiote also takes center stage in the storytelling, as Kraven the hunter gives way to Venom throughout the game as the two main villains you’ll contend with. It makes sense to have two main baddies since there are two Spider-Men in this game, OG Peter Parker as well as his new protege Miles Morales. Each Spider-Man gets plenty of story development and heroic action sequences, and the roster of supporting characters has been fleshed out as well.

Ultimately, Spider-Man 2 is pretty easy to sum up. It’s just plain fun, with a great story, delightful mechanics and a wonderfully detailed NYC to explore. Whether or not you played the original game, it’s easy to get sucked right into this one and feel like a superhero. — Nathan Ingraham, Deputy News Editor

Moonstone Island

Moonstone Island asks the question, “what if Stardew Valley, but with Pokémon?” It’s the same kind of farming and dating sim you know and love, but with turn-based battles instead of manually swinging a pickaxe. Any creature you encounter can be captured and forced to fight in your stead, and there’s an element-based weakness mechanic pulled straight from Nintendo’s iconic pocket monsters.

They already had me with that Stardew meets Pokémon hook, but the developers didn’t stop there. This is a legitimate open world game with a large map that resembles the sky islands from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. There are dozens upon dozens of these islands and I had an absolute blast sequence breaking my way to dangerous locations in the early parts of the game, only to have my butt handed to me by high-level monsters. That’s my jam, right there.

I also love the art style and, in particular, the NPCs. The romanceable characters here are top-tier and, in my opinion, more interesting than rival farming sims. I want to be friends with the blacksmith Ferra and town scientist Zed. However, my heart belongs to the punk rock herbalist Gaiana. If anyone messes with Gaiana, they are gonna get a visit from a trio of level 99 Pikachus, er, I mean Capacibees. — Lawrence Bonk

Not finishing games

Finish a videogame? In this attention economy?! I honestly couldn’t tell you the last time that I actually made it to a game’s end credits. For as much as I enjoy the PS5 games I buy, there’s inevitably some real-life commitment that draws me away from them, or an unconquerable in-game skill challenge that saps my interest. Doesn't matter if it’s an indie like the therapeutically smashy Dysmantle or a AAA adventure franchise like Horizon and Assassins Creed — don’t even get me started on Seikiro or Elden Ring — I will invariably get bored at some point before the final boss and wander off towards whatever new shiny title comes out next.

As such, my 2023 GOTY is a toss up between Armored Core 6 and Baldur’s Gate 3, having played roughly the first half of each (multiple times, in BG3’s case). Sure, one is a frantic shooter pitting players against superior armed forces in high speed mobile gun battles, and the other is an inclusive high fantasy dating sim wrapped in an epic adventure RPG. They both offer me an opportunity to tinker, futz, fiddle and otherwise experiment with the physical rules and social mores of the in-game universe without demanding I clear the endgame content first.

In this way, every game becomes a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game (my absolute favorite genre growing up) and I get to assuage the FOMO anxiety I experience while playing titles with linear storylines. I’m not reverting to a previous save because I realize I messed up an earlier quest or accidentally closed off a storyline, I’m reloading just so I can figure out what all the other buttons and switches I didn’t push and pull also do. I find that freeing. There’s no pressure to “get it right,” only the opportunity to see what might happen.

Between AC6’s mission-based format and the ease at which I can manage save instances in BG3, I can load up any scenario I’ve played so far and try it again differently — maybe see how well an energy weapon-based loadout would work or what would happen if I fought with different companions or modified spell lists. Even though I know that there is a climactic endgame struggle (that the dev team worked really hard to produce) to get to and all the new game+ rewards that come with beating it, neither title really pressures me into getting there.

If I want to go off on a tangent and try my hand at pickpocketing an entire town, I absolutely can — then Groundhog Day the timeline back to before I started and do it all again, this time maybe wearing a different hat. Each gives me the flexibility to interact with their content as I have time and interest. — Andrew Tarantola, Senior Reporter

NYT Connections

New York Times

Wordle, the little word game that could, took over the first half of 2022. Every day, we had a new puzzle to look forward to — and potential bragging rights that would connect us with friends, family and strangers on the internet. Though Wordle fever subsided in 2023, my thirst for a daily word game remained. Yes, I could keep playing Wordle, but just one game wasn’t enough. Even as a subscriber and active user of the New York Times’ Games app, I needed more.

I didn’t want something as time-consuming as the full crossword each day, nor something as involved as getting to the Genius level on Spelling Bee. I wanted to be done in 5 minutes or less, which is why Wordle and the daily Mini crossword were perfect. In June, the New York Times introduced Connections, and it hit that sweet spot of being challenging enough to engage my brain but remaining casual enough that I didn’t need to derail my work day to finish it.

Connections’ mechanics are simple. Every day, you’re presented with sixteen tiles, each containing a word. You have to group those words into four sets of four based on what they have in common. And, like the app cautions, these categories are always more specific than “5-letter words” or “names” or “verbs.” At first, the game was straightforward and almost too easy. A few weeks in, though, and I’ve found the puzzles can get challenging, thanks to devious setups. For example, one time the grid included words like “Apple,” “Dell” and “Intel,” which tricked my tech-obsessed brain into thinking they were company brand names. It turned out that they belonged to other groups like “Synonyms for information” or “Fruit,” instead.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that Connections isn’t a unique idea that the New York Times thought up. Various iterations of a similar word game have existed before. Redditors pointed out its likeness to an app called Red Herring, while the host of a British television quiz show called Only Connect asked if the Times was aware “this has been a TV show in the UK since 2008?”

Sadly, though, if not for the Times adding Connections to its slate of word games, I would never have come across Red Herring. And because so many of the puzzles I play daily are in the NYT Games app, it’s much easier to check out all of them in the same place instead of installing a new app.

My daily routine now involves opening NYT Games, finishing Wordle, Connections, the Mini crossword, getting the Pangram on Spelling Bee and then bragging to anyone who will listen. That way, I feel like I’m giving my brain a bit of fun exercise before I drag my attention to my inbox or Slack for the real work of the day. — Cherlynn Low, Deputy Reviews Editor

Pizza Tower

The best “Nintendo platformer” of the year didn’t involve Mario, Kirby or Donkey Kong. It wasn’t even made by Nintendo. Instead, it stars a balding pizza chef named Peppino Spaghetti, and its development was led by a guy who goes by the pseudonym McPig. It’s called Pizza Tower — and while you could crudely describe it as “Wario Land 4 on cocaine,” it is one of the most refreshing and joyously creative games I’ve played in recent memory.

I waxed poetic about Pizza Tower in a write-up earlier this year, so go read that for a more complete picture. The big thing is that it understands how every platformer is fundamentally about movement. For a platformer to be fun, that movement needs to grab you from the off, then give you the space to explore where it could go. Mario games know this. Sonic games often forget that last part. Pizza Tower gets it right. Little Peppino dashes like a freight train teetering off the tracks, slamming through (not around) every enemy and obstacle in sight. You can Do Poorly, but you can’t die, so you have freedom to push the limits. It’s a constant kinetic thrill.

But it’s more than that. In that charming Nintendo way, every level in Pizza Tower presents new ideas, so it never gets stale. The music is incredible. The animation is both grotesque and immediately expressive. (How many other games look like this?) The boss fights actually respect you. The ending sequence might be the best I’ve played in a decade. It all makes for a game with a distinct sense of character and identity; it has clear inspirations, but it’s not pastiche. It is completely in tune with itself, both in aesthetics and design. And it’s fun as hell. — Jeff Dunn

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Jedi: Survivor is a game that the best sequels aspire to be. It improves on every single aspect of the original and pushes its systems to new heights while introducing many others that only enhance the base game. Like the greats of Mass Effect 2, Assassins Creed 2, Half-Life 2, Portal 2, Jedi: Survivor never stops upping the ante and pushing what a game like this can achieve.

In an age where there is far too much Star Wars content for any normal human to consume, from movies, TV, books, etc. Jedi: Survivor represents an experience you can hop into with only knowledge from Fallen Order at your disposal, and even that can be recapped for you in a nice short video within Jedi: Survivor itself. Your experience will only be further improved by a greater knowledge of the Star Wars landscape, new and old, but it isn’t a prerequisite to have a great time with this game.

The story of Cal Kestis and his group of rebels grows larger and makes the universe and world you inhabit feel big in a way the first game didn’t. The souls-like combat of the first game returns here and is improved upon in every conceivable way. The Jedi power fantasy that I’ve always dreamed about in Star Wars games has finally been realized within Jedi: Survivor. Many times I ended a fight in a flurry of saber swings and force powers and resolved feeling like I could conquer the world. There’s one sequence in particular involving a towering Imperial walker that is one of the most exhilarating and well-executed set piece moments in gaming since the days of Uncharted 2’s campaign. I had to put the controller down for 10 minutes after just to sit in awe and process what I had seen Respawn pull off.

At the core of Jedi: Survivor is a story and experience that feels more emotionally deep and original than Fallen Order did. Respawn hits their stride with this game from a writing and especially performance perspective that makes its best characters shine and its most impactful story moments hit that much harder. By the end, you’ll be pining for the conclusion to the trilogy in a way that few Star Wars properties have been able to elicit in years. — Justin Vachon

Super Mario Bros. Wonder

There are a few sure things when it comes to me and Mario games: I prefer 2D over 3D, and Super Mario World is my all-time favorite. As such, Super Mario Wonder was high on my list of games to try this year — the first new side-scrolling Mario game in over a decade. And while I really enjoyed the “new” Super Mario Bros. entries for the Wii and Wii U, those games were also a little too slavishly devoted to Mario’s past. Not so with Super Mario Wonder.

Between the entirely redesigned and more involved character animations (Mario grabbing his cap when he goes through a pipe is particularly cute) and wild level designs that feel entirely unique to the series, Super Mario Wonder feels like the first side-scrolling Mario game to really do something new in decades. That’s largely thanks to the Wonder flowers that twist every single stage into a psychedelic version of itself, but the level design is inspired even before you find that flower.

Nintendo also shook up the overall world map a bit, letting you pick your way through stages instead of putting you on a mostly linear path. And as you’re in the Flower Kingdom, not the familiar Mushroom Kingdom, there’s a lot more variety in the themes for each world. (No, world two isn’t the desert this time!) There are plenty of familiar enemies — what would a Mario game be without red and green Koopa Troopas? — but almost every level has a particular baddie that requires you to reshape your approach. And the badge system is a great take on the familiar power-ups, letting you choose a boost best suited to either the stage you’re on or the way you like to play the game. Also, Elephant Mario!

I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of what makes Super Mario Wonder work so well, but hopefully it’s sufficient to say that it’s Nintendo at its best and most creative. That’s something I didn’t expect to see in a Mario game again. I can see myself playing Wonder for the next 30 years or so, just like I’ve played Super Mario World for the last 30 years. — Nathan Ingraham

Tchia

Tchia was the right game at the right time for me. As I sailed toward the sunset on a makeshift raft with rousing music filling my ears, I was filled with a sense of calm that I’d been seeking for quite some time. That was my favorite moment of any game this year, but the rest of Tchia isn't exactly lacking.

You play as a young girl who scours a New Caledonia-inspired archipelago in search of her kidnapped father in this open-world exploration game. While titles like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom aim to push the boundaries of the genre, Tchia is content to stay in its lane, albeit with some mechanics that provide plenty of opportunity to play as you wish.

Tchia can transform into a variety of fauna and inanimate objects thanks to her soul jumping ability. After you unlock the ability to summon a bird, you can take to the skies from almost anywhere in mere seconds. Each animal you can jump into has an ability, such as dogs digging, sharks biting and birds, uh, pooping.

There's not much in the way of combat. The only enemies you'll encounter are monsters made of fabric, and you'll need to use elements such as fire to dispose of them. But I didn't have a problem with that. Tchia is far more about the notion of discovery than slashing away at countless baddies.

This seems like a perfect introduction to open-world adventures for younger gamers out there. While there are some fairly bleak plot points, Tchia is a real charmer. It's an ideal length too, as a playthrough will take between around six and eight hours unless you go hunting for all the secrets and collectibles. Or you decide to spend a few extra hours simply sailing around these beautiful islands. — Kris Holt

It's Christmas Eve Eve, so I've phoned in this week's TMA and shouted "Lost In Space!" to myself. What a time to be alive. I'm also stoking the flames of the console wars in 2023. Yes, Sony announced its sold 50 million PS5 consoles so far. Xbox doesn't offer its own official figures (because of this eventuality?) but analysts say, during this year, Sony outsold Microsoft consoles three to one. 

There's also an outright ban on Apple Watches — at least the two newest models — over patent issues. Apple needs President Biden himself to turn the ban around, but it doesn't look like he will before the ruling come into power. 

This week:

⌚️⛔️ The Apple Watch ban is here

🤳🧑🏽‍🔧 Samsung adds foldables to its self-repair program for the first time

🎮🕹️ Sony has sold 50 million PS5 consoles over three years

And read this these:

We're wrapping up our year with a barrage of features and editorials on the year that was 2023. Want to know how X declined and declined and declined? How about the sudden pause on autonomous taxis and the many disasters in the last 12 months? Or how about a year of layoffs and acquisitions across a lot of gaming industry? There are more stories, of course, but you'll have to wait for next week to read those.

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Insomniac Games has weighed in publicly for the first time since hackers leaked over 1.3 million of the publisher’s private files. The studio posted on X (Twitter) that it’s “saddened and angered” by the cyberattack, describing the internal aftermath as “extremely distressing.” Insomniac indirectly alluded to the publication of gameplay footage from an upcoming Wolverine game, assuring fans that “Marvel’s Wolverine continues as planned.”

The publisher began by thanking supportive fans, many of whom rallied around the hacking victim in the thread’s comments, before relaying the burden the cyberattack inflicted on its employees. “We’re both saddened and angered about the recent criminal cyberattack on our studio and the emotional toll it’s taken on our dev team,” the studio wrote. “We have focused inwardly for the last several days to support each other.”

Insomniac acknowledged some of the stolen content currently making the rounds on social media and the dark web. “We are aware that the stolen data includes personal information belonging to our employees, former employees, and independent contractors,” it posted. “It also includes early development details about Marvel’s Wolverine for PlayStation 5. We continue working quickly to determine what data was impacted.”

The Rhysida ransomware group took credit for the attack, claiming to have infiltrated Insomniac within 20 to 25 minutes, according to the group’s statement to cyberdaily.au. The hackers threatened to publish the stolen content if Insomniac, Sony or anyone else refused to pay its $2 million ransom. The group suggested that some data was sold, and the public dump allegedly comprised 98 percent of the complete set.

In addition to the Wolverine gameplay, the leak included files from Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, internal HR documents (including I-9 employment forms and termination docs), screenshots from Insomniac’s Slack channels and the contents of several employees’ PCs.

“This experience has been extremely distressing for us,” Insomniac wrote. “We want everyone to enjoy the games we develop as intended and as our players deserve.”

Insomniac alluded to its leaked protagonist to signal durability. “Like Logan...Insomniac is resilient,” the publisher posted. “Marvel’s Wolverine continues as planned. The game is in early production and will no doubt greatly evolve throughout development, as do all our plans.”

While it's a bit too late to receive most gifts in time for Christmas, there are still a handful of good gadget deals floating around if you're shopping for yourself. If you need a new laptop today, for instance, multiple configurations of the 13-inch MacBook Air are $200 off Apple's list price. The 15-inch Air, meanwhile, is available for as low as $999, a $300 discount. A bundle of Apple's AirTags is down to $79, while a pack of Tile trackers is down to $50. The Xbox Series X is still $150 off, and the major video game storefronts have kicked off their annual winter sales, with sweeping discounts across Steam, the Nintendo eShop, the PlayStation Store and the Microsoft Store. We're also seeing price drops on recommended gaming mice, wall chargers, wireless earbuds and more. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.

A configuration of the 13.6-inch MacBook Air with an Apple M2 chip, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD is down to $1,299 at B&H. That's $200 off Apple's list price. If you can live with less storage and memory, a variant with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD is also $200 off at $899. A version of the 15.3-inch Air with the same specs, meanwhile, is $300 off and down to an all-time low of $999. The M2 MacBook Air is the top pick in our guide to the best laptops, and both models earned a score of 96 in their respective reviews.

That said, you should only grab one of these if you need a notebook right away, as a recent report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that Apple plans to launch updated MacBook Airs in the coming months. If you absolutely can't wait, however, the current models remain supremely well-built and should perform well for everyday tasks for years to come.

If you want a more affordable desktop PC, the M2 Mac mini is also on sale for an all-time low of $479. That's about $30 off its usual street price, though, again, it's likely just a matter of time until we see a refresh with Apple's new M3 chip.

It's a great time to pick up a new video game, as Steam, Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox have all kicked off their respective holiday sales. There are simply too many deals for us to list them all here, but one highlight is Baldur's Gate 3 for $54. That's only $6 off its usual price, but it's the first discount to date for the recent game of the year winner and recommendation in our guide to the best couch co-op games. The PS5 version of the RPG is also on sale for $63, another 10 percent discount.

Beyond that, other notables include the sweeping open-world RPG Elden Ring for $36, the stylish roguelike Hades for $12.49 and the superb 3D platformers Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury for $35. Mass Effect Legendary Edition, which compiles three classic action-RPGs, is available for just $6, while Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which includes six entries in the Xbox's premier FPS series, is back down to $10. A few more personal recommendations: the all-time great puzzler Portal 2 for a buck, the frantic 2D platformer Pizza Tower for $15, the wonderfully kinetic FPS Titanfall 2 for $4 and the ultra-stylish third-person shooter Max Payne 3 for $6. Outside of these sales, the intense mech-action game Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is down to a new low of $40 at Amazon.

There are hundreds more deals beyond those, so it's worth perusing the sales for yourself if you're looking to pad your backlog. (Use sites like Deku Deals and IsThereAnyDeal to ensure you're getting a good price.) All of these promos will run into 2024, so even if you don't want anything right now, you'll have time to apply any gift cards you may receive over the holidays. PC gamers should note that the Epic Games Store is still running its holiday sale, which includes a recurring 33 percent coupon that makes many games cheaper than they are on Steam and other storefronts.

The Apple AirTag is the top pick for iPhone owners in our Bluetooth tracker buying guide, as it can utilize Apple's giant Find My device network to locate lost items with impressive accuracy. Right now you can get a single AirTag for $24, which is $6 off Apple's list price, or a four-pack for $79, which is $20 off. The former is about $1 off the lowest price we've tracked; the latter is a deal we've seen for much of the past few weeks, but it still comes within $5 of its all-time low. Just be aware that you'll need an extra accessory or two if you want to attach an AirTag to a particular item, as it lacks any keyring holes or built-in adhesive. These deals are available at several retailers, including Amazon, Walmart and Best Buy.

Tile's trackers are among the better AirTag alternatives for Android users, and right now a four-pack that includes two Tile Mates, a Tile Slim and a Tile Sticker is down to a new low of $50. Normally, this bundle costs about $75. Tile's devices generally aren't as precise as AirTags, but its feature set is mostly similar and its crowd-finding network is still decently large. The varying designs here are more convenient, too — you can easily slip a Tile Slim into a wallet and attach a Tile Mate to a keyring without any third-party accessories. None of these devices have replaceable batteries, however, and Tile locks separation alerts (which let you know when you've travelled too far from a tracked item) behind a subscription fee.

The Xbox Series X is still $150 off and down to $350 at Best Buy, Walmart and Target, though the latter two may require in-store pickup. If those offers run dry, you can still get a bundle that pairs the console with the action-RPG Diablo IV for $50 more. While the console briefly dipped to $340 earlier this week, these are still nice entry points to Microsoft's highest-end game console, which can play many games at a steady 4K/60 fps. The hardware also includes a disc drive, unlike the lower-cost Xbox Series S. And while the Xbox library is a bit light on top-tier exclusives, it still includes a diverse range of games we like. There's a chance Microsoft launches an all-digital Series X refresh at some point in 2024, but the existing model is an easier buy at this price.

The Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 3 is down to $60 at Amazon and Target, which is a little more than $20 off the compact portable speaker's typical street price. To sweeten the deal, both retailers are throwing in $10 of store credit alongside the purchase. That'll come in the form of an e-gift card at Target, while Amazon says it'll apply the credit to your account 30 days after shipment. We recommend the Wonderboom 3 in our guide to the best portable Bluetooth speakers, praising its rugged, waterproof design and punchy-for-the-size sound quality. Battery life should last between 14 and 20 hours depending on how much you crank the volume.

The Razer Basilisk V3 is on sale for $40 at Amazon, Target and Best Buy, a $10 discount that matches the deal price we saw on Black Friday. This is the top pick in our gaming mouse buying guide. It's not especially light at 100 grams, but it performs reliably, and its sturdy, contoured shape should be comfortable for any grip type. It comes with 11 customizable buttons, and its scroll wheel is impressively versatile, as it can tilt left or right and utilize a free spin mode for faster scrolling. Though the design looks "gamer-y," its RGB lighting isn't overly aggressive, either.

The Anker 735 Charger is down to $30 at Amazon, which is about $10 off its typical street price. This is a fairly compact wall charger with two USB-C ports and a USB-A port. It can supply up to 65W of power, which is enough to refill many smartphones at full speed and charge some smaller laptops. If you need more juice, the Anker 736 Charger is a bit larger but can deliver up to 100W; that one is $15 off and down to $45 with an on-page coupon.

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are back on sale for $249 at several retailers, which isn't an all-time low but still takes $50 off the pair's usual going rate. It also ties the deal we saw on Black Friday. The QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds earned a score of 88 in our review this past September, and they're currently the "best for noise cancellation" pick in our wireless earbuds buying guide. If you just want the strongest active noise cancellation (ANC) possible in a true wireless form factor, they're better at muting the outside world than any earbuds we've tested. Their default sound goes heavy on the bass, which should please fans of hip-hop and EDM, but you can customize the EQ curve if needed. The design is on the larger side, however, and their battery life and call quality are just OK. 

Sony's WF-1000XM5, the top pick in our guide, is currently available for a dollar less, though that discount has been available for most of the past two months. The WF-10000XM5 is still a more well-rounded option on the whole, but the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds' ANC is more adept at muting low-end noises like the rumble of a plane or bus engine.

The Beats Fit Pro is the "best for workouts" pick in our wireless earbuds guide, and it's now on sale for $160 at Amazon, Walmart and others. We've seen this deal several times in the past year, but it's a decent $20 less than the pair's typical street price. The Fit Pro packs many of the Apple-friendly conveniences of the AirPods Pro — hands-free Siri, easy pairing and audio switching, spatial audio, etc. — in a sportier and more stable design. It sounds nice, too, plus it uses physical buttons instead of touch controls. That said, it lacks wireless charging, it can't connect to multiple devices simultaneously and its ANC can't really touch the better options on the market. We gave the Fit Pro a score of 87 in our review. A few other Beats models are also on sale, including the more basic Studio Buds for $80.

The 55-inch version of Hisense's U6K TV is back down to $350 at Amazon and Best Buy, tying the all-time low we saw around Black Friday. Normally, it retails for $50 to $100 more. Though we don't review TVs at Engadget, the U6K has received positive reviews from other sites we trust for delivering better-than-usual picture quality for a budget-level TV. It's one of the few sets in this price range to use mini-LED backlighting, quantum dots and full-array local dimming, which collectively improve its color volume and contrast performance. Reviews say it can't get as bright as more expensive models, so it won't be great for HDR content, and its image will wash out when viewed from an angle. It's also not ideal for gaming, as it's stuck at a basic 60Hz refresh rate and lacks HDMI 2.1 ports. But if you don't have tons of cash to burn, it should provide strong value.

If you're willing to pay a little extra and don't mind dropping down to a 48-inch TV, the LG A2 is also worth noting at its current price of $550 at Best Buy. This is another deal we've seen numerous times, but it ties the best price we've tracked. The A2 is LG's entry-level OLED TV from 2022, but simply being an OLED set means it produces superior contrast, bolder colors, wider viewing angles and smoother motion than most options in this price range. It can't get especially bright, so it's best suited away from glare, and like the U6K it lacks HDMI 2.1 features for gaming like VRR. Still, it should be a nice step-up option for smaller or secondary rooms. 

The 8BitDo Ultimate Bluetooth Controller is on sale for $56 at Best Buy. That's a few bucks higher than the lowest price we've tracked but still $14 off the device's typical going rate. The Ultimate Bluetooth Controller is a comfortable and deeply customizable wireless gamepad for Switch and PC that we've highlighted before. The big advantage it has over most official controllers is its Hall effect joysticks, which use magnets to read inputs instead of contact-based potentiometers. That means it should be less susceptible to wear over time and avoid the dreaded “stick drift” we often see with traditional gamepads. An accurate d-pad, a nifty charging dock and a pair of customizable back buttons are all nice to have as well.

The latest Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet is on sale for $90, which is $10 more than the all-time low we saw on Black Friday but still $50 off its usual going rate. At this price, the Fire HD 10 is one of the better values for those who just want a cheap slate for media consumption. Its 10.1-inch 1080p display is decently sharp and bright, its battery lasts a solid 10-ish hours per charge and it performs fine for simple web browsing and video streaming. This model only comes with 32GB of storage, but you can expand that with a microSD card. Its matte plastic design is still a far cry from an iPad's build quality, and Amazon's Fire OS is still a bit of a mess, with lock-screen ads, a limited app store and a general tendency to push you toward the company's own services. But if you really can't spend more than $100 on a new tablet, the Fire HD 10 should be an acceptable compromise. 

The 32-inch Samsung Smart Monitor M80C is back down to $400 at Amazon, B&H and other retailers. That's a roughly $100 discount and the best price we've seen outside of education-related special offers. This is one of the more versatile monitors on the market, as it comes with the Tizen platform you'd find on Samsung's smart TVs built-in. This allows the device to access various streaming services without having to connect to a PC. It's a decent 4K monitor in its own right, with a VA panel that delivers high contrast, though it's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate and will look washed out from an angle. You'd buy it for the extra functionality first: Apart from the built-in app support, it can function as a smart home hub, it supports Apple AirPlay and it works with both Alexa and Bixby. There are built-in speakers and a dedicated webcam as well.

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Tesla has issued a second recall in the US in as many weeks. This time around, it's recalling 120,423 Model S and X vehicles made between 2021 and 2023 due to an issue that may result in an unlocked door unlatching and opening during a crash. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), this increases the risk of injury and means that the EVs fail to comply with a federal safety regulation. The automaker has already issued a free over-the-air (OTA) update to resolve the problem and owner notification letters are expected to go out in February.

Earlier this month, Tesla recalled more than 2 million EVs over Autopilot safety concerns. The company issued a free OTA update with features that aim to make sure drivers are paying attention while using the system.