2024 was a very yin-and-yang affair for the film and gaming industry. As some of the greatest stories in the last year–dare I say some of the best of the decade–the game industry faced mass layoffs as the film industry faced low box office turnout all year. Much of what’s affecting both industries is tied to the after-effects of the pandemic, as fewer and fewer people are spending their weekdays at home. Game companies, amidst mass mergers and purchases, haven’t reaped their rewards from their opportunistic endeavors, with many hoping–borderline assuming–that gaming would continue the upward trend the pandemic started. Naturally, those trends were not feasible, and now the employees, not the companies themselves, are paying the price. The film industry faced a similar cycle in 2023 and throughout 2024, as guilds went on strike to earn better wages and benefits from their employers.
It hasn’t been an easy few years, to say the least. However, attention turns back to those who thrive despite those challenges, with genre-defining games, movies, and TV shows having time in the spotlight throughout 2024. Naturally, when there are so many to discover, some get left on the table. So here are some things left on my massive backlog, in no particular order that I didn’t have the time for but look forward to experiencing in the future.
Studio Trigger is one of the best and most ambitious production companies to come out of Japan in the last decade. Known for their high quality, over-the-top animation, it should come to no one’s surprise that they took on one of my earliest additions from 2024, Delicious in Dungeon. The series is a charming fantasy adventure following a diverse party traversing a deeply crafted world filled with dungeons to explore and monsters to eat (hence the name). The anime is oozing with immersive storytelling, from the characters to the world and the narrative. It was the best anime of the year for a while, but another anime came along and took its crown (and people’s hearts)...
Take everything Delicious in Dungeon achieved, and crank the craziness in scope and animation up to 11. That’s what Dandadan is, unafraid to be incredibly entertaining for a wider audience. Its art style plays into this, oozing with color and personality, and makes the anime stand out from its contemporaries. Best of all: the protagonists fight their way through aliens and the supernatural, all because they initially want to prove each other’s obsessions of the sort to be fraudulent.
My favorite part about the game is the UI…which makes sense considering I’m also a graphic designer. However, my second favorite part about Pacific Drive is that it combines two of my biggest passions, cars and adventure narratives, and becomes the one thing long thought impossible. You survive by upgrading your car and exploring the Exclusion Zone, a supernatural iteration of the Pacific Northwest. This game has an eerie retro-futuristic vibe and allures many, myself included, to it.
2024 provided two of the best video game adaptations made full-stop—both ironically starring Ella Purnell in a leading role. One was a sequel to one of the greatest narratives ever told and based on one of the biggest multiplayer games on the planet. The other was Fallout, an adaptation of a popular single-player narrative franchise covering the what-if scenario of a post-nuclear apocalypse. Both stories tackle their material differently, but the creators behind each are exceptional creatives who understand the material they adapt. They enlisted the directing and writing prowess of Christopher Nolan’s brother, Jonathan Nolan, so it was almost an expectation that the series would be exceptional for newcomers and longtime fans.
For those who read what games defined May 2024, you’d know that I have a vengeful personal connection to this game. I had the original Gamecube version up until moving houses several years ago, and I have been unable to find it since, despite being sure it was never disposed of. Fast forward to this past year, and Nintendo brought the best Paper Mario game in the series onto the Switch with a fresh coat of paint. It is incredible how Nintendo can put games of this graphical quality onto an underpowered seven-year-old handheld system, and it has as much fidelity and charm as it did twenty-plus years ago. Should I have paid a full $60 for my struggles? Absolutely not, but out of spite, I did it anyway. One day, that sixty-dollar investment will pay dividends…and hopefully reveal my long-lost Gamecube copy.
1000xRESIST was one of the many, many games I demoed in the last couple of years. Interestingly, what I played wasn’t inherently interesting or captivating, but I acknowledged that it was a strong start to something great. Fast forward to now, and the game is one of 2024's most acclaimed games, showing that the opening to the game I experienced in the demo was just a sample of the game’s scope and execution. It spans multiple characters and timeframes, uncovering the mystery behind what has been and what will be. It’s incredibly futuristic, thus making it all the more immersive.
Until Then is another game I have demoed in the last couple of years, and I greatly enjoyed it. The character writing felt natural and well-delivered, the mystery it built up was intriguing, and the way those elements intersected made for a narrative to look forward to experiencing. It also has a 3D/2D-pixel art style, which always pulls me into games, good or bad. Unfortunately, I have not played it yet, but it will continue to mock me until I decide to boot it up.
I was familiar with the developer’s previous work, How Fish Is Made, and knew they would tackle a fleshed-out game to much fanfare. Fast forward to its release, and my intuition served me well. They made a deep-rooted narrative about a space crew lost in space with an endless supply of mouthwash. It’s strange, it's psychological, and it’s a grand old time. It also features the low-poly art style that’s gained traction recently and rivals my love for pixel art.
A post-apocalypse, a dystopia, and science fiction. Those are the signifying attributes of George Miller’s Mad Max franchise. Its allure is hard to break free from, especially if you enjoy some or all of its attributes, but what makes it such a pivotal watch in modern-day cinema is how Miller has returned to a franchise he left behind him decades ago with even more flair and action. Furiosa is the latest installment in the franchise, acting as a prequel to 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road. Contrary to the previous film’s success, Furiosa did not make a good economic impression, which is a shame when it was just as remarkable as its precursor.
Here it is. The highest-rated game of 2024…and for good reason. Take everything people love about modern Mario platformers (which the lead developer even admitted was a source of inspiration), then make it even more immersive and tactile. It works wonders for the player’s experience, and its acclaim supports that argument. However, another game from 2024 rivals Astro Bot’s level of quality…
ATLUS is well known for its Persona series, an immersive dungeon-crawler that grew in popularity for its exemplary character writing, vibrant settings, and incredibly detailed imagery. However, the team applied their expertise with the like to a rich and immersive narrative, featuring themes of racism, classism, and poverty in a fantasy setting. Fortunately, their approach didn’t diminish their impeccable turn-based combat and vibrant imagery, making this one of the developer’s most well-rounded games in their portfolio and one of 2024’s best all-around picks.
If one game wasn’t enough…how about fifty? In fact, how about you play fifty games detailing a game company that never actually existed, traveling through their software’s development in quality and genre? That’s what UFO 50 is all about. It’s fascinating to see how consistent in quality each game is and each pays dividends to the larger concept the game incorporates. If you love older and retro-inspired 8- and 16-bit games, add this to the backlog…or whatever your equivalent is.
Full disclosure: I am not a fan of horror movies. The only iterations I can “stomach” are psychological horror films, but even with those I have to be in the right mood. However, Heretic is the first capital-H horror movie that has intrigued me narratively without scaring me away from its horrific tendencies. Hugh Grant’s monologues are incredibly well-delivered and provide a taste of what the film tries to say to its audience. If I ever decide to break out of my animation, science fiction, or fight sequence mold, Heretic will be one of the first I breach.
I have been a fan of creator Tim Miller’s previous anthology series, Love, Death + Robots, and grew immediately interested in checking out his latest iteration of the formula after it was teased at Gamescom 2024. The series takes some of the most well-known and relevant video game characters and franchises and gives them a unique twist. Adapting video games to the big or silver screen has proven difficult, as only the best and brightest creatives have accomplished the challenge in recent years. This latest addition seems to be a mixed bag, relying on nostalgia and visual fidelity over narrative substance. However, what it does remains entertaining and visually striking, much like Love, Death + Robots had when it wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
Matt Reeves’s The Batman was one of my favorite 2022 releases, and I was excited to see what a spin-off series would look like. Unfortunately, I never got the itch to find out, but seeing the love and acclaim it’s garnered since its release makes me hopeful that I will enjoy the series as much as I loved The Batman. Colin Farrell is also a fantastic actor working in the industry, and makes for a foreboding, albeit unconventional, Penguin. I haven’t seen many gangster stories (if at all), but wouldn’t it be fitting to start with material I already love and am invested in?
© Creative Insight 2024
