Over the next eight days, Hardcore Gamer will be revealing its Best of 2024 Awards leading up to our Game of the Year. Today we present you with the Best Expansion, Developer, Worst and Most Disappointing Game.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
FromSoftware isn’t one to shy away from downloadable content, but this was one of the biggest expansions they’ve ever released by a significant margin. It features a huge array of new weapons, a vast new open world to explore, new and exciting dungeons, and of course some of the most-challenging bosses you’ll ever see in a Souls-like game. It’s not without its faults as some of the more intricate dungeons and castle-like locations have been pushed to the wayside in favor of the open world, but there’s just so much in this that it rivals most full-fledged RPG releases. Even if you haven’t finished Elden Ring, the amount of content and lore added to it with Shadow of the Erdtree is enough for you to jump in. It’s one of the best expansions ever released, and being that it’s attached to an immaculate experience like Elden Ring only enhances the experience.
Runner-Ups
Alan Wake 2: Night Springs
World of Warcraft: The War Within
Persona 3 Reload: Episode Aigis - The Answer
Vampire Survivors: Ode to Castlevania
Team ASOBI
Astro Bot didn’t have to be as good as it was. Then again, neither did any of their past titles. That’s how you know that Team ASOBI truly cares about what they put out. They went above and beyond what anyone expected of them, even by fans of Astro’s Playroom. From the vast open worlds of each level and the ever-groovy soundtrack to the small hardware bits on platforms or in-depth references to underrated PlayStation gems, the amount of attention to detail and care from the team was impeccable. Just like in the film/TV industry, you can tell just how much fun they had crafting Astro Bot as well as knowing just how much that little bot, alongside all those PlayStation/PlayStation-adjacent franchises, meant to fans. All that, wrapped up with incredible platforming akin to the legendary Super Mario 64, Team ASOBI has officially become one of PlayStation’s best first-party studios. Keep up the great work and never lose sight of Astro (he may wander off to another planet).
Game Science
Square Enix Creative Business Unit I
Rocksteady rose to fame by making players feel like the Batman. Across three games, Rocksteady successfully built a Batman universe that both stood on its own and served as a love letter to the character’s long, rich history. That beloved world came crashing down in 2024 with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. What the Batman Arkham games did so well was thrown out the window for generic live service shooter storytelling and mechanics. Suicide Squad, outside of maybe Deadshot, didn’t bother making it feel like you were truly playing as any of its iconic characters. It wasn’t interested in telling a well-crafted story with a strong beginning, middle and end, but instead rushing to a never-ending, unsatisfying finale meant to keep the game going forever. Gameplay devolved from the strategic free-flow system to generic shooting with the busiest and ugliest UI seen yet in a live service title. Metropolis may have been pretty to look at, but it lacked any of the personality or character that defined Arkham Asylum, Arkham City or Gotham City. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League should have been a slam dunk for Rocksteady. What we got was yet another generic live service title, one more concerned with keeping players forever over giving them another memorable experience in the Arkhamverse. After Suicide Squad’s excellent tease in Batman: Arkham Origins, what we ended up getting was nothing but a disappointment.
Dragon’s Dogma 2
Star Wars Outlaws
Life is Strange: Double Exposure
Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection
Silent Hill: The Short Message
In contrast to the absolute trainwrecks that have won this award in the past, this year’s crop of bad games were just…well, a more “regular” flavor of bad, which made things more challenging this year in gathering nominees. Still, Silent Hill: The Short Message stood out as the winner, ironically in a year where a remake of one of the franchise’s best games was considered a massive highlight. But if the Silent Hill 2 remake was a superb take on the past, then The Short Message has us worried about the possible future for Silent Hill. Even for a free two-hour game, there was no excusing the flaws on display here: dull and unimaginative gameplay, a cliché-loaded story that wallows in “shocking” bits of trauma concerning its characters, and perhaps worst of all, it commits one of the greatest sins for a horror game: having insta-kill chase sequences where failure turns what should be frightening moments into ones that are instead aggravating and annoying. Heck, the lone connection it even has to the titular town can be missed entirely. It’s a low point for Silent Hill best worth skipping entirely.
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead
South Park: Snow Day
Funko Fusion
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