Most-anticipated games of 2024

All other video games not related to the main farming series - Pokemon, Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, and other indie-developed games.
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Kikki
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I'm behind on gaming news again. The one thing Twitter was good for! (But not so good that I could put up with that place any more. It was almost too wretched a place to spend any time in before it changed ownership.)

Anyway! I'm sure I've missed a lot of gaming news. I only have a pitiful 3 games left on my entire 2024 watchlist, and that just can't be right. (Though I also have a theory, which is that people just aren't as excited about games these days. Including me. Mental health is in serious crisis across the board, and one of the first symptoms of depression is gradually losing interest in most of the things you used to love.)

So, my anticipated games are these ones:

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is currently my most closely-watched upcoming game. (The release date is currently set to October 10th.) I'm also interested in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, but it will be PS5 exclusive for a while, so it's off my radar for that reason. (My radar may zero in on it again when/if it hits Steam, if it's possible to play it via Steam Deck. It'll almost definitely hit Steam, but no guarantee it'll be playable on Deck if the stat requirements are much higher than the first part.)

The only other game I'm keeping an eye on so far is Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes. That's set to release on April 22 and it has some town-building aspects, which is pretty much the only reason I'm keeping an eye on it, lol. (Farming sims may have boomed, but world-building sims never really did.)

What are your most-anticipated games of 2024? Any console or platform, any genre.
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Mikodesu
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Was kinda hoping a few people would post before me...and remind me of some things, because I'm sure there's a bunch I've forgotten. For now, here we go. :lol: Release dates are also the minimum standard for hype for me, so I don't have much.


Elden Ring's DLC: Shadow of the Erdtree is releasing in June. Kinda feels like Elden Ring is having its "Tears of the Kingdom" moment, by recycling part of the big, open world. I'm very curious to see how another developer does with that sort of thing. (It's a DLC, so it's quite a bit smaller than the main game, but it also costs 40 USD to match that...) The trailer looks impressive, but so did TotK's trailer. We shall see!

I guess I could say I'm hyped for the rest of the Penacony story arc in Honkai Star Rail. Little different from a traditional release, and it's a very different plot to what I've experienced from Hoyo to date. At the very least cutscene animation is always a treat, no matter what you think of the cast or story.

And for honorable mention, Harold Halibut still has a "release date" of 2024 so I'll throw it in. I don't play story focused games all that often, so I'm especially curious. Bare minimum it's an interesting setting and a labor of love.
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Kikki
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Mikodesu wrote: Feb 24, 2024 12:46 pm Was kinda hoping a few people would post before me...and remind me of some things, because I'm sure there's a bunch I've forgotten. For now, here we go. :lol: Release dates are also the minimum standard for hype for me, so I don't have much.
Sorry about that. I posted this thread because I, too, need reminders. I feel like everyone does, this year. But I'm sure replies will be slow in coming and those who go first will have a difficult time populating their list.

On YouTube I keep seeing cozy-game streamers saying how 'this year is shaping up to be even more of a cozy/farming-game boom than 2023!' However, I can find no evidence of this being true. I think that's borderline marketing-speak. They've got to hype up their genre to keep people engaged, even if there's little to get hyped about.

Cozy-gamer YouTubers are getting very stale lately I find. Maybe ALL streamers are, but I've noticed in gaming that all of them are posting the same things about the same games. Ranking games with the Tier Maker list thing. Episodes on their top games of 2023, their choice of cozy games with no farming, their top 'hidden gems' games, and they tend to all mention mostly the same ones as each other (and never anything I haven't heard of). Plus a focus across the board on whatever game in the genre released most recently (right now it's Bandle Tale, and for some reason more than one cozy-game streamer is 'returning to Olive Town in 2024!' Why do they all do these things en masse? It's so boring! Do they all trawl YouTube to see what their contemporaries are doing and say 'okay, everybody's doing a top ten list of X and Y, so I guess that's what I'll do next, too'?) It makes things feel so stale. But I think the scene IS stale this year and that's why this is happening.

As far as I can tell, there's not much scheduled for this year. Not yet, anyway. Maybe later, but it doesn't feel right now like we're gonna pick up all that quickly or that much.

Also, it's pretty quiet on Fogu from Friday night through to Sunday night, usually. I guess people are busy with life on weekends. Though I don't anticipate more than a few responses to this thread. 2024 feels rather empty, imo, game-wise.
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I literally saw this thread go up and then forgot about it while also intending to post LOL.

So, unlike previous years where I'm overwhelmed by releases, there's only a few this year I want, and you already mentioned one of them, Kiki, with Fantasy Life(and Miko, with the rest of Star Rail). The ones not mentioned yet are the visual novel Tsukihime -A Piece Of Blue Glass Moon, Mihoyo's next foray into big budget gacha; ZZZ, and Dawntrail - the next FFXIV expansion.

I am also interested in Unicorn Overlord and the Monster Hunter Stories remaster, but I'm still not sure if they're day 1 purchases.
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I didn't even realize there was a release date for Fantasy Life now. I'll be patiently waiting...

That's really all I have to say, considering that's the only game I really care about that I can think of. Perhaps Pokémon Day will change that.


ETA to mention Paralives - however, the early access won't be released til 2025. They released a gameplay trailer the other week which got me very excited...
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Ooh, Go Go Town! I hadn't realized it was supposed to get a full release in 2024. It's by Prideful Sloth, which is the team that made Yonder and Grow, both of which were beautiful, and I enjoyed Grow's unique world-restoring gameplay quite a bit. Go Go Town is more of a town-builder than a world-builder, but Prideful Sloth does a better job with every game, so I definitely have my eye on that one. It's supposed to go to console then as well, and it's already confirmed for Steam Deck. The demo works on Deck as well.

EDIT: Oh yeah and I don't think I care about this personally, but the Stardew 1.6 update is coming out on March 19th. Something I'm a bit more interested in is Summerhouse on March 8th, but I wouldn't call it 'most'-anticipated. I'm just curious about it, right now. But in a sparse gamescape, I'll list it anyway! Lightyear Frontier is in the same category and it'll be out on...I think the same day as the Stardew update. Distant Bloom is another game I'm curious about, on March 27. Still, none of those qualify as most-anticipated, for me. They're just worth keeping an eye on, and since everyone's list is so small so far, I figure I may as well mention these. All small indies, no AAA stuff.

Finding out more as the dates get really close. Perhaps this year devs are just waiting until the last minute to announce release dates, which is why we have so few for this year?
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I was also hoping to see some replies to remind me what I’m looking forward to!

Tsukihime is one I forgot! I read the manga adaptation a hundred years ago and weirdly loved it, so I’ve always wanted to play. I’ll probably buy that at launch, though unless I love it I’ll probably give Fate a pass.

I’m still planning to buy and play Harvest Moon Picross when it comes out this week or next, because I am a Picross fiend and I love them. But they’ve been overshadowed a bit by Jupiter, who announced the big Picross e compilation dropping this week (including some extras as well as e9, which didn’t come out in English), and they have Logiart Grimoire launching next month. Plus their speed Picross game from last year, which I bought during their annual sale and had planned to play next. I wouldn’t have thought the Picross market could be over-saturated, but here we are! Plus I’m playing Pocket Card Jockey now, which is filling this niche ATM.

I’m vaguely excited for Unicorn Overlord, Tokyo Xanadu EX, and Ys 10, but the latter two are so far away. I’m not sure I’ll play Unicorn Overlord right away either, and wound up passing on Triangle Strategy a couple years back, so… maybe, maybe not.

Shantae Advance! I am weirdly excited for that one, though I suspect it’ll be a little closer to the original than I’d like.

If I still had a gaming PC, I’d be going wild for Last Epoch right now, along with Descent of the Hunted, a new horror VN from a developer I like. There’s another VN coming possibly later this year called Saint Ceri, which I’ll hopefully be able to plat! Very excited about that one.
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I have been looking around to scrounge up titles that really should be on my most-anticipated list. Ys X: Nordics only has 'Fall 2024' as a release date right now. And Trails Through Daybreak is due out 'mid-2024', so presumably around June/July. But at least they have seasons assigned rather than just '2024'.

Daybreak is going to be a big deal for me because it's going to decide whether the Trails (Legend of Heroes) series gets to remain as one of my favourites or not. The stories remain very expansive in deeply detailed settings, but in the last few years I've grown sick of the same continually-reused tropes and certain types of gameplay.

Daybreak has innovated a little; there's somewhat different combat at the very least, and we've now left Erebonia and (military) high-school students behind and will be heading to Calvard to play as an adult. Of course, he's still basically just another version of a bracer, as every MC has been in every Trails game, but...still. The series deserves one last chance from me to prove it can be fresher and less predictable. But I don't know if I'll get it Day 1.

Ys X I almost definitely will get Day 1. Fantasy Life i is the only other game this year that I'm almost definitely going to do that with.

I hope you guys get to beef up your anticipated list a bit more as the year goes on :)

EDIT: As a part of my scrounging, I've discovered that Distant Bloom...mentioned by me previously in this thread as just a possible interest...is perfect for me. At least from how it appears so far, though no word on how it'll perform on Deck, yet. But it's officially going onto my most-anticipated list. It's to release on March 27th, and here's a trailer for it.

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I know it's out already but I'm quite excited for the Story of Seasons picross game, though I'm saving it to play on an upcoming trip so I haven't started it yet (or even bought it actually, but the price is quite reasonable so I'll probably pick it up next time I happen to have the eShop open). Other than that, I'm looking forward to the new Sonic x Shadow Generations game that was announced last month since I've been on a bit of a Sonic kick lately. And my siblings are really excited for the new Fantasy Life game coming out so I'm excited for that by proxy, and I'll probably get sucked into playing it with them. That's all I can really think of at the moment though.
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Ah, you know one that people may have forgotten as an option because of the complicated circumstances? Coral Island. It was released suddenly as 1.0 last year...but in fact, their 1.0 is not complete at all. So people may have thought it didn't count, but if you're waiting on all the content that will finish up the story/town development/fully incorporate the mer-kingdom, then Coral Island is still a game to be anticipated.

I stand firm on not touching it until it really is complete, which it still is not, and they've just updated their roadmap in the last week...which no longer appears to have any timeframe on it at all. 1.1, to me, nearly finishes the game. But 1.2 adds multiplayer (which I don't give a hoot about as I'd never use it) and 1.3 is what finishes off children in the game. As in, the children you have will then be able to 'grow up' (I don't know to what point) and have portraits and events added.

1.1 is probably close, and I don't care much about children, so it might be complete enough for me at that point. But I reckon for lots of people it won't be truly complete until 1.3, and I'll probably wait until then anyway. Just in case! I don't ever want to see those WIP notices when trying to do something in-game.
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I might be the only one on Ushi who will give a « Puppy Doodoo » about this release, but the 2017 arcade cabinet Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Wrath of the Mutants is getting a home console release. I still haven't watched the 2012 iteration of TMNT, it's next on my list, but this is still super cool. I wish more arcade games got console releases instead of fading into obscurity, as they tend to do.

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My only day 1 games so far are TTYD and Fantasy Life i.

Tho, thanks to you, Kikki, I am very intrigued with Distant Bloom. I cannot afford a Steam Deck so will get it on Steam. It looks lovely.
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K8sMum wrote: Mar 03, 2024 5:07 am My only day 1 games so far are TTYD and Fantasy Life i.

Tho, thanks to you, Kikki, I am very intrigued with Distant Bloom. I cannot afford a Steam Deck so will get it on Steam. It looks lovely.
That's great :) That's why I kept posting a few extra games with release dates (or at least clear release windows); cuz everyone's having trouble thinking of any games they want this year! Distant Bloom reminds me a lot of Grow, tho just in how the world colours and foliage and things burst into growth when you interact with the landscape.

~

I LOVE world-restoring games. They're my absolute favourite. To me, nothing to do with humanity can ever be the 'point' of living. The point of living...if there can be said to be one at all...is the planet itself. I guess that's why I get more excited for this type of game than any other. IRL, if I've got sunshine and sweet air and lots of colour around me, I'm happy. (And if I don't, I'm miserable.) Guess that's why I only play 'outdoorsy' games and avoid any that are set in cities.

Truth is, the general 'cozy' game genre is still booming in the indie world, it's just *farming* games that are dying back out. (I adore farming games, for the FARMING, but most farming games of 22/23 only tacked farming on as a side activity or a chore, and I need farming to be the heart of the game, not some tedious side mechanic added on to add it to the category of 'Stardew-likes'. Bleah.)

After looking around, I see that there are BUCKETS of cozy games releasing this month. I'm not interested in many, and most of them are flying under the radar, but they're definitely there. It escaped my notice that Snacko released at the end of December. It's in Early Access now and full release (to console as well) is aimed at 2024, but I wouldn't want to bet on that.
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Gonna bring up a game that most certainly will not be releasing in 2024, but still a highly anticipated game for me - Witchbrook. I honestly was one of the ones who speculated it was abandoned recently, but I looked into it a bit more and turns out they had to rebuild the entire engine, and they update on Discord. I had signed up for the email updates, but we only ever got one. Seems like it's chugging along slowly but surely, I guess...
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Here are my most anticipated games of 2024.
  • Dragon Age Dreadwolf: I am keeping my expectations low if this is going to be released this year.
  • Our Life Now and Forever
  • Greedfall A Dying World: This is an early access game. I'm mostly excited about what it is and will be waiting for it to have more info before getting it since I am not yet done with Greedfall.
  • Dragon Dogma 2: I am not sure if it will be my cup of tea because from what I heard, it's more akin to Elden Ring and not like BG3 and Dragon Age when it comes to characters and story.
Mostly I am spending 2024 finishing some leftovers from 2023: Baldur's Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty, Persona 3 Portable, and My Time at Sandrock. Honestly, didn't expect MTaS to be long! XD
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