To The Japan Times and many others, 2023 may go down as one of gaming’s best years ever.
According to an Axios review of Metacritic scores, this year saw the release of 25 titles rated 90 or higher. That’s not just significantly higher than the recent average of about 15 highly rated releases per year — it’s also more than any year over the past two decades.
That puts 2023 in direct comparison to 2003, the most recent year with 25 highly rated games that gave birth to landmark titles such as couch multiplayer darling Mario Kart: Double Dash, handheld legends Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire, the original Call of Duty that helped launch a first-person shooter revolution, and (last but not least) The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.