The Biggest Milestones From the Past Year

2024 has been a rollercoaster for gamers. From surprise releases that took the industry by storm and predictable hardware launches to multi-million-dollar flops and bizarre controversies, last year had it all.

The Biggest Game Releases

Indie game popularity is at an all-time high, and you don’t have to look further than the poker-style rogueliteBalatro, which won three awards at The Game Awards 2024. Rightfully so, we can’t get enough of Balatro at How-To Geek, as we’ve all been hooked on it over the past couple of months.

As for triple-A titles, Black Myth: Wukong (one of the first high-budget Chinese games) might have lost the Game of the Year award to Astro Bot, but it still snagged two other awards as consolation—Best Action and Player’s Voice. As for Astro Bot, the Game marks a notable comeback for old-school 3D platformers, offering a fun experience that even non-gamers love.

Another excellent release is Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and the only reason it didn’t get any awards is because it was released after The Game Awards’ November 22 cut-off date. It’s an epic immersive sim that you’ll enjoy even if you’re not a fan of the Indiana Jones franchise. The same can be said about the new Overwatch-style online shooter, Marvel Rivals.

Alongside these, a few other titles have been making waves throughout 2024. We saw a bunch of popular new games and sequels, including Helldivers 2, Path of Exile 2, Hades II, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Tekken 8, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, and others.

Lots and Lots of Controversies

2024 was also marred by headline-making controversies. The devastating wave of industry-wide layoffs that began in 2022 continued well into 2024, with an estimated 14,600 jobs lost, the highest on record.

Additionally, several popular game studios were shut down. Microsoft closed Arkane Austin, the team behind the Dishonored series, after pressuring them to develop 2023’s live-service flop Redfall. Microsoft also shut down Tango Gameworks following the success of Hi-Fi Rush, a studio best known for The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo.

As for the games themselves, Sony poured a whopping $400-million into live service shooter Concord, which flopped so hard that it was shut down after just 12 days. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League also flopped hard, which sounded like a promising title that was ruined by the live service model. It’s currently at a 95% discount on Steam, priced at only $3.49.

We’ve also seen some legal controversies, with Nintendo leading the charge. The company filed lawsuits against the developers behind Palworld, a Pokémon-style multiplayer action adventure, and Yuzu, a popular Nintendo Switch emulator.

A Bunch of New Gaming Hardware

While 2024 didn’t bring anything major, like an entirely new console generation, we still saw significant improvements in video game hardware across the board. The most high-profile piece of hardware was the PlayStation 5 Pro, whose $700 price tag and lack of disc drive certainly raised some eyebrows.

It was also a big year for handhelds, with the release of the well-received ASUS ROG Ally X and the less-than-impressive MSI Claw A1M.

As for PC gaming hardware, AMD and NVIDIA dominated this year. NVIDIA solidified its position as a multi-trillion-dollar company with the refreshed RTX 4000 Super GPUs. While AMD didn’t have any groundbreaking GPU releases, it virtually pushed Intel out of competition with the Ryzen 9000 series and 3D V-Cache CPUs.

Surprisingly, Intel’s newly released B-series GPUs are selling like hotcakes in the

Like every year, 2024 brought with it some fresh gaming peripherals and interesting concepts. Razer and Wooting’s Hall Effect keyboards introduced a controversial feature that provides an edge in competitive games. Gaming monitors have also come down in price significantly. Whether you want a high refresh rate, OLED, mini-LED, 1440p, or 4K, you don’t have to break the bank anymore to get your dream monitor.

Gaming by the Numbers

Looking for some gaming data? I’ve got you covered. With an estimated revenue of $282.3 billion in 2024, the video game industry has never been larger. It’s no surprise, as the year saw 3.32 billion active gamers. I’m not sure how accurate that number is, but we know that Steam has 132 million active monthly users, the PS5 console sold over 65.5 million units by November, and the Xbox Series S/X sold 28.3 million units by June.

As for game releases, one of the biggest this year was Marvel Rivals, which launched with an astounding 10 million players in the first 72 hours. Since then, it has surpassed 20 million players. That’s impressive, even for a free game. But maybe Helldivers 2 selling 12 million copies in the first three months is even more impressive.

The first season of the Fallout TV show was released to much fanfare this year, surpassing 100 million viewers. It led to a massive player boost in Fallout games, including Fallout 76 (a game that sucked at release), which peaked at 72,930 concurrent players.

As for investments, mergers, and acquisitions, we got some bits of news there as well. Disney invested $1.5 billion in Epic Games for a 10% stake in the company. Expect to see a lot more Disney characters in Fortnite in 2025! Take-Two Interactive’s purchase of Gearbox was another high-profile one, valued at $460 million.

New Game Teasers That Have Us Hyped

While 2024 was packed with exciting releases, it’s the teasers for upcoming games that really get our hearts racing. One of the most high-profile ones is The Witcher 4 (which was rendered on an unreleased NVIDIA GPU) trailer, which highlights Ciri as the next main character, with Geralt taking a back seat.

We also got some exciting gameplay previews of Light No Fire and trailers for upcoming games like Borderlands 4, Turok: Origins, Mafia: The Old Country, Monster Hunter Wilds, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, and many, many others.

Fans have also been theorizing about the potential release of a second GTA VI trailer before the end of the year, but it seems like that won’t be happening with mere hours left in the year. It’s weird to see this much hype over a trailer for a game, but then again, it’s a long overdue Rockstar game.

2024 was an unforgettable year, filled with both highs and lows. We got a bunch of fantastic games, along with some surprise indie hits. If the high-quality trailers and pending hardware releases from Nintendo and NVIDIA are any indication, 2025 is shaping up to be another excellent year for gaming!