2024 was a year of surprise hits and critical flops for Sony and its PlayStation division, as games like Helldivers 2 and Astro Bot launched to critical acclaim while other projects like Concord were released to middling reviews and general player apathy.

While this year was also light on first-party exclusives, third-party studios came to the rescue with a selection of games covering multiple genres. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Stellar Blade were two notable examples of PS5-only games releasing this year--they're both headed to PC in 2025--while other studios released must-play titles like Metaphor: ReFantazio (our Game of the Year), Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, and Silent Hill 2 on the Sony system.

Heck, even Microsoft wanted to attract a few PlayStation gamers to its brand, leading to former Xbox Series X|S exclusives like Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Grounded, and Sea of Thieves releasing on its gaming rival's hardware, which expanded this year with the release of the PS5 Pro console.

So which games were the most popular with critics? Thanks to GameSpot's sister site Metacritic, we've got a comprehensive list of the games that walked away with the highest aggregate scores (as of December 5), and overall, players couldn't get enough of JRPGs, puzzle games, metroidvanias and more.

More Best Of 2024: