When Hi-Fi Rush shadow-dropped on January 25, it was a shockingly pleasant surprise. Beautiful, vibrant, playful, the rhythm action platformer quickly won players over. A day later, Hitman World of Assassination appeared, deploying clever roguelike mechanics to reinvent the best stealth game of 2021. A day after that, Dead Space arrived, a faithful but impressive remake of a 2008 classic. The year was off to a great start. Somehow it only got better from there. Nine months later, it’s hard to deny: 2023 feels like one of the best years for game releases in a long time. Possibly ever?

《完美音浪》于2023年1月25日发布，玩家既惊喜又震慑，这款游戏的美感、动感、可玩性和节奏迅速赢得了玩家的芳心。次日，《杀手：暗杀世界》（原名为杀手3）发布更名后的新版本，该游戏极其巧妙地使用了类Rogue的游戏机制，成为了2021年最佳潜行暗杀游戏，第三天，《死亡空间》发布，该游戏在忠于2008年原作的基础上进行了重制，令人印象深刻。这为2023年开了一个好头，此后至今，一切皆顺。9个月过去了，我们不得不说，2023年可能是多年来最好的年份之一——甚至可能是绝后的。
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Some worried The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom would turn out to be more of the same. It was, in fact, a certified banger that turned the Zelda formula upside down once again. Baldur’s Gate 3 came out of nowhere and was all anyone could talk about for an entire month. Just a week after Spider-Man 2 and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, David Lynchian survival horror sequel Alan Wake 2 is finally out. I’ve only played the first couple hours but I’m already in love. Initial reviews have called it a triumph in storytelling. The game of the year race just got a lot more interesting.

曾有人担心《塞达尔传说：王国之泪》再好，也会跟“塞达尔”系列前作差不多，但实际上，这个续作表现相当好，再次颠覆了塞达尔前作系列模式。而《博德之门3》横空出世，游戏迷们津津乐道了一个月。《蜘蛛侠2》和《超级马里奥兄弟：奇迹》发布一周后，大卫·林奇的生存恐怖续集《心灵杀手2》也紧接着跟玩家见面。我只玩了几个小时，就喜欢上了，这个游戏，早期的评论盛赞其为故事高手。这些游戏各个不同，争芳斗艳，你追我赶，颇为有趣。

It’s been a great year for remakes (Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime). It’s been a great year for fighting games (Street Fighter VI, Mortal Kombat 1). It’s been a great year for old-school RPGs (Octopath Traveler II, Sea of Stars), surprise indie hits (Dave the Diver, Pizza Tower), and story-driven action games (Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Final Fantasy XVI). 2023 is the year we got Diablo IV and Starfield. It’s the year that Phantom Liberty saved Cyberpunk 2077. It’s the year an incredible playable documentary called The Making of Karateka spawned an entire new genre. Cocoon!

今年是重制版《生化危机4》、《银河战士》的好年头，对于格斗游戏（《街头霸王》、《真人快打1》）来说，今年也不错，而对于老式角色扮演游戏（《八方旅人II》、《星辰大海》），独立游戏（《潜水员戴夫》、《披萨塔》）和剧情游戏（《星球大战绝地：幸存者》、《最终幻想XVI》）来说，今年也大放异彩。2023年，我们还迎来了《暗黑破坏神4》和《星际战场》。而《往日之影》使《塞博朋克2007》起死回生。由可玩记录片重制而成的《空手道》则催生了一种新的游戏类型：茧（解密冒险类游戏）。
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People started buzzing about 2023 being one hell of a year for games in the spring and early summer, after an unusually exciting first few months of the year. The constant flood of new games after some truly anemic years following the pandemic was overwhelming. The dozens of games with an 85 or higher on Metacritic were hard to deny. The long-awaited arrival of so many expensive blockbusters was impossible to ignore. Most unusual of all, there have been no major disappointments and even plenty of nice surprises. Steampunk Soulslike Lies of P has some of the best moments of any game this year. Remnant II is an engrossing shooter that rewards you every time you come back. Even major releases that stumbled, like Lords of the Fallen, seem more than capable of finding their footing again.

2023年前几个月游戏新作不断问世，令人兴奋，但之后的整个春季和初夏，玩家们担心2023年将是游戏地狱之年，原因是此前的疫情可能造成游戏作品青黄不接。而现在这些游戏新作如潮水般的涌现，使得担心多余。我们很难否定在Metacritic网站上那些评分85分或以上的游戏作品，而那些期待已久的又是重金打造的大作让人无法忽视。最难能可贵的是，不仅没有失望，反而有不少惊喜，比如《蒸汽朋克：灵魂之谎言》成了今年最棒的游戏之一。

The last time the deck felt this stacked was 2017. We got The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. We got Dishonored: Death of the Outsider and Uncharted: Lost Legacy, Divinity Original Sin 2 and Persona 5, Cuphead and Pyre, Hollow Knight and Dead Cells, Night in the Woods and What Remains of Edith Finch, Fortnite and PUBG. The list goes on: Horizon Zero Dawn, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Destiny 2, Resident Evil 7, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and Nier Automata. Just an incredible year top to bottom.

上一次大作云集的时间是2017年。当时有《塞尔达传说：旷野之息》和《超级马里奥奥德赛》。还有《耻辱：局外人之死》和《神秘地图：失落的遗产》，《神界原罪2》和《女神异闻录5》《茶头与烈焰》,《空洞骑士》和《死细胞》,《林中之夜》和《伊迪丝·芬奇的遗骸》,《堡垒之夜》和《绝地求生》。以及《地平线：黎明之战》、《德军总部2：新巨像》、《命运2》、《生化危机7》、《地狱之刃：塞娜的牺牲》和《尼尔·机器纪元》等等，这些作品，使2017年从年头到年尾让人觉得是不可思议的一年。

That was the midway point for the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One—and it showed. Sony’s first-party machine was beginning to fire on all cylinders and developers were delivering on the big “next-gen” games they’d been promising. Nintendo, meanwhile, jump-started its new Switch hardware with two of the best games it’s ever made, an incredible coup for a new console launch. The rest was equally serendipitous. It’s not every year that two games go head-to-head in a new genre that redefines industry trends moving forward.

那一年也是PS4和Xbox One问世的年份。索尼的独占游戏开始火力全开，游戏开发者们推出其此前承诺的大型次世代游戏。与此同时，任天堂推出了两款有史以来最好的游戏，那时正值任天堂Switch便携掌机问世，那两款游戏推出对任天堂的掌机成功如虎添翼，当然，其他游戏对Switch成功也很重要。不过，在重新定义游戏行业趋势的未来游戏类型方面，并非每年都能同时见到类似的两款游戏正面交锋。

It reminds me of when Dota 2 and League of Legends both came out in 2013. That was arguably the next high-water mark prior to 2017. It also delivered Grand Theft Auto V, The Last of Us, Super Mario 3D World, Crusader Kings II, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, Metro: Last Light, and a bunch more. Still, 2023 comfortably beats 2013. There might not be entirely new genres that will recalibrate the market for years to come, but I would take this year’s top 10 over 2013’s any day.

这让我想起了2013年《Dota2》和《英雄联盟》两部作品的问世，无可争议成为2017年前的新高游戏水准，那一年新出的游戏还有《侠盗猎车手5》、《最后生还者》、《超级马里奥3D世界》、《十字军之王2》、《幽浮:未知敌人》、《兄弟:双子的传说》、《到家》、《斯坦利的寓言》、《地铁:最后之光》等等。不过，2023年的游戏力压2013年，未来几年难再有新的游戏类型闯入市场，我认为今年的前10款游戏比2013年任何一款游戏都要好。
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Start going farther back and the comparisons get much dicier. When it comes to rankings of rankings, the years that most often get thrown around are 2011, 2010, 2007, 2004, 2001, 1998, 1997, 1994, and 1993. Of these, I’d argue the frontrunners have to be 2007, 2004, 1998, and 2001, in that order. The farther back in time these comparisons go, the bigger a role played by nostalgia and rose-colored glasses. People’s picks will vary wildly based as much on legacy as anything else.

如果再往前追溯，要比较就很棘手。说到排名，最常被说到的年份是 2011 年、2010 年、2007 年、2004 年、2001 年、1998 年、1997 年、1994 年和 1993 年。其中，我认为代表性的是2007年、2004年、1998年和2001年。年代越久远，怀旧等情感方面起的作用就越大，就如同戴上玫瑰色的滤色眼镜，人们对游戏的喜好评选，就像对待遗产或其他与情感相关的因素一样，每个人的差异相当大。

Still, my god, 2007: Super Mario Galaxy, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Guitar Hero 3, Rock Band, BioShock, Assassin’s Creed, Mass Effect, Uncharted, Portal, Team Fortress 2, Crysis, and STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. Does 2023 stand a chance? Maybe.

天哪，那么，2007 年的：《超级马里奥银河》、《光环 3》、《使命召唤 4：现代战争》、《吉他英雄 3》、《摇滚乐队》、《生化奇兵》、《刺客信条》、《质量效应》、《神秘海域》、《传送门》、《军团要塞 2》、《孤岛危机》和《潜行者：切尔诺贝利之影》。在2023年，如果要评选你们最喜欢的游戏，还有机会入选吗？有可能！

How do you even begin to compare one year’s release slate against another? There’s no obxtive method, obviously. It’s more art than science, with history, personal taste, and general vibes all swirling around in a vat until the subjective winners bubble up to the surface. What does it mean for it to be the best year in video games? Is it just about having the most best games? The most long-lasting and important ones? The most eclectic mix of outstanding games across multiple genres? Some years are full of great games that don’t stand the test of time. Some have deep benches but few standouts.

如何将这一年发布的游戏与另一年发布的游戏进行比较？诚然，没有客观的方法。与其说是科学，不如说是将那些杂糅了艺术，历史、个人品味和游戏氛围等因素的感受，全都一股脑儿放在大水桶里浸泡旋转，最终总会有极具主观感受的评价胜出。而评电子游戏最佳年份是为了什么？是否意味着今年出现了最优秀的游戏？或持续受欢迎、最重要的游戏？或融合了多种类型游戏风格的结合体？有些年份有很多游戏大作，但经不起时间考验。有些年份游戏作品数量很多，但少有佳作。

To render any kind of verdict, these considerations and others must necessarily be boiled down into a general gut feeling, like a baseball scout weighing player stats against experience and instinct. It’s especially difficult to put value on all the games that might not quite make every top-ten list, but are still crucial to rounding out the prolific feeling of an exceptional year. 2023 might not have a few games that dominated Steam or multiple breakout hits that define the console generation, but it has plenty of dark-horse candidates to round-out any Game of the Year conversation.

要对游戏作品做出评定，其考虑的所有均可归结为了一种直觉，就像棒球球探根据经验和直觉来评估球员潜力一样。不过要想对那些没有进入前十名的游戏进行价值评估，非常困难，尽管如此，完成一年度数量众多的游戏评估仍然非常重要。2023年可能没有几款能在steam上占主导地位的游戏，也没有游戏能在重新定义主机游戏方面获得突破，但仍出现了大量黑马游戏，足可忝为游戏谈资好长一段时间了。

A small sample: Blasphemous 2, Oxenfree II, Venba, Shadow Gambit, Chants of Sennaar, Dredge, A Space for the Unbound, World of Horror, El Paso, Elsewhere, Everspace 2, Planet of Lana, Season: A Letter to the Future, Humanity, Terra Nil, and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. You know it’s been a good year for games when I’ve listed this many and haven’t even gotten to FromSoftware’s Armored Core VI yet, the cult-classic mech shooter series at its most grand and refined. The sheer number of new games released every year is always going up. Most of them are far from terrible. A scary number of them are quite good. 2023 is no exception.

举下面游戏为例：《亵渎 2》、《狼奔豕突 II：失落的信号》、《薇妮巴一家》、《影子诡局：被诅咒的海盗》、《巴别塔圣歌》、《渔帆暗涌》、《无拘无束的空间》、《恐怖世界》、《埃尔帕索》、《别处》、《永恒空间 2》、《拉娜星球》、《季节：致未来的一封信》 、《人性》（Humanity）、《伊始之地》 和 《炸弹冲刺赛博朋克》。大家知道，今年游戏行业作品颇丰，我已经列出这么多游戏，但我还没提到FS社（FromSoftware）的《装甲核心VI》，这是经典的机甲射击系列最伟大和最精致的作品。每年发布的新游戏数量一直在增加。大多数作品质量都称不上糟糕，其中有相当数量的相当不错。2023年也不例外。

Taken all together, is this enough to make this year better than 2017 and the historic milestones that came before it? I’m not entirely convinced. Hindsight is 20/20, and it might take another year or two to bring 2023’s merits clearer into focus. But there’s no doubt, in my mind at least, that it’s the best year for game releases since 2017, and as worthy of being debated as 2007 and all the rest. Bounties like this don’t come around often. Enjoy it while it lasts.

总而言之，这是否足以证明今年比2017年更好，还是此前游戏发展到今年就到达了一个里程碑？我不确信。不事后诸葛亮，我认为一两年后才能将2023年游戏来做盖棺定论。但毫无疑问，至少在我看来，2023年是自2017年以来游戏发行最好的一年，与2007年和其他年份一样值得讨论。像这样的游戏大好时期不常出现。就是当下，是时候好好享受吧。