2024 in video games
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The video game industry in 2024 was still in midst of large-scale layoffs since 2022, including large cuts from Microsoft Gaming, Electronic Arts, and Sony Interactive Entertainment. Nearly 15,000 jobs were cut this year.[1][2][3]
Financial performance
Best-selling premium games by region
The following titles were 2024's top ten best-selling premium games by region (excluding microtransactions and free-to-play titles) on PC and console platforms, for Japan, the United States, and Europe.
Top-rated games
Critically acclaimed titles
The following table lists the top-rated games released in 2024 based on Metacritic, which generally considers expansions as separate entities.
Major awards
- Some award presentations combine these categories.
Major events
| Date | Event | Ref. |
|---|---|---|
| January 3 | Thirteen-year-old Willis Gibson became the first person known to "beat" the NES version of Tetris by reaching its killscreen. | [14] |
| January 8–11 | Unity Technologies announced layoffs affecting 1,800 jobs. | [15] |
| January 8–11 | Twitch announced layoffs affecting 500 jobs. | [16] |
| January 8–11 | Discord announced layoffs affecting 170 jobs. | [17] |
| January 22 | Riot Games laid off about 530 staff. | [18] |
| January 25 | Microsoft Gaming laid off 1,900 staff, and the president of Blizzard Entertainment, Mike Ybarra, left the company. | [19] |
| January 29 | Eidos-Montréal laid off about 100 staff as part of the continuing Embracer Group restructuring. | [20] |
| February 7 | The Walt Disney Company announced a $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games. | [21] |
| February 13–15 | The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences hosted the 2024 D.I.C.E. Summit and the 27th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards at the Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Koji Kondo was inducted into the AIAS Hall of Fame. | [22][23] |
| February 27 | Sony Interactive Entertainment laid off 900 employees across various studios. | [24] |
| February 28 | Electronic Arts laid off 670 staff. | [2] |
| February 28 | Toys for Bob split from Activision and became independent. | [25] |
| March 8 | Sega of America laid off 61 employees across its QA and localization departments. | [26] |
| March 8 | 600 Activision QA workers unionized under the Communications Workers of America (CWA), creating the largest video game union in North America. | [27] |
| March 14 | Embracer Group divested Saber Interactive and a portion of its studios to a private firm for $247 million. | [28] |
| March 18–22 | The 2024 Game Developers Conference was held in San Francisco. | [29] |
| March 28 | Relic Entertainment was sold by Sega to an unspecified investor. 240 employees were laid off across multiple Sega Europe studios. | [30][31] |
| April 9 | Nintendo discontinued the online services for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U software. | [32] |
| April 16 | Take-Two Interactive announced plans to reduce its workforce by 5% by December 2024. | [33] |
| April 22 | Embracer Group announced its intention to transform into three standalone publicly listed entities at Nasdaq Stockholm within the next two years. | [34] |
| April 23 | Atari SA announced that the Infogrames brand would be revived for acquired and archived titles that do not fit within the Atari brand portfolio. The first game released under the brand was Totally Reliable Delivery Service, acquired by Atari SA from the original publisher tinyBuild. | [35] |
| April 27–29 | Evo Japan 2024 was held in Tokyo. | [36] |
| May 7 | Microsoft Gaming closed Arkane Austin and Alpha Dog Games; Roundhouse Studios was merged into Zenimax Online. | [37] |
| May 23 | Atari SA acquired the Intellivision brand and games catalog. | [38] |
| June 7–10 | Summer Game Fest 2024 was held at the YouTube Theater in Inglewood, California. | [39] |
| June 11 | Sumo Group laid off nearly 250 staff. | [40] |
| June 12 | Take-Two Interactive closed its acquisition of Gearbox Entertainment from Embracer Group for $460 million. | [41][42] |
| June 14 | Microsoft closed Tango Gameworks. | [43] |
| June 28 | Take-Two Interactive closed Intercept Games. | [44] |
| July 19–21 | The 2024 Evolution Championship Series was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. | [45] |
| July 24 | The International Olympic Committee approved the formation of the Olympic Esports Games to launch in 2025 in Saudi Arabia. | [46] |
| July 24 | 500 Blizzard Entertainment employees unionized under the Communications Workers of America. | [47] |
| July 26 | SAG-AFTRA voice actors began striking over failure to reach agreements with multiple studios over the use of AI voice acting in video games. | [48] |
| July 30 | The IOC discontinued the Mario & Sonic series after 17 years of partnership with Nintendo and Sega which started in 2007. | [49][50] |
| July 31 | Bungie laid off 220 staff. | [51] |
| August 2 | GameStop shuttered Game Informer after 33 years. | [52] |
| August 7 | Meta closed Ready at Dawn. | [53] |
| August 11 | Tango Gameworks was revived by Krafton. | [54] |
| August 21–25 | Gamescom 2024 was held in Cologne, Germany. | [55] |
| August 28 | After nearly 20 years of original closure, Argonaut Games was relaunched. | [56] |
| September 18 | Nintendo and The Pokémon Company filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair. | [57] |
| September 26–29 | Tokyo Game Show 2024 was held at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. | [58] |
| October 2 | The Nintendo Museum opened in Kyoto, Japan. | [59] |
| October 18 | Keywords Studios acquired Certain Affinity. | [60] |
| October 30 | Nintendo Music, a music streaming service featuring Nintendo soundtracks, was released. | [61] |
| November 6 | Take-Two Interactive sold Private Division to an unspecified investor. Roll7 was shut down. | [62] |
| December 12 | The Game Awards 2024 was held at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. | [63] |
| December 19 | Sony and Kadokawa Corporation, the parent company of FromSoftware, Spike Chunsoft and Acquire, agreed to form a strategic business alliance, with Sony becoming the largest shareholder in Kadokawa. | [64] |
Notable deaths
- January 10 – Jennell Jaquays, 67, tabletop and video game designer, with contributions for Dungeons & Dragons and at id Software.[65]
- February 1 – Carl Weathers, 76, actor, best known for portraying Apollo Creed in the Rocky films and providing voice work in Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, Mortal Kombat X and The Artful Escape.[66]
- February 5 – Laralyn McWilliams, 58, game designer, lead designer of Full Spectrum Warrior and creative director of Free Realms.[67]
- February 6 – Yoshitaka Murayama, 55, game designer, creator of the Suikoden series.[68]
- February 7 – Mojo Nixon, 66, actor and musician who played Toad in 1993's Super Mario Bros. and appeared in Redneck Rampage.[69][70][71]
- March – BrolyLegs, 35, esports player who competed in Street Fighter and Super Smash Bros..[72]
- March 1 – Akira Toriyama, 68, manga creator of Dragon Ball, and character designer for games including the Dragon Quest series, Chrono Trigger and Blue Dragon.[73]
- March 10 – Mutsumi Inomata, 63, illustrator, character designer for the Tales series.[74]
- March 14 - Lee Woo-ri, 24, South Korean actor who voiced Cyno from Genshin Impact and Lord Oyster from Cookie Run: Kingdom.[75]
- March 27 – Joe Lieberman, 82, U.S. senator who led the congressional investigation of violent video games in 1993.[76]
- March 29 – Louis Gossett Jr., 87, stage and screen actor who voiced the Vortigaunts in Half-Life 2.[77]
- May 5 – Bernard Hill, 79, voice actor who voiced Sir Walter Beck in Fable III, and actor best known for portraying King Théoden in The Lord of the Rings sequel film adaptations of The Two Towers and The Return of the King.[78]
- June 27 – Martin Mull, 80, actor who voiced Vlad Plasmius in Nicktoons Unite!.[79]
- July 28 – Erica Ash, 46, actress who voiced Nagi Kirishima in Bloody Roar 4.[80]
- August 10 – Rachael Lillis, 55, actress who voiced Jessie, Misty, and Jigglypuff in Pokémon.[81]
- August 20 – Atsuko Tanaka, 61, actress who voiced Bayonetta in the Bayonetta series and Super Smash Bros. and Lara Croft in Tomb Raider II, Tomb Raider III, and Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation.[82]
- August 30 – Andrew C. Greenberg, 67, co-creator of the Wizardry series.[83]
- September 9 – James Earl Jones, 93, voice actor in Under a Killing Moon, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, and Simba's Mighty Adventure.[84]
- September 29 – Nobuyo Ōyama, 90, actress who voiced the titular character in the Doraemon games and Monokuma in Danganronpa.[85]
- November 6 – Tony Todd, 69, actor who voiced Venom in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and Locus from Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.[86]
- December 15 – Masayuki Kato, 78, founder of Nihon Falcom.[87]
- December 22 – Gordon Mah Ung, 58, tech and video games journalist for Maximum PC and PC World.[88]
- December 27 – Olivia Hussey, 73, actress from various Star Wars games circa 1998–2011.[89]
- December 28 – Martyn Brown, 57, co-founder of Team17.[90]
Hardware releases
| Date | Console | Manufacturer | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 2 | Apple Vision Pro | Apple | [91] |
| March 8 | MSI Claw A1M | Micro-Star International | [92] |
| March 28 | Atari 400 Mini | Retro Games Ltd. | [93] |
| October 15 | Meta Quest 3S | Reality Labs | [94] |
| November 7 | PlayStation 5 Pro | Sony | [95] |
| November 29 | Atari 7800+ | Atari, Plaion | [96] |
Games released in 2024
Cancelled games
- Blue Protocol, Bandai Namco Entertainment (WIN, PS5, XSX/S)
- Codename Kestrel, Remedy Entertainment (WIN)[97]
- Tom Clancy's The Division Heartland, Ubisoft (WIN, PS4, PS5, XBO, XSX/S)[98]
- Life by You, Paradox Interactive (WIN)[99]
- Paragon: The Overprime, Netmarble (WIN, PS5)
- Project Archipelago, Rebellion Developments (WIN)[100]
- Project T, Behaviour Interactive (WIN)[101]
- Project KV, Dynamis One and Studio Alaya[c][102][103]
- Project M and BATTLE CRUSH, NCSoft (WIN, PS5, XSX/S, NS, iOS, DROID)[104][105]
Discontinued games
Video game-based film and television releases
| Title | Release / premiere date | Type | Distributor | Franchise | Original game publisher |
Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ark: The Animated Series | March 21, 2024 | Animated series | Paramount+ | Ark | Studio Wildcard | [107] |
| Blue Archive the Animation | April 7, 2024 | Anime television series | TV Tokyo (Japan) | Blue Archive | Nexon | [108] |
| Fallout | April 10, 2024 | Television series | Amazon Prime Video | Fallout | Bethesda Softworks | [109] |
| Knuckles | April 26, 2024 | Paramount+ | Sonic the Hedgehog | Sega | [110] | |
| Angry Birds Mystery Island | May 21, 2024 | Animated series | Amazon Prime Video | Angry Birds | Rovio Entertainment | [111] |
| Dead Cells: Immortalis | June 19, 2024 | Animation Digital Network (France) | Dead Cells | Motion Twin | [112] | |
| Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin | July 6, 2024 | Anime television series | TV Tokyo (Japan) | Sakuna | Xseed Games | [113] |
| Atri: My Dear Moments | July 14, 2024 | Tokyo MX (Japan) | Atri | Aniplex | [114] | |
| Borderlands | August 9, 2024 | Feature film | Lionsgate Films | Borderlands | 2K | [115] |
| Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft | October 10, 2024 | Animated series | Netflix | Tomb Raider | Eidos Interactive | [116] |
| Like a Dragon: Yakuza | October 25, 2024 | Television series | Amazon Prime Video | Yakuza | Sega | [117] |
| Secret Level | December 10, 2024 | Animated series | Various | [118] | ||
| Sonic the Hedgehog 3 | December 20, 2024 | Feature film | Paramount Pictures | Sonic the Hedgehog | Sega | [119] |