Something of a habit formed over my years of blogging, one that I first picked up from Belghast, is to take a look back at the big honking spreadsheet of gaming data collected over the year.
One of the benefits of collecting the data monthly is, in fact, the ability to do this!
Previous Entries:
- Looking Back on Gaming — 2023 Edition
- Looking Back on Gaming — 2022 Edition
- Looking Back on Gaming — 2021 Edition
- Looking Back on Gaming — 2020 Edition
I’ll get to the top games played over 2024 shortly, but first while on the track of looking at the previous years as well — here’s how 2024 stacked up vs. the others I’ve collected data for.1
One trend that has become abundantly clear is that the start and end of each year typically feature much more gaming time than the inner months. Less immediately clear is ‘why’ this is, at least outside of December/January, where my holidays lie.
My current leading theory is that it is simply down to what is coming out around that time of year. In prior years, it has been things like a WoW expansion, or Lost Ark, or one year it was even a return to Monster Hunter: World.
This year? The start of the year was brought up by the likes of Last Epoch and Granblue Fantasy: Relink, with 74 and 65 hours played respectively. The end of the year was almost entirely down to Overwatch 2 (205 hours, albeit spread over a few months) and most recently, Path of Exile 2 with 73 hours already.
Diablo IV actually had some presence at both the start and end of the year too, between a season I played early on, and then the expansion more recently. Diablo IV saw a total of 81 hours across the year. I’m curious whether I’ll touch it again before the next expansion, but my guess is probably not.
Top 10 2024 Games — By Months and Hours Played
It is both amusing and a little sad that Cities: Skylines 2 despite ranking #1 in months played is nowhere to be seen in the top 10 ranking for hours played.
Cities: Skylines 2 has improved since its awful launch, no question. I keep checking back in, generally with the major updates, so I can see the progress being made.
However, in that initial launch review, in a comment that has unfortunately aged like milk, I said, “But in this case, I suspect we’re talking a couple of months or so, rather than a year before a check back would be a good idea.”
Oof.
Here we are, more than a year later, and I think it still needs more time in the oven.
This little hiccup aside, we’ve had a great year for gaming I would say. So much so that it has inspired me to put in a new block this year.
Top 10 Games of 2024 — By Preference
‘By Preference’ simply being… How much I liked them! Regardless of time spent, or number of months played. Or more simply, what, of the games I played in 2024, did I like the most?
| Rank | Game | Hours Played | Months Played |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree | 43.5 | 3 |
| 2 | Baldur’s Gate 3 | 64.4 | 1 |
| 3 | Yakuza: Like A Dragon | 58.2 | 2 |
| 4 | Granblue Fantasy: Relink | 65.1 | 2 |
| 5 | Last Epoch | 73.5 | 3 |
| 6 | Wuthering Waves | 54.4 | 3 |
| 7 | Path of Exile 2 | 73.1 | 1 |
| 8 | Islands of Insight | 25.0 | 1 |
| 9 | Overwatch 2 | 204.9 | 4 |
| 10 | Helldivers 2 | 63.5 | 5 |
Earlier in the year — August, specifically — I made a list of my top 4 games of the year.
At that point in the year — the four games were Granblue Fantasy, Baldur’s Gate 3, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree and Last Epoch. With the exception of Last Epoch, all the other entries have changed in relative order to each other.
I’m glad I didn’t remember I had created that list while creating this one. I feel it would have coloured the results this time around. I only found it while looking for any posts I may’ve made about the games I selected after the fact.
It’s interesting to me the effect of timing and how memories, or at least, the impressions of a game change. Another key example being, that if I had created this list a month or two ago, I suspect Overwatch 2 would’ve ranked right up there at number one, while I was right in the thick of it.
Top 10 Games Overall — By Months and Hours Played
The overall lists are a fair bit slower to move where the top 10s are concerned. I expect that we might never see the day that World of Warcraft is pipped from its top spot for hours played, let alone taken from the top 10 altogether.
I just don’t generally play things that much!
Even so, there have been some changes. WoW was even taken out from top spot for months played. Er- by another Activision product though, Overwatch. Overwatch was third (with 13 months played) last year.
Take a look at last year’s charts if you happen to be curious about what other changes may’ve happened!
The ‘Complete’ List
Spoiler: This isn’t a complete list at all. Not by a long shot. There are 296 games listed in the spreadsheet (up 67 from last year) from over the (almost) six years I’ve been capturing this data. This is just the top 63 (i.e., the number I could fit on screen without zooming out further). Last year, cutting it off here only excluded games with below 14 hours played. This time, the cut-off occurs for games at around 19.8 hours of play.
If you would like to look at the actual complete list — you can view the data set here.
Wrapping up and Predictions for 2025
Before I get to the new gaming predictions for 2025, how did I go with the predictions made for 2024?
- World of Warcraft: Will not feature in the top 10 for 2024 — I expect I’m done with WoW. Hopefully for good; but… Well, we all know how that typically goes.
This one… may actually be true. In the grander, longer, sense I mean. It is definitely true that I didn’t play it at all this year, and so it didn’t make it to, well, top anything let alone the top 10.
I don’t think I’ve ever skipped an entire expansion of WoW before, so, perhaps I’m truly done with it this time!
- Granblue Fantasy Relink: In contrast, this will feature in the top 10 for 2024; at least in hours played. Possibly for months played as well. In fact, I will say: In the top 5 for hours but in the lower half of the top 10 for months played.
This actually came true as well. Albeit just barely. Granblue is #5 for hours played, and #9 for months played. I only played it for two. One incredibly heavy ‘all-the-time’ game style in February when it came out, and a brief revisit in November to take a squiz at some of the new DLC content.
- Final Fantasy XIV: The urge to play this again has been steadily increasing. For quite a long time now. I suspect 2024 will be the year this finally reaches the point of taking action. I’d like to say this will mean I run all the way through to the completion of Endwalker, but history would say more likely is the completion of the current mid-expansion patch content I’m in and through the next expansion (Stormblood).
Bzzzt. This one I got wrong. I mean… I did at one point download, reinstall and update FFXIV with the intent to play. I even got as far as logging in.
The problem kicked in when I discovered the hard way that FFXIV doesn’t install your UI and action bar settings are only saved locally. I hadn’t played on this PC, so all that was blown away.
At the time, I had no desire to work out how to rebuild my skill bars, and what every skill did in the first place. Not even for my main class (Bard), let alone all the others I had gone to the effort of setting up.
Maybe one day… But that was not the day. And getting into the 2025 predictions: nor do I think 2025 will hold that day either.
- Monster Hunter Wilds is probably going to be my favourite game of the year. This will probably reflect in hours played most strongly, as I also expect that it will become a burn-bright ‘all-the-time’ game rather than a long, sustained presence.
- Cities: Skylines 2 will continue to make a regular appearance. And this is where I am going to lean into optimism once again and say, 2025 will be the year that Cities: Skylines 2 all comes together, with the fundamentals of the game largely sorted, and the first truly game-expanding DLC is announced (if not also launched!)
Beyond this? I’m really not sure! I haven’t looked much into what games are meant to be coming this year yet.
But I’m excited to find out. Bring on 2025! :D
