2023 was the year of the RPG – now 2024 looks like the year of JRPGs

From Persona to Final Fantasy to Suikoden, 2024 is stacked with JRPG greats

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It wasn’t until I actually sat down to research and write an article about the biggest JRPGs of 2024 that I fully realized just how many of these games are out this year. I knew there were a lot, but holy crap.

The first month of 2024 was largely defined by survival games, but we’ve also already seen some massive, critically acclaimed JRPGs such asLike A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and the year’s only getting started. Where 2023 was defined by mammoth RPGs likeBaldur’s Gate 3andStarfield, or the revitalizingCyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, 2024 looks like an oasis for fans of a very specific role-playing package.

February is massive for JRPGs

After the double-whammy ofPalworldand Enshrouded, February’s kicked off with a one-two punch of JRPGs. Persona 3 Reload and Granblue Fantasy: Relink dropped back-to-back, and both have reviewed encouragingly well.

Persona 3 Reload is a modernized version of the 2009 classic, just with some of its rougher edges sanded down and, in many places, a few bits of Persona 5 Royal grafted on for quality-of-life’s sake. It is anenormousgame that still stands out as an unflinchingly dour story in the Persona series, now retooled to be as good as longtime fans remember it, and to be much more approachable for newcomers. I look forward to losing another 134 hours to its cleverly intertwined combat and social systems.

Nobody was surprised to hear that the Persona 3 remake is good. Granblue Fantasy: Relink, meanwhile, is kind of a miracle. The game was in and out of various circles of development hell – and various developers – for years, but after a promising demo released a few weeks ago, is finally out. And good! The demo hinted as much, and reviews for Relink confirm what fans were hoping for, whether that’s fans of the Granblue universe or lovers of action RPGs in general. Relink is a rock-solid JRPG largely carried by an exhilarating battle system and a colorful world too good to stay confined to one impenetrable gacha game.

We still haven’t gotten to the biggest February release, not just among JRPGs but probably of all the games out this month:Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Part two of the storied classic’s remake trilogy promises a more sprawling adventure supported by a larger playable cast, and simultaneously looks like more of the same in the best possible way. Speaking as someone who never played the original Final Fantasy 7 but quite enjoyed the first chunk of the Remake, I’m more than ready to pal around with Cloud and the gang for another 50+ hours. It’s a shame it’ll be a PS5 exclusive for some time.

Just the start of a stacked year

Amazingly, we’re not even a third of the way done, and that’s not counting the honorable mentions I’m going to sneak in at the end of this. We’re still missing exact release dates for a few games, but it’s clear that 2024 is going to be packed with JRPGs from beginning to end. Here are the heaviest hitters to keep an eye on:

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Honorable mentions

Oh yes, there’s more. We’ve hit the big-ticket, written-up-in-lights JRPGs, but 2024 will also see plenty of, well, let’s just call them adjacent games that I didn’t want to ignore. Some of these brush up against the design conventions of JRPGs, others are already out but coming to more platforms this year. My point is, if you’re interested in the games we’ve talked about so far, some of these might catch your eye too.

Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he’s been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They’ve yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he’s kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

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