The Most Anticipated Game of 2023: IGN’s Readers Have Spoken

2023 is well underway at this point, and with it comes the promise of another year of (hopefully) spectacular games that will make us laugh, cry, and just have the best old time. As it stands (before delays start piling in), we have such potential classics as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Starfield, and so many more games to look forward to. However, which game are you most excited for? Over the past week, we asked IGN’s audience to let us know which games they can’t wait to play, and the results are in.

After thousands and thousands of battles with matchups like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor vs Final Fantasy 16 and Dead Space Remake vs Resident Evil 4 Remake, the most-anticipated 2023 game, according to you, has been decided. Who took the top spot? Drumroll please…

Yes, in what you may call a bit of an upset considering the behemoth that is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has taken the ultimate prize by winning 65,038 of its 79,160 battles. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 appears to be the big PlayStation exclusive on the horizon and everyone loves that friendly neighborhood spider. This entry also looks to ramp things up even more by bringing Peter Parker and Miles Morales together to face Venom.

The battle, which was one of the closest and biggest in Face-Off history, saw Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s 82.2% win percentage be enough to take down The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s 82.1% win percentage. Yes, the margin between victory and defeat was less than 1,000 votes.

Now, defeat was probably too harsh a word as the hype for the sequel to 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild could not be higher ahead of its May 12, 2023, release date. We still don’t know much about Tears of the Kingdom, but it looks to take Link to the skies to explore floating islands above Hyrule and bring us back to the world first introduced in a game we ranked at the very top of our list of the top 100 games of all time.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor took third place with a 80.4% win percentage and earned enough votes to hold off Starfield and Hogwarts Legacy in the top five. It’s interesting to note that three of the top five games are console-exclusives, and the other two are from two of the most popular IP in the world in Star Wars and Harry Potter.

Rounding out the top 10 were some more big hitters, including Final Fantasy 16, Resident Evil 4 Remake, Dead Space Remake, Assasin’s Creed Mirage, and Diablo IV.

On the other side of the spectrum, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre claimed the bottom spot with a 23.6% win percentage. We don’t have a firm release date for the game based on the 1974 film, but our first impressions with the 3v4 PvP game were positive and we said it was a great match with the license.

Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon, a spin-off in the Bayonetta franchise, placed right above The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and was surpassed by Kerbel Space Program 2, Company of Heroes 3, Minecraft Legends, Homeworld 3, Payday 3, Sons of the Forest, Ark 2, and The Expanse: A Telltale Series.

Many of these games are spin-offs or sequels to popular franchises and, while they may not be at the top of the list, they will likely be well worth a look. Sons of the Forest is one in particular to keep an eye out for as our recent exclusive preview said it “could not only provide a huge leap forward for the series, but the survival game genre as a whole.”

Are you wondering where your most anticipated 2023 game landed, like maybe Hades 2? (It took spot #13!) For all the rankings, you can check out the full list of where all 45 2023 games that competed in the Face-Off ended up.

For more, check out what you can expect in 2023 from PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox, as well as our look at the biggest movies and TV shows also coming later this year.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.