Ive been spending a few hours on Elin lately. It's like a JRPG version of Stardew Valley, with lots of dungeons to explore, recipes to craft, and crops to harvest.

I also played Dead Cells this year, which is a very fun sidescrolling roguelike with a good selection of different weapons to come across, with a variety of different playstyles depending on what you find.

This one is pretty obvious, but I had a blast with Persona 5 Royal this year. An excellent, extremely stylish JRPG that I (and everyone else) recommend highly.

As I have in multiple years past, I again highly recommend Noita. A very deep roguelike where you play a wizard delving into the earth, finding more magic wands and spells that you can mix and match to make the perfect wand. Additionally, every pixel in the game is made out of materials like flammable Oil, fire-quenching Water, dangerous Acid, and so forth, leading to many interesting interactions.

Another re-recommendation from me is DAVE THE DIVER. A beautiful, colorful pixel world in which you scuba dive for fish by day, and serve them in your sushi restaurant at night.

If you haven't played RimWorld yet, I don't know what you're doing. An exceptional base builder, and in my opinion, one of the best games on Steam. It's also actually on a minor sale right now, which hasn't happened in years past.

Finally, perhaps my favorite couch coop game on Steam is Plate Up!. Up to four players cooperate to run a restaurant. Every few days, you will have to pick a complication, like adding a new dish to the menu, or breaking the parties down into parties of one (so it's the same amount of guests using many more tables). I've busted this out multiple times now at couch parties, and it's always a ton of fun.

What about you? What do you recommend?