Beat the drama drums, it's time for the RPG Codex best RPGs of 2023!

This is our second year going back to a Codex-only vote, on a 1-5 scale. In total, we had 430 votes (as opposed to 364 last year), voting on 162 RPGs (157 last year).

This year's winner was surprising: an European studio got the license to one of the Codex's favourite RPGs from the 90s, did a third main game... and people loved it!

Congratulations to... JAGGED ALLIANCE 3! Our #1 RPG of 2023!



Somehow, this unlikely event happened twice last year. So the #2 in our GOTY list was Baldur's Gate 3. It was a close call, a difference of 0,02 points. Possibly related to 41 people giving BG3 a 1/5 score because they dislike bears or something.... we'll never know.

Third place was Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game! The Codex showed up for VD and Iron Tower's latest offering, it was the 2nd most-played RPG of 2023 among codexers.

Congratulations to the Top 3 RPGs of 2023!



Here's the full Top 10 results (click to enbiggen):



And that cool graph everyone likes:



Now, for some curiosities:

The dunce cap goes to Starfield, Diablo IV and Forspoken. No explanation is needed, I think.

Age of Wonders IV, Hogwards Legacy and Darkest Dungeon II get the "meh" award, being quite popular but mostly mediocre. 84 people played AoW4, not a single one gave it a 5/5.

In contrast, we also had some hidden gems:
- Star Ocean: The Second Story R
- Quester
- Touhou Artificial Dream in Arcadia
- Hero's Adventure: Road to Passion

These four games got few votes, but most of them were 5/5. Are they true hidden gems? Are they the JRPG Codex's GOTY vote? You decide.

And that's it, thanks to everyone who took part, Twiglard for setting the poll and Abu Antar for making the game list.

As usual, you can check the full results and the raw vote data here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bu7MXR15LcqBULsIXzCi-lAqiVEgM5aREVbedVFLym8/edit?usp=sharing