Google Announces The Most Searched for Games of 2023

2023 has been chock-full of major releases in the video game industry, including The Game Awards Game of the Year winner Baldur's Gate 3. Recently, Google released its yearly list of trending topics across most imaginable categories. Of course, video games were included in that massive list, and the top ten games in terms of Google searches are surprising. It's worth noting that this list takes worldwide searches into account, which explains why some games aren't popping up. That said, major games like Alan Wake 2, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Final Fantasy 16, among many others, didn't make the cut. Below, you'll find Google's list of the most searched games in 2023.

Google's Most Searched Games of 2023

Again, it's important to remember that this list takes worldwide searches into account, which is why you'll see games like Battlegrounds Mobile India. It's also not completely clear how Google parses for games that also had adaptations in other media come out this year. Presumably, the tech giant accounts for that in some way, but it didn't explain how in its list. Here is the full list:

1. Hogwarts Legacy
2. The Last of Us 
3. Connections
4. Battlegrounds Mobile India
5. Starfield
6. Baldur's Gate 3
7. Suika Game
8. Diablo IV
9. Atomic Heart
10. Sons of the Forest

Seeing Hogwarts Legacy at the top of the list will likely make players who loved that game feel a little better about the game not being nominated for any awards at The Game Awards. The game has been a major sales hit, so it's not surprising to see it topping the list, though the second-place finisher might raise a few eyebrows.

As mentioned, it's not clear if The Last of Us ranks so high because it had a hit TV show or if players are that excited about the upcoming Part 2 Remaster. It's worth noting that Google ranked the adaptation as the most searched TV show of 2023, so there's obviously some level of crossover. Connections is the next hit word game from The New York Times. The follow-up to Wordle has taken the world by storm, so it makes sense that it ranks so high. 

Battlegrounds Mobile India is the Indian version of PUBG Mobile. The game was banned by the Indian government for nearly a year before getting unbanned in May, which partially explains why its search is so high this year. Most of the other games are fairly self-explanatory. Even if games like Atomic Heart and Sons of the Forest aren't massive hits, they were in the news cycle quite a bit at release. The one that sticks out is Suika Game.

Suika Game is a puzzle game on the Nintendo Switch that was developed and published by Aladdin X. The game launched in Japan in 2021 and finally came to the rest of the world this October. However, Suika Game received a massive boost in popularity after it became a VTuber favorite earlier this year. In fact, the game was the highest-selling game on the My Nintendo Store in September. With that surprising explosion in popularity, it's no surprise to see it jump so high in Google's list of the most searched games.