Marvel Snap Is the Year’s Best Ongoing Game of 2024 (Golden Issue Awards)

While the news cycle around video games is often dominated by whatever the biggest hot new release is, those games can fizzle out and fade from the conversation (if not outright shut down) as quickly as they burst onto the scene. Then there are the ongoing games that may no longer qualify as the new hotness but have kept players entertained in one way or another for months, if not years. ComicBook’s Golden Issue Award for Best Ongoing Game seeks to celebrate those continuing gaming pleasures that have received new updates or installments this year while remaining a part of many gamers’ regular play habits.

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This year’s nominees included heavy hitters in the field such as Call of Duty: Warzone, a franchise that has become synonymous with gaming in many minds, and that equally ubiquitous IP melting pot that is Fortnite. Other nominees included Disney’s Dreamlight Valley, an entry into the cozy game canon that allows players to mingle with their favorite characters from the “House of Mouse,” and the somewhat scrappier Helldivers 2, the cult-favorite co-op shooter sequel with Starship Troopers vibes. Finally, there’s Marvel Snap, the digital card game featuring Marvel characters that has become a permanent addition to many Marvel fans’ app libraries.

And the winner of the 2024 ComicBook Golden Issue Award for Best Ongoing Game is…

Marvel Snap!

Marvel Snap may seem like a quaint underdog competing with the console and PC powerhouses that are the other nominees in this category, but perhaps inauspiciousness is its secret weapon. Once downloaded, Marvel Snap lurks on the player’s phone (or PC), tempting them with a few minutes of play every time they unlock their device. That power comes from Marvel Snap‘s succinct gameplay loop. Where other digital card games based on tabletop counterparts can take up to an hour to play, Marvel Snap’s 6-round time limit (7 rounds, if you or your opponent are playing Magik) means a full, satisfying game takes less than five minutes. Of course, that’s not counting all the time you’ll spend choosing which variant you want in your deck, and how you want to customize said variant. Oh, did we mention this all free-to-play, and that it isn’t hard to have a good time without spending a dime?

Sure, like all ongoing and free-to-play games, Marvel Snap has its quirks and problems: the constant influx of new cards and the method of distribution makes getting into the game as a new player a bit of a grind at first, the meta went a bit stale for brief periods this year when new additions proved too dominant, and not everyone loves that the last season of the year’s theme is synergy with an entirely different video game. But for all those pain points, 2024 brought a lot of fun to Marvel Snap.

Most seasons smartly tied into other Marvel properties that wide audiences were excited about such as Venom: The Last Dance or Deadpool & Wolverine. Temporary game modes like Deadpool’s Diner have offered fun diversions with solid rewards. (Personally, my favorite game mode was the Avengers vs. X-Men season where players were rewarded with bonuses for playing members of those respective factions together in a deck; bring it back!). Perhaps most importantly, the addition of Alliances to the game has added a social teamwork element to the game and another opportunity to earn coveted boosters and crystals to upgrade cards (and earn new ones). Marvel Snap even got its first new mechanic since launch in 2024, with the addition (and, in some cases, patching) of cards with the Activate keyword.

Marvel Snap may not be the hot new digital TCG of the moment anymore (hello, Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket), or even the shiniest new Marvel multiplayer game (that’d be Marvel Rivals, which all Marvel Snap players participating in the December 2024 season are aware of), but it is a stellar experience for anyone looking for a quick fix who loves the Marvel Universe, especially as Second Dinner keeps digger deeper and deeper into Marvel lore to find new character to add to the game (Jeff the Land Shark was causing trouble in Snap long before he started annoying Rivals players).

Marvel Snap is the best. If you haven’t played it in a while, now’s a great time to pick it up again. You’d be surprised how far you can get with old staple archetypes like Destroy, Move, and Zoo. The decklists may look a little different, but the fantastic fundamental gameplay is as brilliant as ever.

The nominees for the 2024 ComicBook Golden Issue Award for Best Ongoing Game are: