Hi-Fi Rush Is Holding First Place For OpenCritic’s Hall Of Fame 2023 Award

Almost five months into the year, Hi-Fi Rush is currently winning the OpenCritic Hall of Fame 2023. The game leads the likes of Hogwarts Legacy, Octapath Traveller II, Dredge, and Vernal Edge. OpenCritic has given Hi-Fi Rush a score of 89 based on “Top Critic Reviews” and labeled the title “Mighty” according to its own rating system, which is the highest rating any game can possibly receive at OpenCritic.

The game closest to Hi-Fi Rush is a fairly hidden 2D single-player action title called Vernal Edge. OpenCritic has given it a score of 88, one point behind Hi-Fi Rush. Surprisingly a much more famous game like Hogwarts Legacy is on the 7th with a score of 84. 

To the majority of the gaming community Hi-Fi Rush topping the OpenCritic Hall of Fame award for 2023 is not surprising in the least, as the game has all the right ingredients that fit all the required criteria for the award. But this list is expected to see a major shuffle with much-anticipated games like Redfall, Street Fighter 6, Starfield, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 scheduled to be released through the course of 2023.

Despite the pleasant surprise of seeing Hi-Fi Rush at the top, some netizens questioned the absence of the Resident Evil 4 Remake and Dead Space Remaster. But the absence of these classics is not due to their low scores. It is due to the fact that OpenCritic only considers newly released games for its Hall of Fame award. The policy for the award is further explained on the website in the following way,

The OpenCritic Hall of Fame is reserved for new games that introduce substantial, original elements across nearly all disciplines of game development. DLCs, expansions, remasters, episodes, bundles, and new editions are generally ineligible.”

At the time of its release, Hi-Fi Rush took the gaming community by storm. Before the game’s launch, nobody was paying much attention to the game, mostly because of a lack of advertisement from Tango Gameworks and Bethesda. The game wasn’t even announced until hours before the launch. Hi-Fi Rush is a prime example of success with virtually zero marketing.

And the success of the rhythm-based action game wasn’t anything to be looked over; it was monumental. The game received mostly favorable reviews from seasoned reviewers. Among ordinary gamers, Hi-Fi Rush was an even bigger success which saw the game receive a 10/10 rating on Steam. And within two months of its release, the action-packed game sold almost 2 million copies.

Hi-Fi Rush is a rhythm-based action-packed hack-and-slash game developed by Tokyo-based studio Tango Gameworks and published by Bethesda Softworks. It was released on 25th January 2023, mere hours after it was announced. The game is available on PC and Xbox Series X|S.