

In addition to our main Game of the Year Awards 2024, each member of the PC Gamer team is shining a spotlight on a game they loved this year. We'll post new personal picks, alongside our main awards, throughout the rest of the month.
Like a lot of kids who grew up with unrestricted access to the internet in the early-to-mid 2000s, I spent a helluva lot of time in social chatroom games. Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin, IMVU, and Gaia Online were in my regular rotation, being an exciting (and more importantly, free) new way of connecting with people all over the world.