Vote now for January 2024's TA Playlist game Voting is open for the January 2024 TA Playlist game of the month! The theme for this month is 'New Beginnings,' featuring four attempts to revive an old franchise with a modern reboot.The TA Playlist Team Published 18 Dec 2023 FollowtopicsTA PlaylistCommunity eventThe TA Playlist Team We hope you’re having a good time exploring the galaxy in the December TA Playlist Game, Starfield, but it’s time to come back to Earth for a moment to register your vote for the first featured game of 2024!The New Year is traditionally a time to reflect, to look back at what you’ve done in the past and decide if there’s anything you want to change in the future. Whether that means going to the gym, quitting a bad habit, or just finally trying to knock out some games from your backlog, many of us will spend the first part of January thinking about ways that we can work toward a better version of ourselves.With this in mind, and with a healthy dose of inspiration from MorseyBaby in the TA Playlist Game Suggestion Thread, the January 2024 TA Playlist theme is “New Beginnings,” games that picked up an old IP, gave it a new look and feel, and tried to bring back the franchise for a new audience. Just like with our own New Year’s resolutions, some of these reboots were successful in bringing a franchise back from the dead, while others failed to make much of a splash, but each of these games has something interesting to bring to the table, so pick which one you think is worthy of discussion as the first TA Playlist game of 2024! ThiefOur first nominee to sneak in for the new year is the stealth action game Thief, developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix for both the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One back in February 2014. While not necessarily a critical or commercial success, fans of the pure stealth genre were excited for the revival of the cult classic series from the late 90s and early 2000s.Garrett, the Master Thief, steps from the shadows into the City, a treacherous place ruled by a tyrannical Baron and his brutal Watch. When the citizens rise in a bloody revolution, Garrett's thieving skills are all he can trust as he walks a fine line between politics and the people, revealing a darker secret that threatens to tear his world apart.There are two tracked versions of Thief available – Thief, with a TA user score of 3.28/5, and Thief (Xbox 360), with a TA user score of 3.36/5. Between the two versions, over 200,000 tracked gamers have stepped into Garrett’s padded shoes, with around 2% (fewer than 4,000 gamers between the two stacks) earning all 37 of the game’s achievements. The official estimate says that a completion will take you 40-50 hours, but a Thief walkthrough by regular Playlist contributor Allgorhythm should help you get it done a bit faster without getting lost in the dark streets of The City. DmC: Devil May CryOur second nominee this month is DmC: Devil May Cry, developed by Ninja Theory and published by Capcom in 2013, with a DmC: Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition released two years later. In an attempt to reboot the long-running Devil May Cry series, DMC is set in an alternate universe to the previous games, and while it was critically praised, the game also received a lot of criticism from long-time fans over some of the redesign choices.In a society corrupted by demons, only The Order can see the world for what it really is. Join Dante in the ultimate experience of stylish action; chain together combo after combo with panache and dispatch demonic spawn back to hell – reveal the truth behind the lies. Explore Dante’s dark past encountering some of the most familiar faces in the DmC universe. Call upon unimaginable powers combined with Dante’s epic arsenal of weapons: sword, scythe, axe, pistols, and more. Face your demons...Over 58,000 tracked gamers have played DmC: Devil May Cry, and over 98,000 more played the Definitive Edition, which have TA user scores of 4.22 and 4.07/5.00, respectively. The original version has 58 achievements that are estimated to take between 48 and 60 hours to complete, while the Definitive Edition combines the base game and DLC into one package with 50 achievements and an estimated 35-40 hours completion time. Combined, around 2,700 gamers have managed to complete one version or the other, with some help from the DmC: Devil May Cry Walkthrough by drabik.Shadow WarriorOur next contender is a reboot of a late 90s Duke Nukem-style first-person shooter, Shadow Warrior. Developed by Flying Wild Hog and published by Devolver Digital, the game was first released on PC in 2013 before coming to consoles a year later. Shadow Warrior tells the offbeat tale of Zilla Enterprise’s corporate shogun Lo Wang as he is ordered to acquire a legendary blade of limitless power by his deceitful employer. Betrayed and left for dead, Lo Wang learns of the blade’s connection to ancient gods from another realm preparing to push our world to the brink of destruction. Now the reluctant hero must become legend through a masterful combination of gun, blade, magic, and wit to uncover the truth behind the demonic invasion and banish evil back into the darkness.Just over 79,000 tracked gamers have unlocked at least one achievement in Shadow Warrior, with only a smidge over 200 of those gamers (less than 1%) unlocking all 53 of the game’s achievements. The completion is estimated to take 40-50 hours, and while no walkthrough currently exists, there are plenty of achievement guides to help you fight through the hordes of demons.King’s QuestAnd now, for something completely different. The final nominee for the month is the point-and-click fantasy adventure, King's Quest. Based on the long-running series of Sierra adventure games from the 80s and ’90s, developer The Odd Gentlemen and publisher Sierra Entertainment brought the series back to life with this episodic re-imagining for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One in 2015. An aging King Graham reflects on a life of adventure with his granddaughter, Gwendolyn, taking players back to his teen years and his quest to become a knight of Daventry in King Edward’s royal guard. Discover a wondrous world full of whimsical characters, charming puzzles and perilous dangers in this fun and enchanting coming-of-age story.There are three tracked versions of this game available, with TA User ratings ranging from 3.77 to 4.2 out of 5.00, so if you’re looking for a TA Playlist triple-stack, this one’s for you. King's Quest and King's Quest (Xbox 360) are both episodic titles, with the first episode free to download, and the rest available for purchase. The third version, King's Quest: The Complete Collection, combines all five episodes into one package for the Xbox 360 (not backwards compatible). Each version contains 53 achievements, with estimates of 11-16 hours for the full completion. For the episodic versions, around 29,000 tracked gamers have started one version or the other, with around 2,200 (7%) completing the game. Meanwhile, only 611 tracked gamers have started the Complete Collection version, but 252 of those went on to complete it (41%), suggesting the biggest challenge for this game was simply purchasing the episodes! Still, if you get stuck, a King's Quest Walkthrough by TaankGirl is available to help in your quest.And those are the nominees for the first TA Playlist of 2024. Which of these reboots would you pick to ring in the new year? Place your vote and let us know your thoughts in the comments! And as always, if you have any suggestions for future Playlist games or themes, be sure to drop them in the TA Playlist Game Suggestion Thread for possible inclusion in a future poll! Once again, a big thanks to MorseyBaby and the others in that thread who inspired this month’s theme!Which game should the community play for January 2024's TA Playlist? Thief38.91% (533) DmC: Devil May Cry20.51% (281) Shadow Warrior14.01% (192) King’s Quest26.57% (364) We've had 1370 responses. TA Playlist Written by The TA Playlist TeamThe TA Playlist is a monthly community event. Everyone votes on which of four games to play, and then we all play through it in the following month. There's a dedicated hub to discuss everything about the game, from story beats to gameplay tips – and of course, you can track your achievement progress during the month as well. TA Playlist was created by Mark Delaney and is now run by Miles, Nici and Chewie.