I have several friends who love saying that 2022 was a weird year for games and that no games came out this year, but that's not really true. A wide-range of games downloaded on my wide-range of consoles, from the big huge ones that we all played and talked about to the niche ones that really connected with smaller audiences. Personally for me, after a couple years of unemployment and tough living, 2022 was a year where I had a lot more money to spend on video games than I had time to play them. Of my top 8 list, only two of them are games I "finished."
2022 was also the year that I got a Steam Deck, which made the aging hardware of the Nintendo Switch even more apparent. Still, the Switch managed to get a game in my top 8, while the Steam Deck really allowed me dig into some of my backlog while curled up on the couch. I feel like the PS5 really hit its stride with exclusives this year, while Xbox shined with their varied Game Pass offerings. Anyway, below are my top 8 games of 2022, followed by the usual addendums, corrections, and contradictions.
8.Trombone Champ - I laughed harder at Trombone Champ than I did any other game this year. Just howling guffaws shaking loose as I frantically clicked the mouse button. It's a rhythm game where you play a trombone. It's hilarious. Highly recommend.
7. Marvel Midnight Suns - This is a late addition as this game only came out in December, and it's a long one that at fifteen hours in I feel like I've barely dug into, but I've already had a good enough time hanging out with my Marvel superhero friends in my spooky Marvel house that it has to go here. Looking forward to really digging into this in January.
6. Vampire Survivors - Vampire Survivors is like $2 or something. All you do is move your little guy around, avoid dumb monsters, and pick up powerups that make you ridiculously strong until the next round of stronger monsters threatens to overwhelm you. It's perfect. Even some of the clones that have chased its success this year are worth checking out. Some of my favorite gaming moments this year were getting incredibly overpowered builds in Vampire Survivors and laying waste to an ever filling room of weird bad guys, only to die at 29 minutes into a run.
5. Marvel Snap - Marvel Snap is too good. Even though it came out in the second half of the year, I may have spent more time playing it than any other game in 2022. No game lasts more than five minutes, there are loads of possible strategies, every match is different because of card matchups and random locations that severely change the game. Plus, even when I lose I get to level up my cards and make them shinier.
The game is insidious in the way it primes all of the joy in your brain to activate, but it manages to do that without also being insidious about microtransactions. Yes, it has $50 packages that amount to just a couple variants of cards you already have, but all gameplay specific unlocks don't require real money purchases. Season passes are optional and cost $10, and yeah them being monthly sometimes feels a bit much, but I'm playing it so much that I'm happy to throw $10 a month at a it so I have even more numbers that go higher.
4. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - I played all of Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2, and despite enjoying both of them a ton, they both had slow enough starts and sometimes troubling idiosyncrasies that made them difficult to recommend. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is different, it’s an instant recommendation to anyone looking for a complex, interesting JRPG. The characters and story are immediately engaging. Also unlike the previous entries, the side quests are significantly more interesting, giving real reasons to explore the huge world.
Currently I’m only (“only”) 40 hours in, and I’m guessing I’m about halfway through. I’ll be chipping away at it for a large chunk of 2023, and that’s a-ok by me. “I’M THE GIRL WITH THE GALL!”
3. Immortality - Immortality is the latest from Sam Barlow, modern FMV auteur, and this time he bites off way more than he should be able to chew, but somehow sticks the landing. It’s three movies worth of footage, with weird behind the scenes material to go with it, and all you’ve gotta do is watch it and try and make sense of what you’re seeing. Pretty quickly it gets a little Twin Peaks, but also always stays true to the genres the films within the game live in. It’s a spooky, voyeuristic ride that no film buff should miss. Also, it’s on Xbox game pass and on Netflix on your phone, so just play it.
2. God of War Ragnarok - I picked this up because I was supposed to. It’s the big PS5 release this year and my PS5 needs more games on it. I enjoyed the last one, but found it completely forgettable—Ragnorak is anything but. The writing and storytelling is just top-notch. I think the best way to explain it is that they truly respect every character in the game and give them all a ton of screen time. This does mean that the game balloons in length (I think I put in 45 hours or so), but it had me loving every weird dwarf, giant, and other mystical beast I met.
That game length is also less painful because they keep the mechanics just fresh enough without changing them so you forget out how to play. Playable characters and sidekicks swap in and out regularly in ways that feel natural to the narrative, but also keep you adjusting your playstyle.
It’s a great game and it makes me very excited for whatever that team does next (but it doesn’t have to be another one of these, guys).
1. Elden Ring - Elden Ring is so much. It’s the game that finally made me understand the Souls games. It’s the first game since Breath of the Wild to give me a true sense of exploration and wonder in an open world. I had so many terrifying experiences of stepping into areas, seeing the grossest, scariest thing I’d ever seen, and running away as fast as I could. Then twenty hours later, I’d go back to the same area and lay waste to that silly ugly monster.
I didn’t finish Elden Ring, but I put about sixty hours in, loved it all, and hope to some time eventually be in the mood to return. Even if I never do make it back, those sixty hours set a new bar for open world games for me and reminded me that games can still surprise.
Games I played that didn't make the list because they didn't come out this year:
Code Vein - After playing 60 hours of Elden Ring over two intense months, I needed more souls-like action, but I didn't want it to feel as "important" as Elden Ring.This is how Code Vein became my most played Steam Deck game of the year. I love it's weird vampire anime bullshit. I love that the combat is difficult and souls-like, but I can also just button mash 90% of the time. Definitely recommend it to anyone like me who wants something souls-like but not quite a Souls game.
Fortnite - I'm still playing Fortnite. Sorry. Every new season they add a ton of new stuff and it's a great game for my partner and I to play together. This year they even made the game look a bunch better. You can ride a pig around as Spider-Gwen and shoot a gun at Goku.
Destiny 2 - I played through Witch Queen this year, and it probably could've made my top 10, but then I also kind of burned out on the seasonal stuff a bit and chose to focus on other games. Sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed by all the inventory management, but Destiny 2 still feels better to play than just about any other game. Very excited for this the next big expansion.
Fire Emblem Three Houses - I finally finished this game this year! Fire Emblem still good! Turned out that maybe playing through 3/4s of the game on Classic Hard wasn’t the right thing for me, and in the last 20% I switched to Classic Normal and had a much better time. I’ve got that new one pre-ordered for later in January and I'll probably take three years playing that one too!
Yakuza Like a Dragon - Like a Dragon is still great! I'm still playing it somehow! I'm probably not even halfway through. I still love it.
Games I didn't play (or didn't play enough of) but would like to:
Neon White - Neon White is good! I played two hours and really enjoyed myself and then never went back. See you in 2023, Neon White.
Norco - I played a good amount of Norco and loved it, but fell off when they added a mechanic that felt too complicated at the time, and unfortunately I never went back. Now I have to decide whether to a.) finish it even though I feel like I've forgotten what was happening, b.) start over, or c.) just save it for some time in the future when I can give it a fresh playthrough.
Tunic - I was really enjoying Tunic! But it was also a bit too hard for me and I fell off and never went back. Hope to return at some point.
Need for Speed Unbound - This game came out of nowhere, dropped with no fanfare, and after a decade of unexciting Need for Speed games turns out... good? I’m only like 6 hours in, but the racing is solid, the art-style and soundtrack are captivating, and the story is actually interesting? Best of all, it seems like an open world racing game with a vision, a reason to keep racing, and not just 100s of icons on a map. Excited to keep digging into this one.
Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope
Games that I'm sad I didn't like more and might go back and play more/finish, or might just say goodbye to:
Overwatch 2 - Overwatch is still great when it's great, but boy when you're losing does Overwatch feel bad. The new characters and maps are fine, but the season pass progression and unlocks were pretty boring for me, and once I got my fill of More Overwatch I fell off. Haven't even turned it on in season 2 yet.
Horizon Forbidden West - Too many things on map. Want to know what happens in the story, but too many things on map.
Pokemon Legends Acreus and Pokemon Scarlet - Did these... both come out this year? Did I buy and start both of them despite not really getting into a Pokemon game since Pokemon Emerald? Did I enjoy my first 5 hours with both of them a ton and then forget completely about them? Yup.
So yeah, I think 2022 was a pretty good year in games, as I'll continue to chip away at my favorites and the ones I didn't get to. 2023 promises to be an even bigger year with the Zelda Breath of the Wild follow-up, Fire Emblem Engage, Starfield, and Diablo 4 being the games I'm most looking forward to. Beyond the big releases, I'm going to try to spend a little more time playing the games I already know I love, and I hope you will find time to as well. Happy 2023.
