2022 feels like one of those rare years where fans of basically every genre could find something to get excited about. Elden Ring lived up to the hype, Vampire Survivors came out of nowhere and Persona 5 Royal finally made its way onto the Switch. Whichever way you look, there were plenty of indie darlings to be found and AAA blockbusters to go around.
The sentiment that we’re saturated in new things to play is hardly new, but the fact that so many of them are as good as they are seems noteworthy nevertheless. Every December, I sit down and string together some sentences about the games that stuck with me and why. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so torn about what could and couldn’t make my Game of the Year shortlist.
Honourable mentions: Norco, Immortality, Marvel Snap, Gloomhaven, Signalis, Elden Ring, Gunfire Reborn, Suzerain.
10. Chernobylite
After venturing into “The Zone” myself a few years back and playing through the original STALKER last year, it felt like I had worked through most of my fascination with Chornobyl. Nevertheless, I heard enough interesting things about Chernobylite that I decided to pull the trigger on its unique mix of survival and stealth gameplay.
And for a few weeks there, Chernobylite became a perfect game to wake up to. I could always squeeze in a quick run or two with my morning coffee. The writing, gunplay and level design aren’t particularly mind-blowing, but the vibes are right where they need to be to appeal to the dark tourist in my heart.
9. Betrayal at Club Low
One of the many things that stuck with me about Disco Elysium was the way it blended the skill checks and dice rolls of a TTRPG with the bespoke problem-solving of a point-and-click adventure. Betrayal at Club Low strikes a similar chord but to an entirely different effect. Here, the experience of trying and failing a skill check can be as much fun to mess up as the alternative.
You play as a secret agent disguised as a pizza delivery person and tasked with infiltrating a nightclub to extract an undercover operative whose cover has been blown. That’s a solid premise that the writing in the game milks for everything it’s worth. Each person you meet in this game is a character with a capital C and the bizarre situations you find yourself in can often be just as strange as the solutions.
With 11 different endings and a distinctly deranged vibe, Betrayal at Club Low is one of the few new games I played to credits more than once this year, so I can’t help but recommend giving it a whirl.
8. Marvel’s Midnight Suns
I don’t usually include games that I haven’t finished playing through on this list, but I’m going to make an exception for Midnight Suns. It’s easy to imagine a version of this game where the Firaxis team slotted some superheroes into the X-COM template and called it a day. The game that the developer has shipped isn’t that at all. There’s a little bit of Fire Emblem, Dragon Age and Persona in the mix here, with echoes of modern campaign-driven deck builders like Gloomhaven and tricksy tactics titles like Into the Breach.
Midnight Suns is so good it makes me bemoan the fact that Firaxis has been stuck bouncing between Civilization and X-COM for as long as they have. It makes me yearn for a world where other developers are inspired by this specific style of strategy game. It’s been an unmitigated treat to get not one but two incredible Marvel-flavored card battlers in a single year. It’s equally unexpected to see Midnight Suns put its own spin on these characters and avoid falling into the same pitfalls as Crystal Dynamics’ take on the Avengers.
Midnight Suns is a fresh fusion of genres that leans on its source material in wicked ways and pulls from unexpected sources to heroic effect. The only reason it isn’t higher on my list is that I haven’t reached the end of it.
7. Dawncaster
While it can’t quite dethrone Wild Rift as my mobile game of choice and it doesn’t quite have the pick-up-and-play appeal of something like Marvel Snap, Dawncaster is low-key fantastic. It might be one of the best mobile games I’ve played in years and it definitely deserves a lot more attention.
Fans of the roguelike deck builder genre will quickly cotton onto what’s going on with Dawncaster. You pay your $6 or so on the Google Play Store. You get seven playable classes, each of which has thirty levels of perks and weapons to unlock, mix and match between runs. Most individual encounters take less than sixty seconds, and the volume of variety on offer here made it easy to lose hours and hours trying out different builds.
If these sturdy fundamentals were all that worked about Dawncaster, it’d still probably cut it as a pretty good one of those. However, the lean pacing and likable presentation help push it that one step further. I don’t know if the final product quite does for deck builders what Hearthstone did for Magic: The Gathering, but it certainly swings harder in that direction than anything I’ve played before.
6. Neon White
Developed by the studio behind the charming and cutesy Donut County, Ben Esposito’s latest is a fantastic first-person platformer that hands you a deck of card-based weapons and then gives you the ability to trade those cards in for slick parkour skills at the press of a button. It’s unlike anything else out there, yet also familiar enough that it’s easy to find the fun.
Neon White doesn’t outstay its welcome and each level provides plenty of room for you to experiment, explore and showcase your expertise when it comes to optimising your in-game scoreboard. If we’re being completely honest, I was a little disappointed that the writing and visual novel aspect of the experience didn’t soar to the same highs. That said, what’s here is still one of my biggest standouts when it comes to gaming in 2022.
5. Kirby’s Dream Buffet
I’ve never been a big Kirby person, but Dream Buffet hit me for six. A four-player party game that feels more than a little inspired by Fall Guys, I spent so many evenings this year playing this game online with my partner and absolutely clobbering countless players that I can only assume were literal children.
In line with the old-school fun of queuing into a competitive game with a friend, I suspect that part of the reason why Kirby’s Dream Buffet hit a chord with me is that it’s pure and plain fun in a way that many modern games eschew in favour of being sticky. There’s not a battle pass in sight, but it’s easy to engorge yourself with the frantic physics-based action involved.
In sharp contrast to most of the other online games I sunk time into over 2022, every match of Kirby’s Dream Buffet is winnable up to the last possible second. That tension made me play more adventurously, kept me coming back for another serving and make the taste of victory all the sweeter.
4. Dune: Spice Wars
Real-time strategy games are rare enough in 2022, let alone ones as good and original as this one. Rather than try and crib from classics like Starcraft or Command and Conquer, Spice Wars tries to bind together the pacing of the former with a bunch of neat ideas pulled from both traditional board gaming and 4X titles like Total War.
It doesn’t hurt that the source material here is as flavorful as it is. Even in its current state, you get the sense that developer Shiro Games have really put in the work to try and make each faction in Spice Wars feel different and faithful to the spirit of the wider Dune mythology. It’s far from finished, but Spice Wars is already one of the freshest strategy games I’ve played in years and I can’t wait to see how it evolves in 2023 and beyond.
3. Demon’s Souls
In the time since I last sat down to write one of these lists, I played through a significant slice of the From Software catalogue. I had a great time with Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring. Yet no Souls game filled me with the same glee as Bluepoint Games’ remixed take on the original Demon’s Souls.
Even if I can sympathise with the mixed feelings that some fans have about the tweaks that have been made with this reimagining of the game that birthed the Souls-like genre, I still had an absolute blast with this one. The striking visuals and smoother interface give away that this isn’t the team behind the original game, but it doesn’t do much to diminish the overall appeal.
After seeing Elden Ring make the Souls formula bigger than ever before, it was delightful to savour something a little more grounded and finite. There’s less stuff do to here, but every part of what you’re doing feels like it matters that much more.
2. The King’s Dilemma
The King’s Dilemma has produced some of my most memorable gaming moments this year, but it always feels so weird to talk about because it is an ephemeral and strange product. You can only play through each copy of the game once, so it’s something you can only really recommend alongside the caveat that you need a group committed to seeing the cause through to the end.
The setup of the King’s Dilemma is simple, but the textured tapestry of situations it inspires is appropriately rich. Each player at the table represents a member of a fantasy kingdom’s small council. Every turn brings a new crisis or opportunity to the fore and it’s on you to collectively decide what to do about it. The kicker is that you can always abstain from voting to gain power, stockpiling your influence for a later date.
The systems that underpin this setup provide a ton of room for expression through play, At its best, The King’s Dilemma allows for something closer to the kind of social-heavy roleplaying that you’d usually only get out of a more involved TTRPG campaign.
At this point, I’ve lost track of how many hours and afternoons I’ve poured into The King’s Dilemma. All the same, I can’t wait to see how my first campaign ends and whatever comes next. Beyond the digital adaptation and the upcoming sequel, I’m utterly fascinated by the kinds of things that this unique blend of social-heavy legacy gaming might inspire. A version of this concept transplanted into a setting like Game of Thrones or Star Wars could be incredible.
For now, The King’s Dilemma reigns supreme.
1. Citizen Sleeper
From the moment it was first announced and shown off, I could have told you that Citizen Sleeper was a game that I was definitely going to play and have thoughts about. Minimalist mechanics? A vivid art style? Evocative science fiction prose and a cast of characters that loom large in your mind but are just grounded enough for you to connect with? I’m an absolute mark for this kind of thing.
Developed by Jump Over The Age, Citizen Sleeper sees you take on the role of the titular sleeper. You’re a virtual person in a mechanical body struggling to make ends meet as you start your new life on a space station called Erlin’s Eye. It’s a politically charged RPG that tries to do for more modern roleplaying games like Blades in the Dark what Baldur’s Gate did for Dungeons & Dragons.
Citizen Sleeper is the rare story-driven game that draws you into the same cyclical “just one more turn” tendencies as hardcore strategy titles like Crusader Kings or Civilization do. I’m already itching to start the whole thing over and see what the new complications that the post-launch DLC brings with it and I can’t wait to see what Jump Over The Age does next.
Citizen Sleeper is the best game I played in 2022.
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