The best video games of 2022, so far

2022 has not wasted any time.

Whether because of shifting release calendars, less reliance on the retail sphere, or delays from the COVID-19 pandemic, the early months of 2022 have become a perfect storm of video game release mayhem. We’ve wandered The Lands Between. We’ve deciphered secret languages. We’ve explored 31st-century America. And although we’re out of the thick of the hectic release schedule, we’re still coming across the occasional hidden gem or two, and returning to the games that were too huge to finish the first time around.

So, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to help you separate the wheat from the chaff — to recommend our favorite games from the slew of ambitious titles that release as the months go by. We’ll be updating this page throughout the year, with the most recent releases toward the top, so you can stay up to date with all of the excitement (or at least, as up to date as possible). We’ll also be doing the same for the best movies, the best anime, and the best TV shows of 2022.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands

With Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, it feels as if Borderlands’ developers are finally comfortable letting go, and the results speak for themselves. Wonderlands is a joyful romp through tabletop-RPG-inspired worlds, with seemingly minor tweaks that create huge ripples in the series’ “Diablo meets guns” formula. You can combine two disparate character classes, traverse a board-game style overworld, and pour dozens of hours into the phenomenal “Chaos Chamber” endgame. Through it all, Gearbox is willing to acknowledge that we’re not here for a script, or even a coherent narrative, and it leans into that sentiment with an appropriately scattershot story — it doesn’t take itself so seriously that it sacrifices unpredictability, joy, or the satisfaction of mesmerizing, well earned loot. —Mike Mahardy

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Windows PC.

Norco

Norco stands out for a lot of reasons: It’s a beautiful, honest portrayal of southern Louisiana, an inventive and dystopian science-fiction story, and a sharp criticism of the oil industry’s blight. Created by Geography of Robots, Norco is an interpretation of Norco, Louisiana — the real town whose name stands for the New Orleans Refining Company, home to Shell’s manufacturing complex. As a point-and-click adventure, Norco unravels slowly as the main character, Kay, returns to her childhood home following her mother’s death. It’s all at once a magical realism story with mystery elements, yet still firmly rooted in a sense of reality — not an easy blend of genres to balance. The writing and simple environmental puzzles, together with a unique mind-map mechanic that acts as a character list and mental notebook, lend to a fast-paced story that still leaves room to stop and take in all of the poignant weirdness. —Nicole Carpenter

Norco is available on Mac and Windows PC.

Tunic

Some games thrive on meaningful obfuscation. Tunic is one of them.

There are echoes of Myst, The Witness, and the original Legend of Zelda in developer Andrew Shouldice’s action-adventure outing. It has also drawn myriad comparison to 2012’s Fez, a game which also deployed its own unique written language to confuse, entice, and ultimately steer players toward its larges overarching secrets. Its combat can become cloying — especially during later boss fights — and its level design doesn’t always allow for the most leisurely backtracking. But its willingness to trust the player’s intelligence, patience, and most of all, thirst for discovery make it a masterful adventure in its own right. —Mike Mahardy

Tunic is available on Mac, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

Elden Ring

Numerous games have tried to emulate the explorative wonder of 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but Elden Ring is the first game to truly succeed. With a landscape that will take years to fully decipher, it is every bit the kind of game we’ve come to expect from developer From Software: mysterious, impenetrable, and ultimately rewarding. But its open-world trappings reframe much of the brutality of those games, and don’t detract from their challenges, but rather, encourage incremental progress over brute force. It’s not uncommon to get lost in a far corner of the map for a dozen hours, only to return to a previous challenge as a completely new character, with stronger powers and newfound wisdom at your disposal. This game is a marvel. —Mike Mahardy

Elden Ring is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

Destiny 2: The Witch Queen

Destiny has been through a lot since 2014: rocky release days, a global pandemic, and a sale to PlayStation, to name a few of its many obstacles. So it’s almost a miracle that, eight years along, Destiny 2: The Witch Queen is the best thing to ever happen to the series. With a new campaign, a new location, new weapons, and new powers, it’s more Destiny, to be sure. But it’s also Destiny without the qualifiers, or the conversations that are spoken with not a small amount of yearning: “Imagine how good this would be if Bungie did X, Y or Z?” Bungie has spent the past few years building on the potential of its massive experiment, and with The Witch Queen, it’s finally paying off. —Ryan Gilliam

Destiny 2: The Witch Queen is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Google Stadia.

Lost Ark

Lost Ark is an impressive feat. Its outstanding class design and excellent ARPG gameplay would already be enough to set it apart from many of this year’s games, but it’s also a content gold mine. Originally launched in Korea in 2019, then adapted for release in Europe and North America this year, the MMO launched with fantastic endgame content right out of the gate (a rarity for the genre). And while Lost Ark’s already extremely rewarding in its own right, developer Smilegate RPG is promising more endgame content and new classes in the near future. It seems as if there’s still an exciting road ahead. —Austen Goslin

Lost Ark is available on Windows PC.

Strange Horticulture

In Strange Horticulture, you sell plants. Though the plants may look ordinary, they’re anything but: There are plants that make people brave, and others that lure them to their death. Some are meant to increase focus or poison your enemies. It’s a simple game that’s executed with the utmost attention to detail. In running this plant shop, a strange, occult story unfolds through customer gossip and plants found via an in-game map. Strange Horticulture is short — it took just over five hours to complete — but it was one of the more impactful games I played this year. —Nicole Carpenter

Strange Horticulture is available on Windows PC.

Total War: Warhammer 3

There are ambitious games, and there are ambitious games. Total War: Warhammer 3 is the latter. Its map is bigger than those of its predecessors combined, and it launched with eight fantasy factions, each stranger and more grandiose than the last. It’s also exceedingly weird, and refuses to rest on its laurels as the strategy trilogy wraps up, instead pushing the envelope wherever it can. It transports players to ethereal Chaos Realms before warping them back to their homelands to battle diseased goliaths and shapeshifting demon lords. It is as far from a safe third installment as we’ve seen since Hitman 3. And if the DLC road map for Total War: Warhammer 2 was any indication, the next few years will get even weirder. —Mike Mahardy

Total War: Warhammer 3 is available on Windows PC, Mac, and Linux, and via PC Game Pass.

Horizon Forbidden West

The sequel to 2017’s excellent post-apocalyptic Horizon Zero Dawn is already one of the year’s best. Horizon Forbidden West takes so much of what made the first game great, and gives players more to work with: more settlements, weapons, and traversal options. It starts a bit slow, and can take a while to introduce some of its more creative gadgets — but it gets better and better as you unlock more tools for your arsenal. By the end, Aloy can glide off mountains, swim the deepest seas, and explore American landmarks along the west coast. This game’s gorgeous open world feels like a gift, and it’s easy to sink hours into exploring every gorgeous corner. Meanwhile, the character writing and world-building convey a civilization well worth saving. —Nicole Clark

Horizon Forbidden West is available on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.

OlliOlli World

OlliOlli World, by Roll7, is fast-paced, colorful, and a real challenge — a gorgeous celebration of skateboarding and its culture. It’s also goofy and perfectly earnest, too, with more similarities to Adventure Time than Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. In one moment, I’m doing a stalefish grab over aliens dancing in their underpants, and in the next, I’m racing a bear in a tube on a river. Though it’s fun and silly, it’s also very hard; to excel, you must master precision-based flicks and button pushes that test your limits. —Nicole Carpenter

OlliOlli World is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch.

Dying Light 2

The immersive payoff in Dying Light 2 Stay Human requires a rather stiff time investment. The plodding story pacing isn’t helped by some of the reversals and outright nullifications that can happen later, either. But the game’s first-person parkour and combat gameplay are stand-up delights. However much time you choose to spend in the vast, locked-down city of Villedor, you won’t be bored by any of it. And, as a role-playing game, Aiden Caldwell evolves into a fascinating and powerful character, thanks to multiple storyline branches, decisions that have irrevocable consequences, and two perk trees that make his athletic capabilities even more exciting to see, let alone do for yourself. —Owen S. Good

Dying Light 2 is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

Vampire Survivors

Vampire Survivors is a simple game, but it shouldn’t be dismissed. Hiding behind its retro graphics and cheap price is one of the most gripping games in years. There’s only one method of input in Vampire Survivors — movement — and it’s your goal to survive for 30 minutes while picking up weapons that automatically attack for you. My whip slashes nearby enemies every second or so, and my character lobs axes on a set timer. During each run, I choose new upgrades from randomized pools, combining them with other items to create the optimal build that’ll help me survive until the end. I’ve completed countless runs already this year, and I’ve unlocked all the new tools I can. But Vampire Survivors is one of the only games that keeps me playing just for the sheer fun of it, “wasting” 30 minutes every night as bigger and more sprawling games pass me by. —Ryan Gilliam

Vampire Survivors is available on Windows PC, Mac, and via web browser.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus

To say that Pokémond Legends: Arceus was a long time coming would be an understatement. In fact, I’ve fully embraced the Dunkey joke that this is actually the second Pokémon game ever made. It gracefully streamlines so many of the series’ tedious aspects (the mere act of catching Pokémon in real time is now satisfying as hell) that it’s a wonder Game Freak hasn’t tried this before. It’s also the first game in which I actually care about filling out the Pokédex, complete with each creature’s challenges and research tasks. It feels less like a hamfisted series of turn-based battles, and more like a contemplative, sometimes terrifying adventure into the wilderness to sate my collector’s appetite. —Mike Mahardy

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is available on Nintendo Switch.

Nobody Saves the World

Nobody Saves the World is a bizarre little video game, but it has left an indelible mark on my psyche. It’s a game all about shapeshifting — unlocking new powers to build yourself into the perfect weapon for the job, or a very specific tool needed to solve a single puzzle. It’s about exploration and experimentation. It’s funny and interesting, and, above all else, it’s deeply clever. In a year filled with so many big games, the size and grind of Nobody Saves the World seems small. But great things often come in small packages, and I won’t be forgetting Drinkbox Studios’ latest anytime soon. —Ryan Gilliam

Nobody Saves the World is available on Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X through Game Pass.

Wordle

Like Animal Crossing: New Horizons before it, Wordle’s biggest strength is its communal power. By offering a simple word-guessing puzzle that refreshes every 24 hours, it allows us to celebrate, complain, pontificate, and ultimately rejoice about one very specific and ultimately harmless thing per day, whether on social media or at the neighborhood bar. It has become a sort of lightning rod for heated discussions and considerate arguments alike. It has made me feel insufferably smart one day, only to remind me that I am, in fact, extremely dumb the next. It has also single handedly reignited my family’s text thread. Who among us will ever forget the day they encountered the word “vivid?” —Mike Mahardy

Wordle is available via web browser here.

Tags: games, video