2022 is going to be an incredible year gaming. With so many games pushed out of 2021, we are now facing a year that is stacked with blockbuster releases. The first quarter looks particularly impressive, with Dying Light 2, Rainbow Six Extraction, Pokemon Legends: Arceus, Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, and Elden Ring just weeks away from release.
Looking beyond Winter, there's God of War Ragnarok, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Starfield, and just oh so many more. And this is before we look at the incredible slate indie games scheduled to launch this year, not to mention the wave of titles that will no doubt be announced this summer.
So with that in mind, the 12DOVE team has put together their top picks for 2022 (so far, at least). Let us know what you're excited about in the comments or on Twitter. And for more titles to get excited about next year, check out our round-up of all the video game release dates in our new games of 2022 list. Oh, and be sure to check out our Big in 2022 hub for new looks at all of the biggest games of the new year.
Leon Hurley - Guides Co-ordinator
After 2021 was the year nothing happened thanks to COVID, it's all really piling up for 2022 with a 'please God, no' level of things I want to play. Starfield is probably right up there because I love open-world games where ignoring the main quest is the main quest. Similarly, Dying Light 2 is high on my must-plays because the original did such a great job of realizing spur-of-the-moment free-roaming zombie survival, and I'm keen for a second round of pelting through doorways and windows to escape the sprinting dead. But there's just so much else out there too, with Horizon Forbidden West looking incredible at this point, or the narrative weight of God of War Ragnarok just bristling to crash down on the story threads laid in place from the last game. Elden Ring will no doubt infuriate as much as it beguiles, and Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl could be this year's Metro if it lives up to the weird Russian nuclear apocalypse fantasy of the original. And this is me just scraping the top of what I want to play, which makes me think next year could be one of those years that gets talked about for ages after.
Top games for 2022:
- Starfield
- Dying Light 2
- Horizon Forbidden West
- God of War Ragnarok
- STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl
Jordan Gerblick - Staff Writer
There are so many massive games I'm excited to play next year - Horizon Forbidden West, God of War Ragnarok, and Forspoken, just to name a few - but there's one that keeps me up at night with anticipation: the Breath of the Wild sequel. Even though I've only seen a couple of brief teasers, I have irresponsibly lofty expectations for this game, and it's all Nintendo's fault. Breath of the Wild is my favorite game ever by a long shot, and if its sequel manages to capture even a fraction of its magic, that alone will make 2022 a great gaming year for me - and that's without taking into account the numerous other games I'm genuinely stoked about.
Top games for 2022:
- Breath of the Wild 2
- God of War Ragnarok
- Horizon Forbidden West
- Forspoken
- Splatoon 3
Ben Tyrer - News Editor
While 2022 looks like it'll be a year dominated by exclusive blockbusters - Horizon Forbidden West! Starfield! God of War Ragnarok! Redfall! - it's the indie line-up that has me rubbing with my hands with expectant glee. Sifu is set to be the kung-fu brawler of my dreams, dripping with style and promising a crunching style of combat to match, while OlliOlli World's dayglo dream aesthetic feels poised to wash away the winter blues. Then there's Stray, a game where you play as a cat, which sold me the second I saw its star start clawing at a sofa.
Top games for 2022:
- Sifu
- OlliOlli World
- Stray
- Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
- Marvel's Midnight Suns
Rob Dwiar - Commissioning Editor, Hardware
The big games will likely be the dominant landmarks in 2022 for me, but I'm hoping for some nice surprises around them (I'm looking at you ELEX 2, and A Plague Tale: Requiem). I'm also always hoping that my co-op buddies and I will be well catered for and Rainbow Six Extraction looks like it could have been made just for us. The big PlayStation games of God of War Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West will hit my narrative-driven, beautiful, dramatic single-player game beats, but I also can't help but stare at Redfall, as Arkane is my absolute favorite game maker.
Top games for 2022:
- Rainbow Six Extraction
- Redfall
- Horizon Forbidden West
- God of War Ragnarok
- A Plague Tale: Requiem
Connor Sheridan - Staff Writer
If you ask me what my most anticipated game is in general, there's no question right now: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. But since Team Reptile hasn't said when its Jet Set Radio soul successor is coming yet, the choice is tougher. It looks like it's going to be a great year for Nintendo sequels between the Breath of the Wild followup and Splatoon 3, as well as indie studios bringing a different breed of cinematic action to life with Sifu and El Paso, Elsewhere. Finally, as a massive fan of the original Dead Space, I am so ready to hear more about The Callisto Protocol. Not gonna lie, though, its odd connection to PUBG lore does give me pause.
Top games for 2022:
- Breath of the Wild 2
- Splatoon 3
- El Paso, Elsewhere
- Sifu
- The Callisto Protocol
Benjamin Abbott - Tabletop & Merch Editor
Considering how quickly the dungeon-crawling Gloomhaven seized us by the collar with its branching narrative back in 2017, it's fair to say that we'll need to buckle up now its sequel is heading for store shelves in 2022. Thanks to an expansive storyline that stars fresh heroes and an all-new setting, Frosthaven is threatening to dethrone its predecessor as one of the best board games out there. The third Warhammer spin on Total War is another (terrifyingly dense) highlight for me; it looks ready to eat up my time due to a shared mega-campaign that combines all three instalments in the series. If I get to it, anyway - I fear a lot of my attention will be taken up with Gollum instead. Being able to explore Middle-Earth's rich setting from an entirely new perspective - and one that doesn't involve hacking apart the orc population - sounds like the perfect way to spend 2022.
Top games for 2022:
- Pokemon Legends: Arceus
- Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar (board game)
- Starfield
- God of War Ragnarok
- Horizon Forbidden West
Joel Franey - Guides Writer
The impulse is to write "Elden Ring" five times and call it there, because what I played in the closed beta has me gleefully salivating for more. Problem is that beyond that, a lot of the games coming still look pretty... ethereal, with not much info to go on at time of writing. Breath of the Wild 2 is still a teaser trailer. Starfield is barely a post-it note with "space RPG???" written on it. And God of War Ragnarok hasn't shown me more than people in furs screaming at each other. Fair enough, but it means I can only get really excited about the games I have details on. In which case, Weird West looks interesting (if a little loot-focused), Dying Light 2 should be fun if it can match its ambitions, Sifu has a pretty unique hook with the whole ageing mechanic, and Pokemon Legends: Arceus... well, one way or another, that'll be an interesting experiment.
Top games for 2022:
- Elden Ring
- Weird West
- Sifu
- Dying Light 2
- Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Austin Wood - Staff Writer
I'll probably sink more time into Destiny 2: The Witch Queen than anything else next year, but it's hard to look past Elden Ring. I'm already playing Destiny 2 and I'm looking forward to new stuff, but the biggest FromSoftware world yet is just too tantalizing. Luckily, I won't have to choose since they're both out in February, a month that can only be interpreted as a coordinated assault on game journalists. The silver lining is that the next big Genshin Impact region shouldn't arrive until later in the year, and that should give me enough time to beat Elden Ring, I don't know, six times.
Top games for 2022:
- Elden Ring
- Destiny 2: The Witch Queen
- Genshin Impact 3.0
- Dying Light 2
- Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Heather Wald - Staff Writer
There are so many exciting games coming our way in 2022, including lots of wonderful indie titles that have quickly reached the top of my ever-growing wishlist. But there's just no holding back my excitement about Kirby and the Forgotten Land. I've grown up playing various Kirby games over the years, and I can hardly wait to go on a new adventure with that delightful pink puffball. It really feels like we're about to enter into a new era for Kirby, with Forgotten Land promising to give us more freedom to explore its 3D stages than we've ever had before... And from what we've seen in the initial reveal trailer, I'm so eager to learn more about the mysterious world setting.
Top games for 2022:
- Kirby and the Forgotten Land
- Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals
- Stray
- We Are OFK
- Starfield
Rachel Weber - US Managing Editor
I'm a gaming size queen, I want games that are big enough to lose myself in for weeks. I feel pangs of anxiety when my quest list gets low, or there aren't enough icons for unexplored locations on a world map. My 2022 is basically going to be built around big open-world releases and trying to make them last until the next one hits. Weird West is first on the list, then some Aloy action in Horizon Forbidden West, and then I just need to get through to Starfield. Give me endless missions collecting lost items and talking to NPCs, or give me death.
Top games for 2022:
- Starfield
- God of War Ragnarök
- Weird West
- The Callisto Protocol
- Horizon Forbidden West
Joe Donnelly - Features Writer
The most exciting games of 2022 will distract me from the trials of parenthood, sleep deprivation and being forced to watch kids TV shows with flamboyant characters and garish backdrops. As a big fan of Sony Santa Monica's God of War, I'm looking forward to its follow-up, God of War Ragnarok - and while I'll undoubtedly get lost in its inch-perfect combat, I can't wait to revisit that special relationship between Kratos and his son Atreus. Elden Ring is another game high on my list, whose brutally-challenging closed network test I lost hours to in the wee hours of the morning. And, last but not least, I've been super-impressed by Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and pine for Rocksteady's lighter-hearted approach to superhero fare. Hang on… themes of parenthood, sleep-depriving network tests, and a game with brash colours and whimsical characters? These aren't distractions at all, but a clear case of art imitating life!
Top games for 2022:
- God of War Ragnarok
- Elden Ring
- Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
- Ghostwire: Tokyo
- The Callisto Protocol
Will Sawyer - Guides Writer
Destiny 2 already takes up huge amounts of my gaming bandwidth and it’s going to take up even more come February when The Witch Queen launches, although it’s going to be in close competition with Elden Ring. I was lucky enough to play in a closed network test, and I’m itching for more of that dark fantasy, open-world action. After taking a detour into fantasy with Elden Ring, Starfield should put me right back in sci-fi territory. I’m not much of a single-player RPG person, but a next-gen, Bethesda-made, sci-fi RPG has awesome potential. I’m also hoping to check out the co-op carnage in Redfall and Warhammer 40k: Darktide. Arkane can’t stop making hit after hit, and Vermintide II was a great Game Pass find, so more of those sorts of games are most welcome. I can already hear my backlog groaning.
Top games for 2022:
- Destiny 2: The Witch Queen
- Elden Ring
- Starfield
- Redfall
- Warhammer 40k: Darktide
Aleksha McLoughlin - Hardware Writer
I'm most looking forward to Elden Ring, Dying Light 2, and Ghostwire: Tokyo. Elden Ring looks like the culmination of 10 years of FromSoftware's development, taking everything into account from Dark Souls, to Sekiro, and Bloodborne. Dying Light 2 has taken some bold risks over the original, and Techland has built up good faith with the years of support for their breakthrough title. Meanwhile, there's nothing quite like Ghostwire: Tokyo; it looks very immersive and engrossing.
Top games for 2022:
- Elden Ring
- Dying Light 2
- GhostWire Tokyo
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong
- STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl
Alyssa Mercante - Editor
It feels like there's a ton to look forward to in 2022, no matter what kind of game you're into. As someone who has been slowly expanding their gaming horizons, 2022 looks like it'll scratch several itches while also giving me a chance to further broaden my horizons. Like Elden Ring - I have notoriously avoided Souls games because of their punishing combat and frustrating mechanics, but Elden Ring is poised to (somewhat) gently usher me into the genre. As a Mass Effect diehard and Skyrim enthusiast, Starfield has been on my radar for years, and there it remains in 2022. Then Destiny 2 threatens to pull me back into its daily grind with its Witch Queen expansion, while the Arc Raiders trailer at The Game Awards sucked me in with a Robyn song and kept me interested once I learned it's a new free-to-play game from the team behind Star Wars: Battlefront. Oh, and fighting game Sifu is on my mind, always and forever.
Top games for 2022:
- Elden Ring
- Starfield
- Destiny 2: The Witch Queen
- Arc Raiders
- Sifu
Sam Loveridge - Global Editor-in-Chief
The top of my list is dominated by two PlayStation exclusives - Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok. That's two sequels that I am absolutely buzzing to play ASAP. I'm tentatively excited about Pokemon Legends: Arceus too, although I do hope there's a little more to it than the Monster Hunter structure they've alluded to. But, there are also plenty of smaller titles occupying my brain space too, particularly the adorable Stray and another sequel, Slime Rancher 2, which follows up a game I've now played on every platform possible. I'm also hyped for indies like Bear and Breakfast, Venba, Dordogne, and maybe 2022 might even finally see the release of the wonderful-looking Mineko's Night Market.
Top games for 2022:
- Horizon Forbidden West
- God of War Ragnarok
- Pokemon Legends: Arceus
- Stray
- Slime Rancher 2
Josh West – Features Editor
I'm finding it difficult to pin down my most anticipated game of 2022, so I'm going to go with my wildcard: STALKER 2. Developer GSC World has ridden a roller coaster to get this long-awaited immersive FPS ready for release and I can't wait to see the results. And besides, I returned to Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's seminal Roadside Picnic over the holiday break – I'm eager to get back into the Zone with a pocket full of metal washers. Otherwise, I'm eager to see whether Bethesda can pull off Starfield, and the same goes for Rocksteady with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Firaxis with Marvel's Midnight Suns. It's going to be a great year for gaming.
Top games for 2022:
- STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl
- Marvel's Midnight Suns
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Starfield
- Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
All throughout January, 12DOVE is exploring the biggest games of the new year with exclusive interviews, hands-on impressions, and in-depth editorials. For more, be sure to follow along with Big in 2022.
