Just seven months into the year so far, 2022 has already been a great year for games. With everything from ambitious spin-offs and much-anticipated sequels, to glitzy remakes and indie passion-projects, there’s already been a bounty of must-play titles on PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch and beyond. Even with pandemic delays impacting the quantity of games making it to release, the quality of the games that have made it into our living rooms has been consistently high.
To mark the midway point of the year, Empire presents the best games of 2022 so far – from AAA action titles, to new evolutions of RPG favourites, polished remakes of all-time classics, and welcome returns for legendary mascots. There’s something here for every player, showcasing the sheer array of stories and gameplay styles out there right now. Read the top 10 list below – and check out our list of amd vs intel: which cpus Are better in 2022?
10. Nintendo Switch Sports
Platforms: Switch
Wii Sports was, if you’ll pardon the pun, a game changer — a collection of simple sporting simulations with such immediate cross-generation appeal that it saw Wii consoles being snapped up by grandparents and kids alike. Switch Sports picks up the baton of its predecessor, delivering a half-dozen activities — bowling, sword-fighting, tennis, badminton, football, and volleyball, with golf to arrive via DLC — but making them far more enjoyable thanks to the Switch’s significantly more accurate motion controls. While there’s now online multiplayer, this really shines when you’re playing in the same room as friends or family, making it one of the best party games in Nintendo’s catalogue.
9. Ghostwire: Tokyo
Platforms: PS5, PC
A supernatural event leads to the disappearance of every living soul in Tokyo — with the exception of student Akito, who wakes up to find himself sharing a body with a ‘spirit detective’ named KK. Cue an investigation into what happened, why, and how to restore the living, all while battling deeply unsettling demons and apparitions drawn from Japanese folklore. The real standout is the setting, though, with a breathtaking recreation of Tokyo that begs to be explored, while the experience of doing so — seeing one of the world’s busiest metropolises rendered empty and silent — adding massively to the eeriness. Combined with a blend of parkour, ghostly superpowers, and first-person ranged and melee combat, Ghostwire: Tokyo is that rarest of beasts: a brand new property that feels genuinely fresh.
8. Kirby And The Forgotten Land
Platforms: Switch
Kirby eats a car — game of the year. OK, there’s a bit more to be excited about in Nintendo’s inflatable puffball hero’s 3D debut, but the new Mouthful Mode, allowing the Kirbster to fill his gob with various (comparatively) giant objects and use their properties to solve puzzles or defeat enemies is top of the list, purely because of how fantastically daft it is. Like most Kirby games, Forgotten Land is a bit on the easy side, and its levels aren’t as big as something like Super Mario Odyssey, but it’s packed full of secrets that will keep even more experienced players digging around to unlock everything. A joyful, colourful, delightful return for the pink powerhouse.
7. Uncharted: Legacy Of Thieves
Platforms: PS5
Yes, it’s a repackaging of two PS4 era Uncharted games – 2016's Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and 2017's Uncharted: Lost Legacy – but Legacy of Thieves gives both games a hell of an upgrade for PS5. 4K HDR visuals deliver stunning visuals, while masterful use of the DualSense controller’s immersive haptics pull players into the globe-trotting adventures of Nathan Drake and Chloe Frazer like never before. Not to mention the fact that the original versions were franchise high-points, with stunning, exotic locales, fiendishly-designed tombs to raid, and (particularly in A Thief’s End) an exhilarating storyline that delivers both excitement and surprising emotional depth. The definitive collection of two of the best entries in the series.
6. Total War: Warhammer III
Platforms: PC, Mac
It’s still annoying that this crossover of the Total War and Warhammer franchises hasn’t opted for the low-hanging fruit of calling itself “Total Warhammer” but that’s one of the only criticisms that can be levelled at this otherwise superlative fantasy real time strategy epic. With eight factions to choose from — drawn from Warhammer’s lore but inspired by the real world historical factions Total War excels with — a campaign map twice the size of the last game’s, and numerous online multiplayer options, there’s a huge amount of material to keep players on the battlefield, bolstered by major decisions to be made between skirmishes that can affect the fate of whole realities. Whatever you choose, though, this trilogy capper fosters an incredible sense of power in the player — enough to kill gods and tame daemons, and you’ll get plenty of chances to do both here.
5. Mario Strikers: Battle League
Platforms: Switch
“Football for people who don’t like football” is the best way to sum up Battle League. With rapid-fire matches of super-powered soccer, it feels more party game than serious tournament. There’s no offside rule to worry about, and no ref to get in the way — Mario Strikers is all about making dizzying loops around the opposing team, then lobbing a fiery mushroom-powered strike into their net. With plenty of customisation options, and online leagues of player clubs, this is a contender for Mario’s best sporting endeavour yet.
4. Tunic
Platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PC, Switch, Mac
A love letter to classic 2D Zelda games, Tunic oozes charm from every frame. Guiding an adorable fox adventurer around a mysterious island, the game — a passion project for solo indie developer Andrew Shouldice — is a masterpiece of design, at once elegantly intuitive and maddeningly complex. It’s also evocative of a bygone era of gaming, with the scattered pages of a virtual instruction manual serving as key collectibles, uncovering them a requirement for solving some of Tunic’s most fiendish puzzles. Although it’s devoid of any traditional dialogue, the game weaves an engaging story too, one that will have you debating the meaning of key events for weeks after you put down the controller. A work of subtle genius.
3. Horizon Forbidden West
Platforms: PS5, PS4
Horizon Zero Dawn was such a massive creative and commercial success that returning to the post-apocalyptic, robot dinosaur-infested world of protagonist Aloy must have been a daunting prospect for developers Guerrilla Games. Thankfully, the team absolutely nailed it, building on everything that made the first game great and leveraging the power and hardware features of PS5 to deliver a true evolution. Aloy’s latest adventure takes her through the ruined western territories of the former USA, delivering bigger environments than ever, introducing new aquatic sections to explore, and expanding on her abilities as a hunter in impressive new ways. Forbidden West is the kind of open world game that has so much to do, see, and check off that it’s a total time sink, but it’s such a stunning world you’ll rarely want to leave.
2. Pokémon Legends: Arceus
Platforms: Switch
A spinoff taking players to the distant past of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl’s Sinnoh Region sounded like a weird idea when Pokémon Legends: Arceus was announced, but it proved to be the shot in the arm the franchise needed. More exploratory in nature, with catching Pokémon streamlined to a zippy, Pokémon GO style throwing of Pokéballs, Arceus is a very different kind of Pokémon game, but with its vast open areas and a genuinely engaging story, it’s evolved the series as a whole. Upcoming core games Pokémon Scarlet and Violet now have a lot to live up to.
1. Elden Ring
Platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PC
It was always going to be Elden Ring topping this list, wasn’t it? FromSoftware’s open world approach to its own Dark Souls formula elevated the genre as a whole to dizzying new heights. The freedom to explore beckons players to uncover the innumerable secrets scattered around the mysterious Lands Between, while its combat system feels materially different with every single character build. That same open world also makes the notoriously difficult “Soulslike” genre more accessible to newcomers or cautious players though, introducing summonable, AI-controlled spirit allies, while allowing the flexibility to run off an explore somewhere else if any particular area proves too challenging — all without sacrificing the brutal challenge beloved by longtime fans. Stunning to behold, glorious to play, and all-consuming in scope, Elden Ring has rightly become a bona fide phenomenon. Not only the best game of 2022 (we’re calling it for the entire year now), but a stone-etched gaming milestone. A masterpiece of modern entertainment.
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