As the final hours of 2022 fade away, so too does the magic for this console generation’s honeymoon period. Triple-A titans like God of War Ragnorock and Elden Ring rocked the world, but most will likely recall Wordle as the year-defining title, (and my vocabularly is all the better for it). Looking to the future, I truely believe that game designers who cooked up their dream projects during lockdown are starting to emerge from their Covid cocoons. You can already see evidence of this, indies in particular have quietly innovated, once again stretching the boundries of possibilities as effortlessly as pizza dough. The next two years are bound to be exciting, that’s what my crystal ball is saying anyway. Until then, I’ll just be in the corner, patiently waiting for Zelda. For everyone else, here’s the best games I played this year.
Hitman Trilogy (2016-2021)
Ever watched a friend at a pub reach over the bar to help themselves to a packet of crisps? Though you know they’ve done wrong, you’re kinda charmed by their rebellious confidence, and since you’re now being offered a crisp, the adrenaline of being an accessory to theft kicks in and you start to feel a little bit dangerous. That’s the introverted illicit thrill Hitman conjurers time and time again.
Note, this is a social stealth assassination game, meaning you’re reliant on ‘borrowing’ uniforms from a slew of people in order to tiptoe ever closer towards your mark. Wearing a spotless apron will grant access to a high-end kitchen no problem, but if you then go straight for the bad guy’s inner sanctum don’t expect your puffy white hat to impress the surly men with kalashnikovs. Because levels are beautifully intricate clockwork puzzle boxes it’s overwhelmingly satisfying to flawlessly move your little bald-headed pawn all the way up the board before pulling your piano wire taught and whispering ‘checkmate’ into your target’s ear. Then you get to do it all over again on the other side of the globe with ever grander environments to uncover, fresh social rules to bend to your will and all-new flavours of crisps to pilfer from pubs.
Disco Elysium (2019)
A bloated corpse sways by the neck from a tree branch in the port town of Revachol. Only a few feet away, you wake up, half-naked, seeming birthed from the destitute motel room you find yourself in. Boy, it’d be a shame if you were the cop called in to look into the murder…
Surprise, you are. Yet despite being a perennial screw up (as everyone in a one mile radius loves to remind you about), you have a single ace up your sleeve: being in tune with your fragmented psyche – an internal monologue comprised of 24 individually motivated personas. Inland Empire waxes lyrical about how no-one understands you, while crass displays of strength against inanimate objects is all Physical Instrument is concerned about. Taming them is key to solving the murder, yet they all serve as a weird and wonderful means to interact with the game’s tremendously dense world. In-game literature documents the deep sociopolitical history to Revachol, but you can easily absorb the city’s energy just by crunching over the diesel-stained snow and gradually letting your hair become stiff and knotted in the saltwater breeze. It’s an oppressive and feverishly deprived place, but that also allows the game’s moments of warmth carry honest weight and comfort. Every cop know the tiny details wind up being the most meaningful, and every page of Disco Elysium’s small print is worth savouring.
Elden Ring (2022)
Dark Souls is one of the most revered games of the 21st century, thanks in large part to its esoteric nature. Yet playing it today is undercut somewhat by the knowledge that you’re walking down a path well-trodden by internet sleuths who’ve turned over every in-game rock to render all the unknowns to common knowledge. Not so when Elden Ring launched earlier this year, which was reason enough for me to do warm up stretches with the masses before the firing pistol fired. During the first week, there were no online walkthroughs or feature length lore videos on YouTube so internet communities had to charter the world and its mysteries themselves. Being a part of those online forums and Discord servers where secrets, anecdotes and revelations were all shared together built my personal enduring memory of the experience. It also meant that when I wasn’t playing, Elden Ring continued to prey on my imagination. Be it the direction I ventured, the catacombs I plundered, or the bosses I conquered, I was eternally asking myself ‘What Next?’ as if I were plucking chocolates from a master crafted selection. Playing it at launch meant every single discovery I made came with the giddy thrill of knowing that only a handful of other players were privy to. Regardless of when you start your own quest across the sprawling lands of this melancholic dark fantasy, that same starry-eyed sense of scale and wonder will consume your every waking thought.
Immortality (2022)
Like the very best detective games, Immortality lets the player’s curiosity become the driving force. The vanishing of Marissa Marcel, an actress who only starred in three films, all of which never saw the light of day, immediately presents a compelling mystery. Decades later, footage of her entire body of work (and some behind-the-scenes footage) have resurfaced as splintered puzzle pieces, each begging to be spliced into order and tell their story. It’s all facilitated by the game’s innovative ‘Match Cut’ system allows you to jump between scenes that share matching people or props, often uncovering new movie snippets in the process. As you hop between genres, aspect ratios and period costumes, one thing remains constant: The recurring faces of ambitious actors and pretentious directors who all pontificate on the meaning of art and the majesty of cinema. Peel back the layers though and the dark consequences of collaborative endeavours begin to emerge – often in places where you least expect. The scope of the project and its layers of narrative is awe-inspiring, and while it would be dishonest of me to say I fully grasped every facet of the story’s bigger picture, what is true is the thrill of discovery I derived while tumbling down one of the most compelling rabbit holes I’ve ever experienced.
Halo 2 & 3 (2004 & 2007)
Until this year I had never experienced the pure elation of lobbing a sticky grenade at a grunt, watching him erupt into panic and accidentally kamikaze into his comrades. It never gets old.
Halo is a product of the post Boomer Shooter era, when console shooters had an honest goal: letting players have fun. I played the entire Master Chief Collection, but Halo 2 and 3 were the standouts. Both of which support my hypothesis that every FPS is better with modular dual wielding – its action and player agency in one perpetually inviting choice: What combination alien guns do you want to brazenly hurtle into combat with? Paired with the sandbox style combat areas, the campaigns all facilitate wonderfully expressive and empowering gunplay – perfect for putting you in the hefty boots of the sci-fi badass Master Chief. Not only did it scratch an itch I forgot I had, it opened my eyes to how feature-rich First Person Shooters used to be. Multiple drivable cars and spacecrafts, helpful squad AI and engaging enemy variety… Even in 2022, Halo feels leagues ahead of its modern day counterparts.
Tunic (2022)
Tunic’s greatest trick is how it manages to channel a very specific type of nostalgia. A quick glance will tell you that the game is clearly a homage to Zelda, but it concerns itself most with evoking that feeling of physically playing your very first Zelda. It reconstructs home video childhood memories of clutching a controller while swaddled under a blanket into the small hours of the night, staring bleary eyed at the TV, then back down to re-read the game manual for clues on how to progress. In fact, you’ll quite literally do that last bit as piecing together the pages of the in-game manual unlocks new information to learning the game’s secrets. And my, what secrets they are! They’re the kind that left me dumbfounded for almost an hour, but once the penny dropped it provided some euphoric epiphanies. It helps that the presentation is unconditionally charming. From the way your little fox non-nonchalantly dodge-rolls to the faux-photorealistic way light penetrates through the canopy of ancient forests. Tunic resonated with my past and present, and it’s a game I’ll be recommending for years to come.
Honourable Mentions
Stray (2022)
While basking in the neon lights of Stray’s slums it struck me: I’ve never played a game with such flawlessly executed art direction. Towering city blocks adorned with Chinese lettering and impassable checkpoints with ever-watchful surveillance cameras, it somehow captured Final Fantasy Seven’s Midgar better than its own shiny remaster. It’s a pity the game’s narrative lacked darkness and never quite knew which lane to stick in, but the novelty of seeing this world through the eyes of a cat absolves several of Stray’s missteps.
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