How do you follow up on one of the greatest video games of all time? Sony Santa Monica finds itself in a situation not dissimilar to when Francis Ford Coppola created the sequel to his mob movie masterpiece, The Godfather. Like part two of the Corleone story, God of War Ragnarok puts a fierce, younger member of the family directly under the microscope. In doing so it manages to reach the heights of its predecessor and, in some ways, even tower above it. The writing, performances, and music are each exceptional, bringing this expansive Norse tapestry to life – but even as it holds your heart in one hand with its elegantly told story it’s crunching bones in the other with fantastically ferocious combat. It all binds together to forge a monumental action epic that adds yet another impressive landmark to the video game landscape.
The first entry is always the pin's source. Overall confidence is a weighted average of how firmly each reference supports the start and end times used above; a reference counts half as much for every 180 days older than the newest.
Happened as dated, per ign.com: "…into the action and, after a breakneck opening battle, the first step of this new journey is to lea…"
Wikipedia's article on God of War Ragnarök gives the Santa Monica developer, first cross-generation release, no-camera-cut presentation, Leviathan Axe, Blades of Chaos grappling, Draupnir Spear and controllable Atreus segments.
Sony's own PlayStation Blog confirms "God of War Ragnarök is officially coming to PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 on November 9, 2022," matching the pin's stored date and title exactly.
MobileSyrup independently corroborates the same July 6, 2022 PlayStation[3] Blog announcement, confirming God of War Ragnarök's November 9, 2022 launch date.
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2022 was a stacked year that featured indie darlings (Immortality), blockbusters (God of War Ragnarok), and smaller, surprise hits (Marvel Snap), so it shouldn't be a shock that a game or two slipped under your radar. But the biggest blink-and-you-miss-it release might be late November's Need for Speed Unbound, the latest entry in EA’s long-running street racing series. With Criterion Games (of Burnout fame) at the helm, Unbound had the potential to be one of the best racing games of the year—or a return to series form after a few missteps. But while aesthetically pleasing and featuring cross-platform play with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, the $69.99 PC game lacks satisfactory car handling and a thriving, in-game world.
In the 87 hours that it took me to beat Elden Ring, I was put through an absolute wringer of emotion: Anger as I was beaten down by its toughest challenges, exhilaration when I finally overcame them, and a fair amount of sorrow for the mountains of exp I lost along the way to some of the toughest boss encounters FromSoftware has ever conceived. But more than anything else I was in near-constant awe – from the many absolutely jaw-dropping vistas, the sheer scope of an absolutely enormous world, the frequently harrowing enemies, and the way in which Elden Ring nearly always rewarded my curiosity with either an interesting encounter, a valuable reward, or something even greater. FromSoftware takes the ball that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild got rolling and runs with it, creating a fascinating and dense open world about freedom and exploration above all else, while also somehow managing to seamlessly weave a full-on Dark Souls game into the middle of it. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Elden Ring ended up as one of the most unforgettable gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
I hold the Bayonetta series’ combat in such high esteem that I’d consider it in the top five or so combat systems of all time, right next to the Devil May Cry, God of War, Ninja Gaiden, and Batman Arkham games. It’s just incredible to look at, feels equally amazing to play, and is jam packed with opportunities for style and creativity thanks to the wide assortment of wild weapons at your disposal. Bayonetta 3 just further cements its legacy, strutting out with a surprising sequel in that it actually takes a lot of risks with changing up its established formula in an effort to revitalize a combat system that only slightly evolved between the first two games. Fortunately those risks pay off. Bayonetta 3 is an invigorated sequel with fresh new ideas that embolden its 13-year-old combat system, an impressive amount of variety throughout its 10 to 12-hour campaign, and more of that trademark sexy Bayonetta style that makes the series one of a kind.
When it comes to over-the-top roleplaying games, it’s hard to beat the bonkers worlds and stories I’ve come to expect from the Xenoblade Chronicles saga. With Xenoblade Chronicles 3, massive improvements have been made to combat, quest design, and the RPG sandbox, while retaining the absurd and awesome environments, and a laser-focus on great characters and an impressive (if convoluted) story. Of course, while this third entry evolves in some key areas that make the epic journey more consistently fun than the two mainline games that came before it, it also repeats some of the same mistakes, including sloppy writing, weak bosses, and graphics that often leave something to be desired. Even so, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is already competing for the spot as my favorite iteration of this beloved series.
You almost have to admire the hedonism of looking at The Last of Us Remastered, which is still visually impressive eight years later, and saying, “Yeah, that looks pretty good, but we can do better.” There’s very little left to be said about the original The Last of Us, a potent, post-apocalyptic cocktail of stealth, survival, and slaughter that’s revered for its haunting storytelling in an amazingly well-crafted world. You almost certainly knew that. It’s widely lauded as one of the best games of all time and one of the few to get a 10 from IGN, but I reckon you knew that, too. In fact, it’s a game so nice they built it thrice, which is where we find ourselves with The Last of Us Part I – now the third version of Naughty Dog’s 2013 masterpiece to arrive inside a decade.
Like a sugar-crazed child working their way to the bottom of a Halloween bag full of treats, A Plague Tale: Requiem is confident that the things which made the first game great will be even more delectable in ludicrous quantities. You liked massive swarms of rats? Well, how about we increase the number of them by a degree of 1,000! You enjoyed a gruesome and harrowing journey that tested the limits of your emotional resilience? Great, let’s increase your personal suffering by 200%! This follow-up to one of my favorite action-adventure games of the previous console generation turns the dials up to 11 in practically every way, and overwhelmingly benefits from those escalations despite sometimes being a bit heavy on the nihilism. With improved stealth action mechanics, a fantastic (and deeply depressing) story, and graphics that had me gawking, A Plague Tale: Requiem is an impressive glow up that’s easily worth the immense horrors it subjected me to.
From long-awaited sequels and ambitious remakes to even a few potential-packed original projects, here are the 15 games we’re most eager to get our hands on this year.
Thanks to fantastic games like Stray, Tunic and Bayonetta 3, 2022 provided ample reason for players to keep their controllers fully charged. And that’s before you consider these exceptional entries were sandwiched between absolute bangers Elden Ring and God of War Ragnarok.
From the very first punch, Sifu is utterly uncompromising in its design. Absolver developer Sloclap’s latest martial arts beat-em-up is bold, its combat exquisite, its animation top-notch, its music outstanding, and its story – while very simple – is poignant and elegantly told. It’s also unforgiving and unapologetic, with pockets of frustrating moments during which I was certainly not in my happy place. But by the end, Sifu offered me a nearly unparalleled sense of mastery and accomplishment, and I can’t imagine that I would’ve enjoyed it half as much if it pulled its punches.
When a game hits on a good idea, some developers are content to play it safe for the sequel, making a few refinements but largely stick to what worked the first time. That totally makes sense. But Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is not that kind of sequel; even though Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle surprised us all with its smart XCOM-style tactics in Nintendo clothing, this followup maintains its best ideas but reinvents itself to the point where it immediately feels very different. It’s bigger and better in nearly every way, with a more freeform and customizable take on combat and an almost completely rethought overworld that’s much less linear and absolutely packed with puzzles. The story’s all over the place and the Switch can’t always handle everything smoothly, but it’s a fantastic game that can be played as either an enjoyable cakewalk or a deep, demanding tactical challenge, all while maintaining its zany sense of humor.
Picking back up in the post-Rabbid invasion Mushroom Kingdom, things immediately get even weirder when a giant manta ray from space arrives to cause trouble. The story is actually one of Sparks of Hope’s few missteps: the original’s trans-dimensional blending of Mario characters and goofball Rabbids is completely absurd, but it kind of makes sense in its own way. This time, though, the completely unrelated enemy spreads what’s effectively Ganon’s corrupt ooze with eyeballs from Breath of the Wild everywhere, and most but not all of her minions are also Rabbids for some reason? Also we have a spaceship for traveling between literal worlds? It makes Kingdom Battle look grounded in reality by comparison, which is something I never thought I’d say about that game. I wasn’t expecting deep lore or anything, but it’s kind of a mess. It does consistently have some pretty good jokes, though, so at least I was chuckling as I was scratching my head.
Modern Warfare 2's greatest strength is that it doesn't have a gimmick, because it doesn't need one.All Modern Warfare 2 needs to be is a great shooter, and it delivers. This is the Cal
Modern Warfare 2's greatest strength is that it doesn't have a gimmick, because it doesn't need one.
All Modern Warfare 2 needs to be is a great shooter, and it delivers. This is the Call of Duty experience, deconstructed, reconsidered, and obsessively optimized over 15 uninterrupted years of iteration. I know when I'm playing a Black Ops game because it has offbeat arcade modes and the latest iteration of Nuketown. I know I'm playing a Modern Warfare game because the shooting is so finely tuned that I want to take my Gunsmith build out to dinner. Infinity Ward has officially mastered the instant gratification of aiming down sights and deleting targets.
That goes a long way, though some of Modern Warfare 2's biggest swings, such as revamped progression and a genre-bending campaign, are less elegant. It also suffers from an obtuse UI, fits of crashes, weird bugs, and the unexplained absence of basic features like stat tracking. But altogether, it's a good year for Call of Duty.
Like many, I’ve been waiting for a truly excellent Harry Potter game since I was in the third grade. In that time, we’ve gotten some respectable LEGO Potter games, an underwhelming EA Sports Quidditch game for some reason, and even suffered through the fevered nightmare that is Harry Potter Kinect. But none of these has come close to fulfilling that fantasy of receiving a Hogwarts admission letter that opens the door to a secret world. With Hogwarts Legacy, I’m happy to say that we finally got a Harry Potter game that captures some of that magic. Its open world map absolutely nails the vibe of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it has spellcasting combat that’s stupefyingly good, the characters that inhabit it are charming and unforgettable, and it is positively brimming with countless diversions to soak up dozens of hours of your time. It may not be the most impressive technical achievement and it is certainly cursed with a lack of enemy variety, but none of Hogwarts Legacy’s issues can cast a Descendo charm on this triumphant visit to the Wizarding World.
