This means we can look back at the games we’ve played and enjoyed. To celebrate the year 2022 in gaming we’ve created a XboxEra Community Game of the Year Awards vote. At XboxEra we enjoy all platforms and all games. So, all platforms are eligible. If you enjoyed an amazing Stadia exclusive (RIP), include it in your list!
Everyone can nominate 10 new games & 3 ongoing games. Number 1 on your list will receive 10 points and number 10 will receive 1 point. You can nominate three ongoing games. Number 1 will receive 10 points, number 2 will receive 8 points and number 3 will receive… 3 points.
If there aren’t 10 games you’ve played or enjoyed enough to put on your list, then it’s fine to nominate less than 10 titles. You need to put at least 1 2022 game in your list for your vote to be eligible.
The rules
Original release in 2022 (PORTS AND MAJOR DLC ALLOWED)
No Remasters
No early access titles
No re-releases
For best ongoing game only games are eligible which have had significant updates in 2022. Titles include Forza Horizon 5, No Man’s Sky, The Elder Scrolls Online, Halo Infinite, World of Warcraft, Sea of Thieves, Fortnite, etc. (No 2022 releases!; Gran Turismo, Warzone 2, Marvel Snap, Grounded)
The list
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
Ongoing Game 1:
Ongoing Game 2:
Ongoing Game 3:
Oh, and we’d love to see some explanations why you’ve picked what you’ve picked. It’s fun to read! And if you’re lucky we’ll include it in the Game of the Year thread. Like we did for 2021.
1: Elden Ring: Not the biggest Souls fan, but it had been a while since I’ve played a Souls game and therefore it felt fresh. Had a lot more fun with this game than I originally expected and the art design is beyond excellent. I have some minor issues with the game, but not enough to displace it from my number one spot.
2: Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel: Great tcg with perhaps the best online tcg client yet. Love card games, but rarely have the time to play them in real life and Master Duel is therefore the ultimate solution.
3: Rogue Legacy 2: Great “one more run” game. Didn’t really click with the gameplay at first, but when I did I was addicted.
And that’s basically all the games I’ve played that were released this year lol. Carved a chunk out of my backlog and spend a lot of time reading.
I loved Two Point Hospital. And Two Point Campus is even better. It provides more freedom to the player. And the goofyness of Two Point Hospital returns for this sequel. Wonder what they’ll do next.
Grounded
An amazing survival game with friends. Even for people who aren’t that much into survival games. A friend of mine recently bought an Xbox. And we’ll be playing more of this for sure.
F1 2022
The F1 games are just great. I suck at them though. But they’re fun ways to forget about work when I get home. One day I’ll become decent in one of 'm… right!?
Let’s build a Zoo
A cute 2D zoo builder with a dark twist. Did lack some depth though.
Ongoing Game 1: Age of Empires IV
My game of Q1 2022. Played this a lot. Sadly haven’t had the time to play these past few months. Will join a LAN-party where we’ll play this… so I think I need to get some practice in.
Ongoing Game 2: Fortnite
The amount of content in this game is just insane. Every time I launch it I see new stuff.
Ongoing Game 3: Cities Skylines
Even though the plaza’s and promenades DLC wasn’t amazing, it is a great direction to the game for me. I’ve always thought it was a bummer how it’s hard to build less car dependent cities in Cities Skylines. If they polish this DLC a little more, this could be a next step in city building games.
Didn’t play many new games this year. (Did play some which weren’t great, so not putting those in my list (Hello Match Point - Tennis Championship…)
Excluding God of War Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West which were played and completed on PlayStation 5, all the other games were played and completed on Xbox Series X.
Sniper Elite 5:
For my money the Sniper Elite series continue to be one of the most underappreciated franchises out there. I love the stealthy sandboxy gameplay, how it rewards you for being patient, and the fact that it’s one of the few series that continues to allow you to play through the campaign in co-op mode. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s beautiful to look at, or as I wrote back in July:
Just started the last mission, Rubble and Ruin, and let me just say, this level is breathtaking. Just the ambiance created by the smoke, darkness, bombed out buildings, and atmospheric music is enough to make you realize you’re playing something special.
But then when you reach the trees on fire, with glowing embers blowing in the wind… Hands down the most beautiful game I’ve played this year.
After spending 72 hours completing the campaign in single player, and another dozen messing around in co-op, I don’t hesitate even a little bit in declaring this my Game of the Year.
Return to Monkey Island:
This is a fantastic return to form for this series. I loved every minute of it. It’s basically a case study in the perfect way to pull off a satisfying legasequel. By doing some fanservice to longtime players, and keeping the mood and feel the same as the originals, but also by creating a new engaging story with some gameplay innovations thrown in for good measure. Excellent stuff.
Tinykin:
Puzzle platforming done right. The only game this year I got 1000 achievement points in, even though some of them are a bit grindy. It’s just so much fun that the grind didn’t matter.
Elden Ring - 10.0 /10.0 - I know the game isn’t perfect. The UI isn’t great and some of the graphics (faces) look straight out of the Xbox 360 era. But no other game has grabbed me like this one in a long time. Between the art design, the exploration, the atmosphere, and the combat this was just an incredible experience. This was also my first Souls-like, so that may be affecting my perception a bit.
Vampire Survivors - 9.75/10.0 - Pure gaming crack. I only docked it a quarter point so it would come in second, but this game is basically perfect for what it is.
Chained Echoes - 9.25/10.0 - Excellent throw back turn based rpg with some cool new mechanics.
Pentiment - 9.0/10.0 - Josh Sawyer don’t miss…
A Plague Tale Requiem - 8.75/10.0 - The Rats of Us Part 2.
God of War Ragnarok - 8.5/10.0 - Great game, but lots of little (and a couple of big) issues knocked it out of my top 5.
Sniper Elite 5 - playing through the dlc levels the last couple days and really remembering how great this was. Absolutely had some things that I wish they had done more like the previous game, but overall it’s a great package and reminds me of the Hitman games in some ways as well. Having a vehicle explode right next to me made me jump a bit, and while I see some stuff like rain splashing across a tree texture that’s out of place or people walking and warping through trucks, there’s nothing else like this.
Plague Tale Requiem - I absolutely love this game, which is odd because I couldn’t get past the first few minutes of the original. Great story and made me care about the characters. Had a few rough issues with camera angles, not allowing you to do certain things that seemed obvious and a fight toward the end and class of enemy that felt very unfair, but still was a great experience.
Tinykin - wasn’t planning to play this one but checked it out after seeing some of the comments from others here, and it didn’t disappoint. Great fun little world, and it just hit the spot.
As Dusk Falls - my biggest complaint with this game is how hard it is to get my other players together to play it. It’s a great first title from a talented studio and I’m excited to see what else they do. Also great seeing that the director and I think studio head was at the game awards sitting next to Phil S and Sarah B.
Lego Star Wars - I had this pre-ordered for 2? years and it was worth the wait.
Pentiment - the reason this is not higher on the list is because I haven’t had more time to play it. But can tell it’s a favorite experience for me so far, if anything it might have a little bit too much going on, too many places to see and conversations to have since I know I’m going to probably play it a few times.
Nobody Saves the World - not really something that I was expecting but had a great time with this and need to get around to the dlc.
Tunic
Two Point Campus
Vampire Survivors
Best ongoing:
Forza Horizon 5 - new content every month, new story stuff every couple or three, and adding songs from the old games was awesome as well. If they’d bump the garage limit I’d be happier but still great. Forza Horizon 1 and Forza 4 are why I got into Xbox in the first place, and I still love this even now that the creative director is working on Fable.
Halo Infinite - for all the hate this gets, I’ve had a blast. They’re working on more consistent content drops which is my biggest comment on it, so I don’t have any real gripes.
Minecraft - this game just keeps getting new stuff, it always deserves a place on the list!
Honorable Mentions (aka ports)
Deathloop - wasn’t expecting to like this much, but it’s been great.
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion - this pc port was awesome, had a ton of random pokes at real world stuff and just was off the walls. Can’t wait for the sequel!
The Pedestrian - really cool game with a lot more to it than I expected
Zero Escape: The Nonary Games - I had to be talked into this but really enjoyed it. Still need to finish up VLR.
Return to Monkey Island - I waited 25 years for the next entry in one of my favorite video game series, a long time to get disappointed. But i got everything i wanted. Thanks Ron Gilbert and Co.
I think there should be a rule change to ports since these games are new to the Xbox ecosystem. Every year I can’t include so many games in my Xboxera GOTY list because of this rule. In fact my real GOTY are never mentioned because of this rule and i end up choosing games I liked but didn’t love for my top 5-10. For example. 2020 I’d pick Yakuza 0, 2021 Dragon Quest Builders 2 and 2022 Persona 5 Royal.
This year the only 2022 game i played and beat and loved was Elden Ring so I can’t really contribute since so many games that i played and loved this year were ports that came to Xbox for the first time in 2022, Danganronpa, nonary games, persona 5 and so on.
Noticed earlier that SotS again was my most played game of the year with 200+ hours.
Guess 2022 was not a great gaming year for me as I couldn’t even think of 10 games I liked. The other 22 releases I played have too many issues to be in a GOTY list.
Agreed. Especially since Deathloop is included in the Staff Top 10 list, and several staff also included older games in their individual picks. Even 1997’s Blade Runner made one list.
I’m assuming those lists aren’t included in this community award, so I guess in that sense it doesn’t matter, but I just don’t understand this discrepancy of logic.
(Hello Match Point - Tennis Championship…)