It’s awards season, and our staff at Twisted Voxel has chosen its very own top 3 game of the year picks for the year 2022. Here are our picks.
Before we delve into our top 3 staff picks for game of the year 2022, it’s worth mentioning that we had a lengthy debate over some of them. As is usually the case with such lists, it’s never easy to cram everyone’s favorites. At the end of the day, however, we’re pleased with our top 3 list, and would like to take the opportunity to congratulate the publishers and studios behind them, without whom the year simply wouldn’t have turned out as great as it did.
Twisted Voxel’s Top 3 Games Of The Year 2022
Without further ado, here are our top 3 games of the year 2022:
#3. Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Coming in at 3rd place is Monolith Soft’s third numbered entry in the Xenoblade saga. Not only does Xenoblade Chronicles 3 do a great job of connecting the previous two games, it brings brings the series back to roots in more ways than one. By staying true to the first game while also taking into account the aspects of the second that worked well, it has delivered the best of both Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2. It succeeds in doing what it sets out to do as an RPG with complex and engaging mechanics, a gripping narrative, and a likeable cast of characters.
#2. Bayonetta 3
Only two series come to mind when one thinks about the greatest character action games out there: Devil May Cry and Bayonetta. With such high standards to meet as the sequel to Bayonetta 2, Bayonetta 3 not only met our lofty expectations, but ended up exceeded them. It was several years in the making, but the wait was well worth it. The game is a bit of a set-piece driven roller coaster ride full of gimmicks, which may not be for everyone. However, at the end of the day, it delivers an incredible combat system that gives players the opportunity to be very creative in their approach to encounters. Bayonetta 3 features some of the best boss fights the series, or any character action game for that matter, has seen to date. Additionally, we didn’t know how much we missed Platinum Games’ quirky sense of humor until we played Bayonetta 3.
#1. Elden Ring
Since Breath of the Wild back in 2017, there hasn’t been an open world game that has truly delivered the sense of freedom and discovery that one comes to expect from the genre. Elden Ring not only accomplishes this, but it does so with the finesse and grace that director Hidetaka Miyazaki and his team at From Software are now well-known for. Elden Ring is the most approachable Action RPG the studio has made to date, offering a tremendous amount of options for build variety and a more accessible combat system. It features seemingly endless and varied landscapes to explore, with carefully placed points of interests that naturally drawn you towards them rather than the UI telling you do so. Elden Ring is a remarkable achievement in game design that will serve as the blueprint for future open world games, and is, therefore, our Game of the Year 2022.
