As 2022 comes to a close, we here at For The Win are taking a look back at some of our absolute favorite content from the course of the year. Our staff has chosen the movies, television and video games that they loved the most this year.
When talking about video games, we assembled five titles released in 2022 (well, one released at the tail-end of 2021 but received updates throughout 2022) worthy of high praise. So, we decided to group them together.
From Nintendo Switch games to those on Next Gen consoles, here are our five favorite video games we played in 2022.
God of War: Ragnarok
After the roller coaster that was God of War on the PS4, the sequel takes a dagger and slowly but surely drives it into your heart. As it was in the last instance, the core of God of War: Ragnarok is the father-son dynamic featuring everyone’s favorite tortured Greek god, Kratos, and his son, a budding powerful deity in his own right, Atreus. Over the course of this modern Norse, epic told over a virtual platform, we come to empathize with a patient father who just isn’t quite ready for his son to grow up yet. And we do the very same for a brilliant young man who’s ready to prove himself in the world, to show he can fend for himself but doesn’t quite want to let go of where he came from, despite a grand destiny. In terms of intense, satisfying combat, a scenic world full of mystery and wonder to explore, and a beyond-striking narrative — God of War: Ragnarok stacks on everything from its predecessor and succeeds. With a flourish. It’s one of the handfuls of greatest games I’ve ever had the pleasure to play. By the time I was finished with Ragnarok’s relentless emotional haymakers, it just made me want to hug my own dad, to hear his voice validating me with pride, to hear it familiarly admonishing me for some avoidable mistake, and never to let him go. — Robert Zeglinski
Horizon Forbidden West
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4
Horizon Forbidden West was my most anticipated game of 2022 and it did not disappoint in the slightest. As the sequel to 2017’s breakout hit Horizon Zero Dawn, this game picks right up on Aloy’s journeys in a post-apocalyptic United States after a robot extinction event wiped out humanity as we know it. Not only is the game absolutely stunning, Aloy going from carrying the world solely on her shoulders to sharing the burden with friends was a wonderful and welcome development. — Mary Clarke
Stray
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows
One of the more surprising deliveries in video games in 2022 was Stray, which put you in the shoes (or paws?) of a stray red tabby cat trying to navigate a vaguely dystopic world populated by killer robots. It’s as delightful, adorable, and nerve-wracking as it sounds. Unsurprisingly, in trying to survive this hellscape from the perspective of a little furry friend, you do everything a cat does. You meow. You cuddle up to NPCs. And you fly through the air and up walls, assuredly not worried of dying because you have nine lives (well, not necessarily in the game itself, but you get the point). Story and action aside, Stray is a love letter to anyone who has the pleasure of calling a cute, small feline their best friend. I may or not have wanted to desperately adopt a tabby of my own after the fact. — Robert Zeglinski
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Admittedly, I went into the ninth generation of the world’s favorite animated pocket monsters with reservations. As much as the series is still catered toward young Millenials like me who have literal centers built into our brains for Pikachu et al. nostaglia, recent offerings have been … underwhelming, to say the least. Scarlet and Violet are far from perfect (I had the pleasure of roaming the Paldea region with Scarlet’s prehistoric legendary mascot, Koraidon) but they ultimately succeed in finally elevating the franchise to the next level. The expansive narrative, for one, is probably the best of the entire series. Moving forward, I do wish Game Freak would be more ambitious with gameplay; not necessarily in making it more challenging. Just in adding more mechanics. (And, is it too much to ask them to release their flagship games with some polish?). But, in a tough grind of a year where I just needed light downtime more often than I thought, I eventually found myself wanting to be the very best that no one ever was once again. Friends, when down and out, remember this all-important axiom: You gotta catch em’ all. — Robert Zeglinski
Final Fantasy XIV
There was no game I played more in 2022 than Final Fantasy XIV, the critically acclaimed MMORPG. The latest expansion, Endwalker, may have been released at the end of 2021, but the game still received substantial updates this past year that kept me logging back in frequently. Plus, I finally convinced my friends to play the game with me and watching their progress over the last year as they made their way through the twists and turns of the story was a delight all its own. — Mary Clarke
