As we step into the bustling holiday season and beyond, it's time to take a look back at some of the most popular games of 2022. The ones that blew us all away with excellent storytelling, gameplay, and visuals. The ones that reviewed well and sold gangbusters all the same. In spite of all the delays and pushbacks still emerging from the pandemic, 2022 was a very strong year for new releases.
Several blockbuster mainstream and indie games came out in 2022. But if you didn't have a chance to try every single one of them, or if a few flew out of your radar, read on. We're here with a list of the most popular games of 2022 to help stack your back catalog. As a side note, we're excluding any and all remasters, remakes, and re-releases from this list.
While we have you with us, feel free to check out our list of the best free RPG games, if you are craving some story-driven fun.
Most Popular Games Of 2022
Elden Ring
It shouldn't surprise you to see Elden Ring standing tall at the top of this list. FromSoftware's secretive soulslike was everything fans of the genre wanted. Vast, challenging, and packed with lore.
Elden Ring opened the Soulsborne genre to giant open-world maps, and the end result was simply fantastic. The sprawling, cadaverous world of The Lands Between gave the freedom to go anywhere and everywhere right from the very start. It was rarely a good idea, but that's life.
The worldbuilding, the obscured yet gripping way of storytelling, the deeply customizable character classes, and everything inbetween were brought together in this dark fantasy open-world game many consider to be the studio's swan song at this point.
Stray
Stray, the indie game by Annapurna Interactive, has you control a cat. And it did a number on us. With its excellent plot/storytelling, level design, visuals the lovable feline companion, walking around the streets of a cyber metropolis on all fours was not only a unique approach to storytelling, but also surprisingly engaging.
The story of Stray revolves around a obviously stray cat who slips into a spooky walled city populated by robots, machines, and deadly bacteria. As the cat, you embark on a journey to return to the surface with the help of an AI drone companion called B-12. While the game is linear for the most part, the level design does reward exploration and the curiosity any cat is known for.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Ever since its inception, Pokemon games have mostly followed the same old formula of players defeating other gym trainers. But that completely changed with the release of Pokemon Legends: Arceus.
Released exclusively for the Nintendo Switch, Arceus pivoted the focus to exploration, tasking players to roam the ancient wild in order to complete the very first Pokedex.
The game welcomes both new and veteran players and there's a lot of freedom and emphasis on world exploration: something that fans had always desired in a Pokemon game. The tweaked battle system adds a new level of difficulty to the traditional turn-based entries with reacive 'Styles', making for some fierce boss battles that even involve a bit of personal injury.
Horizon Forbidden West
The much-awaited sequel to 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn delivered on all the hype.
Telling another tale of Aloy, her crew journies to the mysterious province of the “Forbidden West” (the fictionalized post-apocalyptic version of the Western United States). The game's story, as always, is complicated yet full of blockbuster, cinematic-style moments that take place six months after the events of Zero Dawn.
Aloy is hard at work helping to restore the planet's habitat, and what follows is worth experiencing. The game builds on the foundation laid by Zero Dawn and introduces an updated combat system, new skills, enemies, traversal techniques, and more.
Horizon Forbidden West harnesses all the extra horsepower of the PS5 to deliver a stunning, detailed, and surprisingly colourful post-apocalyptic world.
Tunic
Tunic is a game that truly represents what indie games are all about - risk-taking. And that risk certainly paid off. The game ticks all the right boxes with its unique storytelling and puzzling gameplay elements.
Tunic perfectly blends Zelda's exploration and discovery with Souls-like combat in a top-down approach. You play as a cute little anthropomorphic fox, with the marvelous visual style and soundtrack both all the right notes.
Part of Tunic's charm is the super convoluted, yet engaging, story that unfolds as you solve its tricky puzzles. There's no hand-holding here. Instead, you'll slowly discover the hidden pages of the game manual that will provide hints on how to progress.
Challenging boss battles, intricate puzzles, and deep exploration will keep you immersed in Tunic's world for hours to come. But only if you're keen on learning all of its secrets.
Sifu
The beat 'em up video game genre doesn't seem as popular as it once used to be even with revivals like TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, River City Girls 2, and Streets of Rage 4, but Sifu surely breathes a breeze of fresh air into the genre with its straightforward yet super fun gameplay and combat.
The game knows what it is. Right off the bat, the beautifully crafted levels, the art style, and the creative aging mechanic feels fresh. The combat might take some getting used to, and the onslaught of combos and various attacks are sure to get anyone overwhelmed, but they help Sifu shine as a unique experience.
The game focuses heavily on its fighting mechanics and is designed in such a way that you train and learn enemy patterns by resurrecting. It's a clever way to employ trail and error tactics without frustration.
MultiVersus
Imagine Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but with only Warner Bros. characters. That's MultiVersus for you.
The free-to-play crossover fighting game brings some of the most well-known characters from the Warner Bros. Discovery franchises and pits them against each other to see who comes out on top. You duke it out with other players on various different stages and try to knock your opponents outside the boundaries of the arena, with characters being knocked out further the more damage they take.
There's also an online play feature that holds up pretty well and a perk system, which lets you tweak your characters with equippable passive abilities. The well-written dialogues, the attention to detail, and the subtle little easter eggs sprinkled throughout make MultiVersus a super fun and rewarding experience. Check out our Multiversus tier list if you're giving it a go.
The Quarry
Supermassive Games is back at it again with another interactive horror drama - The Quarry.
Serving as the spiritual successor to 2015's Until Dawn, the game puts you in the shoes of a group of teenagers trying to survive their last night at Hackett's Quarry summer camp. However, in a typical fashion, things don't go as planned.
The Quarry plays out like an interactive drama where you make the choices of characters over a series of linearly connected cutscenes and watch the entire story unfold. The game's overall plot is freaky but fun, and there are plenty of branching paths to keep subsequent playthroughs full of surprises.
Gran Turismo 7
After a long wait, Polyphony Digital finally debuted Gran Turismo 7 on the new PS5 hardware. Despite its few hiccups, it's standing tall as one of the strongest installments of the series, with 2023's PSVR2 support breathing new life into it once again.
The realistic driving physics combined with the outstanding in-game soundtrack really makes driving around the track fun and immersive. The graphics and visuals are expectedly top-notch, and there's an enormous amount of content available to keep you busy.
However, the always-online requirement coupled with the heavy use of microtransactions were a few things that weren't appreciated by audiences.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet
Just like with Pokemon Sword and Shield, backlash against the new generation of Pokemon couldn't stop the sales juggernaut.
Selling over 20 million copies to retailers by February 2023 and selling more copies in the first three weeks than any other piece of software on a Nintendo platform ever, there's no denying that Pokemon Scarlet and Violet were two of the biggest games of 2022 despite their holiday launch window.
If you're still plugging through your Paldean adventure, check out our guides on rare candy locations, how to farm shiny Pokemon, and how to get a second Koraidon or Miraidon.
God of War Ragnarok
Another holiday release, God of War Ragnarok, the well-anticipated follow-up to the PS4 hack n' slash, turned out to be the fastest-selling first-party Playstation game in history. What more is there to say?
Clearing 11 million copies in three months. Given its November 9 release, a few million of those can be chalked up to 2023, but there's no denying the vast majority would have been during the launch weekend and copies stashed away for the gift-giving season.
And that about does it for the most popular games of 2022! If you want even more suggestions, you can view our list of the best free FPS games that are worth checking out.