If the gaming year of 2021 taught us anything, it’s to prepare for some games to be delayed whenever possible. Many games were cancelled this year and, as a result, 2022 will have plenty of games that will certainly make an impact.

As the 2022 schedule begins to take shape, we’ve compiled a list of titles that will likely make it a memorable year. Take a look at some new releases eager gamers can expect in 2022.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus

While Pokemon has undergone many changes and tweaks over the years, it has always remained mostly true to its original formula, making Pokemon Legends: Arceus a fascinating title. In comparison with Sword and Shield, Legends is the first Pokemon game to offer a true open-world-style experience. Instead of the series’ usual routes and random encounters, it offers expansive environments teeming with roaming Pokemon. The series’ hallmark battle system has even been revisited with a more significant focus on real-time action.

Splatoon 3 – TBD 2022

With Breath of the Wild 2 and Bayonetta 3, Nintendo’s release calendar for next year is already very full. Nevertheless, Splatoon 3, the company’s latest entry in its delightful shooter series, deserves to be on everyone’s radar. In Splatoon 3, players are pitted in colorful four-on-four firefights in which the objective isn’t to score the most kills but to spread the most ink over the map. Playing Splatoon 3 is a fresh take on the multiplayer shooter genre, introducing several new stages, weapons, and abilities to inspire a fresh take on gameplay and inspire new strategies.

Sifu

Despite the difficulty of gameplay and its taut and slick combat style, players were always motivated to get back up even when they lost a battle. Sifu’s resurrection approach is unusual because it adds a year to the protagonist’s life after each revival. You will have to restart from scratch should you fail too many times, otherwise, the martial artist will reach the end of his life before finishing his quest. Although it may seem overwhelming at first, the game’s themes of adapting and learning from mistakes have intrigued many players to keep playing.

Elden Ring

The Soulsborne Kiro series of games developed by From Software has some trademarks: A sense of challenge, a steadily building narrative, and engaging gameplay. Quite a few of these features are present in Elden Ring, but a big difference is the large open world. While playing in the recent Elden Ring network test, many gamers find the open-world approach both enticing and terrifying. Exploration can be thrilling, but even if you survive it, you can be killed over and over again by the vast landscape.

God of War: Ragnarok

God of War: Ragnarok has easily been one of this year’s most hyped-up games, and the most talked-about game in the past three years. Its recent E3 trailer has demonstrated why. Kratos’s parenting of Atreus showed an emotional strain you wouldn’t expect from the brutal character. 

There were so many great things about God of War (2018), from the narrative to the world to the characters in Norse mythology.

Starfield – TBD 2022

As gamers have spent thousands of hours toiling at Skyrim and Fallout 4, Bethesda Softworks has been working on their next game, Starfield, a fresh spin on an open-world sci-fi RPG. With its first original IP in decades, Starfield explores the vastness of the universe, coming into contact with alien races and antagonistic rivals. Although we’ve only seen brief glimpses of the game in trailers, the developers went into great detail about what’s to come in the new Bestheda-style RPG.