11 video games you should have played during 2022
It feels like every year there are far too many video games to play. There’s never enough time to get to all of them, and that wish list in Steam or that “to-play” list on a sticky note above your PlayStation keeps getting longer and longer.
How can you ever figure out what to play? And with every passing year, it feels like there are more and more fantastic video games clogging up that list. That’s why we at Culturess are here to give you a list of the video games you should have played in 2022. We’ve done it in 2020 and 2021 and we have to keep the tradition going!
Here are the video games you should have played in 2022 in absolutely no particular order!
Elden Ring
Let’s just get the elephant in the room out of the way. Elden Ring was a massive success, probably the biggest game of the year. Heck, the rumor is that Breath of the Wild: Tears of the Kingdom got delayed until 2023 because they saw what Elden Ring did and needed to make some adjustments.
It’s Dark Souls but an open world. And it is absolutely gorgeous. Also, you can jump! And you get a horse that can double jump! If you’ve ever been interested in attempting a From Software Souls game but haven’t jumped in yet, this is probably the best one to jump into, as you can pick and choose where you want to go and run away from anything you can’t handle yet.
But don’t be fooled by any means: This is still a Souls game and it will punish you like no other. You will die time and time again from bosses to the stupid tree sentinels, to falling on accident from the top of a clip or attempting to jump onto one of those walking temple guys, to a random snipe shot from a mediocre enemy. Every death hurts, but every victory makes it worth it.
Malenia, Blade of Miquella will become your enemy for life.
Cult of the Lamb
Don’t let the adorable art style fool you, this game is not that innocent. A mix of Stardew Valley‘s farming elements and Hades’s dungeon runs, it’s part town-builder with NPC management and part roguelike.
You play as the last lamb in the world, who was about to be murdered so that a locked away god (The One Who Waits) cannot be resurrected. Instead, he saves you and calls you to do his bidding, building up his cult and taking down his godbrothers in an attempt to free him.
What’s nice about Cult of the Lamb is that unlike Hades or Dead Cells, the runs in the dungeons are short, taking at max fifteen minutes. You then return to your cult that you build up by recruiting members on your runs and task them to clean up the place and forage materials. It’s just enough of both worlds to keep you invested until you reach the final boss.
Evil West
Evil West feels like the kind of game you would beg your parents to let you rent for a weekend at Blockbuster. It’s the perfect epitome of a B-tier version of a AAA game (that is not a detriment).
It is a straight-up third-person shooter where you take down hoards of vampires and other nefarious creatures in the old west with some newer steampunk-esque technology to aid you. Your main weapon comes in the form of a gauntlet that you get different advancements for depending on how you level up your skill tree.
It’s not a long game either, taking about 11 hours to finish. The story isn’t anything to write home about, but if you’re looking for a TPS that’s just about weapon upgrades and combat, this one’s perfect.
Horizon Forbidden West
It’s Horizon Zero Dawn, except everything is bigger and badder and prettier. You play as Aloy (the ever-excellent Ashly Burch) in a post-apocalyptic world, still attempting to save the world from destruction. The threats are bigger, the dinosaur machines are badder, and the weapons choices are plentiful.
And it is gorgeous. Seeing a completely virtual/lights version of Las Vegas in an open desert is something to behold. Heck, even a crumbling San Francisco is breathtaking, the Golden Gate Bridge crumbling and covered in greenery… and robot birds trying to kill you.
Just watch a refresher video on what happened story-wise in the first one before you start because you jump right into the thick of it.
Stray
It’s the cat game! If you have ever wanted to play a video game as a cat, boy we have the game for you. The story is relatively loose; you’re a cat in a post-apocalyptic world and get separated from your cat friends, falling into a world shut off from the outside. Humans no longer exist; rather, it’s robots who don’t know what to make of you.
Stray gets everything right about being a cat. From puzzles involving hiding in boxes to avoid robot guards to climbing onto rooftops to case apartments for clues to little side quests, like finding every piece of sheet music for a musician.
There are also the moments of just being a cat, including scratching at rugs or walls, pushing a basketball off a roof ledge, and literal nap spots where you can curl up and snooze away the time for as long as you want.
God of War Ragnarök
We’ve been waiting for God of War Ragnarok since 2018’s God of War released.
And it’s everything you want it to be in the sequel. Kratos and Atreus are still journeying across this vast world and there’s a larger focus on their changing and evolving relationship. And more gods. Always more gods. The iterations of Odin and Thor won’t even make you think of their MCU counterparts at all. Everything is also brilliantly voice-acted, too.
The combat is just as fantastic in the sequel, if not better. You still have your axe and its heavy attacks and ranged power. But when it comes to the blades, there’s a bigger focus on using them to hook enemies and throw them around the arena or pull them toward you. It’ll give you shades of the original video games, just giving it a modern edge.
Tunic
Tunic is as close as you’re going to get to a Legend of Zelda Soulsborne game, and not just because you’re a fox wearing a green tunic that looks eerily similar to Link’s.
This is one of those video games that will harken back to when you actually had to read the booklets that came with the game cartridge, as the pages you find are your only clues on what to do in this game. You don’t speak the language and you never get a translation.
And the combat is hard, but not as soul-crushing as a Souls game. You’ll hit your points of frustration and feel so rewarded when you finally make it past a particular boss (mine in particular was the garden knight).
If you somehow manage to get the true ending, the final boss will be the easiest to face.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus
It’s crazy to think that Pokémon Legends: Arceus came out this year, what with Violet and Scarlet just releasing. Arceus was the first open-world Pokémon game and none of us were sure what to think of an open-world Pokémon game.
But it did everything pretty dang well. It was fun to see the Pokémon out in the wild and how they would interact with you rather than just randomly-generated combat instances. You get to see their little personality quirks and can choose to avoid them if you want.
Combat gets plussed-up as well with the addition of Strong and Agile attacks. For an Agile move, you sacrifice attack power to bring your turn back sooner or for Strong, you sacrifice future turns for a bigger hit now. It’s a fun new twist on one of the old standard video games, for sure.
Sifu
This is an unapologetic and unforgiving beat-’em-up and yet you’ll keep coming back for more and more.
The plot’s simple: You watched your father get brutally murdered in front of you and you’re on a life-long pursuit to take down the five assassins behind his death. The martial arts combat is honestly some of the best out there. And the fun twist to Sifu’s combat is that when you die, you resurrect in the same exact spot. But you age. And the age depends on your current death count.
So if you die once, you age up one year. If you die by that same enemy two, three, four more times, you’re aging up nine years by the end of it. Sifu is a short game but gives you that repetitive nature that makes you want to overcome your shortcomings.
It’s everything we wanted Deathloop to be.
Kirby & the Forgotten Land
Listen. It’s Kirby. And you can eat and turn(almost) into a car. What else do you need?
This takes the 2D structure of the Kirby franchise and brings it into the 3D world. It’s its own Super Mario 64 or Super Mario 3D World and it does it incredibly well. It feels like the next evolution for the series, and it’s one that will keep you coming back.
Because Kirby and the Forgotten Land takes it up a notch. You still get plenty of swallowing-to-absorb-abilities abilities, but the way you utilize them against enemies will make you think twice and use those limited abilities as best you can. The boss battles are where this really shines, as they are creative and pretty dang fun.
The platforming portion of it is still top-notch (and isn’t that what you love about Kirby video games?), and the secret hunting will make you replay the same levels over and over until you find everything.
Bayonetta 3
First announced in 2017, it’s been eight years since the last Bayonetta game. And honestly, it was worth the wait solely because the combat has been elevated to the next level, taking the 13-year-old system and reinvigorating it… and keeping that same insane hack-n-slash playstyle the series is known for.
The combat has sweeping changes across the board. The core combat abilities are different, how you find and equip new weapons has changed, how you upgrade the abilities for those weapons is new, and her magic has changed, too. Now you get a really cool Demon Slave mechanic that will make you feel so overpowered, it’s not even funny. But the game keeps it in check as you progress, never making anything too easy.
The story itself is nothing to write home about and the weakest of the trilogy, but that thankfully doesn’t detract too much from the insane, breakneck pace of this game.
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