Game drought season is fully upon us, and boy this year it is ruthless. Some of the biggest releases of the year such as Elden Ring, Ghostwire Tokyo and Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin have come and gone, and for a while it felt like 2022 had wrapped early for its big releases.
The recent announcement that Starfield was being pushed to 2023, without even a new release date to look forward to, meant that Xbox owners now have no first party games to tide them over until next year. Rumours of God of War: Ragnarök and the already delayed Forspoken also being pushed out of 2022 abound, though these have very recently been revealed to be quite unfounded.
New information coming to light as I write this today on the 26th of May suggests that Ragnarök and Forspoken have received age ratings, prompting ideas that their release may indeed land in 2022. What’s more, taking this with more than a pinch of salt, it’s also possible that the hugely anticipated Final Fantasy XVI might also launch around this holiday season, and yet, even with the size of the Final Fantasy fanbase there exists a behemoth which could yet dwarf it.
Hogwarts Legacy.
New gameplay footage showcasing how the PlayStation 5 hardware will enhance the experience has been released this week, with the game itself appearing to play perfectly whilst looking absolutely stunning. Through this information, as well as the quality of the footage we saw a couple of months ago, it is a safe assumption that Hogwarts Legacy may indeed arrive on our consoles this very year!
That’s not all, and fret not Xbox owners for the greatest open world racing game in existence, Forza Horizon 5, is expected to have not one, but two new expansions release this year. While they won’t be free to those who access the game solely through Xbox Game Pass, the base game has certainly proved to fans of the genre that the expansions are well worth paying for, whatever they may be.
I’m not forgetting about gamers who favour the Nintendo Switch as the new generation of Pokémon games, Scarlet and Violet, are also going to be available in 2022. There will likely be other Nintendo games as well, but as I solely play Pokémon on my Switch I am struggling to name any others..
The good news keeps on coming for PlayStation owners as the new tiers of the PlayStation Plus subscription launches (in the UK) in just a few short weeks, giving players access to a variety of games from all previous generations of the PlayStation console. Through a combination of the new Plus as well as the exceptional existing quality of Xbox Game Pass, it remains likely the bulk of the summer months will be spent replaying our old favourites. This is far from a bad thing as it’s important to wallow in your comfort games every now and then to truly appreciate the leaps forward in game design innovation we see built on year by year.
Let me know in the comments what your most anticipated game of 2022 is? Has it released already? Was it Elden Ring? I bet it was Elden Ring. Thanks for reading and I’ll be back in a couple of weeks so will speak to you again then!
