The 10 best games of 2022 (so far)

Elden Ring, The Quarry, and all the other titles we love that rolled out during the first half of this year

By William Hughes, Sam Barsanti, Alexander Chatziioannou, Mike Rougeau, Grace Benfell | June 29, 2022 | 8:00am

Games Lists Forbidden West

(Clockwise from lower left to right) Tunic (Image: Andrew Shouldice), Card Shark (Image: Devolver Digital), Elden Ring (Image: Bandai-Namco), Kirby And The Forgotten Land (Image: Nintendo), The Quarry (Image: 2K Games) Graphic: Libby McGuire

2022 has been a quieter year for gaming than most; outside a few high-profile releases—and one massive, medium-sweeping bulldozer courtesy of FromSoftware—major releases (at least, from the big-budget studios) have been few and far between.

But that, of course, only calls for deeper curation, and so The A.V. Club is here with a look at the best games published in the first half of 2022, whether smaller indie titles, Elden Ring, or big-budget games forced to exist in the unfortunate shadow of Elden Ring. Our list runs the gamut from open world epics to small-scale emotional adventures, and from obscurity-soaked love letters to the latest adventures of everyone’s favorite pink vore monster. But all our picks are united by one thing: These were the games we liked—and why—in the first half of 2022.

Card Shark

I liked Card Shark, because it is clever and vulnerable. It’s light, but still bracing, simulation of card tricks puts you constantly on the edge of failure. One incorrect flick of the thumbstick will lose you a round, or worse, reveal your plot. The hangman might await you. Pulling off a scam, especially on the powerful, takes a lot of risk. Success might make you feel invulnerable, but in every step you are anything but. The game’s emphasis on historically marginalized people underscores that vulnerability. But cheated victory unveils what possibilities could be stolen from those who do not deserve their fortunes. [Grace Benfell]

Elden Ring

I liked because it made the act of exploration feel endlessly rewarding. The latest adventure by FromSoftware and director Hidetaka Miyazaki, creators of the legendary Dark Souls series, expands the definition of what a Souls game can be. Set in a treacherously dense open world, Elden Ring holds secrets tucked inside every nook and cranny, rewarding the player’s sense of curiosity with breathtaking discoveries to be made. Like the rest of FromSoftware’s games, it’s hard as hell, but in Elden Ring, there’s more reason than ever before to get good enough to see it all. [Mike Rougeau]

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Horizon: Forbidden West

I liked because it made hunting giant robot dinosaurs as thrilling as it should be. Whatever curse keeps forcing Guerilla Games to release its Horizon games directly in the path of titles (Zelda: Breath Of The Wild in 2017, Elden Ring this year) that radically reconfigure the open-world genre it trucks in can’t obscure that these games have some of the most thoughtful combat out there. Forbidden West has other assets to its credit—an interesting sci-fi story, and a continually winning performance by star Ashly Burch as heroic hunter Aloy—but it’s the feeling of tracking down, disassembling, and harvesting a massive array of brutally powerful, wily machines that keeps it lingering in the memory. [William Hughes]

Kirby And The Forgotten Land

I liked Kirby And The Forgotten Land because it has a dedicated “wave to Kirby’s friends” button. Okay, that’s not the whole reason, but that little detail is emblematic of the fact that Forgotten Land nicely captures everything that’s good about Kirby games. It has a cool take on the standard mechanic of Kirby stealing his enemies’ powers, where you can upgrade the powers into new and increasingly wacky abilities, it has a wild difficulty ramp-up toward the end, and it has … a dedicated “wave to Kirby’s friends” button. They’ll smile and wave back! It’s wonderful! [Sam Barsanti]

Perfect Tides

I liked because it captured both the agony and the ecstasy of being a teen hooked on the early internet. Meredith Gran’s gorgeously retro-styled adventure game pushes past coming-of-age clichés to embrace the horrifying, beautiful mix of feelings that come with the sudden shift that happens when you realize that everyone around you is just as screwed up as you are—something driven home by its perfect recreation of the highs and lows of 2000s-era internet culture. Redemption, romance, love, and humor are all on full display—along with the endless anxiety that they could all crash down around you with the harsh finality of the AIM “door slam” sound. [William Hughes]

The Quarry

I liked The Quarry because it’s the funniest, warmest big-budget video game about adolescence in years. Don’t get me wrong, it gets pretty gruesome too, but, for its scare tactics to land, The Quarry first needs you to sympathize with those loud, annoying, incessantly horny brats before mauling them with a mistimed QTE or ill-judged decision. A higher budget, translating into a bigger cast and more varied environments, , but it’s Supermassive’s circling back to the perfect subgenre for their particular brand of cinematic horror–the teen slasher–that facilitates the studio’s triumphant return. You will care more with every witty one-liner, every romantic revelation, every spur-of-the-moment gaffe. And the creature that stalks the woods around Hackett’s Quarry (hint: not a bear), will loom more threatening accordingly. [Alexander Chatziioannou]

Sephonie

I liked Sephonie, because it feels like the future. The sci-fi platformer is openly speculative, considering how transhuman enhancements might change our relationship with flora/fauna, or showing off an alien ecology in the form of the game’s titular island. It feels immense with ideas in the way that great sci-fi does, tickling at the brain long after you finish. It’s also a game made primarily by two people. Its immensity comes from its narrow focus on complex characters and ideas, rather than crass largeness. That aching, personal smallness is what makes it feel like the future. The scale of video games is obviously unsustainable. Sephonie points at another way. [Grace Benfell]

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction

I liked Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction because I was able to have fun with its tactical approach to fighting zombies without engaging with the toxic Rainbow Six Siege community. I really like Rainbow Six Siege, the online shooter where one team defends a house and the other team has to use cool gear to tear down walls and infiltrate the house. But it’s so dependent on working as a team that you’re not allowed to play unless you’re a pro-level gamer. Extraction, meanwhile, works (mostly) fine playing entirely alone, and nobody can team-kill you and send you a mean DM about how you’re doing it wrong. [Sam Barsanti]

Tunic

I liked because it captured the allure of the original Legend Of Zelda. Andrew Shouldice’s tribute to the original king of adventure games stars an adorable fox in a lushly animated world. But it doesn’t simply mimic the style of early Zelda games—it fully recreates the experience of being dropped into a game world full of secrets and esoteric mechanics, drip-feeding you the knowledge you need by way of a lovingly crafted in-game instruction manual that, in a stroke of sheer brilliance, is written mainly in a made-up language. Just like the days of your youth, when your grasp on the syntax of video games was less than fully formed, each simple act in Tunic, from reaching the next dungeon to simply leveling up, is a puzzle in and of itself. [Mike Rougeau]

We Were Here Forever

I liked We Were Here Forever because it feels like actually sharing an adventure with a friend. Closer in spirit to social party games like Dixit or Charades, the true challenge in the latest installment of the increasingly ambitious, online-only series lies not so much with its escape-room puzzles but with its asymmetrical division of labor tasking you with conveying abstract visual information: how do you describe a sequence of alien musical notes for your partner to play on an organ that controls the gates inside a spooky cathedral? Collaboratively chipping away at the barriers of communication that separate two different minds charges each hard-earned breakthrough with genuine delight and engenders a feeling of camaraderie sharing loot or completing a side-quest rarely does. [Alexander Chatziioannou]