Community GOTY 2022: Voting Begins!

Looks like we're voting early this time!

My game of the year isn't much of a surprise, From Software usually ends up on top for me. The rest could move around some, but Forbidden West wasn't as impressive as Zero Dawn to me so that closes my list. And I haven't been able to put as much time into Xenoblade as of yet, so I can't put it up much higher for now. Still a very good year all things considered and looking forward to 2023 and of course GOTY content on Giantbomb.

Thanks!

Damn you, dwarf fortress! Just when I had my top 10 set, you come along and ruin it all!

Didn't finish a whole lot of new games this year. This list could still change by January. I don't feel that strongly about Neon White or Turtles. High on Life comes out tomorrow, which I plan to check out. That could take a 9 or 10 spot. Or it could be terrible. Still have a few games I didn't get around to as well. Still have to finish Frogun, Dragon Caffi, Digimon Survive, and Ghostwire: Tokyo. Then I have a copy of Horizon that I haven't even started yet.

still need to rejig my order but this yr i was ready for this , i decided at the start of the yr to for once keep an order based on enjoyment over the course of the yr.

@rorie I think the "You can do so via this form" link is linked to the 2021 form instead of the 2022 form.

Please, PLEASE let the GB crew do something with the results. Maybe have them play through top voted games that no one on staff has played yet, or do a top 10 reveal or something. It's so anticlimactic every year when the community results come in and no one even acknowledges them in videos or podcasts or whatever.

Anyway, my top 10:

1. Pentiment

2. Strange Horticulture

3. Elden Ring

4. Immortality

5. The Case of the Golden Idol

6. Syberia: The World Before

7. Cult of the Lamb

8. Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga

9. South of the Circle

10. Not for Broadcast

Pretty open playing field this year, other than 1st place, of course. Congrats Elden Ring.

My bad, should be fixed now!

1. Elden Ring

2. Vampire Survivors

3. Sifu

4. Citizen Sleeper

5. Tunic

6. Rogue Legacy 2

7. Pentiment

8. Signalis

9. Norco

10. Cult of the Lamb

Other than the top 3 this was a surprisingly difficult list to put together. Mainly trying to rank all the different but banger narrative games that came out this year.

@avioto: if nothing else we'll try to do some kind of community stream with people from the Discord to talk about it. Maybe a Discord Stage thing where people can stan for stuff that the staff missed?

preemptive congratulations to HFW on the win, and an additional congratulations to @rorie for his excellent choices for images with the imbeds- a man of culture and taste, and he truly captured the zeitgeist of the year :)

New games are expensive, plus nothing that came out this year seemed better than Factorio so I just kept playing that. We need a category for "game of the some other year"

My votes alternated between Into the Breach and HoloCure.

The only 2022 games I played were Shadow Warrior 3, HoloCure, and Into the Breach Advanced Edition. While I don't fully regret my time with SW3, overall it was a disappointment. I'd probably love Vampire Saviors, but I got my fix from HoloCure. ITB:AE is an incredible update to a fantastic game.

@avioto: I still need to check out Strange Horticulture and Symphony of War, both of those looked up my alley. Also, they made another Syberia game?? I totally missed that.

Yeah, "extremely good narrative-focused games" are going to be most of my list this year, there were a lot of excellent ones. I'm still finishing up Pentiment at the moment, but that will also be on there for sure.

Also I am apparently one of the only humans who did not play Elden Ring, so that frees up a spot, haha. (I think that was mainly a combination of me being burned out on Soulslikes and also everyone talking about it all the time actually had a weird opposite effect on me that made me not want to play it. The latter thing is more a personal hangup of mine, not the fault of the game, I'm sure it is good.)

Fun stats: only two games from Japan on my list this year, only one full-on AAA title (some might count Fire Emblem Warriors because of the launch price alone, I don't), one former early access game that was also on a previous year's list, at least 6 of these games are on Game Pass, only two console exclusives, and about half this list contains little or no combat

Shoutout to anyone else out there who played enough Eiyuden Rising to put it on a list of any kind

As twice now, my top goty pick was scratched from the count, while games from like the fucking stone age have always crept into the list, I won't be voting in this waste of time anymore. Just wanted to voice that.

I might do a list tho.

HFW is on the top of my list.

Jess just has a bad taste. She's entitled to her opinion,

As someone that usually makes a list around summer of the following year, hope you all vote soundly. (cramming games before GOTY was no fun)

1. Hardspace: Shipbreaker
2. Sifu
3. Adaca
4. Tinykin
5. Scorn
6. Midnight Fight Express
7. Rollerdrome
8. Pentiment
9. Weird West
10. Tunic

Should’ve checked the schedule earlier to learn about the lack of game mess mornings. Time to vote I guess

I think my list really is a measure of how much time I put into games this year, less the quality. I fell off Elden Ring hard after realizing how much of the story and quests I had skipped. I think I just prefer the more linear style of Dark Souls. There aren't any guide posts to help you know where you are and where you've been from a progression standpoint. They just say...here you go.

A good year, not a great year.

Also, what does it say about me that 7 out of my Top 10 this year came from Game Pass?

@timoneous: all of mine are from Gamepass:

1 Return to Monkey Island

2 Pentiment

3 Chivalry II

4 Vampire Survivors

5 Chained Echoes

6 Tunic

7 Weird West

8 Last Call BBS

9 Citizen Sleeper

10 Infernax

Played a lot more 2022 games in 2022 than i usually do (mainly due to gamepass). And here are my top ten (currently, though, am still playing other games that came out in 2022, and i'll probably reorder this list again at some point).

This is my list as of right now, but River City Girls 2 is due to come out and if its a good sequel like I hope it is, then I might drop a game and add it. There are other games that I haven't tried yet and also might be a replacement on the list, like Sleeper Citizen, Pentiment, and the FF7: Crisis Core remake to name some of them. 2022 was a good year for games.

Although this year was supposed to be a "down" year for video games I feel like we got some decent stuff. Still I played more backlog games than current ones and I feel my top 3 might not hold in other years

Also I haven't played Ragnarok, Elden Ring or Xenoblade 3 yet and fully intend to sometime in a distant future when I have unlimited time to play games ><

I'll be honest, the last 4 on my list I do not feel strongly about, I was kinda reaching. This year was pretty light for me all things considered, the only ones I actually feel strongly about are, realistically, just the top 4. Hell, even then I would say the gap between Elden Ring and the following 3 are as big as an ocean, much like ER's world map.

Also played through Cuphead DLC, Tunic, Norco, Immortality, Horizon Forbidden West, and A Memoir Blue and would rank those in that order. Tried Nobody Saves the World, Overwatch 2, Chinatown Detective Agency, and Scorn.

Here's mine. Monster Hunter and Destiny are the expansions. I didn't include it but I loved The Last of us remake/remaster. One of my favorite games, still.

Nice to see Citizen Sleeper getting some love!

I obviously didn't do my homework this year. I imagine Kirby, Vampire Survivors, and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe would all be on my list if I'd played them.

Finally finished the Trails of Cold Steel games this year. I also found some really nice surprises in Citizen Sleeper and Scarlet Hollow. I could easily have had a top 15 or 20 and felt good about every game on it.

Wrote a big list of bad opinions over on the blog side of GB so take a look and cringe at all the anime

https://www.giantbomb.com/profile/willin/blog/game-of-the-year-2022-and-the-willies-awards/268230/

Were the results for this already revealed?

The results are not out yet?