Elden Ring, Fifa, prices: 10 talking points from video games in 2022
Ten talking points from video games in 2022
When ‘Game of the year’ lists are made for 2022, Elden Ring will battle it out with God of War Ragnarok – and Elden Ring will win. Although too frustrating and arduous for this writer to actually finish, Elden Ring is undeniably a work of brilliance, a mysterious and magnificent world that players can truly make their own through exploration and choice of playstyle. Elden Ring is that rare game that actually over-delivered on the hype, and is the closest to a classic modern Castlevania we’ll likely see. But please, just add a difficulty slider next time.
Valve really stacked the deck in their favour with the release of Steam Deck, arguably the best piece of gaming hardware ever made. Valve are the custodians of Steam, by far the largest PC gaming market in existence, and their release of a handheld device (similar to a Nintendo Switch) that can play almost every PC game in existence, plus run emulators and function as a normal PC also, is simply seismic. It is the best piece of gaming hardware this writer has ever owned, and a must-buy for anyone who loves games.
Behind the scenes, there were some landscape-changing moves in the gaming industry in 2022. As gaming becomes even bigger business, the competition becomes fierce, with the biggest fish vying for market share. Among the massive moves this year were TakeTwo buying Zynga for $12bn, Sony buying Destiny-developer Bungie for $3.6bn, and Microsoft buying Call of Duty makers Activision Blizzard for an eye-watering $68bn. The most expensive game of all – corporate buyouts.Â
The Japanese role-playing game has been a staple of gaming for 35 years, but standards have dropped over the last decade. Aside from Xenoblade Chronicles, no series has quite managed to bring the magic of the genre into big-budget titles. Now, we can add Tales of Arise to that short list of success stories. The story lacks some maturity, but a superb blend of imagination, great characters, rousing music and – most importantly – excellent gameplay, means Tales lives up to its name and rises above the pack.
It has been almost ten years since the release of Grand Theft Auto V, the last entry in one of the world’s biggest gaming series. So, when a leaker hacked Rockstar servers and released early footage of the next game in development, the internet melted down. Over an hour long, the video showed very rough footage of a game that was not ready to be seen publicly, causing anger from both fans and developers. Still, it was one of the year’s most exciting moments and proof that Grand Theft Auto VI was real and on its way.
Unfortunately, the reality of inflation didn’t escape the gaming world in 2022, with a sizeable price hike for the PlayStation 5 in Ireland, with similar hikes likely to follow for Xbox products in 2023. The price of a PS5 in Ireland went up by €50 this year, or an increase of about 10 percent. In addition, we have seen the price of current generation games rise also in recent years, with titles like God of War costing €79.99. Thankfully, we have also seen the establishment of Xbox Game Pass and the new PlayStation Plus packages, both of which offer great value through subscriptions.
For older gamers, and for fans of Pirates of the Caribbean, the Monkey Island series holds a special place in our hearts. The comedy adventures series was created in 1990 by Ron Gilbert and Lucasarts, and went on to spawn many sequels – but only one was made by Ron himself. After a decade-long hiatus since the last game, Gilbert surprised fans with a soulful sequel that release in October; declaring it his true sequel to the second game. It’s a brilliant, hilarious, relaxing adventure for both fans and newcomers alike.
FIFA chasing money? Surely not! Due to a dispute over the cash being paid for their licence, football organisation FIFA officially parted ways with EA Sports this year, meaning one of gaming’s most iconic franchises will no longer exist under the same name. EA Sports will still continue to produce a great football game every year – but it just won’t be called FIFA. What’s next – a World Cup in Qatar? Oh.
However big the industry becomes we always have Nintendo to bring gaming back to its core values. Or at least the core values of the console generation. Chief among Nintendo’s champions are Mario and Zelda - and the new Zelda title was finally named in 2022, with a stirring trailer to boot. Called Tears of the Kingdom, it’s the long-awaited sequel to Breath of the Wild and will likely keep the Nintendo Switch in business for another two years. Let’s hope it brings tears to our eyes as well as the kingdom.
Quietly, the best gaming story of 2022 was the failure of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which at one point seemed to have taken corporate leaders and gaming stars by fever. Companies saw dollar signs in the sale of useless digital items that were being marketed as rare to drive up price. Thankfully, gamers didn’t bite. In addition, the presence of loot boxes and micro-transactions in big budget gaming has been noticeably lessened this year. As 2023 approaches, long may it last.
