It’s almost the end of 2022, and we had a really good year for gaming. From Stray to Scorn, there are games that everyone can enjoy for all ages and audiences. Now of course, we there are some games that we weren’t really expecting to be good, but it turns out they are really awesome to play. Who would have thought, huh?
Sometimes, people can easily dismiss a game just by looking at a trailer and think “oh, that game doesn’t look fun” and just go on with their day. That’s fine, because sometimes trailers don’t give games any justice whatsoever. After all, how can we expect that a game is good if we don’t have the opportunity to play the game ourselves?
A prime example of why we need game demos back is Watch Dogs (or pretty much anything Ubisoft game). We’ve seen Ubisoft downgrade their games to the point where they look nothing like the trailer they showcased months prior to the release. Watch Dogs is one of many noticeable examples of that trend.
So, it’s okay for people to be skeptical about every new game that comes out, because you never know when that game might be good or bad. After all, if there is no demo or beta, how can we be sure that the game we are pre-ordering, or paying full price for on release, is a game that we are going to have fun with?
2022 may have a lot of games that were good, but there are also a lot of games that were bad. But underneath those bad games, there were a lot of surprisingly good games that came out this year. In this list, we are bringing to you the 4 games that were surprisingly good in 2022.
1. Marvel’s Midnight Suns
Marvel has a pretty spotty track record when it comes to releasing video games. For every Marvel Ultimate Alliance game, there is Marvel Avengers game to counter it (MUA good, MA bad). Still, Marvel has been doing pretty good the past couple of years with the release of their widely successfully PlayStation exclusive game, Marvel’s Spider-Man.
Some say it’s what made Marvel confident in their video games, because they greenlit multiple Marvel game projects like Marvel’s Wolverine, the untitled EA Iron Man game, and the untitled Skydance Black Panther and Captain America game. They even saw some success from their Guardians of the Galaxy game that came out in 2021.
But, thanks to Marvel’s Avengers, a game that came out in 2020 and is still being supported, people are very skeptical about Marvel games that don’t come from Insomniac. So when Marvel’s Midnight Suns was first revealed to be a XCOM game with a Marvel skin slapped on to it, people were very skeptical on this.
Most fans were expecting a game along the lines of Marvel’s Spider-Man: an open world game with real time, beat em’ up combat. As the wait for Midnight Suns continued, especially after the delay, fans were very scared that the game may not be that good.
Luckily, it was. The game may not be what most players expected, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad game. Marvel’s Midnight Suns brings a fresh new genre to the Marvel gaming scene, being an RTS instead of an action adventure game.
While the character models may look a little… melted, the game still brings a stylistic view of a Marvel universe. It’s why some people are actually surprised that the game is good, and might be better than other Marvel games.
2. Sifu
Independent game developers often have some of the best games to ever come out, and Sifu is definitely one of those games. While the prospect of a martial artist seeking revenge for the murder of his dojo is already a played out story plot, Sifu manages to make it beautiful.
Yes, the games combat and visual art style is probably what draws most people in. After all, when was the last time we had a game that’s about martial art combat like Sifu? The last one I can remember is Sleeping Dogs, but that game came out a decade ago (unless there’s been other martial art games that flew under my radar the past 10 years).
The game looked good from the trailers, but actually playing the game gives a feeling of achievement once you master the combat, not to mention how incredibly smooth and fluid the combat is, being able to jump between enemies just by changing the directions of your joystick and attacking them.
Sifu is a great game, and people who have not played it should definitely give it a try, as it is one of 2022’s underdogs in gaming.
3. MultiVersus
Across the years, we have had multiple games that attempted to replicate the success of Smash Bros. BrawlOUt, Brawlhalla, Rivales of the Aether, even PlayStation and Nickelodeon attempted to cash in the Smash Bros. fighting style gameplay by releasing PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royal and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (both were not very good games, by the way).
So when WB announced that they were going to release their very own Smash Bros. style game, people were skeptical that the game might even worth playing. The game being free to play just feels like they’re not even confident in the game as well. But, lo and behold, MultiVersus actually turned out to be a pretty solid game.
While it’s nowhere near the popularity of Smash Bros., MultiVersus is still a soldi and fun party fighting that you can play with your friends. You can select characters that are owned by WB. From Batman of the DC Universe to Arya from Game of Thrones, there are plenty of characters to select from, and more are coming.
The game is entirely free-to-play with some microtransactions elements in it for cosmetics and such, so being able to play a game like this and just dress up your characters the way you want is pretty fun, and honestly an underdog of 2022.
4. Elden Ring
Now I know what you’re thinking, why include Elden Ring? Everyone knows that this is the best game of 2022 and it’s far better than anything released this year, with God of War Ragnarok being a close second. But that’s the thing, we knew Elden Ring was going to be good, but it somehow exceeded the already astronomical hype and expectations of the game.
Elden Ring is every good part of a Souls game cranked up to an 11 after drinking an infused drink of Monster Energy and Red Bull, but that was only after we got our hands on this game. Before that, we were just placing our faith in FromSoft that this was going to be a good game and had our own series of expectations and such.
But FromSoft manages to blow those expectations out of the water and deliver another excellent title that made people think “wow, this is way better than I expected.”
ALSO READ: Best 5 Indie Games Of 2022
