Numerous video games were released in 2012. Many awards went to games such as ''

Borderlands 2 ''Borderlands 2'' is a 2012 first-person shooter video game developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games. Taking place five years following the events of '' Borderlands'' (2009), the game is again set on the planet of Pandora. ...

'', ''

Far Cry 3 ''Far Cry 3'' is a 2012 first-person shooter game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the third main installment in the '' Far Cry'' series after '' Far Cry 2''. The game takes place on the fictional Rook Islands, a ...

'', ''

Journey Journey or journeying may refer to: * Travel, the movement of people between distant geographical locations ** Day's journey, a measurement of distance ** Road trip, a long-distance journey on the road Animals * Journey (horse), a thoroughbred ra ...

'', ''

Mass Effect 3 ''Mass Effect 3'' is an action role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. The third major entry in the ''Mass Effect'' series and the final installment of the original trilogy, it was released in March 2012 ...

'', ''

Dishonored ''Dishonored'' is a 2012 action-adventure game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. Set in the fictional, plague-ridden industrial city of Dunwall, ''Dishonored'' follows the story of Corvo Attano, bodyguard to th ...

'', '' The Walking Dead'' and '' XCOM: Enemy Unknown''. The year began with the worldwide release of

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

's handheld game console, the

PlayStation Vita The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita, or Vita) is a handheld video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, and in North America, Europe, and other international terri ...

, originally launched in Japan in December 2011. The end of the year marked the worldwide release of

Nintendo is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards ...

's home game console, the

Wii U The Wii U ( ) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo as the successor to the Wii. Released in late 2012, it is the first eighth-generation video game console and competed with Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4. ...

Critically acclaimed titles

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

(MC) and

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

(GR) are aggregators of video game journalism reviews.

Highest-grossing games

The following were 2012's top ten highest-grossing video games in terms of worldwide revenue (including physical sales, digital purchases,

subscriptions The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, and ...

microtransaction Microtransactions, often abbreviated as mtx, are a business model where users can purchase virtual goods with micropayments. Microtransactions are often used in free-to-play games to provide a revenue source for the developers. While microtransa ...

free-to-play Free-to-play (F2P or FtP) video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying or do not require paying to continue playing. Free-to-play is distinct from traditional commercial software, which ...

and

pay-to-play Pay-to-play, sometimes pay-for-play or P2P, is a phrase used for a variety of situations in which money is exchanged for services or the privilege to engage in certain activities. The common denominator of all forms of pay-to-play is that one mus ...

) across all platforms (including

mobile Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Mobile ( ...

, PC and

console Console may refer to: Computing and video games * System console, a physical device to operate a computer ** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device ** Command-line interface, a method of interacting with ...

platforms).

Events

Hardware releases

The list of game consoles released in 2012 in North America.

Series with new entries

Series with new installments in 2012 include ''

Alan Wake ''Alan Wake'' is an action-adventure game developed by Remedy Entertainment. The story follows best-selling thriller novelist Alan Wake as he tries to uncover the mystery behind his wife's disappearance during a vacation in the small fictional ...

'', '' Assassin's Creed'', ''

Borderlands A borderland or borderlands are the geographical space or zone around a territorial border. Borderland or borderlands may refer to: Places * Borderland, West Virginia, an unincorporated community in Mingo County, West Virginia * Borderland (ele ...

'', '' Call of Duty'', ''

Counter-Strike ''Counter-Strike'' (''CS'') is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video games in which teams of terrorists battle to perpetrate an act of terror (bombing, hostage-taking, assassination) while counter-terrorists try to preve ...

'', ''

Darksiders ''Darksiders'' is a hack and slash action-adventure video game franchise created by Vigil Games, now developed by Gunfire Games, which consists of some of the original members of Vigil. The series is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, where mank ...

'', '' Dead or Alive'', '' Diablo'', ''

Fable Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse (poetry), verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphized, and that illustrat ...

'', ''

Far Cry ''Far Cry'' is an anthology franchise of first-person shooter games, all of which have been published by Ubisoft. The first game, '' Far Cry'', was developed by Crytek to premiere their CryEngine software, and released in March 2004. Subsequen ...

'', ''

Forza Motorsport ''Forza Motorsport'' is a 2005 simulation racing video game developed by Turn 10 Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox gaming system. The word ''Forza'' is Italian for strength. The game is the first installment in the ...

'', ''

Halo Halo, halos or haloes usually refer to: * Halo (optical phenomenon) * Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head HALO, halo, halos or haloes may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Video games * ''Halo'' (franch ...

'', ''

Hitman Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may ...

'', ''

Mario Party is a party video game series featuring characters from the ''Mario'' franchise in which up to four local players or computer-controlled characters (called " CPUs") compete in a board game interspersed with minigames. The games are currentl ...

'', ''

Marvel vs. Capcom is a series of crossover fighting games developed and published by Capcom, featuring characters from their own video game franchises and comic book series published by Marvel Comics. The series originated as coin-operated arcade games, though ...

'', ''

Mass Effect ''Mass Effect'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Casey Hudson, Drew Karpyshyn and Preston Watamaniuk. The franchise depicts a distant future where humanity and several alien civilizations have colonized the known unive ...

'', '' Max Payne'', ''

Medal of Honor The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States Armed Forces' highest military decoration and is awarded to recognize American soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, guardians and coast guardsmen who have distinguished themselves by acts of valo ...

'', '' Modern Combat'', ''

Need for Speed ''Need for Speed'' (''NFS'') is a racing game franchise published by Electronic Arts and currently developed by Criterion Games, the developers of ''Burnout''. The series generally centers around illicit street racing and tasks players to co ...

'', ''

Ninja Gaiden is a series of action video games by Tecmo featuring the ninja Ryu Hayabusa as its protagonist. The series was originally known as in Japan. The word "gaiden" in the North American ''Ninja Gaiden'' title means "side story" in Japanese. The o ...

'', ''

PlanetSide ''PlanetSide'' was a massively-multiplayer online first-person-shooter video game published by Sony Online Entertainment and released on May 20, 2003. ''PlanetSide'' chronicles the efforts of three factions as they fight for territorial contro ...

'', '' Pokémon'', '' Prototype'', ''

Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known in Japan as is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...

'', ''

Silent Hill is a horror anthology media franchise centered on a series of survival horror games created by Keiichiro Toyama and published by Konami. The first four video games in the series, '' Silent Hill'', ''Silent Hill 2'', ''Silent Hill 3'' and '' ...

'', ''

Sniper Elite ''Sniper Elite'' is a tactical shooter video game series developed by Rebellion Developments. It is a third-person tactical shooter that emphasises a less direct approach to combat, encouraging the player as a sniper to use stealth and keep ...

'', '' Spec Ops'', '' Super Mario'', '' Tekken'', '' The Darkness'', ''

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon ''Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon'' is a series of military tactical shooter video games published by Ubisoft. In the series, the player is in charge of a fictional, newly conceived squad of U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers from Delta Company, 1st Ba ...

'', ''

Transformers ''Transformers'' is a media franchise produced by American toy company Hasbro and Japanese toy company Tomy, Takara Tomy. It primarily follows the Autobots and the Decepticons, two alien robot factions at war that can transform into other forms ...

'', ''

Trials In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribun ...

'', and '' X-COM''. In addition, 2012 saw the introduction of several new properties, including ''

Asura's Wrath is an action video game developed by CyberConnect2 and published by Capcom. It was first announced at the Tokyo Game Show in 2010, and was released worldwide in February 2012. The game was released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game follo ...

'', ''

Lollipop Chainsaw is a 2012 hack-and-slash video game developed by Grasshopper Manufacture for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game consoles. It features Juliet Starling (voiced by Tara Strong in English and by both Eri Kitamura in the PlayStation 3 version a ...

'', '' Sleeping Dogs'' and ''

Forza Horizon ''Forza Horizon'' is a 2012 racing video game developed by Playground Games and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox 360 on 23 October 2012. The game is the fifth instalment of the '' Forza'' series, having originally spun-off from Turn ...

Critically acclaimed titles

Highest-grossing games

Events

Hardware releases

Series with new entries

Game releases

January–March

April–June

July–September

October–December

Video game-based television releases

See also

References