2022 Video Games

In the video game industry, 2022 saw the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the industry, slowing hardware sales for most of the year as well as development delays for major titles. The industry continued its trend of acquisitions and mergers, highlighted by Microsoft announcing its plan to acquire Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion. The industry as a whole continued to deal with issues such as workplace harassment and discrimination, alongside crunch periods, leading to at least the quality assurance staff at three separate studios to vote to unionize.

Production of the ninth-generation consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, remained constrained for the first part of the year, but eased up later in the year. New hardware trends included the widespread availability of graphics cards with real-time ray tracing, and the release of the Steam Deck by Valve, a handheld personal computing device capable of playing most games available on Steam. The gaming community remained cautious on the metaverse and blockchain games, though leading publishers expressed their desires to move more into that space.

Top-rated games

Major awards

Critically acclaimed games

Metacritic is an aggregator of video game journalism reviews. It generally considers expansions and re-releases as separate entities.

Financial performance

According to market research firm Newton, the global video game industry had total revenues of $184.4 billion, about a 4% decline year-to-year. Half of that was from mobile games, while console games, computer games, and browser games made up 28%, 21%, and 1% of the market, respectively.

Best-selling premium games by region

The following titles were 2022's top ten best-selling premium games by region (excluding microtransactions and free-to-play titles) on PC and console platforms, for Japan, the United States, and Europe.

Major events

Ukrainian support

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine launched in February that year, several video game developers and publishers with ties to Eastern Europe provided support for Ukrainian aid. On February 24, 11 bit studios pledged to donate all profits earned over the following seven days from ''This War of Mine'' (2014) and its downloadable content to the Ukrainian Red Cross. CD Projekt Red donated 1 million zloty (about ) to the Polish Humanitarian Action group. Embracer Group donated to Red Cross, SOS Children's Villages, and ACT Alliance, among other charities. SCS Software donated over to "multiple charities", and released new DLC for '' American Truck Simulator'' and '' Euro Truck Simulator 2'' to raise funds for Ukrainian charities. The Pokémon Company and Niantic announced they would donate $200K each, alongside an addition $75K raised by Niantic employees, to organisations such as GlobalGiving to provide humanitarian relief in Ukraine. In addition, Niantic announced the suspended availability of ''Pokémon Go'', '' Pikmin Bloom'', and '' Ingress'' in both Russia and Belarus.

Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and Activision Blizzard, among others, halted sales of physical and digital products into Russia during the conflict. Electronic Arts announced on March 2 that it had started the process to remove the Russia national football team and Russian football clubs from its ''FIFA'' series as well as removing the Belarusian and Russian national teams and their club teams from ''NHL 22''. In addition to preventing purchase of their games in Russia, Nintendo announced on March 9 that '' Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp'', a tactical war game with a faction based on Soviet-era Russia, would be indefinitely delayed due to "recent world events".

Two game bundles offered by itch.io and Humble Bundle raised over and for Ukraine aid support, respectively. Epic Games made all proceeds from ''Fortnite'' during the last two weeks of March 2022 go to charitable aid for Ukraine, and raised over .

In total nearly was donated to Ukrainian humanitarian relief efforts by gaming companies.

Notable deaths

* January 4 – Russell Lees, 60, narrative writer for Ubisoft and the ''Assassin's Creed'', ''Far Cry'', and ''Watch Dogs'' series.
* January 5 – Stewart Gilray, 51, founder of Just Add Water, developer of the ''Oddworld'' series.
* February 28 – Kim Jung-ju, 54, founder of Nexon.
* March 14 – Scott Hall, 63, pro wrestler who appeared in WWE and WCW titles (appeared on the cover of '' WWF Royal Rumble'', '' WWF King of the Ring'', '' WWF Rage in the Cage'', and '' WWF Raw'')
* March 27 – Mohammad Fahmi, 32, creator of '' Coffee Talk''
* March 29 – Scott Bennie, 61, developer writer for multiple role-playing games including the ''Fallout'' series
* April 12 – Gilbert Gottfried, 67, voice actor (Iago in ''Aladdin''/''Kingdom Hearts'' and Mister Mxyzptlk in '' Lego Batman 3'' and '' Lego DC Super-Villains'')
* April 26 – Robert "Razerguy" Krakoff, 81, co-founder of Razer Inc.
* May 9 – David Ward, 75, co-founder of Ocean Software
* May – Rieko Kodama, 59, developer for Sega, including lead developer on ''Phantasy Star'' and ''Skies of Arcadia''
* June 9 – Billy Kametz, 35, voice actor (Rui in '' Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba'' and Blue in '' Pokémon Masters EX'')
* June 22 – Bernie Stolar, 75, former president of Sega of America, founder of Sony Computer Entertainment of America
* June – Technoblade, 23, ''Minecraft'' YouTuber
* July 4 – Kazuki Takahashi, 60, creator of ''Yu-Gi-Oh!'' which had numerous video games
* July 15 – Robert Alan Koeneke, 62, creator of ''Moria''
* July 27 – Mary Alice, 85, actress known for portraying The Oracle in ''The Matrix Revolutions'' and the video games ''Enter The Matrix'' and ''The Matrix Online''.
* August 30 – Mitsuhiro Yoshida, 61, developer of ''River City Ransom''
* September 3 – Mike Fahey, 49, writer and editor of the website ''Kotaku''
* October 1/2 – Rob Smith, editor and writer for ''PC Gamer'', '' OXM'', and '' PSM''.
* October 12 – Tony "RSGloryAndGold" Winchester, 69, ''RuneScape'' player on Twitch
* October 14 – Jan Rabson, 68, voice actor most notable as the voice of Larry Laffer in the ''Leisure Suit Larry'' series
* October 15 – Ferret Baudoin, lead/senior game designer for multiple action-RPG games including ''Neverwinter Nights 2'', '' Dragon Age 2'', ''Fallout 4'', and ''Fallout 76''
* October 29 – Ryan Karazija, 40, front man and lead singer of Low Roar, and composer of the soundtrack to ''Death Stranding''
* November 10 – Kevin Conroy, 66, voice actor best known as the voice of Batman
* November 19 – Jason David Frank, 49, actor best known for his role as the original Green and White Rangers in the ''Power Rangers'' franchise.
* December 17 – Archer Maclean, 60, developer of Commodore 64 games including '' Dropzone'' and '' International Karate''

Hardware releases

Game releases

January–March

April–June

July–September

October–December

Video game-based film and television releases

Cancelled games

* '' The Callisto Protocol'' ( PS4, PS5, Win, XBO, and XSX/S; Japan only)
* ''Metal Max: Wild West'' ( NS, PS4)

See also

* 2022 in esports
* 2022 in games

Notes

References

{{History of video games, chronology

Video games by year