REVIEW | Xbox 2022

2022 is in the past and for the history books for many reasons. Humanity needed entertainment more than ever to forget about the war, health crisis, and economic troubles. An option to escape with our minds and explore worlds in video games. In this article, we look back at Xbox’s 2022. A year with lots of great games, a year where Game Pass cemented the crown of the best value for gamers. A year that lots of new players discovered Xbox and its legacy of incredible game franchises. We would love to hear what you thought about 2022, so let us know on Twitter, Facebook, or Hive!

What we Liked!

• Game Pass is the best thing for gamers | Wow! What a year for Game Pass. Microsoft invested heavily in making sure that Xbox players had a huge game each month. Here is a look at a few remarkable games for each month. January had Nobody Saves the World and Rainbox Sic Extraction. February was a slower month but still had Edge of Eternity. March was incredible with Guardians of the Galaxy, Tunic, Shredders, and Weird West. April was great too with MLB’s The Show, Life is Strange: True Colors, Bugsnax, and NBA 2K22. May was even more insane with Sniper Elite 5, Pac-Man Museum, and Jurassic World Evolution 2. June had Ninja Gaiden, AC Origins, Fifa 22, and Naraka Bladepoint. July might be the best month for Game Pass in 2022 with Far Cry 5, three Yakuza games, Matchpoint, Peppa Pig, PowerWash Simulator, As dusk Falls, and INSIDE. After such a month you would expect August to slow down but no… Two Point Campus, Death Stranding (PC), Immortality, and Tinykin. September? Well, once again incredible with Deathloop, You suck at Parking, Beacon Pines, Slime Rancher 2, Grounded, and Let’s Build a Zoo. October had one of the best games of 2022, A Plague Tale Requiem and Persona 5. November has the sensation Vampire Survivors, Pentiment, and Somerville. And for the last month Game Pass subscribers could enjoy LEGO Star Wars, High on Life, and Hello Neighbor 2. That’s only a fraction of the available games that they launched last year, I’m absolutely sure that every single type of gamer could find something that they could enjoy. It saved me money, made sure I always had something new to play, and made sure I could connect with all my friends in available online games.

• Microsoft isn’t afraid to publish different games | As Dusk Falls, Grounded and Pentiment, both published by Microsoft are evidence that Xbox wants to be more than simply Halo, Forza, and Gears of War. These types of games are nowhere else to be found and bring unique experiences to players. Yes, I missed blockbusters from Xbox Game Studios but seeing out-of-the-box ideas like a 16th-century Catholic dialogue game (Pentiment), a story-focused stop-motion game (As dusk Falls), or a survival game with a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids mechanic (Grounded) is rare these days in the gaming world.

• Xbox Series S | Microsoft’s bet to bring out two new consoles at the same time was really clever. together with Game Pass, it makes it the cheapest and easiest way to enter the console gaming community. It sold as sweet cupcakes and opened a new audience for Xbox. While Xbox Series X is still the most powerful and impressive console currently available it is its small sister that is conquering people’s hearts. With Game Pass games in the gaming news, Playstation and Nintendo gamers are constantly being lured to enter the Xbox family.
  
  
• Obsidian saves the day for Xbox | Grounded, which was released earlier as Game Preview but had its full release in 2022 and the highly recommended Pentiment made sure that Xbox Game Studios were in the picture. Without Obsidian… yeah well… it would have been an even worse year for the publisher when it comes to bringing out games. The purchase of Obsidian from Microsoft back in 2018 is proving to be wise. As the developer is also releasing Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 in the future, you could say it is currently the best acquisition so far.

Mixed Feelings

• A few painful delays | It still hurts, right? Covid is still the biggest reason why most games got delayed, but that can’t be the only reason. Thing is, Xbox Game Studios is having some issues bringing out games that people are long-anticipating. With Redfall, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 (we totally understand why this one got delayed), and especially Starfield 2022 had some painful moments for Xbox fans. A few huge multiplatform games got pushed back too, Skull & Bones, Hogwarts Legacy and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Each year has a few delays and a game that receives more time to have better performance and gameplay is always the right move from publishers but it still hurts like hell.

What we Disliked

• Not enough games from Xbox Game Studios | This is a painful sore for Xbox in 2022, it was a very dry year with exclusives. I personally don’t like to look back at the last years from Xbox One, but if we didn’t have Game Pass it would have been a similarly terrible year. We know about so many upcoming titles but none of them made it into 2022. Fable, Hellblade 2, Forza Motorsport, Perfect Dark, State of Decay 3, Everwild or what about a new title from Double Fine or Compulsion Games? I’m sure one of them was planned for last year but things didn’t go as planned. A year where the competition did have heavy hitters like God of War, Horizon, Kirby, and Pokémon. There’s light around the corner though, 2023 and beyond finally seem like the fruitious years. And despite a disappointing year for Xbox Game Studios, Microsoft can look back at a year where Xbox is thriving with new players and positive opinions.

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