2022 Is Still Waiting For An Indie To Take It By Storm

thegamer.com:

It’s been a strange few years for gaming. The pandemic brought a lot of people into the hobby, and we saw the likes of Animal Crossing: New Horizons define that period for a lot of people. But inevitably it also brought delays. The launch of two new consoles at a time when gaming was at its peak was extremely muted, with few exclusives and fewer microprocessors. Through it all though, indies have been there for us. In 2022, maybe it’s just me, but they’re not clicking.

2021 was a bit of an empty year. Compared to 2020, where The Last of Us Part 2, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Hades, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Ghost of Tsushima, and Doom Eternal duked it out for GOTY at The Game Awards, 2021 had much smaller contenders. Some good games, but all stuff on the also-ran level of Doom rather than legendary entries into the video game canon. I wrote about 2021 at the end of the year, and why it’s okay to admit it wasn’t the best year ever. You’ll get ‘em next year champ.

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And we all believed they would. After numerous 2021 delays, 2022 was shaping up to be a monster. It still has Elden Ring, Horizon Forbidden West, and assuming no further delays, God of War Ragnarok, but it’s far more hollow than we expected. Breath of the Wild 2, Starfield, Kill the Justice League, Redfall, and Forspoken all delayed into 2023, and that’s not even all of them. Saints Row, Hogwarts Legacy, and Gotham Knights are adding some extra texture alongside the God of Wars, but I’m more interested in the smaller titles. It feels like there’s a hole in the year where a Hades might be.

Hades was the breakout indie hit of 2020, but the year also brought Call of