Game Developer's best of 2022: Bryant Francis' Top 10 Games
2022 is almost over but it feels like anything could happen. In this gonzo year, Elon Musk stuck his too-big hand in the too-small cookie jar of Twitter, The New York Times bought Wordle, and I fled the too-expensive land of Los Angeles to the just-as-expensive-but-colder land of Boston. If you'd told me any of this would have happened in 2021, I would have replied "yeah a bunch of fascist goobers stormed the United States Capitol in January, I'll believe anything at this point."
But amidst the chaos of it all, I played a lot of video games. Some felt like they spoke to the chaos and uncertainty of our moment, others were pleasant, well-crafted toys whose distractions I welcomed.
Even among the "distraction" games though, I couldn't help but notice an interest in the heaviness of things. Bear and Breakfast, a hotel management game where you play as a dopy-looking bear running a hospitality chain, took a swerve from its main story to examine why its anthropomorphized cast is so traumatized from a great forest fire.
Hardspace Shipbreaker's race across the Early Access finish line capped off a story about workers banding together and fighting back against a faceless corporation and a shitty middle manager. And Marvel's Midnight Suns frequently puts the colorful comic book combat to use, swinging through the consequences of events adjacent to the Salem Witch Trials.
A cynic might glance at these games and bemoan that the terrors of our real-world have crept into a medium of entertainment. I am not a cynic. I am grateful as always that studios of all sizes are interested in making experiences that are more than playthings.
But look, Marvel Snap is on this list. I'm still here to have fun. Let's dive into my favorite games of the
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