Game Developer's Best of 2022: Holly Green's top five games

gamedeveloper.com:

2022 was a great year for games. Or maybe it was terrible. I don’t know. Taste is subjective, and there’s not a single “best of” list in the games biz that isn’t limited by time and exposure. Not to mention, the milestones by which we measure time are pretty arbitrary too. It seems odd to gauge the merit of games within those parameters, given how poorly they reflect the medium's progress.

Now that I’ve done a Neil DeGrasse Tyson all over this post let’s take a moment to look back on some of the best of what 2022 had to offer. FromSoftware’s Elden Ring was the belle of the ball, bringing together the gaming community in ways we haven’t seen for years. Players were energized by the camaraderie not only in the difficulty of the game’s combat experience but in deciphering its elusive backstory. Closing out the end of the year was Pentiment, a smaller-scale project from Obsidian Entertainment that used the studio’s signature narrative techniques to deliver an intoxicating tale of medieval intrigue. And Roadwarden, with its branching RPG format, quietly racked up critical acclaim on sheer word of mouth alone. If you play games for the story, the past twelve months have some standout titles.

In the scheme of things, Pokémon games can’t compete on most end-of-the-year lists—they’re fun, but they’re hardly innovative, and on a technical level, they can be rough to look at and exceptionally glitchy to play. Still, Pokémon: Arceus Legends, a spin-off title, managed to steal the show from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet this year, despite being released several months prior, due to its superior mechanics—in Arceus, you don’t have to battle a Pokémon to catch it, you can aim a Pokeball and do it manually instead. This seemingly minor