Is 2022 still shaping up to be one of video games' biggest ever years? | This Week In Business

gamesindustry.biz:

James Batchelor

Editor-in-Chief

Friday 13th May 2022

Stop me if you've heard this one before: earlier this week, a major game was delayed into next year. In fact, two were.

In the past few days, social media and games publications alike have been awash with people proudly declaring they are in no way surprised that Bethesda pushed both Starfield and Redfall into 2023 -- and, to be fair, significant delays have been par for the course ever since the pandemic started.

I don't claim to be any kind of prophet, but even I thought it was ambitious for the studio to give Elder-Scrolls-in-space so specific a release date more than a year ahead of launch, especially with the ongoing complications of developing games with many staff still working at home.

The Bethesda duo are the latest in what feels like will become an increasingly long string of major 2022 titles that now won't surface until 2023. Many of us are still coming to terms with the fact we have to wait months longer for the Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel, Rocksteady's long-awaited return with Suicide Squad was delayed -- heck, even the Mario movie got pushed into next year.

The inevitable question is: what's next? (The painfully inevitable answer is: probably God of War, right?)

Back in January, our own Chris Dring wrote an opinion piece stating that 2022 is "shaping up to be one of video games' biggest ever years." It's May, and already this prediction is looking shaky.

To be fair to Chris, he does mention that most of 2022's biggest titles were themselves delayed from 2021 -- Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, Far Cry 6, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Dying Light 2, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Extraction (to name but a few). He also said more delays were possible,