Looking forward to the future! (New Year's Eve post!)

     Hey there, friends! Last year during this time, I spent some time talking about some favorite games of mine from the past year. Since I already included some of those in my post from my birthday this year, I'm mainly going to talk a bit about all of the games that are projected to come out in 2022! I will put in little bits and pieces of what I played this year and what some of my favorite games were this year, but for the most part, I'll try to stick to the new stuff. Enough intro, let's get into the meat and potatoes and hopefully find some stuff that you're interested in along the way!

A few favorites from 2021!

    First of all, this has been another very long year, to the point where I can't really remember exactly what I played this year versus last year, but I'll do my best to focus on this year's games. The Last of Us Part 2 was a game that came out in 2020, but I didn't have a chance to play it until this year. Of course, there are many people upset about this game, but I personally thought it was pretty good. It's not a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination, but as someone who thought the original Last of Us was a pretty good game, I was not going into part two with the same impossibly high expectations as others, and I think that ultimately helped me enjoy it. In Nintendo news, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate received its last DLC characters, bringing the three year hype cycle to a halt, and they also put out Mario Party Superstars, the first "Mario Party" game that I've played in a long time. Metroid Dread was also released in October, the sequel to Metroid Fusion, a Game Boy Advance game which was released in 2002. New Pokémon Snap was a game that I was worried would never come, and a charming time in its own right. I’ve heard many people say that it should have been more substantial since it has been over 20 years since the first game, but I liked it a lot. It really just gave us more of the same experience as the original title, though with the first game being as much fun as it was, that was no problem for me. Super Mario 3D World got a rerelease for Switch this year, featuring Bowser’s Fury, which is a pretty great extra mode which I would love to see incorporated in future Mario titles. It was a short experience, but as a proof of concept for what an open world Mario game could be, I couldn’t be happier with the end result.

    I was fortunate to get a PS5 pretty early on this year, and as such I've been able to experience some upgraded versions of my favorite games from years past. Control Ultimate Edition, Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut and Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intrograde all came out this year for PS5, adding in some extra content from the original PS4 games on top of the improved graphics and frame rates between the consoles. While I haven't played a lot of any of them yet, I'm really looking forward to diving back in and seeing just what these games have added. Spider-Man Miles Morales was a great continuation of Insomniac's Spider-Man saga, the only negative thing I can say about that game is that it just wasn't long enough. Still a fantastic game, and I'm really excited for Spider-Man 2 when they bring in Venom after dropping so many hints at the end of Spider-Man and Miles Morales. We got the first few big releases of the next generation consoles with an excellent tech demo, Astro's Playroom, Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, Returnal, Forza Horizon 5, and Halo Infinite. While I have only played Astro's Playroom and Ratchet and Clank so far, I'm hoping that I'll be able to play all of them eventually. Speaking of games that I'm looking forward to playing soon, that leads us into the next topic. 

Games in 2022!

    A ton of companies have really big games on the schedule for next year. Just to name a few, there's God of War: Ragnarok, Horizon: Forbidden West, and the sequel to Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (which Nintendo still hasn't given us the title of). I've gone on record saying that God of War (2016) may be my favorite game of the PS4 generation, so Ragnarok is probably my most anticipated game of the next year, but it has stiff competition from every side. Breath of the Wild was a really cool Zelda game, and was so influential to the open world adventure games that basically every game since then in that genre has followed the lead. The sequel to Breath of the Wild looks incredible, and I'm really interested just to see more about it. It's crazy how little we know about it considering we're probably less than a year away from release, and have still not gotten a final title for it. Nintendo has said that the title is going to be a spoiler for what the game is, which is why they haven't told us, but still it's pretty crazy. Pokemon is changing up not only the gameplay, but also the release schedule by putting out Pokemon Legends: Arceus in January. This game doesn't look to have open-world gameplay, and has referred to it's scale as having a system with several large areas instead of just one giant area. Based on how the team has referred to the gameplay in interviews, it sounds somewhat similar to how the Monster Hunter series behaves, with missions being given out in a central hub, then going out into the area to complete the missions, then coming back to the hub to continue the loop again and again. I'm interested to see how the Pokemon formula will be changed with the more Action RPG-esque elements that they add in. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is the first 3D game that Kirby will have, which is really exciting in itself. His entire catalog of games has consisted of 2D platformers, so I'm interested to see how his copy abilities deal with being translated into the new dimension. On top of these, Bayonetta 3 is finally getting released sometime next year (unless it's delayed) and I'm super excited, coming fresh off my last playthrough of Bayonetta 2. That is still maybe the craziest game that I've ever played, and I really love just about everything about it. Here's hoping that the good people at Platinum Games are able to keep the wacky fun at the same level, if not cranking it up even a little bit more.

    Of course, there are many other games that I'm not personally excited for, but many, many others are very excited. Elden Ring is the new game from From Software, and it has been the most hyped game for the past four years or so since it was announced. Miyazaki's team is back at it and working in collaboration with George R. R. Martin on this apparently open-world take on the "Souls" formula. I've never been huge on From Software titles, but I'm really happy for my friends who are excited for it, as this game sounds pretty promising, especially after hearing very positive responses from the people who got the chance to play the preview a month ago. The first and second Advance Wars games are being remastered for Switch about 20 years after the original release for GBA. This makes sense to come back now as Fire Emblem has become a much bigger phenomenon on Nintendo consoles, proving that Tactical RPGs are certainly viable gambles. Rocksteady has been working on a Suicide Squad game for the last few years, called Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League, This looks like a pretty cool game based on what little we've seen, but we'll have to see exactly how it plays. Rocksteady certainly has a pretty stellar track record after making the Batman: Arkham series, so I'm hopeful for it to say the least. I'm also cautiously hopeful for Gotham Knights, another Batman-adjacent game where you can play as either Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing, or Red Hood. I haven't seen a whole lot about it, but it seems that the Court of Owls will be the main villains, and that there will be online co-op where you can coordinate your efforts with other heroes to uncover the plot before it's too late.

    2022 is already shaping up to be a pretty fantastic year, and I'm excited to see what other surprises will rear their heads throughout the course of the year. It's always a great time to speculate about what we'll see in throughout the year, but next year is already so packed, it seems greedy to talk about a new Mario game, or that long rumored Metroid Prime remaster or the rumored new Donkey Kong game created by the development team behind Mario Odyssey. I would love to see any of that, but I would also just love to be completely surprised by some wild announcement that no one sees coming. Either way, this is a very promising year and I am hopeful that we'll get some fun new stuff!

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends. As we approach the new year, I hope you're all staying safe and healthy, and that you have a happy new year, filled with good times and better circumstances than we've all been facing for the past few years. Do you have any games or anything in general that you're looking forward to? Post in the comments if you do, I'm sure good things are ahead for you! I'm so grateful for all of your support and your friendship over the years, so thanks again for reading. Until next time, I'm Jonathan, the Self-Proclaimed Dreamer, Happy New Year!