The biggest news stories of 2022

This story is part of Gamepur'south All-time of 2022 circular-upwardly.

Every year is jam-packed with video game news, merely 2022 was a scrap of a unlike animal. The industry saw most as well many delays to count, more than than a few messy launches, and a long-overdue await at some serious allegations that have troubled studios for years, simply to name a few trends. These are the biggest news stories of the past yr.

A deluge of delays

COVID has withal to become away for real, leaving many developers working from home. This inevitably led to a long list of game delays. While the likes of Halo Infinite were pushed into 2022 and are at present out there for everyone to enjoy, many titles were pushed out of the year into 2022 and across. Horizon Forbidden Westward, Shadow Warrior 3, and Advance Wars one+ii: Reboot Camp all constitute themselves delayed to next yr. Elden Ring slid back by a month, which may be minor by comparison, only a delay'due south a delay. Some titles like Pragmata were fifty-fifty pushed beyond next year into 2023.

Even hardware barbarous victim to the delay game — Steam Decks will start aircraft in February, instead of by the end of the year as Valve originally planned. Supply chain shortages were the root cause in that location, which is besides why current-gen consoles remain in such high demand. Hopefully, these problems clear upwardly in 2022, bringing us the games and gaming devices we desire.

PlayStation and Xbox strengthen their studios

While games were being delayed, the creators backside them were being scooped up left and right. PlayStation Studios has greatly expanded its first-party roster over the class of the year, and the nearly recent addition is God of War co-developer Valkyrie Entertainment. Valkyrie joins the likes of Returnal developer Housemarque and Demon'southward Souls remake mastermind Bluepoint Games. Bluepoint'southward acquisition was fifty-fifty mistakenly tweeted early — PlayStation is very violent with all these new ventures, information technology seems.

On Microsoft's side, the biggest addition is unquestionably Zenimax Media, parent company to Bethesda Game Studios. The deal was finalized in 2022, resulting in an sectional Xbox Series X/S launch for side by side yr's Starfield. The Elderberry Scrolls VI is pretty much in the same boat, co-ordinate to Xbox boss Phil Spencer. This all profoundly bolsters Game Laissez passer for Xbox and PC, as all showtime-party Microsoft titles go on to release solar day one on that service.

Rockstar botches 1000 Theft Machine

Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto series is a titan of the gaming manufacture — ask any average person on the street, and they'll probable exist familiar. That makes the messy launch of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition so much more than disappointing. Over 100 bug fixes came in the latest update, after Rockstar apologized for the games' many technical issues — even the infamous Hot Coffee files were somehow left in the lawmaking. These problems caused a filibuster for the physical versions of the game too. While it was simply a 10-day setback for nearly versions of the game, Nintendo Switch owners won't be able to get their cartridge copy until 2022.

The remastered games deserved much more attention than they seem to have gotten. The fact that Rockstar parent company Have-Ii took modders to court over efforts to restore the older games, merely to put out such a messy production themselves, is a big bummer.

The Steam Deck is on deck

Information technology may be delayed, but the Steam Deck has been a big deal always since its proclamation this summer. New games from Valve are rare enough, merely an entirely new piece of hardware — i that takes the PC experience on the become — is a watershed moment for the company. Competing with the likes of Nvidia Shield, it's said to have little difference in performance whether you're playing games docked or undocked. The portable PC has some solid specs, and Valve has no qualms with modders playing effectually with the device as if it were a standard PC belfry.

Supporting the Steam library is a major cistron here, and Valve is reviewing the unabridged library to ensure maximum compatibility. Well perhaps not every unmarried game — blockchain games getting kicked off the store. That however leaves a massive lineup of triple-A and indie PC titles that volition be available to play when units arrive in Feb. Just don't look any exclusives.

Activision Blizzard faces a reckoning

The United states has seen some serious rethinking of its economic and social structures over the last few years, and sitting at the intersection of many issues is Activision Blizzard. The monolithic publisher came under fire as the SEC itself began investigating it for bigotry and poor workplace practices. A stream of reports soon followed, including a an employee who said she was demoted afterwards filing a sexual harassment complaint and erstwhile Blizzard co-atomic number 82 Jen Oneal only being offered equal pay after resigning from the company.

These paint a terrible picture of work at Activision Blizzard, to the indicate where employees staged multiple walkouts in response to CEO Bobby Kotick'south treatment of the company. A Workplace Responsibility Committee was formed as calls for his resignation went out — calls only made stronger by the fact the company's zero tolerance policy obviously doesn't apply to the big boss. Matrimony-busting emails soon followed, bringing a full mask-off understanding of Activision Blizzard'due south terrible handling of the situation. Gamepur stands with the victims and employees as the state of affairs only continues to worsen.