Cognition Dissemination: It’s a “Slower” Year for Games, Not a “Slow” One
A feature was posted on gamesindustry.biz about a certain phenomenon that’s been heavily discussed since the start of this not-E3 month: The lack of numerous heavy-hitting games coming for the remainder of the year. Author Christopher Dring talked to game developers about what’s happening, though the answers are an extension of what anyone who’s halfway paid attention to world events could have concluded. A mixture of the COVID-19 pandemic that’s been in effect since March 2020 and games themselves taking serious time to make have resulted in 2022 being kind of an off year for AAA software — the latter exacerbated by developers also taking time to adjust to the architecture in the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series of platforms.
It’s a good feature well worth reading, and you should take time to do so if you’re happening upon this. But there’s one premise I reject, one only slightly prevalent in the piece but especially prominent on several video game websites, blogs, and communities around the internet: It is not a slow year for video game releases.
I won’t deny that a staggering amount of software planned for 2022 has been delayed into 2023. Games like the still-unnamed sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Starfield, Redfall, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Stalker 2: Hearts of Chernobyl, Homeworld 3, Granblue Fantasy: Relink, and too many more to list could have made 2022 a year to remember in terms of gaming. Yet, they’re now on track to give 2023 that accolade. Delays are always inevitable, but more titles than usual have been pushed back into the next year for reasons stated above.
Take a look at the current lineup for the second half of this year, and it’s clear plenty of options still exist. There’s the expected Call of Duty game, this year’s being Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II — no, not that one, but a brand-new installment. Other third-party examples include Sonic Frontiers (sometime this fall), the Saints Row reboot (August 23rd), Gotham Knights (October 25th), Overwatch 2 (October 4th), and Hogwarts Legacy (December), along with indie games like Naiad, Stray (July), and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. These are in addition to games that have already released like Elden Ring, Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. It’s a smaller lineup compared to the usual year to be sure, but the number of them are hardly small.
The first-party options from hardware manufacturers are smaller in number, but shouldn’t go ignored. Sony recently confirmed the long-rumored The Last of Us Part I (September 2nd), a remake of the original PlayStation 3 game remastered for PlayStation 4. (Whether the remake needs to exist is a question best left for another post.) Square Enix is also releasing Forspoken, which will launch exclusively on PS5 in October. There’s also word from Bloomberg that God of War: Ragnarok will make this year in November. Nintendo has titles like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (July 29 — with a Direct about it set to air on Wednesday), Splatoon 3 (September 9th), Pokémon Scarlet and Violet (November 18th), and maybe Bayonetta 3. We’ve also yet to see the summer Nintendo Direct, and it would be too hasty to judge the company’s lineup before it airs.
Microsoft’s lineup for Xbox is the biggest tragedy here, with the biggest games, Starfield and Redfall, being delayed until 2023. Notably, both of those are from Bethesda. Fortunately, they should be able to weather the storm with Xbox Series sales being brisk enough, the Series S being the only console readily available, for a killer lineup next year.
We should watch our terminology here. Let’s be specific about saying this is indeed an undeniably slower year for games compared to the last several, one that tends to occur early in every new console generation. (Also see 2014.) But it’s hardly a slow one; there are still plenty of games to play coming, and here the entirety of the lineup for 2022’s second half has yet to be revealed.
Even if the year was a slow one per se, I find it difficult to believe a bunch of gamers don’t have backlogs they could tackle in the meantime. There are bound to be games that certain players were interested in but never got around to, and could pick up for a discounted price (unless it’s a Nintendo-published game — good luck). Video games in general take longer to finish these days, and many others that don’t have piles of bonus content. Hell, I’d bet money that some of you have backlogs so large that you should be begging for a slow year. A shame it doesn’t actually qualify as one.
This may not be an agreeable topic for everyone, especially those deeply embedded in the never-ending Great Console Wars. But I hope we can all agree that next year is going to rock if even one-third of the games planned for release come out. Between those listed in this post, other titles like Street Fighter 6, the Resident Evil 4 remake, Final Fantasy XVI, the Dead Space remake, and too many more. Perhaps we can all agree on having too many games and not enough time to play them? If so, then this isn’t a bad year in the last — for video games, anyway.
About The Author
Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
