With 2021 seeing a lot of gaming delays, 2022 is already looking stacked before we even start seeing new announcements and surprise releases. We already know about plenty of huge games dropping throughout the year, with the first arriving in the next few weeks and running all the way to November launches like the hotly-anticipated Starfield. We combined the knowledge and insight of the entire TA news crew to pick out 22 of the biggest and most exciting launches coming in the next 12 months (barring any further delays), so feast your eyes on some of the potential highlights that 2022 has in store for Xbox gaming!A Plague Tale: RequiemETA: 2022A Plague Tale: Innocence took me by surprise when I finally got around to playing it last year. I knew it was good, but I didn’t know it was going to be that damn good. Stepping back into the 14th century during the Hundred Years’ War, Innocence offered some truly gruesome and memorable moments, combined with some excellent (albeit limited) stealth mechanics, and wonderful storytelling. I am so ready for more of the same with A Plague Tale: Requiem and can’t wait to see how Hugo and Amicia’s story unfolds. In Requiem, we are travelling south across the sea to new lands where the brother and sister duo will be looking to start a new life and learn how to control Hugo’s curse. However, judging from the latest gameplay trailer that was shown during The Game Awards, it looks like the pair aren’t in for a good time; the atmosphere turns grim and dark pretty quickly, with tidal waves of rats exploding out of buildings and from beneath the ground. We were also shown Amicia using a new crossbow and a mounted weapon, which could mean Asobo Studio is leaning more into the action this time around. Requiem is also coming to Xbox Game Pass on day one, which is fantastic news for those with a subscription. Dead SpaceETA: Q4Sure, Dead Space might ‘just’ be a remake, but as a remake of one of the all-time great action-horror games and the first release in the dormant series in the best part of a decade, it’s still all kinds of exciting. A huge part of what made the original so good was its incredible sense of atmosphere and tension, and though we’ve not seen all that much so far, the few glimpses we have been afforded have certainly looked like that aspect was in great shape already. It seems like it’ll be a pretty faithful remake, albeit with some interesting new additions — Isaac will be fully voiced this time, with Gunner Wright reprising the role and the team already tempering concerns by confirming that he won’t break the tension with constant chatter, while there’s talk of potentially adding content that was cut from the original due to technical limitations of the Xbox 360. The SSDs in the new consoles won’t just mean faster loading, either, with creative director Roman Campos-Oriola explaining that the remake will be “an uninterrupted sequence shot, from the start screen to the end credit, without interruption.” Dying Light 2: Stay HumanETA: February 4thAfter being able to play a few hours of the game back in October, Dying Light 2 shot to the forefront of my most-anticipated list. Absolutely everything about it feels like an improvement over its predecessor — not that it actually needed improving on. This time around, the zombies are running rampant all over the world, plummeting us all into the Dark Ages once again. This time, though, Techland has helped mix things up a bit by putting an emphasis on the day/night cycle. During the day, the dead gather inside out of the sunlight, leaving the streets free to roam but making it extremely difficult to explore indoor areas. When the nighttime comes, though, the dead swarm into the streets, forcing you to use rooftops to traverse the world, but also offering you the opportunity to find better gear from the building interiors. I love that idea, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how it fits into the full release. Oh, and it also has a paraglider, so it’s awesome by default.Elden RingETA: February 25thFromSoftware has set the bar extremely high with its hardcore action-RPGs in recent years, so it’s no surprise that its next game, Elden Ring, should be so high on many wishlists. Between its more open high fantasy setting and the involvement of A Song of Ice and Fire author George R. R. Martin, Elden Ring feels like the studio’s biggest project to date, and in just a few months, we’ll be able to step out and explore the stunning Lands Between for ourselves. Combat has that same weighty feel that fans will instantly recognise from the Souls games, but seemingly with many more unique attacks (many apparently magical in nature) to give battles more of a sense of grandeur. You can add mounted combat to the list of new stuff, too, with a magical steed that can be summoned at will (not unlike the mounts in Immortals Fenyx Rising) offering both faster exploration of the large open areas and more options in combat — in the gameplay footage, we see a horseback hero using that extra speed to weave between a massive dragon’s attacks in order to create an opening for a flashy coup de grâce. Bring on the pain…Evil Dead: The GameETA: FebruarySure, there are a fair amount of co-op survival games out there already, but I love them, and one that features the cast from the original Evil Dead? Who the hell wouldn’t want that? Developed by Saber Interactive, Evil Dead: The Game is inspired by the three original Evil Dead films, as well as the Ash vs Evil Dead TV show, and from what I’ve seen, it looks “groovy.” Seriously, though, it’s said to have both co-op and multiplayer, in which the survivors will need to explore and loot while attempting to seal the breach between worlds. We’ll even have a chance to play as the Kandarian Demon to hunt down the feeble mortal folk. If that wasn’t enough reason to play it, then the knowledge that Bruce Campbell will be voicing Ash once again must surely make any fan of the franchise tingle with excitement? I know we’ve just about had enough of world-changing situations, but I can’t wait for February to roll around so I can cut down some demon-spawn. My chainsaw and sawn-off are ready… let’s open that Necronomicon already.Gotham KnightsETA: 2022The first of two DC games on this list, Gotham Knights is an interesting beast in that it’s a Batman game without Batman. Set in a crime-wracked Gotham City following the apparent death of poor ol’ Bats, Gotham Knights brings together the caped crusader’s entourage to take his place as the city’s last line of defense. The four playable heroes — Robin (Tim Drake), Nightwing (Dick Grayson), Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), and Red Hood (Jason Todd) — each have their own unique abilities and can be levelled separately to further differentiate between them, with Gotham Knights fully playable as either a single-player experience or with drop-in co-op where a friend can bring another member of the Batfamily to the party. Developed by WB Games Montréal (who previously did Batman: Arkham Origins, as well as working on the Arkham Knight DLC) while Rocksteady tries something new with an action-packed Suicide Squad game, Gotham Knights looks kinda like a Batman-flavoured twist on the modern Assassin’s Creed formula, and we’re keen to give it a try.GRID LegendsETA: February 25thI’ve taken next year’s arcade racers off the grid for everyone else, which means I’m lining up GRID Legends and Test Drive Unlimited on the front row and seeing what happens (stay out of it, FIA). GRID has me both incredibly curious and a touch concerned after Codemasters showed off gameplay in November 2021. In fairness, it looks fantastic with crisp lines and bright colours that will have some zip at a high-frame rate and a good use of HDR. All those big, brash locations from the series’ past are still present and looking even better than ever. Some of the cars are a little wackier than previous entries, hopefully making for a real variety of racing. One of the big features is some rewired AI that is embedded with real-world players. If it works, and we see better racing lines, more natural mistakes from rivals, less rubber-banding, then we are in very good hands indeed. My only concern is the new Race Director AI that oversees the events to “keep it interesting.” It really depends on if this is a Michael Masi-style implementation that unnaturally manufactures entertainment with semi-scripted moments. If players are blowing up in my face at the end of every race leading to a race win for me because of some hand of God, that is going to get old quickly. The potential lack of content could be a concern too, especially when other arcade racers have been supplying humongous amounts of stuff to do. But those are minor quibbles, as this looks like it has the potential to be phenomenal.Hogwarts LegacyETA: 2022Heidi and I just couldn’t find a way to detach ourselves from the supreme excitement of a potential Wizarding World RPG. The trailer at the PS5 reveal made me scream like a mandrake root, and since then I have been all aboard the Hogwarts Express. The trailer showed all sorts: an open-world Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and Diagon Alley; a story mercifully detached from Harry Potter, a seemingly proper magic system, and fabulous graphical styling in the vein of high-German Romanticism paintings. It all looks to be there in spirit. Please, bear in mind just how excited I am and that I am trying not to be a cynic. I have a lot of love for even the Deathly Hallows 1 + 2 cover shooters, and the Nintendo DS versions of Half-Blood Prince and Order of the Phoenix. Just to be clear, they are pretty bad, but I love them anyway. So bear with me when I say that I am incredibly skeptical of Portkey Games’ capability as a label and Avalanche Games as a developer. Portkey has been mostly driving mobile games while it has existed, and Avalanche has never made a game as big as this (though Disney Infinity 3.0 is a solid crowning achievement). Only recently, Sumo Digital announced that two of its development teams are involved, with Red Kite Games and Sumo Nottingham assisting in making the game. That is fine in principle, but it suggests that this game needed a lot more work than originally envisioned. Likewise, there is rumoured hesitancy about releasing new footage — because of the association with the author — so I’m concerned that WB might be going a bit soft on the idea of a game. Those are all pipe worries, though. I love all the ideas crammed into that magnificent and delightful trailer, and I can’t wait to see more and hopefully eventually play the thing! Anyway, over to Heidi…Hogwarts Legacy manages to wrench itself away from Harry Potter by setting itself much earlier, in the 1800s. This frees up a whole lot of room for a new story, while still (hopefully) letting everyone live the Hogwarts life they’ve been dreaming of — and back when it was announced, it certainly seemed like that was on the cards, with us arriving as a new student, and the trailer showing off well-known activities like Potions, Herbology, Quidditch, dueling, and trips to Hogsmeade. I can’t wait for this game; I have to know what’s going on with this “Ancient Magic” we’ll apparently possess — and I also have to know what on earth these things are. It’s Hogwarts I’m excited to visit, although the trailer even hints at a “larger world” beyond the school — we know we’ll be visiting the Forbidden Forest and Hogsmeade, but where else could this game take us? Bear in mind that I’ve been maniacally humming the trailer’s Hogwarts theme music while writing this — plus the fact that the game’s very existence caused a small war in the office when Kes and I thought we weren’t both going to get to write about it — and you’ll start to get an idea of how much we’re looking forward to this game.Kerbal Space Program 2ETA: 2022This is a tricky one to talk about because I’m an idiot. For all of its incredible uniqueness and innovation, I just like to see if I can make a nice ricket and get to space. Sometimes there are casualties… we don’t talk about the casualties at Kes Space Corp. Kerbal Space Program 2 looks like more of that, with more detail and more physics. It will be perfect for a simple boy because there will be better tutorialisation, UI, and plenty of new parts to destroy use in innovative ways. KSP2, though, is also for clever folks. You see, developer Squad is talking about expanding the game by 1,000 times. I’m not being melodramatic when I say that I literally cannot even envision what that would look like. These devs are talking about new solar stems, building colonies with an entirely new construction system, as well as modding and multiplayer. That sounds like a lot for me to be dealing with, but I suspect that KSP2 might be the best route into the more hardcore aspect of the series and I cannot wait. Kes Space Corp is going interstellar (after we have dealt with a few legal cases)!Marvel’s Midnight SunsETA: MarchIt’s that description, that idea that it’s “set in the darker side of the Marvel Universe,” that really got us interested in Marvel’s Midnight Suns. The premise, that we’ll lead a team against Lilith, Mother of Demons, hooked us even more, and although the first look at gameplay threw us a little, it’s still high on our list of most anticipated games of 2022. The combat is described as a “cinematic tactical affair” where your squad is dealt hero abilities like cards; a move we weren’t expecting after our first glimpse of the game, and we’re yet to see whether developer Firaxis will be able to make this work. Your character of The Hunter will be customisable — overall, Marvel’s Midnight Suns just looks all kinds of awesome, and March 2022 can’t come soon enough.The Outlast TrialsETA: 2022The Outlast Trials is a somewhat strange inclusion here as developer Red Barrels has yet to confirm on which systems the horror spin-off will actually launch, but it’d be a bit weird if this one skipped Xbox when both previous games have seemingly done pretty well on the platform. Rather than a direct sequel to those games (Outlast 3 is apparently also currently in development), Trials will serve more as an indirect prequel with an all-new feature for the series — co-op multiplayer. Why? “It’s always better to s**t your pants in good company,” reasons the game’s Steam page, and while we’re not sure that’s strictly true, it certainly looks like a fresh and intense twist on the tried-and-tested formula. Red Barrels co-founder Philippe Morin describes The Outlast Trials as being “more like a TV series,” with a series of individual disturbing experiments to brave either alone or with backup, rather than one linear experience to play out as before.RedfallETA: Q2While we’ve only seen a cinematic reveal trailer and some screenshots of Redfall, I’m definitely interested to see what Arkane Austin has in store for us. We do know it’s a solo or co-op FPS (yes, I can’t get enough of them) which sees up to four players battling in out with a legion of vampires in the town of Redfall, Massachusetts. The vampires are the offspring of a science experiment gone wrong, and have managed to garner a following of cultists that also add to the town’s troubles — if various mutations of vampires weren’t bad enough, we’ve got to contend with human morons… people are the worst. We’ll have the option to play as various heroes that have differing abilities, and make them fairly proficient at eliminating the blood-sucking threat. I’ve seen that there is a sharpshooter amongst the roster of badasses, so that’s exactly who I’ll be looking to as my undead death-dealing human-weapon of choice. Sure details and gameplay are vague at this point, but I’m going to remain quietly optimistic of Arkane Austin’s ability to put out a killer game. Redfall is expected to release sometime during summer 2022, so we’ll hopefully start seeing a little more information start to trickle out of the studio soon.Saints RowETA: August 23rdWhile early impressions of Volition’s Saints Row reboot might not be to everyone’s tastes, there’s no denying that we’re not ripe for a new action-adventure game set in a living, open world that’s filled with fast vehicles, guns, and mayhem. With Rockstar busy ploughing new content into GTA Online, the door has been left wide open for a new game in the genre. Cue: Saints Row. Sure, the Saints Row franchise is much more over the top and quite a bit less subtle when compared to the GTAs out there, but they do share the same DNA. Volition has shown us a fair bit of the game now, including its world, which the developer touts as the ”biggest and best Saints Row playground ever created.” It certainly looks like an exciting location to explore, and from all the action-packed and ridiculous gameplay we’ve seen so far, Saints Row is shaping up to be something promising, albeit with a slight shift in tone and direction. Shadow Warrior 3ETA: 2022While Shadow Warrior’s protagonist, Lo Wang, is the recipient of an unfortunate penis joke, the fast-paced and absolutely outrageous gameplay he provides us is generally nothing to laugh at. No, it’s something to laugh with, as you slice through your enemies with deadly precision. This third installment looks to be bringing the same intense FPS action you’d expect from the series, as well as a crazy-good soundtrack. Shadow Warrior 3 sees Wang team up with his former nemesis, Orochi Zilla, to lock away an ancient dragon that they unwittingly unleashed into the world. The gameplay trailers that have been shown are spectacular, and it looks like Devolver Digital is looking to offer us another wild ride into insanity. ShreddersETA: FebruarySnowboarding chill-out sesh Shredders is coming in February 2022, but we have seen neither head nor tail of it since the summer. That doesn’t matter, though. Whatever developer Foam Punch finally comes out with I will play. That first trailer is so pristinely minimalist. It is just chill-hop music and snowboarding. It showcases the environment, movements, and tricks. That takes confidence, and I love it. A gameplay overview suggested this is going to have a tried and tested dual analogue control scheme, which has always been the preferred method of getting flow into an action sports game. I’m all carved up with excitement over here, I can’t wait! S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2ETA: April 28thMore Chernobyl exploits? Yes, please. Seeing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 announced back in 2017 was a particularly top moment for me, seeing as I spent many hours of my teenage years playing through the first game. It’s a first-person immersive-sim horror game, and is built using Unreal Engine 5. The game is said to feature a branching storyline that’ll take us throughout Chernobyl, battling it out with mutant creatures. It’s all about scavenging for supplies and trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. I’m really excited to jump in when it releases in April, especially as it’ll launch straight into Xbox Game Pass… result!StarfieldETA: November 11thStarfield properly broke cover this year, and while we still don’t really know much about the sci-fi action-RPG, it is easily one of the most highly anticipated games of 2022. Starfield is Bethesda Game Studios’ first new universe in 25 years, which for some people, is more than enough reason for them to climb aboard and take a seat on the slowly-accelerating hype train (us included). Bethesda has been very secretive about Starfield, and details are thin on the ground. We know the game will be another sprawling RPG, like previous Elder Scrolls and Fallout titles (Todd Howard even went as far as to call Starfield “Skyrim in Space”), where we can create our own character and will be able to explore various worlds set among the stars. Short developer videos have given us insight into some of these worlds, but Bethesda has only shown off concept art — we are yet to see the studio’s vision come to life in the form of gameplay or anything else substantial. We will likely be drip-fed more snippets of Starfield info throughout the year before a full reveal at E3, where Microsoft/Bethesda will show off the game in full, giving that hype train the fuel it needs to reach maximum speed ahead of its November 11th release date.Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy OriginETA: 2022Want to kill Chaos? Need to kill Chaos? Then fear not, because Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is all about killing Chaos, as you can easily tell from the fact that every other line of dialogue in the game’s reveal trailer explicitly says as much. It’s a prequel to/reimagining of the original Final Fantasy, with Team Ninja at the helm to deliver action-packed combat closer to Nioh or Ninja Gaiden than your traditional Final Fantasy fare — expect speedy combos, brutal finishing moves, and lots of shouting about Chaos. The pair of demos released during 2021 met with mixed reception from players, but there’s no denying Team Ninja’s credentials in the genre, so it feels like it’s probably more the generic characters and laughable dialogue that let people down, rather than the meaty combat. Square Enix has been especially active in requesting and responding to feedback for this new vision of Final Fantasy, so fingers crossed the issues get resolved ahead of the game’s undefined 2022 release date. Please, please just kill Chaos so that guy will shut up about it. He’s doing my head in.Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice LeagueETA: 2022We recently got our first taste of gameplay for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League at The Game Awards, and it looks like absolute chaos. There are parallels to be drawn here with Warner’s other 2022 DC release, Gotham Knights, since both offer optional multiplayer, but while that game will offer a more traditional Batman-esque experience with stealth, tracking, and melee combat, Kill the Justice League will take players to Metropolis to face off against a superhero team under the control of Brainiac via over-the-top gunplay. It really reminds us of Sunset Overdrive with its wild tone and crazy combat, only here with the ability to switch between the four antiheroes (Harley Quinn, Deadshot, King Shark, and Captain Boomerang) on the fly when playing solo, or have other players fill those roles for you instead. Looks like a blast.Test Drive Unlimited: Solar CrownETA: September 22ndStarting on the front line of the grid, alongside… GRID, is Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown. There is a lot of promise in the concept here, which makes me think that this is Sleeping Dogs remade into an arcade racer. Hong Kong is a gorgeous place to set your game, with big city vibes and just enough outdoor spaces with the mountains and big bays to keep the variety high. The concept of having two warring clans overseeing your progress in some kind of multiplayer-linked story mode could be a really great draw to keep players hooked. It could also be a thinly veiled progression aesthetic, but let’s remain optimistic. There are hints that the car list will be huge and the developers have been boasting about how good this title will look. There are also quite a few inklings that there will be a heavy live-service element with a huge focus on a shared player Hotel space, but that isn’t confirmed yet. With only a cinematic trailer to show so far, it’s hard to get excited even if it has the Test Drive name on it. Instead, I’m fascinated by what this will look like and how all these early marketing promises will look in reality. Tiny Tina’s WonderlandsETA: March 25thI absolutely loved Borderlands 2’s Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep (which recently got a standalone release) so naturally, I’m all over Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands as well. While the Borderlands 2 DLC was only a fairly short mini-campaign, Wonderlands will be a full-fledged adventure based on the same premise, namely the hyperactive Tiny Tina running an adventure in Borderlands’ in-universe Dungeons & Dragons equivalent, Bunkers & Badasses. It’s looking like pretty much just more classic Borderlands action, with the addition of melee weapons and magic to give it a little more fantasy flavour, and while there’s certainly a risk of both premise and characters getting stretched a little thin over the course of a full game (Ashly Burch famously lays it on pretty thick as Tiny Tina), I love the setting enough that I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. I was originally psyched for the Treasure Trove edition purely for the physical Bunkers & Badasses one-shot handbook, before I found out it was 100 bucks and doesn’t even come with the game so yeah… might give that one a miss after all.TunicETA: March 16thWe at last have a release date for Tunic! The gorgeous action-adventure game tumbles onto Xbox on March 16th, making Tunic one of our most anticipated games of 2022. Tunic has somehow managed to hold onto its sense of mystery in the years since its announcement, and even with the occasional demo having been released — which only makes us more intrigued for its full release in March. We know from our Xbox Indie Spotlight on Tunic and our time with the demo that the game even doubles down on that sense of mystery with its own inscrutable language, and the demo was perfectly calculated to leave you determined to uncover just a few more of Tunic’s secrets. Don’t let its fantastical appearance fool you, either; Tunic’s combat seems like a real challenge, and it counts Bloodborne and Dark Souls as some of its influences. So, challenging combat, puzzling, exploration, an adorable fox — check, check, check, and check… roll on March!Any of these making their way onto your wishlists, or maybe you’ve got some exciting upcoming releases of your own that you want to share? Jump into the comments below and get involved…
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