Game of the Year 2022 – Best PC Game

Dominic L 28/12/22 Comments Closed

The good old PC master race have had a bumper year, with their catch-all platform pinching a bunch of console exclusives from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo’s walled gardens alike. A good gaming rig is still liable to have cost a whole chunk more on their rig than it would have cost to buy those consoles separately mind you, so it’s a good thing it can not only do other things, but also run games at levels that are unachievable elsewhere.

The other huge addition to PC gamers’ weaponry in 2022 was Valve’s Steam Deck, a handheld platform that’s insinuated its way so effectively into the gaming ecosystem that most new PC releases are ensuring they support it. Despite its size, and occasionally disappointing battery life, it’s revolutionised the way gamers can interact with their Steam library, and extended the reach of what has become, arguably, the best place to play.

Thankfully we’ve come a long way since the bad days of licensed video games, but it feels no less risky to shelve a popular, tried and tested game series in favour of yet another Marvel game and superheroes. That risk absolutely paid off for 2K Games and Firaxis, putting XCOM to one side and adapting their brand of turn-based tactical action to Marvel’s Midnight Suns.

On the one hand you have that tactical gameplay, but it’s been transformed with the integration of deck building and drawing cards to determine the moves available to you. It sounds limiting, but it isn’t, and brilliantly brings out the kind of superhero combat that is seen in comics and films. But then there’s the other side of the game, with downtime between missions spent at the Abbey, hanging out with some of the most popular Marvel characters and making friends like it’s a Persona game.

While Midnight Suns is also out on consoles, it absolutely feels at home on PC, as strategy and tactical games so often do, and is a very worthy winner of our Best PC Game award.

– Stefan L

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide – Runner Up

The Warhammer 40,000 is a dark and grim place, and when things aren’t trying to kill you, the Imperial hierarachy is liable to be stomping on you and your rat-infested slum in the underhive. Darktide sees things get even worse for one planet’s inhabitants, with a Chaos infestation turning many of them into drooling, addled zombies who want nothing more than to slaughter anyone else that isn’t also a drooling, addled zombie.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide offers brutal, weighty melee combat with equally weighty gunplay, and as you descend in the hive city of Tertium you can embark on a series of missions in an effort to cleanse the entire place. Darktide works best when playing with others, and you can either join up with a bunch of like-minded friends or be matchmade with payers of a similar level. If you’d prefer not to interact with the general public there’s also the option of some surprisingly capable bots who’ll enter the fray with you instead. While it builds on the same gameplay beats as Left for Dead and its sequel, this is a stunning recreation of the 40K universe, and one that’s only going to improve with time.

Total War Warhammer 3 – Runner Up

With the first two Total War Warhammer games released just 16 months apart, the four and a half year wait for the third entry in this series was well worth the wait. Looking to the Eastern reaches of the Warhammer Fantasy world and ventures into the Realm of Chaos, fleshing out the four main factions with a compellingly mercurial option that lets you pick and choose between them to create you demonic champion. Arrayed against them are the Russia-inspired Kislev and the Imperial China-inspired Grand Cathay, both of which have been significantly expanded upon in recent years.

Total War Warhammer 3 marks the beginning of the end for Creative Assembly’s fantasy twist on their grand strategy series, but it’s absolutely going out on a high note.

– Stefan L