Welcome to Fextralife’s 2022 Game of the Year awards! The Fexy Awards feature our favorite games of the last 12 months, but with a different twist than most sites: we focus on the games our community loves! These are the winners of GOTY 2022 Fexy Awards.
2022 Fexy Awards – The Best Games of 2022
Best Storytelling: God of War Ragnarok
God of War: Ragnarok finished the gaming year strong and provided Sony’s large audience with a fantastic and immersive experience that continued the quality of the 2018 reboot of the franchise. The game’s focus is certainly on its narrative and storytelling, and it accomplishes delivery of a successful movie-like experience in videogame form.
While the story itself may have lacked some more runtime, Ragnarok’s overall production values elevated its core message to deliver a very well-constructed piece, and for this, it takes this 2022 award. Read ourGod of War Ragnarok Reviewfor more details.
Best Gameplay: Elden Ring
Elden Ring takes our Best Gameplay Award because it is truly the king of gameplay. With significant additions to traditional souls gameplay such as the ashes of war and spirit summons, FromSoftware continues to drive forward theAction-RPGgenre and prove that small but nuanced spicing up can truly revamp gameplay without departing from its original roots.
Featuring the expected multiplayer options plus a newly added arena, gameplay is further enhanced by cooperative and competitive elements, allowing players to live the world not just through their own lens.Explorationseems limitless with intricate lore and narratives hidden deep within the many secrets of the game, giving a true sense of wonder and discovery to the most menial of tasks.
Even after thousands of hours of playtime, the game’s mechanics remain as exciting and satisfying as ever, proving that gameplay-first approaches are really the core of gaming! Read ourElden Ring Reviewfor more details.
Best Visual & Audio: God of War Ragnarok
Choosing the game with the best visual and audio design is no easy feat since there are other worthy titles like Horizon Forbidden West and The Callisto Protocol. That said, the superior acting quality and score of God of War edged out other contenders to take this award home this year. Sony has managed to maintain its stellar streak of impeccable visuals coupled with excellent music and sound effects.
The Nine Realms are richly depicted in Ragnarok, and incredibly brought to life by a truly talented cast that make the whole experience feel like a playabable movie, making the game truly deserving of our Best Audiovisual award. You can watch our God of War Ragnarok Review for more details.
Best Multiplayer: Overwatch
While not an RPG and slightly removed from our usual repertoire, our team and community has become obsessed with spending long hours jumping around rooftops and ambushing others while yelling “Genshi ult watch out!”.
If you join our streams or our after-hours chats, you’ll find most of the community is still having a blast with the game, and playing together. With over 25 million registered accounts and servers supporting the 800,000 concurrent players this very second, Overwatch 2 succeeds in creating a fantastic free-to-play experience. Excellent QOL improvements over its predecessor further its case making it take our best MP for this year. Catch ourOverwatch Streamsfor more details.
Best Value: Elden Ring
2022 has been a good year for gamers on a budget. There are many free hours to be enjoyed out of Overwatch, Fall Guys andLost Ark. However, we feel the most “bang for your buck” this year was actually out ofElden Ring, in which Cas has clocked an absurd 3000 hours on steam alone without counting his Playstation playthroughs or account switches for other characters etc.
With Elden Ring, you’ll experience rich and intriguing storylines,multiplayer,bossesandarenas, deep combat mechanics, and the thrill of discovery of hundreds upon hundreds of unique and funBuilds. These elements combine into a fantastic experience that keeps you going and doesn’t get old. It is for these reasons that Elden Ring easily wins our Best Value Award!
Best Soulslike: Steelrising
Steelrisingis a well-thought-out action RPG, which will be recognized because of its fresh gameplay features. Not only do you get to experience challenging and exhilarating encounters against raging automatons, but you are also able to appreciate exploring the beautiful horrors caused by these abominations. If you have been looking for a fun and more forgivingSoulsliketitle worth trying, thenSteelrisingmight be just what you are looking for.
Read ourSteelrising Reviewfor more details and alsoBest Tips and Tricks.
Best DLC: MHRise Sunbreak
Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreakis a fantastic expansion to our 2021 GOTY,Monster Hunter Rise. Adding new locales, monsters, hundreds of weapons and items, and new interesting and fun mechanics, the content and quality of the expansion easily rivalled the original release and for even less money.
If you loved the original title, or if you’re looking to buy a bundled sale, this should be on your must-buy list for its 2023 PS5 & Xbox release. There’s no better DLC than MHRise Sunbreak, easily taking our Best DLC Award!
Best Indie: King Arthur Knight’s Tale
Neocore’s rendition of the Arthurian tale is dark and gritty, and isn’t for the feint of heart. It’s tough, it’s challenging, it doesn’t hold your hand, but damn it if victory doesn’t feel oh so sweet! Without a doubt,King Arthur: Knight’s Taleis a day-one buy for anyone who enjoys strategic, tactical combat that goes far beyond the decisions you make on the battlefield.
In addition to the excellent combat, the game also has compelling and interesting characters, some of whom you won’t be able to recruit due to differences in beliefs, a lot ofbuildoptions, and a base to manage and customize as you see fit. It really does combine some of my favorite elements from other RPGs into one fantastic Arthurian tale. Read ourKing Arthur Knight’s Tale Reviewfor more details and ourbuildsif you’re diving in.
Best Surprise: Marvel’s Midnight Suns
This year’s surprise for us came in the form ofMarvel’s Midnight Suns, simply because we could not have expected the combat to be as good as it actually is. Marvel’s Midnight Suns has some of the best turn-based combat we’ve played in modern gaming, in spite of a subpar story and dialogue really make the game drag in places that it shouldn’t.
This game’s combat fun makes it a day 1 buy for hardcore turn-based combat lovers, a genre we love, so this is our surprise of the year! Read our Marvel’sMidnight Suns Reviewfor more details.
Game of the Year: Elden Ring
Fextralife’s Game of the Year in 2022 is Elden Ring! We understand this is a HUGE surprise to anyone that frequents our content, so let us explain in detail.
We have frequently noted that FromSoftware has been creating variations of their ideal game with each installment of theirsoulsgenre. Each game added features, tweaked mechanics, and increased polish. Each game is the manifestation of the artistic vision of its creator, who is always struggling to achieve that perfect mix of spices for its perfect delivery.
Elden Ring is FromSoftware’s Magnum Opus, and it’s hard to imagine them making a better game. Elden Ring delivers on a scale that few games ever have, and likely ever will again. The sheer expansiveness of the Elden Ring Map, the amount of unique and interesting sidequests, the excellent gameplay combat mechanics and infinity of builds thanks toWeapons,Armor,Spirit Ashesand infusions. Everything comes together to create the great crescendo of Souls, and it is absolutely glorious.
We can’t wait to see if moreDLCis coming and hopefully a fully-fledged expansion, but even without it we know we will be playing Elden Ring for years still.
2022 Fexy Community Awards
Community Member: Rustybeardo
Wiki Contributor: Nex3
As it is every year, this was a VERY difficult choice! We now haveover 200 wikiswith dedicated community editors who go the extra mile to help out those who need guides.Nex3stands out this year for her ongoing contributions to the Elden Ring Wiki, where she not only helped people with useful content and information, but also made thousands of fixes to critical pages, expanded the formatting and css of unique pages, and coordinated with dozens of other contributors to keep things in order throughout the whole year.
Special mentions to the outstanding contributions to the Elden Ring wiki fromVarinese,CommonCentsand datamine excel masterHylian_Pi! We must also highlight Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous contributorArdrelwho has continuously helped to improve the quality of the wiki, andT-Furanfor many useful updates to the Dark Souls wiki. As with the past few years, thank you toLewisriverfor an incredible amount of contributions toMonster Hunter Rise!
That’s it for our Fexy Awards 2022, congratulations to all the winners! We look forward to some great games coming in 2023, and we’ll have our list of what the best ones are, so keep an eye out for that video. What were some of your favorite games this year? How did we do? Let us know in the comments below!
You can check this list of 2021 games that we are excited about! You might also want to check out our 2021 winners,2020 winners,2019 winners,2018 winnersand2017 winners.
To keep up with all upcoming releases, visit theFextralife Wikis Hub
