Games I Really Want to Play in 2022
- Iron Giant GM
- Jan 1, 2022
- 7 min read
https://rattiincantati.com/It is hard to believe that we are already 20% of the way through the 2020s. It still blows my mind when I realize just how much closer to 30 I am than I keep thinking (my younger brother is now as old as I was at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic which is the age I still feel like until I actually think about it for a minute). This isn't an original opinion, but the pandemic is making time fly by and drag on simultaneously.
The first year and a half of the pandemic were a great chance for me to catch up on media and play the games I wanted to. I was working from home with a very nonexistant workload until the end of summer 2021, and my wife was pregnant and laid off receiving CERB until starting her 1-year maternity leave in summer 2020. We watched so much TV, read a handful of books, played more TTRPGs than we had before (mostly D&D), and enjoyed our fair share of video games. Since then, we have both gone back to working away from home, our baby is now walking (which means they require more attention), and our friends moved away (one dude moved across the country), so now we are in a bit of a drought when it comes to our hobbies - especially gaming.
Now that we are rolling into 2022, I thought I would make myself a bit of a "New Year's Resolution" of sorts and come up with a list of games that I want to play before 2023.
This isn't necessarily a "top 5" games (I am too indecisive to come up with a solid top 5 let alone determine the order of that list), and there is no rhyme or reason to the order I am putting the games on here.
EDIT: I used top 5 when I originally wrote this, but by the time I finished writing the section on Halo Infinite I added 4 more games to my list... I think that just goes to prove my point that I couldn't possibly create a solid top 5 list xD
Halo Infinite
I have been a Halo fan since sometime around the 2007 release of Halo 3. It was the first big mainstream game that I ever really got into. It was an all consuming passion of mine until I entered high school in 2009 (and even then it still held a significant portion of my interest). Even now, 14 years later I still play through the entire FPS Halo series at least once a year. It is nice to have a whole TV to myself now, but I miss sharing half (or a quarter for multiplayer) of an old staticky tube tv with my brothers and dad like in the early days. I have been excited for every single Halo to come out since 3, with Halo Wars 2 being the only one I didn't play immediately.
Halo Infinite is no exception, and being that it is sort of the "3rd" game in the second trilogy that started with Halo 4 (sort of), I feel more excited about it than I have the past few games. While I am not consuming hours of commentary and watching the trailers on replay like I would have in high school, the excitment is still there.
Fun fact: this is the only video game to make my list this year.
by: Adira Slattery
This game looks rad as fuck. It is a ttrpg built using the LUMEN system inspired by Borderlands and Bulletstorm. If I could take a moment to be completely honest here, the only Borderlands game I have ever completed is the Telltale one, but I blame that on always trying to play the other games with my younger brother whose work schedule is essentially opposite of mine (and it was a series I had never really heard of or paid much attention to until I moved off to college and the rest of my family played it without me).
For Father's Day 2021 my dad, brothers, and I got together to play Mork Borg and had a pretty fun time. I am hoping that given their interest in the Borderlands series, I will be able to convince them to find a time to play this together (if need be it will be our year 2 of Father's Day table top gaming, hopefully spawning a new tradition for our family). It should be a good fit as the rules feel pretty easy to pickup for new players, and should allow us to get in a solid game session even with my dad not being the quickest at picking up how TTRPGs work (he played D&D in the 1970s and then had a 40ish year hiatus before playing again).
by: Alasdair Stuart & Jason Pitre
This game is one that I found somewhat by accident. I supported an itch bundle for aide for Palestine that had a huge number of games included in it. I haven't had the chance to look thoroughly look through everything in the bundle, but this was one of the games I chose to look at and download immediately after supporting the bundle.
I haven't gotten much into the genre of horror, but I have always had a feeling of thrilling excitment to dip my toes in, and this game is self-described as a science fiction horror roleplaying game. The concept of the players being from a diverse group who came together to rebuild after a galactic conflict who must protect the only home they have left sounds like a lot of fun too.
As someone who loves the Mass Effect series, and saw Into the Black described as a Mass Effect TTRPG minus the space cop connection I immediately added it to my list of games to play.
I think that at least part of my interest in this game stems from the fact that the debt you are trying to pay off involves a spaceship, unlike my real world boring debt that got me the most expensive piece of paper of my life.
I am also just now realizing the double meaning of the game's name - for both the blackness of the void of space and getting back into the black financially... I think when my players do manage to pay off their debt I will have to blast some celebratory ACDC.
by: Nick Butler
I'm really not sure what to say about this game. Honestly I am struggling to come up with my own words beyond what Nick has written on the Kickstarter page and the early access version I am currently looking at. It makes me want to get up and run around playing as an imaginary superhero like I used to when I was growing up.
This game is described as a Cinematic Tabletop RPG system, and it is designed to make you feel like a badass.
Beyond 2022 I can't wait to play this with my kid when they are old enough.
by: Spence Campbell
I just like robots/mech-suits, and I know for a fact my brother is going to jump at the chance to play a Pox Spark when he sees the art for it.
Similar to my feelings of for Tide Breaker above I am struggling to put words to the feelings. I feel like this game will be a great fit for healing the lackluster emotions I have after playing Destiny and (especially) Anthem.
Honourable Mentions
Honestly, as I continue to write this list I keep thinking of more games I want to play this year... and at the rate that is going I will never stop writing this article (by the time I finish writing up one game I end up adding two or more to my list).
These games have been on my radar for a while now, but popped up in my consciousness as I was taking a writing break for this post and came across this excellent photo on Twitter.
On the same Twitter break mentioned above, I decided to check out the page for this Kickstarter, and I was hooked pretty quickly.
I've already played this game, but we ran out of time before finishing our story arc and I would really like to finish it... we never even got the chance for any of the players' Animon to evolve!
I really like the historical connection this game has and how it makes your character feel much more personal than many games set in historical battles.
The older of my brothers is really into the Witcher, and I bought the core rulebook just before the COVID pandemic in an effort to try to connect with him more (don't get me wrong I also am excited to play this game, but I was encouraged to get it by my brother's interest in it). Because of the pandemic and scheduling issues we still haven't had the chance to play it yet though.
This one just goes without saying, but I needed to include it anyway. I also never realized how cool I think hyenas look until I saw the banner on this Kickstarter.
When I jumped on as a late backer to this game I didn't realize that it was focused on Discord, but honestly that is perfect for my current gaming realities (and my brother is a discord wizard so fingers crossed I can convince him to run it).
This game feels like an exciting take on a post apocolyptic world. As a fan of newer Fallout games (despite their many issues), I feel like this will be an exciting opportunity to jump into a more maleable wasteland.
I'm still not sure exactly what this game is about, and at this point I'm too afraid to ask.
Since I first saw this GM-less TTRPG (over 200 days ago according to itch) I felt that it would be the perfect way to integrate my non-gamer mom into the TTRPG space.
Okay, I seriously need to stop... I'm up to 20 games already, and finding the link for Troika! I made the "mistake" of clicking on the link to their Canadian retailer rattiincantati and I know I could add many more games off of their online catalogue - more games than I can realistically afford the time or money to play this year...
I would love to hear what games you are looking to play or revisit this year, let me know in the comments, or on Twitter.
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