2022 Gaming Predictions

[Issun]

I will be adding percentage chance of likelihood for each entry.

• Elden Ring will be my favorite From game since OG Dark Souls. (90%)
• Project Triangle Strategy will be its name, and you will have to call it that. (99.9999%)
• Dragon Quest XII and Dragon Quest III Traveler will both release in the fall, sparking a renewed interest in the series. (80% for games, 50% for reaction)
• Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster will garner equal amounts of praise and damnation, both for the exact same things. (100%)
• Lost Odyssey will get a port or remaster announcement. (9%)
• Breath of the Wild 2 will release, but that will not be its official name. (99% game/75% name)
• Metroid Prime Trilogy on Switch. (60%)
• Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Switch. In 2023 (50%)
• Life is Strange 3 will be announced, and it will tie together all the previous games.(55% game/15% tying together)
• Saints Row: Self Made will take up much of Octo's time upon release, to good effect. (1000%)
• We will continue to hope for a Skies of Arcadia HD that will never happen. (75%)

 

[RT-55J]

I will not watch The Game Awards, for the third year in a row.

Following the success of Dread, Nintendo will begin in earnest an attempt to annualize the Metroid series the way it has with the Zelda series as of late, meaning that (in descending order of likeliness), 2022 will bring us one of the following: (a) a Prime 1 remaster/remake (60%), (b) the full Prime trilogy HD (25%), (c) Samus Returns HD (14%), or Prime 4 (1%).

Competitive interest in Metaversus will die down after a couple months, as content creators and such move on to the next hot Smash clone (by, idk, Disney or some nonsense).

ZZT will continue to own. More specifically, 2022 will be the year the community finally embraces Super ZZT.

Gaming companies will continue to promise to investors that they will add borkchungus tech to their games, but the amount of big releases that implement it will be fewer than announced. Nevertheless, the financialization of vidcons will march on.

We will see an uptick in SNES homebrew as someone will make an equivalent of the SGDK for it (idk this almost seems too optimistic, really).

[INSERT SEQUEL HERE] will do something that upsets a sizable portion of its fanbase (the circle of life rolls on).

Konami will release the Castlevania DS Collection, but it will have weird nonsense title like "CV Advance Collection 2" or "CV Anniversary Collection 3."

Hollow Knight: Silksong will be released to great critical and public acclaim, but it will double down on the sorts of design decisions that made me feel ambivalent about the original.

The best part of the the Mario movie will be the collection of third-rung characters like Foreman Spike and Birdo. Like a true Mario product, Mario himself will be the least interesting part.

[More predictions will be appended to this post as they come to mind]

 

[Mogri]

The Metaverse continues to offer nothing of value

NFTs invade conventional games from at least one major publisher and continue to offer negative value

New stupid Pokemon spinoff in lieu of gen 9

A new FF15 trailer causes me to grudgingly admit that it actually does look kinda fun and good

My GOTY is from a developer that, as of January, I've never heard of

Credible rumors of a Switch successor are denied by Nintendo

Legacy collections, remakes, and remasters continue to be the premiere offerings from Konami and Capcom

 

[Becksworth]

Mild

Steamdeck will see further delays. If not the initial batch then subsequent ones. It will impact me at least.

Every publisher who committed themselves to utilizing NFTs will be all "What is this NFT you speak of?" by years end.

I'll eventually procure a PS5.

Spicy

Hollow Knight Silksong will release this year. It's been largely done for a while, but Nintendo gave them the courtesy of knowing releasing in holiday 2021 might get them overshadowed.

Breath of the Wild 2 will finally release... in 2023.

In the USA, some once loved developer will be discovered donating to a Q-nutter's mid term election campaign.

Ghost Pepper

Chinese retro handheld makers will achieve some singularity state of rapid releases where the last ones of the year manage to outperform the PS5 and Series X at a competitive prices. They will have only 1 hour battery life at best unfortunately.

 

[Pajaro Pete]

That Live A Live Remaster that got rated for Australia finally manifests.

Something for PS5 will be announced that will finally get me to try and purchase one. I will not be able to find one, and even if I did I wouldn't be able to afford it, but the thing that gets announced exclusively for it won't come out until 2023 anyway.

I will consider procuring a Steamdeck in lieu of trying to do a Gaming PC, I will not be able to find one and end up playing the indie games I'm interested in on PS4 instead.

One of Atlus's Persona Anniversary Announcements will be ports or remakes of P1 Portable/P2 Portables.

New Seiken Densetsu and New SaGa titles are announced, and if released in 2022, both will see extensive patching to address consumer feedback.

Switch Pro/New! Switch/Switch +/2witch finally manifests with a moderate power boost and gamers get big mad that it's not somehow more powerful than a hypothetical PS5 Pro.

Sonic Frontiers ends up being absolutely dreadful.

We see gameplay of one of Bethesda's Upcomings, and it looks and feels exactly how you expect it to.

We'll start to see the industry pivot to some new genre. I have no predictions as to what it'll be.

 

[pudik]

opoona 2

 

[Ixo]

I apparently forgot to make 2021 predictions.

- More titles about being an animal protagonist going about your day, causing chaos a la Untitled Goose Game or Little Kitty Big City.
- Collectors can finally finish their Super Smash Bros. amiibo collection 8 years in the making now that all the DLC character announcements are over.
- Pokemon Arceus will consistently get compared to Breath of the Wild by reviewers, even if it's clearly trying to do it's own thing.
- The console game collector market will start to leech further into PC games, either from Youtube gaming channels branching out into it or getting priced out of console collecting.
- Virtual Boy popularity spike, hot on the heels of all the Game & Watch love.
- Sony actually for real this time you guys no take backs sunsets the PS3 store.
- Sakurai takes an uninterrupted 6 month long nap.
- Samba de Amigo 2 a la Beat Saber.

 

[Issun]

- Samba de Amigo 2 a la Beat Saber.

I could see actually buying a VR headset for this.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I probably won't play a video released in 2022 unless it is a cheap multiplayer game for my Sunday night get-togethers.

There will be a new FMV game and it will be alright. Like, it's nice to see another but very few are super great.

 

[MetManMas]

Eh, may as well do one of these.

I continue to be disinterested in the piles and piles of M-rated bang-bangs and stab-'em-ups that all blend together in a homogeneous AAA mass and continue to lean far more towards remasters of 90s games, retro throwbacks, and nonviolent 'splore-'em-up indies.

Square Enix continues to be cool about rereleasing games that aren't just Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest.

Nintendo Switch sees more and more Cloud releases that cost way too much for something you need a sturdy Internet connection for but still remain a way to play the hot new stuff the platform has no hope of running natively.

The Switch Online Expansion Pack sees TurboGrafx-16/Turbo Duo/PC Engine games added to the service.

We finally see some gameplay footage of Elder Scrolls VI. It looks way too generic medieval fantasy and does nothing to convince me to buy the new Xbox.

Final Fantasy XVI will have a new trailer that looks more interesting to me personally but I still won't be 100% sold on it.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons may have seen its final major update and only DLC, but knowing that the property's hot Nintendo will announce a new AC spinoff game of some sort. It won't be as popular as ACNH was but it'll do far better than Amiibo Festival did.

The Welcome Amiibo card series will finally receive a long overdue reprint.

 

[Voncaster]

I love this part of the year. Its full of hopes, dreams, and wild speculation!

99.99% of games released in 2022 will have rouge-lite elements!

Elden Ring will be From Software's best selling game. It will be reviewed well by gamers and press alike. It will probably be my favorite game of the year. A small but vocal minority Dark Souls fans will hate Elden Ring because From will make the game slightly easier for a wider audience.

River City Girls 2 will have the best soundtrack of the year.

Ghostwire: Tokyo will be released in 2022 and be an interesting but flawed game.

Despite increasing rumors of Konami re-entering game development in major way, there is no high budget remaster or new entry in the Castlevania, Metal Gear or Silent Hill franchise in 2022. Prove me wrong Konami, prove me wrong. There will be a new M2 remaster of some old Castlevania games in the fall. Probably DS games, but I would love to see the 3D Castlevania games get an M2 port. The surprise inclusion from either collection will be Castlevania Chronicles.

Atlus will announce a Catherine sequel. It may not be a puzzle game! Atlus will also port Persona 4 Golden to modern consoles.

Capcom will announce a new Monster Hunter game or port Monster Hunter Rise to the PS5 and XBOX Series SX. There is no way Capcom lets the MH golden goose go dormant on modern consoles! REmake 4 release date will be announced in 2022 for a 2023 release date.

Square Enix will announce Parasite Eve remastered. If I keep predicting it every year, its bound to happen!
Almost no one buys FF: Dark Souls because Elden Ring is available. This one could be a hidden gem.
No release date for FFVII-R2 or FFXVI. Some new cut scene footage from one or both games will be released in 2022.

The open world Sonic game will be great! It will be a rebirth for the franchise and the number one game for memes and gifs.

EVO 2022 will be an online invite only event. Until COVID gets under control there is no way Sony risks having a large in person gathering. The Capcom Cup will be similar and will be very good. Fan favorite Infiltration will win Capcom Cup.

 

[Voncaster]

There will be a new FMV game and it will be alright. Like, it's nice to see another but very few are super great.

This is probably a topic for another thread. But its amazing to me that modern games are largely not experimenting with FMV.

(Her Story is fine, but its very small scale and I think has a limited audience. I have no idea about its sales numbers.)

Quality cameras are cheaper than ever and developers are constantly bemoaning the cost of developing next gen graphics. Surely putting together an FMV game would be cheaper than putting together a modern game with motion capture and a 3D world.

I admit that 3D engines and world probably allows for more player control and immersion. But I think FMV is a largely untapped space in gaming that could be explored more by low and medium budget games.

I particularly think that horror, mystery, and detective games would work will with FMV.

 

[Mogri]

Does Inscryption count?

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I particularly think that horror, mystery, and detective games would work will with FMV.

My suggestion: a tongue-in-cheek Night Trap sequel/remake with a Sam Riami/James Gunn sensibility and actually fun to play as you set off traps.

 

[BEAT]

OKAY BACK TO BUSINESS HERE WE GOOOOOOOO

UNTITLED BREATH OF THE WILD SEQUEL WILL BE SICK AS HELL. A lot of people will be mad that you don't play as Zelda, because spoiler alert, you won't play as Zelda. She'll probably be doing background not-captured stuff though, like Skyward Sword Zelda, so that's sort of nice. It won't hit QUITE as hard as the original, which is one of the greatest games ever made, but it'll be pretty rad.

SONIC FRONTIERS WILL BE... INTERESTING? I don't think it's QUITE accurate to call it "BOTW BUT SONIC" but I'm failing to come up with another description. I have no idea how the idea of Sonic but in a huge open world will play out, and I'm a little concerned that said huge open world doesn't look very SONICESQUE (Where's my fucking loops?!?!?) but it's about time Sonic got all weird again, so let's see how it goes.

THE SECOND SONIC MOVIE WILL BE A SECOND SONIC MOVIE. It won't be a GOOD movie, but it'll be a good TIME, and that's enough.

I WILL ACTUALLY GET A NEW SYSTEM THIS YEAR. I didn't last year, but THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT!!!

THE SWITCH WILL NOT SEE A HARDWARE REVISION. Nintendo gonna Nintendo, and in this case that means not even trying to keep up with the new (Technically 2 years old now) systems to focus on cutting out a little chunk for themselves in the bizzaro "Handheld but you can play it on a TV" space they've created. This will not stop the big studios from trying to cram their XBOX series X games into the switch with hilarious results.

SKIES OF ARCADIA HD!!! 2022 IS THE YEAR FOLKS!!!

SMASH ULTIMATE WILL NEVER UPDATE AGAIN. Peanut will win a major tournament with Little Mac, causing weirdos like me to ascend to godhood.

ACTIVISION BLIZZARD WILL NOT GO OUT OF BUSINESS. But they really fucking SHOULD. Overwatch 2 will not release. Bobby Kotic will not die on a pike in the lawn, or even get fired. He might "Resign" but that's not the same. Many promises will be made about "Better corporate culture." Two or Three of them will be kept.

AT LEAST ONE MAJOR COMPANY WILL TRY TO MAKE AN NFT GAME. It'll bomb really fucking badly but the douchefucks selling themselves their "Singular" items for $100,000 in Bitcoin, so they can SAY their thing is worth $100,000 when they sell it to some chump for a mere $10,000 is getting a good deal will all try it out. Also, yes. That's the entire story behind NFTs. Jackasses selling themselves their fucking Furry Templates, for Insane amounts so they can fleece speculators into paying them slightly less insane but still very insane amounts "at a discount" when it was never worth anything at all. That's the entire Scam. 97 Fucking Percent of NFT transactions are wash sales. HOW DO PEOPLE NOT KNOW THIS ALREADY GOD IT MAKES ME SO FUCKING MAD. Anyway the game will suck ass and nobody but the crypto cultists will play it, because the TOS will prevent the thing I just described from happening, resulting in nothing but a bad game that sucks.

VIDEO GAMES? VIDEO GAMES!!!

 

[Paul le Fou]

Elden Ring will be extremely good. Horizon Forbidden West will only be very good. ER and HFW in sequence will dominate probably the first half of my year in its entirety. God help me when BotW2 drops and is also very or extremely good, albeit not sublime like BotW. I will struggle to complete 10 games over the year because those three alone will probably claim at least 100 hours each. All three are nominated for Game of the Year pretty much everywhere that does GotY lists and awards; all three will win the top prize somewhere, but Elden Ring will walk away with the most; BotW2 will get the second-most but also the Game Awards goty; and HFW brings up third place or ties/falls just below Hollow Knight Silksong.

Fuck me I just remembered Splatoon 3 is releasing in 2022 too, supposedly. I probably won't be able to play more than... 5 or 6 games next year overall. Splatoon 3 will get nominated for a bunch of stuff but not win much except for side categories. Oh God, and Silksong. My backlog weeps.

Elden Ring will have DLC announced, and the first pack will arrive late in the year; if there is a second pack, we won't see that until early-mid 2023. Rumors of a new Fromsoft game will leak before the end of the year, but I'm putting 50/50 odds on it being announced before 2023.

Triangle Strategy will be somewhere between OK and pretty good, but will a few design issues that prevent it from becoming great and a small but not unremarkable collection of unforced errors w/r/t problematic or gross characterization/story beats.

PS5s will continue to be hard to come by until late summer or fall at the earliest, though I'll nab one sooner, getting rapidly more frantic and desperate as ER and HFW's release dates approach.

A new Picross game besides a theoretical S7—actually, pardon me for a second (checks news)—besides the just-announced S7 is released, one with a retro theme like the recent SEGA MS/Genesis picross, but it won't be a theme that anyone expects.

A new SaGa game will be announced; even odds on its releasing in 2022 or 2023. If it does come out, its immediate reception will be mixed, only slightly less so among SaGa series fans. (It will be widely beloved by all 3 years after its release, give or take.)

Diablo 4 will be released, and I give medium odds on Overwatch 2 dropping before year's end as well, though it will have a flashy cg trailer. However, one or both of them will have been clearly rushed out the door to try and distract from the company's current turmoil, conveniently timed for right after Bobby Kotick "voluntarily" retires with a huge golden parachute and no consequences of any sort while the company makes mealy-mouthed promises of cultural change (which don't even come close to actually happening). The unfinished state of the game(s) does not result in a significant dent in playerbase, just loud complaining that quickly becomes a meme despite everyone playing it anyway. Everyone will keep talking about how gross the company is but the actual dent in the playerbase because of this will not amount to a significant setback for A-B.

Ports/Remasters/Revivals released or announced:
Skies of Arcadia
Parappa the Rapper
Parasite Eve
Grandia
Not Vagrant Story

 

[Patrick]

All of mine have been posted. I'm looking forward to:

Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild 2 being a lot of fun.
Skies of Arcadia HD maybe coming out.
Elder Scrolls VI (though I don't have any way to play it)
Hollow Knight: Silksong if I ever finish the first one.

 

[Bongo]

Even though I've done well at this event in the past, I don't feel confident enough to predict anything for 2022, except that Skies of Arcadia HD will be released. The old normal is dying and the new normal is still coalescing. I'll take a year off.

 

[ShakeWell]

Game Boy finally comes to NESflix and you don't have to pay for the expansion pak thing to get it.

We get first details on Resident Evil 4 Remake, even though that game absolutely doesn't need to be remade.

The Resident Evil 8 DLC drops and it's good but not as good as the main game.

Analogue does pre-orders for their TurboGrafx thing. It's not as much of a boondoggle as the original pre-order window for the Pocket.

Based on the success of Contra and Castlevania, Konami gets M2 and Hamster to do a ridiculous Gradius Collection for modern systems.

I get through the year without buying a PS5 or XboxX.

We at least get a trailer for IO Interactive's James Bond thing and it looks like the best Bond game ever.

EDIT 1/15/22: Maybe this isn't fair, considering I'm using 2022 information to make this prediction, but we see either an official localization of Card Fighters Clash 2 on Neo-Geo Pocket Color for the Switch and/or a re-release of Capcom vs. SNK on modern platforms. A really hopeful me would predict a new Capcom vs. SNK, but... even I can't allow myself to believe such a thing will happen.

 

[WildcatJF]

• We will continue to hope for a Skies of Arcadia HD that will never happen. (75%)

SKIES OF ARCADIA HD!!! 2022 IS THE YEAR FOLKS!!!

Ports/Remasters/Revivals released or announced:
Skies of Arcadia

Skies of Arcadia HD maybe coming out.

Even though I've done well at this event in the past, I don't feel confident enough to predict anything for 2022, except that Skies of Arcadia HD will be released. The old normal is dying and the new normal is still coalescing. I'll take a year off.

My predictions video will be posted tomorrow so I'll share it then, but for now, count me on the Skies airship.

 

[Issun]

We get first details on Resident Evil 4 Remake, even though that game absolutely doesn't need to be remade.

Agreed. They should be remaking Code: Veronica instead.

 

[WildcatJF]

Here's my predictions:

 

[Sprite]

- Pokemon Arceus will consistently get compared to Breath of the Wild by reviewers, even if it's clearly trying to do it's own thing.

- There will be a huge fan backlash to Pokemon Legends: Arceus when it’s nothing like BOTW and when it has the same shaky code as every other Game Freak Pokémon game. The game itself will be a delightful mixture of Monster Hunter and Let’s Go! Pikachu/Eevee.

- Disney will try its hand at in-house development yet again before killing the studio five years later when it’s profitable, but not profitable enough. I will live in fear of them purchasing a major studio and adding its distinctiveness to their own.

- Sonic Frontiers will be bad but I’ll love it anyway.

 

[Kiyone]

Nobody hates Pokemon more than Pokemon fans.

 

[That Old Chestnut]

Despite increasing rumors of Konami re-entering game development in major way, there is no high budget remaster or new entry in the Castlevania, Metal Gear or Silent Hill franchise in 2022. Prove me wrong Konami, prove me wrong. There will be a new M2 remaster of some old Castlevania games in the fall. Probably DS games, but I would love to see the 3D Castlevania games get an M2 port. The surprise inclusion from either collection will be Castlevania Chronicles.

And SOTN still won't get a Switch or PC release, despite it being RIGHT THERE.

 

[ShakeWell]

Agreed. They should be remaking Code: Veronica instead.

True and accurate.

 

[Mogri]

I finally got around to predicting. If you've been putting it off, consider this your reminder.

 

[Sarge]

I honestly am terrible with this stuff. Let's go for it, though.

- Switch 2 gets announced finally.
- Mother 3 actually releases in some form.
- Skies of Arcadia really does get a remaster (but not remake), and joining it will be Panzer Dragoon Saga (but straight emulated)
- Steam Deck ends up awesome (at least for me)
- Analogue ships me the Pocket before Q4 2022, somehow
- Breath of the Wild 2 doesn't make it this year
- Metroid Prime 4 doesn't either, and gets pushed to the Switch 2
- Nintendo 64 Mini doesn't happen, I feel like that opportunity is gone with NSO, but maybe they'll improve things on that front

 

[Becksworth]

Mild

Steamdeck will see further delays. If not the initial batch then subsequent ones. It will impact me at least.

Every publisher who committed themselves to utilizing NFTs will be all "What is this NFT you speak of?" by years end.

I'll eventually procure a PS5.

Spicy

Hollow Knight Silksong will release this year. It's been largely done for a while, but Nintendo gave them the courtesy of knowing releasing in holiday 2021 might get them overshadowed.

Breath of the Wild 2 will finally release... in 2023.

In the USA, some once loved developer will be discovered donating to a Q-nutter's mid term election campaign.

Ghost Pepper

Chinese retro handheld makers will achieve some singularity state of rapid releases where the last ones of the year manage to outperform the PS5 and Series X at a competitive prices. They will have only 1 hour battery life at best unfortunately.

In order:

Technically, yes (Valve would refute, but the way they launched it there was effectively a one month delay)

Mostly, there are a few hold outs still trying to make fetch happen.

No, actually.

No

Yes

Does Tommy Tallarico count for this? I don't think he actually donated or anything, just general idiocy.

Not quite there yet, but closing in on it.

 

[Mogri]

The Metaverse continues to offer nothing of value: 100% correct

NFTs invade conventional games from at least one major publisher and continue to offer negative value: Not to my knowledge

New stupid Pokemon spinoff in lieu of gen 9: Happy to be wrong here

A new FF15 trailer causes me to grudgingly admit that it actually does look kinda fun and good: I meant FF16. That said... eh, I'm not sold yet.

My GOTY is from a developer that, as of January, I've never heard of: I'm not sure what my GOTY is (Slice & Dice, perhaps?), but all of my candidates qualify here.

Credible rumors of a Switch successor are denied by Nintendo: I'm not sure any of the rumors were that credible, but Nintendo has categorically denied them.

Legacy collections, remakes, and remasters continue to be the premiere offerings from Konami and Capcom: I believe this is correct, though I confess I haven't really paid attention.