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.
Elden Ring was indeed Extremely Good. Elden Ring alone dominated my gaming through June, so yes, the whole first half of the year. Due to playing so much Elden Ring (far more than I predicted) + life circumstances, I
haven't played HFW yet. BotW2 was delayed and Silksong didn't come out. Elden Ring won GotY at the Geoff awards and elsewhere, and will continue to win many other awards, I'm positive. HFW like its predecessor was overshadowed. I forgot about Dad of Boy Ragnarok, which is ER's real competition this year.
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.
I have indeed
played quite a bit of Splatoon 3, though it won some awards too (why was I predicting so many awards?) I did fit some other games into the latter half of the year, but not too many.
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.
No Elden Ring DLC packs announced at all, but Miyazaki has said they're not done with the game, so I maintain hope. (the PVP colosseum update doesn't count - or does it?)
Armored Core VI was rumored starting in January and finally announced in December, so, spot-on!
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.
TS came out to better-than-expected reviews! I'm playing it now and enjoying it, and haven't run into any particularly problematic story beats yet either.
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.
I was indeed ever more frantic and desperate, and started playing Elden Ring on PS4 before I was eventually able to grab a PS5, which are indeed slightly easier to get now.
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.
Picross S8 was released, but I don't recall hearing of another official themed one, sadly.
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.)
No new SaGa sadly, but we did get one new remaster announced and released.
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.
Had it backwards -
Overwatch 2 dropped but Diablo 4 is drawing near. I don't know how rushed Overwatch 2 was or wasn't, but Kotick is still around and the company is still gross and people are still playing their stuff so far as I can tell.
Ports/Remasters/Revivals released or announced:
Skies of Arcadia
Parappa the Rapper
Parasite Eve
Grandia
Not Vagrant Story
I know this was all wishful thinking and not serious guesses, so no surprise on 0/4 except for my predictably accurate guess of no VS remaster.
!!!!!
