10 top Windows PC Games starting in 2022

It’s been a roller-coaster year for video game releases. 2022 felt like a rocket launch at the beginning of the year with games such as Elden Ring Horizon Forbidden West. Then, suddenly, the release schedule fell from grace until the fall months. But on the whole, it’s been a solid year across the board for AAA blockbusters, little-known indies that exploded in popularity, and deeply imaginative narrative games.

If you recently built a new desktop PC, were gifted a gaming laptop, or have some Steam gift cards burning a hole in your pocket, we’ve got a helpful list. There are many options. Many great games you can spend your time with, here are 10 absolute bangers across a variety of genres and price points you won’t want to pass up.

The simple $5 indie won the hearts and minds many. Verge Staffers this year, but since version 1.0 was released in 2022, it seems that more and more people are getting Vampire-pilled. Vampire Survivors This survival game hides a lot of depth underneath its surface. The only input required to play this game is the analog stick. Use it to move around the screen and avoid ever increasing waves of enemies. Your weapons will auto-fire at predetermined intervals. It may sound simplistic, but it’s just so damn fun. Even though there isn’t a vampire to be found within the story, the characters and settings of this book are so cool that you might find yourself creating your own stories.

As we discussed in an interview The Verge, the game’s creator initially worked on software development for casino games, and Vampire Survivors It does this with every single gratifying gemstone and coin pick sound. It’s a thrilling game with a great soundtrack and a fast-paced gameplay loop. If the game really clicks with you, I’d wager you may easily sink 50-plus hours into it, just as I have. And at just $4.99 for the base game on Steam and $1.99 for its recent DLC expansion, it’s an absolute steal.

FromSoftware’s dark fantasy epic RPG may be an obvious recommendation since this Game of the Year winner mostly needs no introduction, but this opus deserves all its praise and commendations. Elden Ring It is an excellent RPG. The world of the Lands Between is rich and full of interesting characters, mysterious legends, and beautiful graphics. It’s an exceptional use of the open-world mechanic since the game doesn’t just become a monotonous checklist of quests but instead allows you the freedom to bite off however much you want to chew.

It’s openness and flexibility allow you to make the most of it. Elden Ring a great introduction to the “Soulsborne” subgenre. It is not easy, and it can be hard at times. But, as someone who quickly bounced back, it was a great introduction to the “Soulsborne” subgenre. Dark Souls SoulsThis game is unlike any other. When an enemy or area becomes too punishing, just race your horse off somewhere else, where you might find yourself questing and leveling for a bunch of hours until you’re ready to go back and try again. Elden Ring It makes it seem like a lot of work and everything feels rewarding.

Talk about Souls-like games, Tunic It is an isometric action RPG which combines a lot of Dark Souls Some heavy Legend of Zelda It’s a unique combination of good vibes and something else. In this game, you play a cute fox dressed in a green tunic. You will be using a sword to battle enemies in a mysterious place. It’s got lushly colored landscapes with dramatic lighting and deeply dark dungeons to crawl through, but its true beauty lies in its sense of mystery.

While Tunic is an homage to one of gaming’s most classic franchises, it also pays a loving respect to a meta aspect of gaming itself: old-fashioned instruction books and strategy guides. The game doesn’t tell you much of what’s going on with the story or where you’re supposed to go, and much of the in-game text is in a cipher-like language, but things are slowly revealed as you find pieces of an in-game guide. The guide’s artwork is endearing and may really tickle the nostalgia bone for anyone who grew up reading printed guides or issues of Nintendo Power. It’s an engaging way to discover a world and unlock a story, and it makes Tunic It is an extremely charming game.

Crank. Up. The. F*[email protected]. Volume. Metal: Hellsinger This is an amazing first-person shooter that revolves around fast, fun gunplay to heavy metal music. This may sound a little like Doom (2016). Doom’s adrenaline-fueled push-forward feel, Metal: Hellsinger It’s also a rhythm game. Your guns are used to slash your swords to the beat of the music. You can also shoot them to make the music more real. Each encounter with demons and ghouls in its small arenas is a battle with metal music on your side, crescendoing with the vocals track kicking in — which really gets the endorphins flowing, especially if you’re blasting it on your speakers or headphones.

The story is campy, but there’s a charm to its simplicity. It oozes with the try-hard gothic stylings of a metal band T-shirt, but it’s hard not to love how much fun it has with it. Just hearing the narrator set the stage with “South of Heaven… way, way south” made the hairs on my neck stand up and put a smile on my face. Tap your foot to the beat of your shotgun and you may feel almost compelled by the sound to shout at your monitor.

If ‘90s nostalgia is your bag, Return to Monkey Island It is a wonderful revival of the old point-and click adventure. This quirky game’s charming cartoon-like visuals give it a modern feel. But it’s also very accessible. You can also seasoned it. Monkey Island It is enjoyed by fans, as well as first-timers unfamiliar with the franchise and the genre. 

While the fun story can be enjoyed as a standalone adventure, it is also very enjoyable. Return to Monkey Island also has an in-game hint book to help you if you’re ever stuck on some of its puzzles. The hint book doesn’t just contain generic tips but, rather, specific clues to guide you on the exact puzzle you’re working on — and it does it without giving up the goose and sucking all the fun out of it.

As a group of friends can make a horror movie the best, so is playing a teen slasher or choose your adventure thriller with them. Supermassive Games’ The Quarry This is a suspenseful narrative adventure that puts you in the role of a group of teenager counselors at a summer camp where mysterious, blood-soaked disappearances and murders are taking place.

Like other Supermassive games like Up to Dawn The Dark Pictures Anthology The story is based on your dialogue choices and how quickly you accomplish or fail to complete the events. You have the power to make your own choices, and what you do can often have an impact on who lives or dies. Many decisions have to be made in a short time frame, which can lead you to difficult options. This is why having a friend or small group of friends to help you along can be very helpful. The Quarry This is a truly amazing experience. The game has built-in co-op functions to allow players to play specific characters, but it’s fun even if one person is at the helm of the controls and all the others are weighing in on decisions. This game could become an annual ritual for the spooky season.

2022 was a fantastic year for narrative games. Citizen Sleeper. If you have a love for tabletop gaming, sci-fi stories, and the existential dread of living as a person’s synthetic copy sold into corporate servitude in a late-stage capitalist dystopia — well, here’s your game. Every day starts with one goal: to survive. Your manufactured body, as a Sleeper is in danger of falling apart due to your escape from the controlling overlords. You must do everything you can to make money, get more stabilizer (the precious resource you need to keep you going), and build what community you can on The Eye’s decrepit space station.

Citizen Sleeper is heavy on text and dialogue, but it’s an immersive experience with slick art, presentation, and beautiful (if slightly haunting at times) music. It’s not a particularly long game, but even in a sub-10-hour playthrough, it feels richly dense. You can even run through multiple times to get different endings — some of which, you guessed it, are filled with melancholy. But it’s a beautiful journey that asks you, much like Apple TV Plus’ Severance, to ponder what it means to have a sense of self as someone’s manufactured copy.

Norco This is another great narrative point-and click indie game. It takes players on a trip to a futuristic, oil-rich suburb of southern Louisiana. It starts with a somewhat simple premise for a mystery: you must return home to find your missing brother in the wake of your mother’s death. The story unfolds in a surreal and moving take on memory and religion as well as a revisit to your childhood town.

The game’s oil painting-like pixel art and lo-fi electronic soundtrack ooze style and lend an unforgettable lens through which to view this crumbling American suburban landscape. It’s such a pretty work of art that it may be just as engaging for the person watching as it is for the person doing the pointing and clicking. Be aware: Norco’s relatable themes and hopeful spirit may leave both player and onlooker holding back some tears.

You have probably ever seen a streaming of You can play games quickly You were intrigued by speedrunners’ breakneck paces and perfectly timed inputs, then you should consider giving it a try. Neon White Give it a shot. This speed-based first-person shooter / platformer is set in the afterlife, where you play a demon hunter called a neon (you’re the titular Neon White) vying for a chance to make it into heaven. It’s a quirky story that feels more than a bit anime-inspired, complete with recognizable voice actors like Cowboy Bebop’s Steve Blum. The real joy is in the fast-paced action, even though conversations between characters are sometimes tedious.

Neon White’s Platforming and combat are all about speed, repetition and optimizing. You start out running through the short arenas in an awkward, uncertain fashion — wondering how the hell you’re supposed to match the listed goal times. You will learn how to run faster using the secondary fire of card-based weapons. This will allow you to have a wider range of movement options. 

You will feel like a speedrunner as you go through the process of optimizing your run to reduce the time it takes to reach the next rank. It’s a rewarding game if you are competitive. You get a global leaderboard and a personal leaderboard for all your Steam friends who play the game. Even if you don’t light up the leaderboards with record scores, you may at least come out of Neon White With a greater appreciation for and connection to the next AGDQ Event.

A free-to-play mobile game? What about on a PC? Okay, let’s just listen. Marvel Snap This is more than a time-waster for you phone. It’s an exceptionally good one-on-one card battle game, and playing it on your PC monitor really does put the fantastic comic book artwork on the full display it deserves. You can power up your cards to make them animated or 3D. This makes the cards come alive in a larger size. The in-game effects like Carnage eating its fellow cards, or Hulk sending rippling shaking across the digital table, are much more effective with more real estate.

Plus, with the game’s portrait orientation and average match time of only six minutes, you can play quick matches side by side on the same screen with your work. I’m totally Not You can do this now even though you are running behind on the filing of this article. It’s impossible.

While Marvel Snap has microtransactions that allow you to pay to accelerate your progress and get the newest cards earlier, I can personally attest that you don’t have to put a dime into it to have a whole lot of fun. Perhaps you won’t feel obligated to reach max level for every season, but if you’re a Marvel comics fan or love card games like The Gathering: Magic and Magic, Hearthstone, or the glut in card-based videogames of recent years. Slay the Spire Inscryption, I bet you’re gonna have a ton of fun with Snap. Please, Second Dinner, send us the PvP update to allow us to play against our friends.