2022 was arguably one of the best years for action fans in a while, as we were given a wide range of quality titles to grapple with. These include the polished story-driven adventures God of War Ragnarok and A Plague Tale: Requiem, the hardcore combofest Bayonetta 3, boundary-pushing open-world adventure Horizon Zero Dawn, and more. As we prepare to truly launch into the new generation over the next couple years, these games did a great job of setting the stage. Limber up and get ready to battle through Wccftech’s Best Action Games of 2022!
Note: For the purposes of Wccftech’s Best Of lists, any game that requires combat in order to progress is filed under action. There are three exceptions -- games that put a particularly heavy emphasis on roleplaying (beyond the standard action-adventure skill trees) will be reserved for our Best RPGs of 2022 list, games that aim to scare you are saved for Best Horror Games of 2022, and games that require more serious shooting skills are reserved for, you guessed it, Best Shooters of 2022. So, if you feel there’s something missing here, there’s a good chance it’s simply on another one of our lists.
Also in Wccftech's Best Games of 2022 lists: Shooters, Fighting, Platformer, Adventure, and Indie
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (8)
Kid-focused games often get overlooked when it comes to putting together year-end lists, but Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga packs in so much content it’s impossible to ignore. Fans certainly took notice, as the game sat near the top of the sales charts for the majority of this year. While I found the game’s retelling of the nine-movie Star Wars saga a bit abbreviated at times, I had a lot of fun messing around in its sandbox stages and strongly recommended the games for families…
“Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga sets its sights sky-high and largely does justice to that galaxy far, far away. Its truncated treatment of the movies occasionally disappoints, but charming, content-packed sandbox stages mostly make up for any story mission shortcomings. This blocky take on George Lucas’ family drama is worth enjoying with yours.”
Horizon Forbidden West (9)
Horizon Zero Dawn was one of the best, most-polished open-world adventures of its generation, and with Horizon Forbidden West developer Guerrilla Games pushed nearly everything to another level. Better graphics, a bigger world, and more complex combat fully drew players into Aloy’s unique world again. Wccftech’s Alessio Palumbo found Horizon Forbidden West to be a worthy sequel in his review…
“Horizon Forbidden West is a worthy sequel to Zero Dawn in every way, proving that Guerrilla is no one-hit wonder when it comes to the action-RPG genre. This huge, beautiful world has an incredible amount of things to do and most of them are really fun, thanks to improvements to combat and traversal. The game also features another great storyline that will get fans talking about the inevitable sequel.”
A Plague Tale: Requiem (9)
The Plague Tale franchise can be a bit hard to pin down – Is it action? Adventure? Horror? – but for our purposes, we’re going to file Asobo Studio’s latest under action. A Plague Tale: Requiem manages to recapture the tense gameplay and gripping family drama that made its predecessor so memorable, while bumping the presentation from AA to something decidedly AAA. Wccftech’s Chris Wray declared this sequel a no-brainer for anyone who enjoyed the first game in the series…
“A Plague Tale: Requiem is a faithful follow-up to the first outing, managing to expand in every way while staying true to what made the first great. With solid gameplay, a fantastic story that's very well acted and presented, and set pieces that could challenge even the biggest game in the industry, if you like the first outing from Asobo Studio, you will love this.”
Bayonetta 3 (9)
Bayonetta 3 was a very long time coming, with fans left hanging nearly five years from announcement to release, but the end result was definitely worth the wait. While a voice-acting controversy and some complaints about the game’s story threatened to derail the conversation surrounding Bayonetta 3, the fact is this is the biggest, most boisterous, and just plain fun entry in the series. Here are my final thoughts from my full review…
“Bayonetta 3 is the series’ best entry yet, offering an engaging universe-hopping story, bombastic cinematic moments, and refined action that’s both accessible and deeper than ever before. The game can feel slightly hemmed in on the Switch, but Platinum pummels every bit of possible performance out of the hardware. Whether you and Bayonetta have history or not, this is an engagement not to be missed.”
God of War Ragnarok (10)
For many, 2018’s God of War is the defining example of the PlayStation story-driven blockbuster, so there were a lot of expectations attached to God of War Ragnarok. Thankfully, the game more than delivered. Every bit as polished and engaging as its predecessor, Ragnarok is also essentially two games in one, packing in a huge amount of content and drama as Santa Monica Studio decided to finish up Kratos’ Norse adventures in two games instead of three. Wccftech’s Agnese Carluccio awarded the game a rare 10 out of 10 in her full review…
“God of War Ragnarok is exactly what we hoped for, and even more. It offers a masterfully told story using a more mature approach, seasoned with a unique setting, a rich characterization of the characters, and challenges that can keep even hardcore gamers busy at the highest difficulties. In other words, it is a title that is simply just too good to be missed.”
Honorable Mentions
As always, defining the limits of the action genre is a challenge, and some games you might have been hoping for will show up on other lists – TMNT Shredder’s Revenge and Sifu were included on our Best Fighters list and you can expect The Last of Us Part I and Dying Light 2 amongst the horror games. Also, do check out our indie list for action-ey gems like Tunic and Neon White. Beyond that, there were a number of solidly-entertaining games that didn’t quite make this list like Ghostwire Tokyo, Gotham Knights, Grounded, and Soulstice.
So yeah, 2022 was a pretty kickass year for kicking ass. Any good action games I missed? Don’t agree with Wccftech’s top five? Hit the comments and hash out your own action favorites.
