Here it is: our choice for the overall Game of the Year 2022. Elden Ring was a clear winner within the team, a game that we collectively put thousands of hours into. Want to see what else won awards this year? Go to our GOTY2022 (opens in new tab) center.
Wes Fenlon, editor-in-chief: Has a whip ever awakened anything in you? Take that question as you will – for me, whips were the catalyst to fully appreciate how much FromSoftware has improved the flexibility of its combat over the past decade. Compared to the Souls games which have pretty clear picks for the best weapons, Elden Ring lets you stick practically any skill and affinity onto any weapon and double wield for new moves. After playing with some curved swords for about 60 hours, I threw away my muscle memory to become a whip man, and it was a thrill. Instead of getting close for quick combos, I stayed behind to poke at enemies or attack me with a double hit.
The scale of Elden Ring’s open world exhausted me, but the depth of that arsenal keeps me coming back for years to come. I mean, have you seen that twinblade with a scythe on it? I’m never going back to the monogamous sword life.
Sean Martin, guidebook author: Weird builds are definitely one of the best things to come out of Elden Ring. Once you’ve honked an invader to death with a giant horn, electrified yourself to roll around like Sonic, or fired an endless stream of madness-inducing fire from your eyes, it’s hard to see Souls’ staple sword and shield the same way.
Fraser Brown, Online Editor: The launch of Elden Ring and the months that followed were the best part of my 2022. Easy. It wasn’t just because of the game itself, but also because of the event it was centered around: the Elden Ring era. Most of PC Gamer seemed to play it, it was all over my social feeds and my days were spent endlessly discussing it, or looking for ideas for new builds or funky exploits. It was this beautiful oasis of pointless nonsense, which provided a welcome respite from the apocalyptic state of the real world.
This is not to say that Elden Ring is not an exceptional game in itself. Otherwise it would not have dominated the first half of the year so much. FromSoftware’s stuff always works for me, but I’m also impatient and easily frustrated by even the tiniest bit of adversity, so I’m often on the verge of packing everything up. Elden Ring’s free-roaming open world and concessions to accessibility neatly solve that problem. It’s still tricky, but there’s so much more you can do if you get stuck here. And that’s why I put 150 hours into it in just a few weeks.
Lauren Morton, editor-in-chief: Elden Ring felt like a months-long moment inside and outside the PC Gamer team. Every morning I got to ask fellow PCG writer Jorge Jimenez about the daily Jorge Report – in which he told me which big or small boss he killed the night before. And at night I played co-op with one of at least three different friends. Every night I asked things like “Have you found the Prattling Pate for ‘You’re Beautiful’ yet?” which is an incomprehensible phrase to anyone who hasn’t played, but a happy little sidequest for me and a friend.
Aside from my love of a good co-op romp, my favorite part of Elden Ring is how it’s open world should not have worked. Leading up to launch day, there was widespread speculation that the classic Souls formula of tight turns and stealth attacks just wouldn’t translate to an open world. Not only were there plenty of old dungeons and interior spaces to maintain FromSoftware’s signature clean design, but even open-world encounters really kept me on my toes with my Tarnished head on a dial.
Ted Litchfield, editor in chief: In the months since beating Elden Ring, I went back and replayed nearly every entry from the Souls series, sans Demon’s Souls, which I had just played last Halloween and Sekiro. I feel safe to say that Elden Ring is my favorite, the epitome of that magic I felt when I first played Dark Souls back in 2014. I need the expansion pack yesterday.
Robin Valentine, Press Editor: I really struggled to get invested in any of the Souls games, but Elden Ring captivated me right from the jump. The more accessible story and open structure make it so much easier to love than its predecessors.
Sarah James, guide writer: Elden Ring has pretty much taken over all of 2022 for me, so much so that I’m currently in the middle of my third full playthrough. I don’t think there is anything not love the Lands Between. I mean, the first handful of hours can be quite daunting – the amount of choice you have is almost paralyzing, especially if you’re not sure if you just died horribly because it’s a hard boss who’ll take a few tries or if you’re It’s way too low a level for a company to try. Fortunately, you get over that pretty quickly, because you realize it doesn’t matter, because you’ll always find things you’re looking for can kill.
I expected Elden Ring to be good, but didn’t think I’d end up playing it as much as I did. It’s not my first FromSoft game either, but I think I’d forgotten how captivating I find the specific kind of storytelling. Even after completing Elden Ring, I couldn’t resist revisiting areas to look for clues I might have missed the first time around. Now it’s just a matter of impatiently waiting for the first story DLC.
Tyler Colp, editor-in-chief: I love Elden Ring even more than I did it reviewed. After another playthrough, dozens of videos and discussions about it, and some distance, I’ve realized just how effective FromSoftware’s triumph in the open world really was for me this year. A few months ago I got back into Limgrave with the co-op mod and heard the swell of the score as I looked out over the landscape, and that’s when I knew this game wasn’t going to leave me. I’m already homesick for it, and at that moment all the feelings I had when I first played it came back.
As a long time Dark Souls evangelist, I’m especially happy to see FromSoftware impressing so many more people with its weird and huge imagination. Elden Ring is brimming with creativity. It’s rare to be so impressed with a game like this, especially when many of them are sequels to existing franchises. Elden Ring synthesizes the open-world framework with Western fantasy in a way that’s instantly familiar and inviting, then spends most of the length twisting your expectations. That’s what I love about FromSoftware’s work, but on a scale that remains unfathomable to me even after playing it for hundreds of hours. If I think about it too long, I want to recharge it and be back in it. This year had many excellent games, but Elden Ring stole the show.