2022 To The Moon
Good morning gamers. It’s here, welcome to 2022!
We hope everyone was able to get some rest and spend time with their families during the holidays season. For the first edition of 2022, let’s take a look at everything that happened over the last two weeks.
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2022 - Game Releases
Modern video games have developed into an experience that no other media form can replicate. There’s a level of encapsulation that allows players to enter a fantasy world and be part of it like its real life. 2022 is another major year for the video game industry and with it comes a plethora of exciting and revolutionary games. Here’s everything we have to look forward to (release dates are subject to change).
Q1 2022 (January, February, March)
Rainbow Six Extraction - January 20
Pokémon Legends Arceus - January 28
Dying Light 2: Stay Human - February 4
Total War: WARHAMMER 3 - February 17
Horizon Forbidden West - February 18
Elden Ring - February 25
Gran Turismo 7 - March 4
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin - March 18
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands - March 25
Q2 2022 (April, May, June)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl - April 28
Forspoken - Spring
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga - Spring
Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Spring
Ghostwire: Tokyo - Spring
Q3 2022 (July, August, September)
Saints Row - August 23
Redfall - Summer
Q4 2022 (October, November, December)
Starfield - November 11
TBD 2022
Steam - Best of 2021
During the final week of 2021, Steam published several lists of their top sellers, best new releases, most played games and more. The data they analyzed was from January 1st, 2021 to December 15th, 2021 - let’s take a look at what they uncovered.
Top Sellers (Measured by Gross Revenue)
New World
Grand Theft Auto V
Destiny 2
Valheim
Battlefield 2042
Dead By Daylight
Top New Releases (Measured by Gross Revenue)
Forza Horizon 5
Farming Simulator 22
Narake: Bladepoint
Back 4 Blood
New World
Resident Evil: Village
Most Played Games (Highest Peak Concurrent Players)
Apex Legends
Dota 2
Valheim
Rust
Cyberpunk 2077
Grand Theft Auto V
Best of Virtual Reality (Measured by Gross Revenue)
Boneworks
Into the Radius
Arizona Sunshine
Beat Saber
Controller Friendly (Daily Active Controller Players)
FIFA 21
FIFA 22
Cyberpunk 2077
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
Apex Legends
Halo Infinite
Esports Corner
Despite the ongoing pandemic, the esports scene showed drive and resilience throughout 2021. It was a very successful year across the industry so we’ve decided to honor it by recapping some of the year's biggest moments.
Most Watched Esports Tournaments
Many major esport events were able to return to a LAN setting, and others were not. Despite the lack of fans in some spaces, tournament organizers were always able to establish a pleasurable viewing experience through various online live streaming services. Esports Charts released the final 2021 statistics so here are some of the highest viewed events of the year,
League of Legends World Championships: 174.82m viewers (134 hours total airtime)
DOTA 2 The International 10: 107.23m viewers (125 hours total airtime)
Mobile Legends MPL ID Season 8: 76.94m viewers (172 hours total airtime)
CS:GO PGL Major Stockholm: 71.26m viewers (120 hours total airtime)
Valorant Champions: 46.04m viewers (98 hours total airtime)
*Free Fire World Series Singapore had the highest peak viewership at 5.41m
Most Valuable Esport Deals
Esports is becoming much more mainstream and with it is a slew of industry partners just salivating to get their foot in the door. Here’s a recap from some of 2021s most memorable esports sponsorship deals.
TSM’s $210m partnership with crypto exchange FTX which includes a 10-year naming rights deal.
The renewal of Intel and ESL Gamings ongoing 20-year partnership where a combined $100 million was committed towards esports until 2025.
FaZe Clan partnering with DC comics in an effort to attract different audiences to each brand. The partnership saw limited edition merchandise and various FaZe members enter the DC Universe comics.
Rocket League partnered with multiple automobile companies such as Lamborghini, BMW, Ford, McLaren and then even ventured off into events with Formula 1 and NASCAR.
Most Shocking Esports Roster Changes
Rostermania is some of the most exciting weeks for esport fans but every year there's a few changes that excite, sadden or even shock the industry. Here are some of 2021s roster moves that we’ll never forget.
Dev1ce leaving his long-time stint at TSM and joining Ninjas in Pyjamas (CS:GO).
Jerax coming out of retirement to compete with evil Geniuses (DOTA 2).
Rekkles leaving G2 Esports to join LFL team K-Corp (League of Legends).
Cloud9 loaning TenZ to Sentinels when Sinatraa got suspended (VALORANT).
Gaming Roundup
The NFL announced that John Madden, the legendary sports broadcaster and name behind the NFL video game franchise passed away at 85. The first John Madden Football game was released on June 1, 1988.
Riot Games settled a 2018 California gender discrimination suit for $100 million. According to the Washington Post, $80 million will go to women employees and contractors who worked at Riot Games from 2014 onwards.
Remedy Entertainment announced that they signed a global development, license and distribution agreement with Tencent for a co-op multiplayer game codenamed Vanguard. They are currently working on four different projects: Smilegate (CrossfireX), Epic Games (Alan Wake 2), 505 Games (Control 2) and Tencent (Vanguard).
According to Tom Henderson, Star Wars: Eclipse is reportedly having development issues and can be delayed until 2026-2027. Eclipse is set to be a multi-planet open world game with multiplayer components.
PlayStation’s database has God of War Ragnarok’s release date listed as September 30th, 2022. Despite the lack of confirmation from PlayStation, the release date makes sense as Horizon Forbidden West launches in February.
Square Enix announced that the development of Final Fantasy XVI has been delayed by “a half year”. FF16 producer Naoki Yoshida took to Twitter to apologize to fans stating that the ongoing pandemic and working from home are the root causes of the delay.
According to the Verge, CD Projekt will pay $1,850,000 USD to settle a class action lawsuit against them for the failed launch of Cyberpunk 2077. Since the launch of the game, their stock price has fallen 54%.
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