Game News The 10 Xbox Game Pass games of 2022 you may have missed
The Game Pass catalog is made up of both big blockbusters and games produced by independent studios. For this end of the year 2022, we come back to the good, slightly unknown games that have arrived in Microsoft’s service over the past 12 months. At your controls!
The best Game Pass games have already been covered
As Dusk Falls
Unveiled for the very first time at Xbox Games Showcase 2020, As Dusk Falls is a narrative experience drawing on different themes (family, forgiveness, loyalty) to deliver a touching story. With an original artistic direction, with 2D characters integrated into 3D environments, it is recognizable at first glance. Its restrictive gameplay removing all direct control of the character from the player will not reconcile those allergic to interactive films with the genre, but it allows the creation of INTERIOR/NIGHT to focus on the essentials. Thanks to its choices that very often lead to real consequences, As Dusk Falls does better than many other titles in its category.
Citizen Sleeper
Widely ignored despite its great qualities, Citizen Sleeper is a narrative RPG set in a run-down space station. In the skin of aSleeper”, a digitized human spirit in an avatar, you must flee from a corporation that wants to take you back. To do this, you will have to work on construction sites, serve in bars or hunt around the markets to hope to survive until the next cycle. Inspired by paper role-playing games, Citizen Sleeper gives pride of place to dice, dials and choices as well as long discussions with the protagonists present. Be careful though: the game, chatty, is entirely in English.
Gorogoa
Behind this strange title hides an original, poetic and well-constructed puzzle game. Gorogoa, published by Annapurna Interactive, indeed offers an experience that surprises every moment. The principle is simple: the user must explore images and solve various puzzles with various cogs. Playing on shapes, cutouts, planes as well as colors, the title imagined by Jason Roberts stirs up our gray matter in a pretty way. Very short, this splendid puzzle game definitely deserves you to give it a few hours of your life.
Nobody Saves The World
Known for having produced the two episodes of Guacamelee, DrinkBox Studios abandons the Metroidvania to try the adventure of the action-RPG/dungeon crawler sprinkled with rogue-lite. With Nobody Saves The World, the stated ambition is to make a complex transformation system (eighteen shapes in total) cohabit with a vast open world. including various dungeons and characters. Each transformation has its strengths and weaknesses, as well as its own quests. From the rat to the turtle, passing through the bodybuilder, the player will have to tame a whole host of abilities and adapt to the challenges that stand in his way. Playable in cooperation, Nobody Saves The World is a title to try absolutely.
Penance
As soon as it was announced at Xbox Games Showcase 2022, Pentiment generated a lot of interest. What could be more normal, the title is designed by Josh Sawyer, one of the dads of Fallout New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity. In the Benedictine abbey of Keirsau, in 1518, Andreas Maler is an artist who sets out to carry out his life’s work in the monastery’s scriptorium before plunging into an epic full of mysteries. Trying to solve a series of murders that span several years, the hero will have to solve puzzles, discuss, and above all make choices that will have an impact on progress. Qualified as a historical role-playing game thanks to an impressive documentation of the time, Pentiment is an exciting title but talkative. It is clearly not addressed to everyone despite its enormous qualities.
Scorn
What could be better than a ladle of cryptic horror to accompany this end-of-year turkey? Combining exploration and puzzles with a dash of action, Scorn is quite a contemplative first-person game, though what there is to see is repulsive. Lost in a hostile universe made of unattractive structures, the player must solve various puzzles in a visual delirium reminiscent of the work of HR Giger. Flesh and metal serve as foundations for a narrative that relies exclusively on the environment. Immersive in its sound design and disturbing in more ways than one, Scorn has the luxury of being magnificent. Ebb Software has created a particularly impactful experience with an unhealthy atmosphere.
Signalis
Achtung, alarm! Developed by the German studio rose-engine, Signalis is a survival-horror designed for fans of the first Resident Evil. Taking place in a dystopian future, this old-school title asks you to travel through disturbing places in the suit of Elster, a Replika technician. The heroine wakes up from cryostasis on an icy planet. Signalis aims for old-fashioned sensations, which means that the player must go through structures with lots of rooms to visit, find keys to open doors, solve puzzles and above all make many round trips because of the very limited inventory. Ammunition and care kits, few in number, force to manage resources efficiently. An excellent surprise that deserves you to give it a chance.
Somerville
Announced at the Xbox Showcase of 2021, Somerville had marked the public thanks to a careful artistic direction and a staging that seemed sought after. Imagined by Dino Patti, one of the former bosses of Playdead (Limbo, Inside), Somerville is a narrative adventure set in the midst of an alien invasion. The player must find his family members and find a way to survive this hell. Written and directed by Chris Olsen, the app mixes adventure and puzzle. Somerville has its flaws, like finicky handling and basic puzzles, but the experience is still worth having if you like epics that border on the real.
The Pedestrian
Released in 2020 but arrived in the Game Pass library in 2022, The Pedestrian does not lack originality since we embody a small traffic sign character who moves from poster to poster. To progress, you have to arrange the different panels, create the links and solve the puzzles. Accessible and ingenious, The Pedestrian offers many challenges in order to create knots in your brain. Thanks to its successful graphics and its tables which are constantly renewed, The Pedestrian is a puzzle-game sprinkled with devilishly successful platformer.
vampire survivors
At first glance, Vampire Survivors may seem like a bad joke. With its graphics worthy of an NES and the summarily animated 2D sprites, it does not flatter the retina. But the interest of the title is elsewhere. On the gameplay side, it’s hard to make it simpler: the player only directs his protagonist with the left stick, the attacks being automatic. He must destroy enemies that earn him experience points, XP that unlocks new weapons or increases the power of acquired skills. This principle, both simple and addictive, is enough to captivate for hours.. Thanks to the feeling of perpetual escalation, the title constantly captures the player’s attention. To try it is to adopt it (at least for long minutes).
