Fanny Moreaux's Global Indie Game Trends of 2022 | Winter Spectacular 2022
If you’re like me, you have a steam library that grows each year, composed of two games you finished, ten you played for two hours because you were excited about them but had to put down when things got busy, and another 30 that you bought or got keys for, telling yourself that you’d make the time to play them and are trying to rush through as many as possible now you have some days off during the holidays. I say this knowing that if I don’t get to these games now they are likely to be forgotten forever in the depths of my backlog and will haunt me and my bank account for years to come.
For better and worse, 2022 continued this cycle. This was mainly because alongside a few big triple-A games, it was another year heavy with great indie games. While it is very easy to see what games like God of War, Horizon Forbidden West and Elden Ring have in common, I’ve found it more interesting to learn what were the major trends in small games.
Please keep in mind that with 7,123 games launched on Steam this year it would be impossible to look at every single game, genre, style and trend (even if that is a tiny bit fewer games released than in the past four years). Hence, my observations have been based on several points; these are Independent games published in 2022, on Steam, that were for the most part listed on Metacritic, or got enough user reviews on their Steam page to be noticeable.
Video games ask the important questions, like “what if Bloodborne was French?”
We’re going to start with the least surprising trend in my opinion with the number of action/adventure games that fold in RPG elements - which, if we’re honest, is more of an all-time trend throughout the history of video games than a 2022 trend. These games might explore all sorts of universes, but they still feel like a kind. From playing as a spiritual guide in Kena: Bridge of Spirits, to being a pawn in a dark fantasy French revolution in Steel Rising, to the recent JRPG-inspired Chained Echoes, games that meld modern adventure troops with classic RPG mechanics have plenty of nice days ahead of them.
Deck-building your emotions and memories sounds like it could end badly.
Another facet of the somewhat vaguely defined action/adventure genre that got a lot of light this year is the continued growth of roguelikes and rogue-lites. If you are interested in some run-based gaming you have a large selection box worth of choices. This subgenre was made of sci-fi and fantasy settings, dungeon-crawling, and plenty of platforming, but most importantly, the rogue-adjacent genre continued its obsession with deckbuilding and card games mechanics usually with little regard for their own established lore or universe. These are games that use card-based and deck-building mechanics, and visual language for their mechanics. From triple-A games like Marvel’s Midnight Suns to indie games like Fights In Tight Spaces, these were games where actual cards weren’t part of the story or universe but were the best way to present a game’s gameplay. It’s also a mechanic trend that started to make its way into another genre, being used a lot coupled with our next category, the story-rich games section, like I Was A Teenage Exocolonist and Card Shark.
If you wouldn’t kill for Mina and Lem then we can’t be friends anymore, sorry.
As mentioned above, we got a pretty huge amount of games focused on intricate stories that sometimes took us on a detour to introspections and emotional discoveries. These games, most of the time, deliver their themes and storytelling purely through puzzles or by creating an atmospheric experience. However, occasionally they step away from these traditional visual novel and adventure game mechanics by making us dive into the depth of their story with gameplay that mirrors the game’s themes. You try to survive the interplanetary capitalism in Citizen Sleeper while being bound to literal dice rolls of fate, or you choose your words carefully instead of making simple decisions as you go through the dangerous adventures in Pentiment, or discover the origins of Baba Yaga in Blacktail.
You’ve probably noticed this trend, but: we got a lot of simulation and life-sim games this year, and they only got more imaginative as the year went on. Among the traditional city builders like Farthest Frontier, we got a HUGE number of adorable farming/life sims with each being cuter than the previous one. These games included the likes of Aka and Coral Island, as well as a good amount of life sim like the early access launch of Little Witch In The Woods. However, 2022 also got some pretty creative spins on the genre.
If this looks complicated, don’t worry, I promise you it is 100x more complex than you even think it is.
You could go live in the middle of Australia in Dinkum. You could build your intricate colony surviving through meticulously simulated and often surprising tales in Dwarf Fortress. You could even form a symbiotic relationship with a colossus while building your city on its back in the Wandering Village. And if you were looking for something a bit more chill, you could brew your own potions and expand your alchemist skills in Potion Craft.
A not PS1 game has never looked so PS1-ish.
I was quite surprised about this next genre, as horror games got really creative this year. This is a genre that seems to stagnate somewhat in recent years with many games chasing jumpscare clout but 2022 saw the return of some wonderful survival horror games and games with truly unique tones. If you are into gothic horror you could try My Lovely Wife, if you prefer a bit more action, you are sure to love the recently released Signalis, and if you needed even more shooting between your scares then there was Nightmare Reaper, or if you were just looking for something truly atmospheric, sprinkled with some interesting puzzles then Scorn was a delightfully squelchy experience. Horror is not a genre I’m usually interested in but it was fairly difficult to be blind to how many terrifying games were launched this year. You can even fight an evil train, with spiders that will probably haunt your dreams in Choo-choo Charles.
You might have noticed it, but within all these categories one style of universe got mentioned a bit more than the others. Sci-fi stories have always flourished in video games, and 2022 didn’t disappoint, giving us creative ways to see fictional futures that were, more frequently than not, dystopian in nature. Find your way home in a cyberpunk setting as a cat with Stray, or experience the life of a hacker through JRPG-inspired Jack Move.
*nodding furiously*: Yes! VIDEO GAMES!
Of course, while many of these games share common themes, they have, visually speaking, very different worlds and art designs. However pixel art is still a go-to through all genres and universes, we still see a lot of RPGs and action/adventure games with that style. I don’t think it was possible to not be aware of genre-bending Vampire Survivors these last months, which was partly so successful because of how readable its pixel art was despite the chaos happening on screen at any given moment. However, you could also, relive your youth and go through a pixelated Manhattan beating up foot clan members and save the world in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge or you could go between methodically mining and defending your base in Dome Keeper.
Finally, a trend that is neither mechanical nor narrative-based, we got so many animal characters this year. I believe one of the usual jokes to say while watching indie-focused live stream events was to count the frog games, but in reality, we got quite the diverse collection here. (We can’t forget the frogs though, mainly because Frog Detective 3 is amazing, and the closest thing we have to a Knives Out video game .)
Starring: David Bautista, Daniel Craig, and Janelle Monáe.
This year gave you the opportunity to play as a lot of foxes whether it be in Tunic, Endling: Extinction Is Forever, or Lonesome Village. Or we could play as bears in Lumbearjack and Bear & Breakfast, but we also got to experience life as cats, mice, alligators, in Stray, The Spirit And The Mouse, and Lil Gator Game respectively. Or you could play as many others in the mysterious Beacon Pines.
Overall though, a major thing that characterised this year was that all these trends got mixed at some point, and we were able to see so many merged genres, styles, and universes, allowing us to discover many creative experiences that felt fresh and new.
With all these trends in mind, I can’t wait to see what will be different next year.
Hi, my name’s Fanny and I’m working as a PR for indie video games at ICO Partners! Aside from Video games, I’m well versed in anime/manga and art, mainly illustrations and ceramics; even better if they’re colourful and full of cuteness. You can find me on Twitter @StardustAndTea!
