Windows Central Game Awards 2022

It has been a fun year for gaming beyond Microsoft'southward platforms. From the biggest blockbuster hits to the almost small-scale indie titles, the range of talent, innovation, and pure artistry continues to button the manufacture to all-new heights.

With our humble Game Awards, nosotros want to acknowledge the hard work and technical prowess exhibited at all levels across the gaming industry, likewise as some of our own personal favorites.

Here are our Windows Key Game Awards of 2022!

Best Windows PC Game: Frostpunk

Frostpunk is survival simulator fix in a biting winter wasteland, in a world where a climatological catastrophe has blanketed the world in an endless water ice age. Equally the sole leader of 1 of humanity's last refugee caravans, it's on you to set and maintain a safe oasis from the howling cold outside.

Frostpunk is a unique city-architect with a steampunk edge, with stunning, detailed visuals, gorgeous weather effects, and emotive sound treatment. The mechanics are stressful and unforgiving, imparting an immersive sense of urgency as you battle dwindling resource, social unrest, and of course, the cold itself. Frostpunk has been updated with gratis content several times since its launch, and is set to gain even more than updates in 2022.

11Bit Studios deserve every accolade for this incredible title, which we highly, highly recommend.

See at Microsoft Store (PC)
Come across at GMG (Steam)

Best Xbox Game, Best Story Entrada: Ruby-red Dead Redemption 2

"Raising the bar" is a phrase that springs to mind when describing Ruby Dead Redemption 2, a game that elevates the industry at every level. Information technology'southward rare that a game is able to marry its narrative, gameplay, and visual elements into a single whole so masterfully, and Rockstar are amid the only companies that do it at this level.

Scarlet Dead Redemption 2 is a masterpiece, which is why it'south taking home two awards from u.s. this yr.

Red Dead Redemption two is set in the endmost days of the Wild West, equally the proliferation of law enforcement across America squeezes the final outlaws out of business organisation. Every bit Arthur Morgan, you help lead a colourful band of rogues across a vast open world, with some of the most detailed and realistic environs e'er seen in a game.

Cerise Dead Redemption 2 packs quality with such density it'southward a little staggering, showcasing the power of the Xbox One Ten with a native 4K resolution. Every Xbox owner should play this.

Encounter at Amazon

Innovation Award, All-time Xbox Accompaniment: Xbox Adaptive Controller

We introduced a new award this year to recognize the technology that powers our favorite hobby, including everything from hardware, game engines, middleware, services, and beyond. In discussions, there was a articulate winner this twelvemonth above all else.

Microsoft's Xbox Adaptive Controller is designed from the footing up to incorporate a huge array of controller features and switches that suit to users with unique needs. Every attribute of this production was congenital with accessibility in mind, from everything to the manner the product feels, to what connections it supports, even down to the packaging.

Through charities similar Special Effect and AbleGamers, Microsoft's Xbox Adaptive Controller is opening up gaming to millions of users who have found traditional controllers don't encounter their needs.

For more than information on the Xbox Adaptive Controller, head over to Microsoft's website for details.

See at Microsoft Store

Editor's Choice Award: Mutant Year Zero

Information technology's not ofttimes a game comes along that lets y'all play as a postal service-apocalypse mutant duck with a crossbow, just Mutant Twelvemonth Nada does exactly that.

Taking cues from games like XCOM, Mutant Twelvemonth Zero is a slick, tactical RPG based on the Swedish pen and paper RPG series Mutant. Gear up decades subsequently a global catastrophe, the last surviving humans and anthropomorphic mutants cleave out a meagre being in the nuclear ruins of Sweden. Yous play as a band of Stalkers, whose task it is to strike out into the wastelands to scavenge supplies and "aboriginal" technology.

Mutant Year Zero is addictive, incessantly fun, and strategically rewarding, and is quite easily amidst the best strategy games of 2022.

See at Microsoft Store (Xbox)
Encounter at GMG (Steam)

Best Multiplayer Game: Monster Hunter: World

Monster Hunter leaped from its cult-hit status on Nintendo systems to global miracle in 2022, becoming Capcom's best selling game in the company's about-40 twelvemonth history.

Monster Hunter: Earth takes its unique action RPG formula and applies it to a much grander scale, allowing players to come up together in groups to have on gigantic, dynamic monsters, crafting tons upon tons of upgrades, complete with piles of free seasonal content. If nosotros had a DLC award, we may well take dropped it on Monster Hunter: World's Kulve Taroth update, which added a free raid-mode boss battle for players to enjoy.

Despite launching almost a year ago, Monster Hunter: World'south story isn't set up to end whatsoever time soon, with even more content planned for the new year.

See at Amazon
Meet at Microsoft Store (Xbox)
See at GMG (Steam)

Best Art Management: Sea of Thieves

Sea of Thieves is i of the most unique-looking titles this year, with a gorgeously realized oceanic open up world brimming with photogenic scenery.

Sea of Thieves has some of the all-time climatological and water effects out in that location, producing turbulent storms and enthralling sunsets, with bounding main physics and brilliant lighting that respond to the weather systems throughout the game.

Sea of Thieves is multiplayer open world pirate fantasy game, where players are urged to brand their own fun using the game's large sandbox toolset. And it's bloody stunning.

Run into at Microsoft Store (Xbox, PC)

Most Anticipated: Anthem

Anthem is an upcoming open world action game from BioWare, known for Mass Effect and Dragon Age. The connected-globe shooter takes place on an alien world, populated by humans (but not Earthlings), and strange, abandoned alien technology. The humans of Canticle eke out an beingness in powerful exosuits called Javelins, which allow them to survive the harsh world outside of humanity's only stronghold.

Anthem looks to be taking cues from Destiny and Warframe, with a heavy emphasis on branch PvE play, class-based combat mechanics, and RPG loot systems. It's our most predictable game considering BioWare are known for their attending to story delivery, which big online games typically put on the back burner.

Time will tell if Anthem delivers when information technology launches on February 22, 2022, but color us intrigued.

See at Amazon
Encounter at Microsoft Store (Xbox)

Best Gaming Laptop: Razer Laptop 15 (2018)

Razer has long been a forepart-runner in the PC hardware arena, but their Blade 15 stepped it up a notch earlier this year.

The Razer Blade fifteen addresses some cadre complaints of their line-upwards, with shrunk bezels, beefed up displays, and an impossibly-thin design. The Blade 15 is no slouch starting with a GTX 1060 d-GPU, merely connect up an external Razer Cadre via Thunderbolt 3 and you tin button it even further.

Truly, there's no other gaming laptop worth considering if yous want serious quality.

Meet at Amazon
See at Microsoft Store

Best Xbox Controller: Hyperkin Knuckles

2018 has been a fleck of a nostalgia trip for hardware. Sony and Nintendo both led with pint-sized classics, with the SNES, NES, and PlayStation Mini consoles. Microsoft doesn't take such a huge Xbox nostalgia excess to tap into, at least on the hardware side, only that didn't stop Hyperkin.

Working with Xbox creator Seamus Blackley, Hyperkin faithfully recreated and modernized the archetype, hulking "Duke" controller from the OG Xbox twelvemonth.

Complete with contemporary controls and a fun LCD brandish, the Hyperkin Duke is 2022's well-nigh awesome Xbox controller with ease.

Come across at Amazon

Best Gaming Headset: Turtle Beach Aristocracy Atlas

Turtle Beach's Elite Atlas represents a large pace upwardly for the company, incorporating metal frame work, supreme comfort, and that signature, stunning audio.

Ditching some of the gaudy "gamer" neon accents of previous designs, the Elite Atlas range goes all-in on gunmetal, producing a customizable headset that also punches to a higher place its price point.

Whether y'all're gaming on PC, Xbox, or whatever other 3.5mm-supporting device, the Elite Atlas is a great $100 purchase that really represents the best of 'Beach.

Run across at Amazon

And that'south a wrap!

2018 has been a bit of a transitionary year for gaming, as we head further towards the end of the generation. The adjacent Xbox looms in the distance, with deject streaming from services like Projection xCloud and subscription services like Xbox Game Pass poised to, perchance, alter the way nosotros play.

2019 has tons of heavy hitters in its roadmap, from Resident Evil 2, Anthem, to RAGE 2, and The Outer Worlds. And we'll notice out nigh fifty-fifty more come up E3 2022, later in the year.

From all of usa here at Windows Central, have an awesome gaming Christmas and a wallet-busting New Year.

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