My Steam Replay of 2022

To wrap up 2022, Steam just launched a new feature that gives us a rundown of our gaming activity for the year.

You know, like Spotify Wrapped for those who use it. I was actually quite surprised with the results that Valve was able to pull, especially since I can be so engrossed in a game that my negligence of what I played earlier in the year, arises.

If you want to see the full replay you can access it here and below I will begin sharing my thoughts on those results.

I played a lot of big games while squeezing indies in between in my mind but let’s see how well it compares shall we?

You can see my username on Steam and Discord if you want to add me. Despite working 12-hour shifts 2-3 times a week on days or nights, this looks pretty impressive. To sum it up, my gaming activity this year consisted of playing two or three story-rich games so if I got stuck at one of them, I could take a break and go to the other one. I also squeezed in some short indie games while at it and replayed a few favourites due to new content or just a desire to return to it.

Damn, if only I got 111 more achievements, now wouldn’t that be something! Even though my backlog will never stop growing, I still did a good job cleaning a significant portion of it, because some of the games had been in there too long already.

Another part of summing it up is my top 5 which I will go into detail in just a moment. I really like the way Valve has organized this to make it in different formats to share on whatever platform you desire. When I looked at this in the beginning, I kept wondering why those percentages were so small, but like I said, I was also squeezing in short indie games between these titles as well. Those games took usually only one or two sessions to complete so there you go.

I normally do not like to compare myself to other gamers but this is okay. Not the most impressive streak in the world, but as I said, my work hours don’t cooperate! I get home from a 12-hour shift and I’m too tired to boot something up so I just go straight to bed. But this indicates that I did manage to reach a 7-day streak at some point which I think occurred in late November where I took some time off. Most of that was spent practicing my driving because I was taking my third attempt at acquiring my G2. I passed that time, and when I was not practicing, I was gaming and I definitely did a lot of it.

I am surprised this graph says I did a lot of games with zombies in it, as I recall the only zombie-populated game I played this year was Resident Evil 2, and those zombies were annoying as fuck. They were bullet sponges and none of them really stayed dead, unless one lucky bullet caused an explosion to the head.

I’ve also been playing a few platformers as well, Gris is one I recall but it isn’t a very difficult one. There were several cat games I played this year and since I got into Subnautica there’s that regarding open-world survival craft. A lot of games I’ve played have beautiful settings too!

Alright, so let’s break down my top five of this year.

Of course, I was immediately hooked! What did you expect? This game is stunning! As I said in another blog post, there is so much to do in this game, even if you just want to wander around and search for collectables or practice your hunting skills since there are machines everywhere. I’ve been playing this game for six months now which I’m not surprised because most open-world RPGs take me that long or longer to complete all of the content I want to do, (which is pretty much everything)

But there were also times when I took a break from this game for a week or more due to work commitments or I just wanted to play something else for a bit. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I wasn’t enjoying the game’s story. I am, I do love what the story has offered me so far, but even when I was playing Witcher III no matter how much I loved the story, even I needed a break from that game too. Open-world RPGs are intense and sometimes a good break helps me process the story a little before returning to it. As I write this, I have continued to explore this game’s world after finding Olin and choosing to have Aloy forgive him for his involvement, he was a pawn after all. I helped him find his family and sometime later I found an arena and it was very suspicious when an unknown caller was warning Aloy about Eclipse troops wearing Focuses like hers. I’m just a dauntless traveller who will go anywhere until I see that. This guy also better help me find this Elisabet Sobeck.

I should probably go back to meet with Erend again at the palace, maybe I’ll finally meet this Sun King Avad that the citizens either love or hate. Not sure why I’m delaying that inevitable meeting but ah what the hell.

Even though I only played this game for two months, I still put a lot of hours into it because it was immersive the moment I began it with its unique gameplay, rich characters and multiple outcomes. Every decision I made in the game, even with what tone of voice I used, had an impact on the overall story and that’s what made me love this game so much. It had so many moments that had me on the edge of my seat.

It’s a game I’m definitely going to return to eventually because I want to see what else I can make happen. Next time I want to ensure everyone survives. In the first playthrough, I got Markus killed as well as North and Luther, then it was not my intention, but Kara and Alice were caught at the border and were killed. I didn’t realize that if I wanted them to make it safely into Canada, I could have chosen to sacrifice someone since the public opinion was low, which I didn’t do.

Then on my second playthrough, the only difference this time was I made some different choices like getting the deviant to confess in the interrogation room without Connor being shot. Then let Markus live this time and was successfully able to make a peaceful demonstration with him and North where everyone in Jericho remained diplomatic. I still failed to save North because I found it hard to keep her since I didn’t like her that much. Just to name a few examples, after that I’ll just do whatever I want, like I said, that’s what I love about this game, its replayability is endless due to how many choices there are!

It’s no surprise I returned to Village this fall with the new content announced. Before I started the new DLC, I played through the main story one more time. I was able to earn the achievement for spending less than a certain number of Lei and the remaining achievements for this year were related to the DLC.

I had to grind a little to unlock Karl Heisenberg and Lady Dimitrescu in Mercenaries mode. Before that, I had no interest in playing that mode. I’m not a pro at it but if I’m playing as a character I love then I’m happy no matter what my results are after completing the map. I’m just glad it’s not multiplayer.

Then came Shadows of Rose, I’m glad it shed some light on Rose’s story and the origin of her power but it wasn’t perfect because it was devoid of the gothic theme the main story had as it focused on a nightmare theme instead. It was also cliche at times but that doesn’t mean I hated it, it still had some heartfelt and surprising moments. If there were more to this DLC involving the lords then I would have played for a little longer. Returning to this game also helped me recall some more things for the content of my fanfiction centering around Heisenberg.

I spent most of early 2022 playing this beautiful game and some of its platforming was really challenging, but its incredible score and visuals stopped me from rage-quitting. The most memorable moment for me was when I had to escape the Ginso Tree as water started flowing to the top. I died so many times but the music was so beautiful that it drove me to tears to keep trying. Even when I was safe, it was short-lived when Kuro showed up! I also loved returning to the spirit tree just to hear the theme as well.

But there were parts after the Ginso Tree that were even harder like the Forlorn Ruins for instance that I was really slow at with all those lasers and defying gravity. I was glad that part was over when I finished it.

There was also immense satisfaction with restoring each element because it made exploring easier when I wanted to backtrack.

It’s got such an emotional story and the way it ends just makes me excited to play the sequel; something I regret not doing this year, so I will have to make room in 2023 for it.

So only three months were put into this game and then a huge spike in August. I think I know why that is. When I heard that RTS was going to be heavily featured in this game, it did make me progress slowly and in the beginning, all I wanted to do was explore the region and did a lot of side quests even if they were all the same. I would do everything until I ran out of them and had to progress the story from there.

By the time August rolled around, that was when the game became more exciting as I finally went up against Lionwhyte. Even in his defeat, everything just absorbed me so I couldn’t stop from there until I finished it.

There’s something to be said about mixing metal with video games. It’s not easy to do that, but this is a game that does it flawlessly because to cite a conversation I’ve had with a friend: the genre has always been about rebellion and defiance of society, religion, etc. Nowadays a lot of modern metal is about safe zones (whatever the hell that means) and implementing it in things like anime and TV shows, like people getting into it through some popular series out there which shall remain unspoken of.

This game does it right because it focuses on the glory days of metal, which is when, in my humble opinion, the best of the best comes from. Yes there are certain bands from Europe I love that make great music today, but still, my point stands, those bands would not exist if it weren’t for those from the glory days! Then, what the game also does right is it makes the music the main focus and even manages to grab legendary icons of metal to voice some characters (some of their appearances match them too), like Ozzy, Rob Halford, Lita Ford, and even Lemmy. How cool is that? I’m just glad they did that, can you imagine the Kill Master voiced by someone else other than Lemmy? That would be a disgrace!

This interactive bar graph highlights the games I played each month when I hover over the colours. I started this year playing mostly Ori and the Blind Forest, while finishing some other games, including Morrowind which didn’t work out for me. But, I have been playing Oblivion on and off with my female orc and as the year progressed, I eventually came to realize where the periods were when I had something that would play for hours and then something else which was a quick interlude before returning to the main focus.

I didn’t expect it to be three months spend on RE2 but since it technically has two campaigns, it makes sense.

My biggest highlight for me as a gamer is I got a Steam Deck this year. The first game I played on it was Journey, a short and relaxing adventure game. Then I finished my Cat Quest II run on it. I’ve also tried to make the first Dark Souls but I once again find myself questioning if I am truly ready for it after playing other games where I died constantly so I stopped again. RE2 and Little Nightmares I have played entirely on the device. Sometimes I switch back and forth or I play one game all on the deck, it depends on the game and how compatible it is with the device.

I’ve mainly been playing verified titles as I have discovered those that fall under the “playable” category need to be configured a little with controls. I have discovered where to go to do this, but they don’t apply when I launch the game, unless of course I have to also tweak the settings in the game too. I tried to do this with Grim Dawn and it didn’t work.

During the longest streak I had, I managed to play two of the games in my top 5 and four other games featuring cats in them. That was right around the time I was introduced to the indie company Devcats.

Last but not least, this isn’t all of it but it’s portion of all of the games I played this year. I thought I played Hellblade last year but maybe I was wrong, some of these are games I want to revisit like Bioshock as the first time I played it, I had a lot of problems with the FPs so I’ll need to spend some time tweaking it for it to work. Some that were on the grid but not in this shot are: Sudocats, Sims 4, Monument Valley, Dead Space, Bunny Park, A Building Full of Cats, Oblivion, Call of Cthulhu, Islanders, Portal 2, Cat Goes Fishing, A Castle Full of Cats, Zodiacats, Garden Warfare 2, and at the very bottom some games that didn’t work for me.

So yeah, for my final verdict, that’s a lot of games this year between working days, it’ll be interesting to see what next year looks like because now I’m doing daily puzzles in A Little to the Left, while also having started Disney Dreamlight Valley. Some games that I would really like to play in 2023 well, definitely Stray, Control, and Praey for the Gods. Hopefully God of War too and at least the first of the Plague Tale games, but we’ll see what happens because sometimes I will have mentally arranged what I’m going to play next, and then I have a last minute change of heart. For instance, I intended to play Stray after Brutal Legend, but got sucked into the vortex of picking up some horror titles in the fall instead.

What’s your Steam Replay like for 2022 this year? Do you have any predictions for 2023? Please feel free to share them!

👽Emily