There’s never been a better time to be a fan of pop culture, superheroes and their villainous counterparts, D&D, fantasy books, and just general nerd culture. That’s because some of the world’s most popular licenses are making their way to consoles and PCs this year. These games promise to give us new ways to interact with some of our favorite media franchises like DC, Harry Potter, Star Wars, and more.
What’s more is that each of these games is not only unique in license, but in gameplay too. That’s because these titles aren’t straddled to just one genre. Hogwarts Legacy is a third-person magic-casting RPG, while MultiVersus is a platform fighter. This list of games covers all kinds of genres and all kinds of licenses, and we can’t wait to check them out sometime this year. Here are Game Informer’s most anticipated licensed games of 2022, listed chronologically by release date.
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
Lego creates some of the most unique and fun takes on beloved licenses such as The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, Marvel/DC Comics, Harry Potter, and of course, Star Wars. Traveller’s Tales is returning to what is undoubtedly its most popular series with Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and this bundle promises to give us our best (and blockiest) journey through all nine Star Wars films yet. It features beautiful graphics, a fully-voiced cast, new gameplay mechanics, multiple planets to explore, and so much more.
Evil Dead: The Game
How the hell does a modern Evil Dead: The Game not already exist? A multiplayer shooter (and surely slasher, right?) set in the world of Evil Dead, this title promises to bring all the groovy and gory action combat you’d expect out of anything that puts “Evil Dead” in its name with a fun four-player spin. Think Left 4 Dead meets, well, Evil Dead, and you have a pretty good idea of what we’re looking at here. Plus, there will be PvP action which is always a plus. We can’t wait to see what kind of characters from the iconic horror movies we’ll unlock, not to mention all of the locales we’ll get to visit when Evil Dead: The Game releases in a few months.
Marvel's Midnight Suns
Marvel’s Midnight Suns not only represents an exciting opportunity to explore some characters not often seen in video games like Ghost Rider and Magik, but it’s a unique take on the comic book games Marvel and its development partners have been releasing as of late. While most superhero games feature third-person action gameplay, Marvel’s Midnight Suns promises a more tactical spin on the RPG formula. One part strategy game and one part deck builder, you’ll be using cards to determine what your hero does, all while strategizing new plans and building relationships with others outside of battle. We can’t wait to take down the dark and demonic forces that threaten the Earth in Marvel’s Midnight Suns, but we’re equally as excited to see if Marvel’s big bet on this fresher approach – courtesy of XCOM developers, Firaxis Games – pays off.
Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is exciting for a lot of reasons. It’s being developed by Massive Entertainment, the Ubisoft-owned studio behind The Division series. It’s a new-gen exclusive title. Oh, and it’s based on the highest-grossing movie of all time, Avatar, created and directed by renowned director James Cameron. We’ve only seen a quick trailer for Frontiers of Pandora, and what was shown looked great…but it was all cinematic. We can’t wait to see what the actual gameplay looks like but we’d be lying if we said we weren’t more excited to see how the game performs financially.
Avatar was a massive hit in theaters, and other than a Disney World theme park, we haven’t seen much more of it. Still, Cameron is loading his basket with blue Avatar-themed eggs in the form of multiple movie sequels and Frontiers of Pandora. Does the franchise still have the juice, or was the 2009 movie a one-hit-wonder? Massive Entertainment’s upcoming game will be our first taste of the answer to that question.