A running list of standout games from an already impressive year
 2022 has not wasted any time. Whether because of shifting release calendars, less reliance on the retail sphere, or delays from the COVID-19 pandemic, the early months of 2022 have become a perfect storm of video game release mayhem. We’ve wandered The Lands Between. We’ve deciphered secret languages. We’ve explored 31st-century America. And although we’re out of the thick of the hectic release schedule, we’re still coming across the occasional hidden gem or two, and returning to the games that were too huge to finish the first time around. So, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to help you separate the wheat from the chaff — to recommend our favorite games from the slew of ambitious titles that release as the months go by. We’ll be updating this page throughout the year, with the most recent releases toward the top, so you can stay up to date with all of the excitement (or at least, as up to date as possible). We’ll also be doing the same for the best movies, the best anime, and the best TV shows of 2022.
With Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, it feels as if Borderlands’ developers are finally comfortable letting go, and the results speak for themselves. Wonderlands is a joyful romp through tabletop-RPG-inspired worlds, with seemingly minor tweaks that create huge ripples in the series’ “Diablo meets guns” formula. You can combine two disparate character classes, traverse a board-game style overworld, and pour dozens of hours into the phenomenal “Chaos Chamber” endgame. Through it all, Gearbox is willing to acknowledge that we’re not here for a script, or even a coherent narrative, and it leans into that sentiment with an appropriately scattershot story — it doesn’t take itself so seriously that it sacrifices unpredictability, joy, or the satisfaction of mesmerizing, well earned loot.