Elden Ring, Pokémon: Why 2022 is starting with a crowded games schedule

If you feel overwhelmed by the number of big new game releases, you’re not alone.

Two months from the video game releases dates are noticeable swelling: Blockbuster titles Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Horizon Forbidden West, Destiny 2 – The Witch Queen, Elden Ring, Tiny Tina’s Wonderls, and KirbyThe Forgotten LandThese first months of the new year are dominated by many other noteworthy titles. Babylon’s Fall, Dying light2. Stay Human, Sifu, Ghostwire: Tokyo, All of it. If your backlog was already filled to the brim, the first few months of 2022 aren’t going to make it any cleaner.

The temporary effect seems to have been caused by years of COVID-19-related delays that delayed game releases for years. These adjustments have perturbed the normal game release schedules, which were made in 2020 and 2021. The schedule adjustments have also been occurring for many years.

Why is there so much competition between big games? Does this become the norm? Is this healthy in an industry that is known for operating under tight deadlines and high-pressure situations?

Historically, it’s been the fall release window — leading up to the holidays — that’s been the most crowded with video game release dates. The logic was clear: Big new titles launch prior to the holiday gift-giving season. This is because people have more time and are more likely to spend money on gifts. The Call of Duty franchise, which typically has a new game released annually, and the Assassin’s Creed franchise have long staked out the fall release window, nearly guaranteeing a successful holiday season. However, 2020 and 2021 are different. a lotThere were many games that were released in fall but these big-name releases got moved to the start of 2022. In some cases, franchises released their games incompletely with parts being added several months later.

It’s not only the pandemic delays that pushed us to this chaos, though. They only fed the flames. In the last decade, there has been a gradual shift in release dates. The new trend towards big releases earlier in the year could become permanent. Although November used to be the busiest season of all, October and November are now the exceptions.

Image by FromSoftware/Bandai Namco

“I think it’s a natural evolution of Q4 being the last packed window,” Devolver Digital’s Robbie Paterson told Polygon. “People get sick of it. Maybe they’re less reliant on retail, or relying on retailers and the Christmas rush, with everything being digital now. I think naturally people started to look at January, February as wide open spaces where, yeah, they may miss that Christmas buzz, but have a clear run in January without competition.” Paterson pointed to Capcom, which has been using the winter release window for its Monster Hunter franchise since 2015.

Monster Hunter: World, in particular, blew up with its January 2018 release — and it felt like there were no other games besides that one for almost three months of that year. “It just fucking exploded,” Paterson said. “It was huge. And it was a good game, but it also had no competition whatsoever.”

This is something that other developers have observed. Despite the fact that more releases are moving to February or March, this window still produces results for game companies. The rest of the year is seeing a steady increase in releases due to a shift in the way video games companies market their products.

In the ’90s and ’00s, the video game industry relied on a handful of annual events like E3 and Tokyo Game Show to attract attention from the mainstream press and casual fans. Traditional marketing events like E3 are in decline and they have been for some time. Nintendo began running Nintendo Direct events in 2011, taking over the announcements. This type of event was made easier by YouTube and Twitch live streaming. That led to Sony pulling out of E3 in 2019, the first time in the show’s 24-year history. Sony realized that it didn’t need the big press conference to reach players and fans, instead developing its own schedule and making its own online livestream events.

Image: HAL Laboratory/Nintendo

However, things changed for everyone the following year when E3 2020 had to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 epidemic. The conference moved to the internet and there has been a resurgence in the excitement of the weeklong games news. Companies are now spreading their announcements online in smaller events, Nintendo Direct-style. E3 no longer had to be the “deadline” for developers to finish demos or announce release dates. Now fans can look to Microsoft’s own Xbox showcase, Sony’s State of Play, the Summer Games Fest — all online — creating space for lots of announcements andThe corresponding publications are available.

Finji CEO Rebekah Saltsman told Polygon that the decline of these in-person events has evened the playing field for indies, which didn’t have the same access to the major events. “The shift to running online shows, larger companies being very much in control of how they launch things, has opened up the entire calendar,” she said.

“I always felt that the fall launch of everything has been sort of completely blacked out by three big launches,” Saltsman said. “You would have this really cool game that would just get missed because it wasn’t Halo. It wasn’t Destiny.”

A game delayed for a few months After Finji is a good example of how holidays have worked in the past. The Night in the Woods, published in 2017, snuck in at exactly the right time and was huge for the company and its developers — despite launching within days of the biggest title of that month, Horizon Zero Dawn. “I remember thinking then, ‘Why is a triple A game coming out in February?’,” she asked. “I thought this month was going to be safe.”

The Night in the Woods, of course, was a success — both commercially and with tons of accolades.

A videogame developer might consider looking at other developers in their genre when deciding on a release date. Finji CEO Rebekah Saltsman told Polygon that Finji’s windows are largely related to when a game will be finished, but she said she still also looks at a game’s competition to find the perfect spot. TunicThe March issue of Finji magazine saw the window arrive almost one year before its time. There was also a few months buffer time. Sifu developer Sloclap’s marketing manager, Felix Garcynski, echoed this sentiment in an email to Polygon: Sifu’s release schedule is largely based on the production schedule, but the game had some buffer space that let Sloclap move the game into early February, slightly before the onslaught of games.

With TunicSaltsman will be up against the Horizon franchise once again in the upcoming Horizon Forbidden WestThis is in addition to the extra pressure that comes with Elden Ring, too. Saltsman sees the potential and not the competition. These games can only take up so many space in the storesfronts. This could allow for new eyes. Tunic.

“Early on, we were like, ‘Oh no, Elden Ring is coming out,’” she said. “And now I’m like, ‘No, this is fun!’ What a cool cultural moment to be a part of, just in terms of the genre of game we have. This was such a wonderful time! Tunic, our little foxy Dark Souls.”