Here we are again, ready to see the best RPGs of 2022!

This year we went back to a Codex-only vote. Also to a 1-5 scale, because I forgot to ask to change it to 1-4 lol. In total, we had 364 voters, who rated 157 RPGs that came out last year.

Without further ado, here are the RPG Codex's 2022 GOTYs:



#1 was quite predictable. Elden Ring dominated the poll, with 53% of 5/5 votes and being by far the most popular game in the poll - 52% of voters played it. For comparison, the following most-played games were Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord and ELEX II, both played by 29% of voters.

#2 we had Knights of the Chalice 2, which got more votes than it has reviews on Steam & GOG. Pierre may hate money, but the Codex clearly loves the guy.

#3 was a Tactical RPG, King Arthur: Knight's Tale, a grimdark take on Arthurian legend by Neocore games, the folk behind WH40K: Inquisitor and The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing trilogy.

Because I use a Bayesian Average ranking, the next entries are quite diverse - the JRPG Codex vote brought in Persona 5 Royal, the trolls got *check notes* The Impregnation of Elves, and then we have several niche but well-rated titles: Fear & Hunger 2: Termina, Ctrl Alt Ego, The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero and Zorbus. Would say these are the hidden gems to look into this year.



As usual, here's a graph with the year's releases:



Looking at the graph, some other things of note:

• Bannerlord, Expeditions: Rome and ELEX II got a lot of votes, but most of them were 3/5 or 4/5.
  
• Black Geyser was also popular, but most votes were 3/5.
  
• Ctrl Alt Ego is the only game to have zero 1/5 or 2/5 votes.
  
• Worst games of the year were Dying Light 2, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II. I'm curious if the Dark Alliance hate comes from new players jumping in expecting a proper "Baldur's Gate", or from people who are mad about it since 2004.
  
• Contrary to what all the "I didn't play anything" posts indicate, 2022 had more popular releases than recent years. We had 7 RPGs played by more than 20% of the voters, compared to 4 in 2021, 3 in 2020 and 5 in 2019. (For sure influenced by making the poll Codex-only, but still remarkable).

Thanks to everyone who took part, Twiglard for setting the poll, Abu Antar for making the game list and Nostaljaded for the list with the Steam links - which I'll re-post in the thread of this newspost.

As always, you can check the full results and the raw vote data here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E8uWT8r6bNMLgXFV-5Honl9HPC3vQZBl4nAuwEVjaaI/edit?usp=sharing