Metacritic reveals top game publishers of 2022

Metacritic has released its list of the best game publishers of 2022. Annually, for 13 years, Metacritic has highlighted these game publishers based on the performance of the games they had released that year. How Metacritic determines this is available for reading here, as well as the full list.

Here’s the top 10 from that list and our picks from their 2022 releases:

10: Devolver Digital

Devolver Digital’s 2022 releases included Cult of the Lamb and Card Shark, among others. With an impressive variety of games under their belt, Devolver Digital wowed players and critics alike in 2022. You can read our review of Cult of the Lamb here.

9: Humble Games

While Humble is usually associated with their bundles, it does not stop them from being a popular indie publisher. 2022 saw Humble publish horror game Signalis as well as ports of popular games. This included Unpacking, a beautifully calm game that we loved and reviewed here.

8: Annapurna Interactive

Indie publisher Annapurna Interactive took eighth place with an incredible lineup of games. Annapurna published the award-winning, ultra-popular cat game, Stray. A favourite of mine, I found that Stray was comfortable, cute, and heartfelt. You can read our review of Stray here.

7: Sega (Including Atlas)

Seventh place was taken by Sega highlighting some of its best releases in 2022. Metacritic found Persona 5 Royal’s Xbox release to be Sega’s best-reviewed game. However, they remarked that critics found Sega’s Sonic Frontiers to be disappointing. You can read our review for Sonic Frontiers where we declared t was one of the best 3D Sonic games ever made.

6: Capcom

Capcom claimed the sixth position in Metacritic’s list, as it did the year before. Capcom had a strong lineup of games for 2022, including the “Gold Edition” of the critically acclaimed Resident Evil Village. Our 2021 review for Resident Evil Village is available to read here.

5: Take-Two Interactive (Including 2k, Private Division, and Rockstar)

Having my favourite releases of 2022, Take-Two Interactive and its labels took 5th place in Metacritic’s list. Boasting games such as my personal favourites, The Quarry and Marvel’s Midnight Suns. You can read our review of the horror narrative game, The Quarry, here.

4: Focus Entertainment (including The Arcade Crew, Blackmill, Deck13, and DotEmu)

Focus Entertainment, and its subsidiaries, published games from a variety of genres including an RPG, brawler, and a space-sim. Included among these games is the stressful horror-stealth-adventure game A Plague Tale: Requiem. We found the start of A Plague Tale: Requiem to be slow, but had a captivating story filled with disgusting rats.

3: Activision Blizzard

Activision Blizzard took third place in the rankings. This publisher had many releases in 2022, and Metacritic found that the World of Warcraft expansion Dragonflight was the publisher’s best. Activision Blizzard has been the subject of protests due to working conditions and sexual harrassment allegations and lawsuits. They also released many noteworthy titles including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II which we said had a spectacle of a campaign in our review.

2: Paradox Interactive

With five games scoring positively by Metacritic in 2022, Paradox Interactive took second place in the rankings. Included in this was the console port of Crusader Kings 3. We reviewed Crusader Kings 3 in 2020 and we loved its great simulation and replayability.

1: Sony Interactive Entertainment

In first place is Sony Interactive Entertainment having published 2 great games including God of War: Ragnarok which was consistently nominated for Game of the Year awards. Sony had maintained good scores throughout 2022 for its releases and easily took this position in Metacritic’s rankings. We reviewed God of War: Ragnarok and felt that this epic and heartfelt adventure was worthy of a 10.