Barnorama All Fun In The Barn
2022 is over and the dust has begun to settle on our New Year parties, so most of us are looking forward to what the next 12 months will have in store for us. For many, these plans might include fitness goals, taking the next steps in your career, or simply promising yourself that you will try more new things to broaden your horizons.
For gamers, though, a new year means new titles and exciting new updates to get their teeth stuck into. It can also mean rediscovering an older title and falling in love all over again.
So what games are we expecting to be (or remain) hot in 2023?
Minecraft
When Minecraft first went on sale in late November 2011, there were few games that had a lifespan of more than a few years. But fast forward more than a decade and the gaming landscape looks very different.
Minecraft has proven that it’s possible for players to love a game for a very long time, provided that the developers can keep adding content to make it fun. The possibilities with Mojang’s smash hit are endless, thanks in part to its procedural generation mechanic that creates an infinite number of landscapes and the flexibility of the game to allow players to channel their creative energies to build entire cities or working machines.
Minecraft’s annual revenue has hovered around the $350-400 million range consistently since 2015 and this looks set to continue into 2023.
Video Slots
Video slots are another old type of game, although they’ve changed a lot in their more than 100 years of existence.
The first automatic slot game, the Liberty Bell, was a mechanical contraption that used a few playing cards to display different values to the players. The difference between it and today’s video slots is night and day.
Online casinos have invested heavily in creating thousands of different options for players to choose from, covering every imaginable genre from Greek mythology to NFTs. Some, like PokerStars Casino, have gone even further by developing exclusive titles like Royal Cashgot, Big Blue Bounty, and Tomb of Ra.
With so many different options and the ability to play from just about any device, video slots have been immensely popular among gamers for much of the last decade and they don’t look like they’ll be slowing down anytime soon either.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
While The Legend of Zelda isn’t new, Tears of the Kingdom will be when it hits shelves in May. Currently scheduled for release on the Nintendo Switch on May 12, this game has been in the works for six years and was announced four years ago at E3 2019.
It’s a sequel to Breath of the Wild which was released on the Switch and Wii U in 2017. That installment in the series won dozens of awards, including Ultimate Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards and Excellence in Design at the SXSW Gaming Awards.
While many details are yet to be revealed, we know that the game will include new floating islands and an open world.
Fans of the series are excited about what’s to come and Tears of the Kingdom has already won two awards in the “most wanted” category, so it’s clearly going to be one of the hottest titles of 2023.
Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile
Activision’s Call of Duty franchise is one of the most successful of all time and the publisher continues to churn out a new triple-A title every year.
However, to keep up with changing trends in the gaming industry, the company has also been developing free-to-play titles. It’s had two different options in the last couple of years, Call of Duty: Warzone for PC and consoles and Call of Duty: Mobile for smartphones and tablets.
In 2023, Warzone will be coming to mobile devices too. When it’s released, players will be able to enjoy shared progression across the Warzone 2.0 PC/console game and the Warzone Mobile title.
This will mean the same weapons and features will be available across all devices and unlocking it on your smartphone will mean you can then use it on your PlayStation 5.
Pre-registration is open already and millions have already put their name down, so it’s pretty certain this will be one of the hottest games of the year.