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The games that defined 2022 for the RPS guides teamHey, we done did some dang good guides this year
Hey, we done did some dang good guides this year
Because we operate so much behind the scenes, it’s easy to miss some of the amazing stuff that the team did in guidestown this year. It ain’t easy, writing a walkthrough or how-to that’s useful for the reader while simultaneously appeasing those nebulous and mercurial SEO gods. But 2022 has been a stonkingly good year for guides, and I’d love to take a little bit of time to shine a light on some of the things we’re most proud of having achieved this year - and to toast what will hopefully be another smashing year for guides in 2023!
What’s It Like To Start World Of Warcraft From Scratch?Liam and Ed recently investigated how much time World of Warcraft takes up in your life for the first episode of Inventory Space.Watch on YouTube
What’s It Like To Start World Of Warcraft From Scratch?
Take a look at the most popular RPS guide of 2022 with ourElden Ring boss locationsguide.Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Probably my greatest personal achievement this year was ourElden Ring boss locationsguide, over which I crooned like Gollum over the One Ring for much of the early part of the year. Containing 9 detailed maps and almost 20,000 words detailing the locations and natures of 238 bosses, this guide was absolutely my biggest personal undertaking in 4 years of RPS guides work. And it was worth it. Want a fun fact? That one boss locations guide accounted for over a quarter of RPS’s entire guides traffic in March.
Hayden’sElden Ring walkthroughis more or less essential reading for players of FromSoft’s giant open-world RPG.
Another amazing achievement of this year is Hayden’sElden Ring walkthrough. This walkthrough does the almost impossible job of showing players at any stage of FromSoft’s sprawling masterpiece what to do next, while also keeping the whole guide amazingly clear, succinct, and digestible. It’s definitely one of the most essential guides we ended up writing for the biggest game of 2022.
As far as we can tell, RPS was the first site in the world to release dedicated, accurateWarzone 2 weapon statson every gun to players.
Elden Ring’s monumental success at the start of the year was echoed at the end of the year with the daunting double-release ofCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 2andWarzone 2. 140 guides, folks. 140. That’s a whole lot of words, and a colossal achievement in itself. I’m quite pleased in particular with ourWarzone 2 weapon statstables, which involved probably a dozen or so hours of me repeatedly shooting someone in different parts of the body with different guns. It was worth it though, because we ended up being the first site on the internet that gave players a full stats breakdown of every primary weapon in both Warzone 2 and MW2.
Hayden’s guide on thebest Lengthy players in FIFA 23is just one fine example of the many flawless guides he put together in our first ever attempt to cover a FIFA game in RPS guidestown.Image credit:EA
FIFA 23was another big success for us in 2022. This was the first year that we covered a FIFA game, and Hayden spearheaded the project with all his usual enthusiasm and attention to detail. It’s hard to pick out just one guide to be proud of here as they each tick all the boxes for clarity and detail, so I’ll direct you towards his guide on thebest Lengthy players in FIFA 23, both because it does a great job of explaining everything a reader could hope to know about the topic, and because the name of the guide makes me giggle.
Rebecca’s definitive guide tohow much it costs to play Diablo Immortalis, in my opinion, one of the best guides RPS has ever released.
Those were the biggest games of 2022 for us, but certainly not the only things that we’re proud of doing this year. Back in June, Rebecca published a wonderfully insightful and detailed look intohow much it actually costs to play Diablo Immortal. In this guide she skillfully lays bare every aspect ofDiablo Immortal’sinfamously predatory monetisation model. It’s a truly great read. Comprehensive, savvy, and a perfect example of what Rebecca does when she’s given the time to really delve into a topic.
Reading through Rebecca’s charming and informativeSims 4 gender customisationguide, it’s extremely obvious just how much of a fan she is of The Sims.
But why stop with just one example? Just over a month later Rebecca wrote up a guide on thegender customisation options in The Sims 4, and I just have to give it a shout out here. It’s a complicated and sensitive topic, and her guide goes the extra mile in explaining the full consequences of each customisation choice in ways that only an ardent lifelong fan of the franchise could hope to write.
We’ve tackled no shortage of dense, complex games in guidestown this year, and Hayden’s guide on thebest character builds in Project Zomboidis one that sticks in my mind for making something very complex sound simple.
Predating all of this - at the very beginning of the year, Hayden published a cracking guide on thebest character builds in Project Zomboid, a spectacularly dense survival game which I certainly didn’t fancy the task of deciphering. Yet this is exactly what Hayden did, patiently explaining how occupations, skills, and traits all work inProject Zomboid, and then illustrating two in-depth character builds that will give new players that best chance of surviving and enjoying the game.
One of the most comprehensive build guides we’ve released this year was Rebecca’s multi-page guide to thebest Traveler build in Genshin Impact, which covers every aspect of the character no matter which direction you decide to take them.
Build guides are something of a speciality of ours here in guidestown. I think we all relish the opportunity to dive very deeply into a game and use everything at our disposal to create the best possible build, whether it’s for a gun, a mech, or a hero. One of the most comprehensive guides we published this year was Rebecca’sGenshin Impact Traveler build guide. It’s one of the first examples of a multi-page guide on RPS, and Rebecca absolutely packed each page with essential information on how to make the most ofGenshin Impact’sflexible starting character.
It may not be the most important guide of the year, but I’m very proud of the work I put into thisThe Cycle: Frontier beginner’s guideand the amount of practical help it gives players who are new to the game.
Oh go on, one more. This is one of my own, and at least 50% of the reason for including it here is to urge more people to playThe Cycle: Frontier. Sometimes writing guides can be a chore, for sure. Just ask Rebecca about her work writing endlessRoblox codesguides, or any of us about writing ourdaily Wordle guides. But other times, it can be an absolute pleasure to introduce players to one of your favourite games of the year. The enthusiasm shines through, I think, in ourbeginner’s guide to The Cycle: Frontier. I hope 2023 gives us plenty more opportunities like this to write some true labours of love for games we simply adore playing.
Next year is already looking very exciting to us. We’ve gotStarfield, of course, as the big new game on the horizon. Next year’s Elden Ring, you might say. But there’s alsoForspoken,Redfall,Nightingale,Ark II, and other smaller but still intriguing opportunities for guides with games likeHades II,Planet Of Lana, andKerbal Space Program 2. It’ll be a lot of work, but the guides team has never been stronger. We’ll get it done, and we’ll more than likely have a lot of fun doing it.
