I was recently on Twitter when I saw that Valve had released a new feature on Steam called “Steam Replay 2022”. This acts as a summary of how you used Steam and contains some very interesting information. So much so that I thought it worth taking a look specifically at my personal 2022 Steam Replay. I also decided to make my Steam Replay 2022 public for those who wish to take a closer look at certain aspects with the link being available here.
Before I start taking a look at the specifics in my Steam Replay 2022, there is something that I have to point out that’ll be necessary in order to analyse the results. I subscribe to a service called Humble Choice which offers around 8 games every month and I’ve discovered and played a great many wonderful games through subscribing to them. However, I also make use of a program that I use in order to get the initial Steam cards from all of the games I get by running the games simultaneously in the background and, combined with the many games I get from Humble Choice, this means that certain figures such as playtime, the number of games I’ve played etc. aren’t as accurate as they would otherwise be. However, many other figures remain accurate and I’ll do my best to mention whenever I believe that a result may have been affected.
Let’s start by looking at my top 5 games by playtime. Elden Ring being the top doesn’t surprise me as it’s a massive game that I ended up putting a lot of time into (if you want my thoughts on Elden Ring, here you go). I confess to being a little surprised to see that my second most played game of 2022 was the remaster of Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. I’d played the game previously on PS3 many years ago but I was surprised that, for whatever reason, I enjoyed playing Ni No Kuni even more when I played it in 2022. However, one thing that I did end up partially regretting was my decision to 100% the game, that decision being guided by the fact that I wanted to experience the content that I had missed on my first playthrough. It was ok for the most part but the last few achievements proved to be an incredibly brutal experience that required an enormous amount of time, effort and luck in order to complete. I’d played Darkest Dungeon many years ago but I’d never finished the game due to its intense difficulty. However, I decided to go back and actually finish Darkest Dungeon and it proved to be an incredible experience. While I would often feel deflated when my characters I’d been developing died, I continued to persevere and I was reminded how rewarding the game feels when you conquer a dungeon or unlock new services at the hamlet. Titan Quest was a game that I’d played often as a child but never even managed to get past the first act. I decided to go back and actually complete the game and I ended up finishing the main game as well as doing the Immortal Throne and Ragnarok expansions. As you folks may know, I’ve played the Dragon Age games before but I ended up replaying Dragon Age: Origins alongside a friend who had never played before. I certainly didn’t realise how much time we put into it but it does make sense given how large a game it is.
Beyond that, another interesting area is that I got a Steam Deck and that the Steam Replay 2022 actually takes account of this. I only got my Steam Deck at the beginning of November so the results are a little limited but there’s still some interesting information to note. Despite only accounting for 4% of my total playtime, the sessions played on the Steam Deck were 170, a little over 9% of all of my sessions in 2022. I believe this is due to the very helpful quick suspend feature which allows me to play for a short bit and then suspend without having to go search for a save point. Besides that, you can see that the top 5 games that I played on the Steam Deck made up 98% of the playtime, mainly due to the other 3 games being either quick tests or incredibly short. Right now, I’m tending to play one game at a time on my Steam Deck but it’s proving to be quite an invaluable device as it works really well with the format of some types of games and allows me to play a little bit in between tasks.
The last thing that I want to draw attention to is the divide between playtime spent with keyboard and mouse and playtime spent with controller. This is a true strength of the PC platform and I frequently switch between keyboard and mouse and controller depending on the genre. This can be seen in the results where I’ve spent 40% of my playtime with a controller while spending the other 60% with a keyboard and mouse. They also noted that the games I spent the most time playing using a controller were Elden Ring, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Yakuza 4, Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection and Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2. They unfortunately didn’t include a most played with keyboard and mouse section but I can tell you, perhaps obviously, that I played Darkest Dungeon, Titan Quest and Dragon Age: Origins with a keyboard and mouse.
It’s a shame that the info has been corrupted a little by my pursuit of Steam trading cards but Steam Replay remains quite a cool feature and I’ll be looking forward to seeing how it develops over the next few years. Let me know your thoughts on taking a look at my Steam Replay 2022, what bits of information you found particularly interesting, what your own thoughts are on Steam Replay, how you think Valve could expand and improve it, your own Steam Replays and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.