Sony tops Metacritic’s 2022 best game publisher rankings

The year of 2022 saw the release of a bunch of great games that people will likely still be playing and falling in love with several years from now.

From the notoriously tough Elden Ring, the bosses of which streamers are still testing the limits of while they wait for DLC, to its main competitor for awards show GOTY honours in God of War: Ragnarok and even the likes of Pentiment, there was plenty to dig into, regardless of your personal preferences.

As you’d expect, all of these titles were reviewed by critics from across the industry, whose ratings end up on Metacritic, alongside views from fans. Every twelve months, the aggregator takes this data and compiles a list of the highest-rated publishers from the previous year, with their 13th annual edition having just arrived.

Are you surprised by the names at the top of these Metacritic rankings?

Outlined via a couple of blog posts on Metacritic’s website, one of which is a straightforward list, while the other contains some rationale behind the ranking process and the positioning of different publishers, this year’s rankings are headed by Sony Interactive Entertainment.

“Sony's nothing-but-green-scores 2022 slate may have consisted solely of ports and sequels to pre-existing IP,” explains Metacritic Features Editor Jason Dietz, continuing: “but it was consistently good, led by game-of-the-year candidate God of War: Ragnarok and a PC port of the previous God of War release.”

This output was enough to propel Sony from the second spot in last year’s rankings to number one this year, though it did benefit from defending winner Microsoft seemingly failing to qualify, having not released five distinct scored games during the year, as is part of Metacritic’s criteria.

This year’s runner-up was Paradox Interactive, followed by Activision Blizzard in third, Focus Entertainment in fourth and Take-Two Interactive rounding out the top five.

Other big-name publishers in and around the list’s top ten included Capcom and Sega in sixth and seventh respectively, as well as Nintendo in twelfth spot.

Bandai Namco, meanwhile, failed to convert Elden Ring’s critical success into a high ranking, ending up dropping from seventh position last year to 24th this year, with Dietz citing: “disappointments like Dragon Ball: The Breakers and The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me” as the reason for this slide.

Regardless of where your favourite publisher ended up in Metacritic’s hierarchy, make sure to follow us for plenty of reviews and previews of the latest games arriving throughout 2023.