The 2022 Game Developers Conference wrapped up late March as a rousing success—with 12,000 people attending in-person and another 5,000 joining virtually. Here are some of Game Developer's coverage highlights from that incredible week.
It was the largest conference in San Francisco in the past two years. GDC 2022 featured over 1,000 speakers across over 600 lectures, workshops, and roundtable discussions and networking events, physically reuniting the game dev community.
GDC's sister publication Game Developer was on the ground covering some of the biggest news, sessions, and surprises from the weeklong event. We've put together a list of some of the most-exciting articles from GDC 2022, with more highlights to come over the next few weeks. Of course, you can always head here for a full list of Game Developer's GDC 2022 coverage.
How Weird West's developers put the "immersive" in "immersive sim" (Bryant Francis)
"Weird West narrative designer Lucas Loredo breaks down how Wolfeye Studios lets players finish the game's story even if they murder every character."
Unity provides glimpse of super-realistic digital humans with "Enemies" demo (Chris Kerr)
"Unity claims Enemies shows 'the next step in our digital-human journey.'"
How the developers of Unpacking told a story with 1,000 items (Holly Green)
"How do you tell a story without any words or dialogue? By the items your character leaves behind, as Witch Beam tells us."
Microsoft debuts cloud-based virtual workstations for game developers (Bryant Francis)
"Microsoft is introducing two new cloud-based programs for game developers. One for virtual cloud-based development workstations, and another to help indie devs use Azure."
Old school romance mechanics sell players, characters, and game developers short (Joseph Knoop)
"Established romance systems are often little more than a transaction that rewards attention with affection. Michelle Clough dreams of an approach to narrative that allows for more flexibility, more player opportunities, and richer storytelling."
"Games are not worth sacrificing your health over" (Kris Graft)
"At GDC 2022, narrative designer Emma Kidwell talked about healthy approaches to making games that deal with serious, traumatic issues."
GDC returns to San Francisco in March 2023, and the call for submissions opens this summer! For more information, be sure to visit our website.
Subscribe to the GDC newsletter and get regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or RSS.
Game Developer and GDC are sibling organizations under Informa Tech.