Game Changer: Why December 2 Was Christmas Day for Gamers

It’s pretty well established that December is the driest of months when it comes to new games. After all, most major publishers want to put their games out before Thanksgiving to take full advantage of the big shopping weekend. But since every rule needs an exception, December 2022 is cracking up to be a real game changer—thanks, most of all, to this Friday’s three incredible and highly anticipated releases.

Let’s take a closer look at them.

Developed by Firaxis in collaboration with Marvel Games—and published by 2K—Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a tactical RPG set in the Marvel Universe at its darkest, with lots of supernatural elements sprinkled throughout. You’ll take on the role of The Hunter, a legendary demon slayer and customizable superhero with a mysteriously dark past and more than 40 different superpowers to choose from. Your mission will be to get a team of Marvel’s mightiest heroes and attempt to Lilith, Mother of Demons, who forged a dark alliance with Hydra and is trying to complete an ancient prophecy and summon Chthon, her dark overlord. Dark!

The roster of playable characters is suitably impressive. In addition to the Hunter, it includes a healthy mix of your more supernaturally inclined heroes, like Ghost Rider, Blade, Morbius, Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, and Runaways alumna Nico Minoru; and your more conventional fan favorites, like Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man, Venom, Wolverine, Storm, Magik, and Deadpool. Before the start of every new mission, you’ll be able to select three or more of them to accompany you into epic card-based combat battles.

It’s morbin’ time

Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a single-player game, but some single-player games can be made into an even more unique and memorable experience when you play them with a group of friends. Get on a Discord with a bunch of them and a game like this on release day and you have the makings of a Friday night for the ages. And if you really want to take your streaming party to a whole new level, there’s no better way to get into character than with Voicemod’s free voice changer for Discord.

Voicemod lets you change your voice in real time with a metric ton of voice filters. You can make your live-streamed gaming session even more entertaining by adding background effects to amplify the experience or go even further and fire up the Voicelab. Use our voice simulator to take Marvel’s Midnight Suns to the next level of immersion so that when you take Morbius into battle, it will truly be morbin’ time.

Developed by Criterion Games and published by EA, Need for Speed Unbound is the highly anticipated 25th installment in the long-running street racing franchise. Set in the fictional Lakeshore City—an open-world environment inspired in the very real city of Chicago—Need for Speed Unbound features separate single-player and multiplayer campaigns and an all-new visual style that blends anime and street art-inspired elements with the realistic-looking cars the series is known for.

Customization is the name of the game in Lakeshore City. Install different body wraps, add splitters or remove the front or rear bumpers. Express yourself to the fullest! Prove you have what it takes, beat the competition and earn enough cash to pack your garage with precision-tuned, custom rides. It won’t be easy, though. You’ll be racing against time, trying to outsmart the cops, and taking on weekly qualifiers to reach The Grand, Lakeshore City’s ultimate street racing challenge. It’s a long climb to the top, but if you can’t handle the heat…

Feel the need

NFS Unbound’s single-player campaign is probably fire, but we all know that the first thing you’re going to do when you boot up the game on launch day is head up Lakeshore Online—the multiplayer PvP area of Need for Speed Unbound. After all, racing games are never more fun than when you’re completely annihilating some of your closest friends in front of an audience.

Need for Speed Unbound comes complete with a brand-new toolkit of sound effects, but when are built-in effects ever enough? If you really want to feel the need for speed—and want your friends to feel the burn of defeat—you’re going to want your voice to sound like you’re flying past them at breakneck speeds as you taunt them. Try Voicemod’s AI-powered voice changer and you’re off to the races. What’s more, it gives you a fully customizable, immersive experience. You can even add some epic background effects to really set the mood.

Developed by Striking Distance Studios and published by Krafton, The Callisto Protocol is a narrative-driven, third-person survival horror game set 300 years in the future. If that sounds a little like Dead Space to you, it’s not a coincidence. Striking Distance’s debut game is directed by Glen Schofield, co-creator of the critically acclaimed Dead Space series.

In The Callisto Protocol, you’ll be taking on the role of an inmate at Black Iron Prison, a maximum-security penitentiary on Jupiter’s moon Callisto. When other inmates begin to transform into terrifying creatures known as Biophages, all hell breaks loose. You know. The yuzh. To survive, you’ll need to scrounge for resources while battling your way to safety and uncovering the deadly secrets lurking in Black Iron’s darkest recesses.

Blending typical survival-horror mechanics with third-party shooting and gory melee-based combat, The Callisto Protocol is sure to be a lot of fun. If your idea of fun is to be in constant fear for your life in one of the most hostile, isolated environments in the universe, that is.

Be afraid, be very afraid

The key to good horror will always be great audio, and The Callisto Protocol is the kind of game that demonstrates how audio design can elevate a game from scary to shit-your-pants terrifying.

If you’re planning to spend release night scaring the bejeezus out of your live streaming audience, you may want to upgrade your Voicemod desktop app to Pro so that you can check out the Space Trooper collection and find the perfect real-time AI voice changer to narrate your space prison break-cum-nightmare. While you’re at it, go ahead and explore the massive game-ready soundboard. If you dare…

December may traditionally be a dead month when it comes to new game launches, but this Friday’s releases sure are trying to turn tradition on its head. Surprisingly, December 2022 is already looking like another very strong month for gaming and gamers everywhere. 

Marvel’s Midnight Suns, Need for Speed Unbound are available on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S from December 2, 2022. The Callisto Protocol is available on the same platforms, as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.