2022 has been a good (or bad, depending on your perspective) for pips. We live in a world of contradictions and there is no easy way to categorize the issues. One person's trash is another person's treasure – and I absolutely treasure trash.
It may be the ongoing pandemic, but games in 2022 definitely felt a bit more glitchy than normal. Or maybe we're going crazy staying indoors way too long. Either way, I've mentally logged all of the biggest, weirdest, and most wonderful issues I've encountered in 2022 just to share my trauma with the world. Here are the funniest, worst, most game-changing, and most improved problems we've stumbled upon in 2022.
Best of 2022:
Best secret endings of 2022 | Best Secrets, Unlockables & Weapons of 2022 | Best Tiers of 2022 | Best Easter Eggs of 2022
The car keeps getting wider [GTA Trilogy: Definitive Edition]
GTA3's funniest bug never goes away. You can find this issue in the original game, the smartphone re-release, and the latest Definitive Edition. And it's hilarious. By swinging a car left and right on the road, the vehicle will slowly become wider and wider, changing shape until it is as wide as an entire street. Why does this happen? The better question is, why does this always happen. But that's not the worst problem in the Definitive Edition. Luckily, this is a chuckle-worthy glitch that comes right from the original game. The rest of the bugs on this list are brand new messed up creations exclusive to the Definitive Edition.
Close uncomfortably [GTA Trilogy: Definitive Edition]
Upon release, the GTA Trilogy: Definitive Edition was (and continues to be) a bug-riddled mess. There are not only old bugs to rediscover, but plenty of completely new surprises. These are like little bonuses to discover. And one of the most obviously absurd is the bike bug. When riding a bike or quad, if you use camera mode to see behind your vehicle, the camera angle is completely obscured by CJ's giant face. It's an oversight that's not too bad in the scheme of things, and it's extremely funny.
surprise bottomless pit [GTA Trilogy: Definitive Edition]
Here's an issue you'll find in all three GTA Trilogy: Definitive Edition games - pieces of the world were missing. Naturally, this was one of the first things the developers fixed, but upon release it was missing bridges and the ever-present fear of your car just falling through the geometry of the world. What he will do. Many. San Andreas is full of ghost potholes just waiting to swallow you up.
A real hovercraft [Battlefield 2042]
A real contender for my favorite glitch of 2022, Battlefield 2042 has a hovercraft issue. Upon release, hovercraft were the vehicle meta – everyone and their mothers summoned hovercraft. Every turn was a mess of hovercraft action, and as if hovercrafts weren't bad enough, players learned that they could adapt. No wall could slow the threat of hovercraft. Hovercraft have learned to scale skyscrapers.
On a specific map, a specific building is the correct slope, allowing a hovercraft to sidestep the structure and climb to the top. Driving a hovercraft through a building in the (relatively) realistic setting of Battlefield 2042 is hilarious. No one can escape the hovercraft's mounted cannon – not even the sky is safe.
Tackle Hyperspeed [Halo Infinite]
Halo Infinite introduces a new open-world area for its campaign - and it feels like a natural extension of the franchise, which has always had big levels that you can approach in different ways. Despite a leap in a new direction, Halo Infinite comes through with relatively few noticeable bugs. And the only bug we're looking at here is really your fault if you want to get rid of it.
This bug concerns velocity. Explosives in Halo Infinite can apply insane speed to vehicles if you activate the cowbell skull – which adds more speed to the explosions. Grab a few containers of explosives, drop them near a warthog, then toss a grenade into the mix. This warthog will fly off into space. For even more fun, you can use the grappling hook to hook onto the flying warthog, launching Master Chief into the stars. This glitch is purely for fun, but it's so easy to do that I have to recommend it if you're the type to mess around.
Gold flake error [Call of Duty: Vanguard]
And here's a problem that's not so fun. the Gold flake error is just one of the many errors that plague Call of Duty: Vanguard and make joining online games a real problem. Some players have been having these issues for months, preventing them from joining Warzone altogether – and this is especially prevalent for the new Pacific map. This seems to be related to putting your system into Standby. But the worst part is the patch discovered by players.
On Xbox Series X, the community has discovered that you can bypass the Goldflake error by acheter le Game Pass ou Xbox Gold Ultimate. Seriously, if you were willing to spend the extra money, you would be less likely to be criticized with the dreaded Goldflake error. Players without these upgraded subscriptions were stuck more than players with them. That's a look at Activision's rotten practices in a nutshell.
Endless invisibility issues [Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War & Vanguard]
Not just one game, but two Call of Duty games were plagued with the same issue in 2022. Again and again, invisibility issues haunted the lives of players just trying to take advantage of a little shot. Both Black Ops Cold War and Vanguard, there are game-breaking issues that make some skins completely invisible. And we're not even talking about the almost entirely black skin that was just super hard to see - I mean ghostly, phantom invisibility. The funniest version of this problem was so widespread that the bug forced the developers to remove an entire vehicle. the Armored Truck had the magic ability to make players invisible after entering it. It's an aspect of the war that I don't remember in history class.
And the glitches continue into 2022. A new skin in Pacific Warzone also causes an invisibility issue. At this rate, the ghosts are clearly winning the war.
An army of animatronics [Five Nights At Freddy’s: Security Breach]
Another game with lots of bugs? Five Nights At Freddy's: Security Breach. Considering this is an indie effort, let's just call the finished project "loose" - there are bugs everywhere, and the weirdest thing literally clones your stalkers. Instead of an animatronic chicken chasing you, there are two, three, or more than that. I don't know why this is happening, but it absolutely is. I encountered several Chica stalkers appearing next to each other. And it's not just Chica. Monty can spawn a small army on his own. Don't even try to run.
Naked animal friends [Animal Crossing: New Horizons]
What could be the most infamous glitch of the year - Animal Crossing: New Horizons' wholesomeness veneer was shattered by this issue of unknowingly naked neighbors. After the release of Paradise from the expanding happy home. there was a brief moment when naked villagers showed up at your house. First of all, it's extremely rude (not to mention the front end), but the issue was squashed in December. So that's less than a month of animals living in absolute sin. You can take your hands off your eyes now, because next we move on to much cleaner issues.
First person link [Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild]
Here's a fun find for a game that's not new. 2022 has seen a huge increase in glitch discoveries for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – and a very simple one lets you see the world through Link's eyes. By holding an item, bringing up your camera, then immediately canceling, you can get stuck in FPS-vision. If you've played over 150 hours of Breath of the Wild like I have, seeing the world of Skyrim is truly surreal.
The One-Winged Angel Waterfall [Super Smash Bros. Ultimate]
Sephiroth isn't just OP in Final Fantasy 7, for a brief time he was also unstoppable in Super Smash Bros. due to a wild cascading issue. By destroying one of the Pokémon Trainer's Pokémon with Sephiroth's Shadow Flare attack, all subsequent Final Smash attacks are totally shattered. They all deal extremely reduced damage and some of the effects have been completely disabled. The One-Winged Angel's power can even interrupt Luigi's Negative Zone, the darkest and most evil attack in the series.
Show your IP address [Marvel’s Avengers]
And we're off on a sour note with this Marvel's Avengers glitch that literally announced your IP address if you shared a screen. Stream on Twitch? Record a video clip for Youtube? Now the entire internet can see (and sneak around with) your IP address. The issue was introduced in the V1.8.0 patch and primarily affected PS5 players, displaying IP addresses and usernames in menus. This is just another example in the long and storied history of patches somehow causing even bigger problems in video games. It's not the only game that wants everyone to know your IP address, but it's the latest in the line. Naturally, that's been fixed - but still, go Marvel's Avengers.
These are some of the best and worst glitches of the year. Is there a huge issue that we totally missed? Let…