Top 10 Cosplays You Need To See In 2022

Cosplay is the ultimate way to bring geeky fandoms together and give people the opportunity to express themselves through creativity and the mutual love of games.

Dressing up as your favourite character and taking it one step further by sourcing the materials and building a costume from scratch takes determination and a huge amount of patience, with no small amount of talent.

We've decided to round up our favourite cosplays of 2022 to celebrate the wonderful world of cosplay.

• Be sure to also check out our list of the top ten VR games of 2022.

Yugoroforge And Stylouz As Lucy And David: Cyberpunk Edgerunners (#10)

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners was released earlier this year, as a breath of fresh air to the stagnant sci-fi franchise and introducing new characters to the neon lights of Night City. Two such characters, Lucy and David, are portrayed here by cosplayers Yugoroforge and Stylouz.

Yugoro has previously been a finalist for the Cyberpunk Cosplay Contest in 2019 now, she has teamed up with fellow cosplayer Stylouz to bring the Edgerunners characters to life. Stylouz has prior experience with anime cosplay and has portrayed Vlad from the Netflix Castlevania series.

• If you're a fan of the show, check out our guide to all the Cyberpunk 2077 easter eggs in Edgerunners.

Teatherxrie As Junker Queen: Overwatch 2 (#9)

Teatherxrie, also known as Heather, has donned the trademark mohawk and battle gear of Junker Queen, the new tank character added to Overwatch 2 and the ruler of Junkertown.

She showed off her cosplay first at PAX Australia, fitting as Junker Queen is also Australian, with Junkertown being a Mad Max-style town in the Australian Outback.

Along with her shotgun and trademark knife, which she can recall after it is thrown, Junker Queen often wields an impressive axe, as seen through Heather's version above.

• For more information on playing Junker Queen in Overwatch 2, read our guide on Junker Queen: Lore, abilities, and tips to play.

Raisin Cosplay As Liara T'Soni: Mass Effect (#8)

In celebration of N7 day earlier this year and the rumours concerning a possible Mass Effect TV series, Raisin Cosplay chose to honour the fandom by creating a cosplay of everyone's favourite Asari scientist, Liara T'Soni.

Whether you romanced her or not, Liara is a fan-favourite and one of the few Normandy crew to appear in all three titles of the original Mass Effect trilogy (if you count the Lair of The Shadow Broker DLC for Mass Effect 2).

Raisa painted the squid-like headpiece, created by SnakeCraft with airbrush paint and used 3D prints for the armour accessories. The armour and jacket were painstakingly put together to represent a true replica of Liara's outfit in Mass Effect 3.

• For more news on a potential Mass Effect TV series featuring Henry Cavill, check out our article here.

Sarah Spaceman Cosplay as Ranni The Witch: Elden Ring (#7)

For many of us, Elden Ring was a whirlwind event that completely took over our lives for that glorious month of February onwards. Sarah Spaceman Cosplay would seem to agree as she has created a cosplay to embody the tragic character of Ranni The Witch.

Ranni is one of the few friendly NPCs in The Lands Between, and her aethereal blue-tinged presence is iconic amongst the other characters of the game. As such, her most prominent features are her extra set of arms, usually carefully folded away under her large cloak and her huge mushroom-like hat.

Sarah took to the task of replicating this by using six layers of fabric, one of which she had specially printed to match the inside snowflake pattern of the hat in-game. The extra set of arms was made from cardboard, 16-gauge wire, foam clay, and seamless gloves.

Once made, the arms are fully posable and move freely with Sarah's other arms. For a more comprehensive look at her Ranni cosplay, you can watch her YouTube tutorial here.

• If you need help following Ranni's questline in Elden Ring, check out our guide on how to complete Ranni's quest and get The Moonlight Greatsword.

Emjaine Cosplay As Commander Shepherd: Mass Effect (#6)

While there is already a Mass Effect entry to this list, there can be no Liara without her Commander Shepherd, and Emjaine Cosplay does a brilliant job of emulating her. Commander Shepherd's "favourite store on The Citadel" is not a mystery to us, but how Emily managed to create this armour set most definitely is. 

Emily has previously cosplayed as Beidou and Ayaka from Genshin Impact, Jester from the Critical Role campaign, and Ellie from The Last of Us.

The bulk of the armour for Shepherd was made from PVC rigid foam with worbla sheets for the larger pieces. Everything was primed, painted and finished in time for PAX Australia this year.

• Do you think Commander Shepherd will return for Mass Effect 4? Read our article here on all potential information about Shepherd's return.

Msskunk As Aloy: Horizon Forbidden West (#5)

Ms Skunk decided to make the Utaru Harvester Armor from Horizon Forbidden West. As a game with many armour options, the Utaru Harvester Armor features woven materials and natural fibres which are tricky to replicate, in particular, the banana leaf skirt.

The cosplay was made as part of a mini-documentary series called "Becoming Aloy," and was featured in promotional material for the PlayStation Germany social channels.

As Aloy seems to be a permanent Sony mascot now, Ms Skunk did a fantastic job of bringing her to life with added details such as wiring within the skirts to show the mix of futuristic meets apocalypse, which the franchise is known for.

• If you'd like to step into the shoes of Aloy yourself, you can read our Horizon Forbidden West review here.

Laurendoescosplay as Galadriel: Rings Of Power (#4)

As with many of us Tolkien fans, the thought of a new series set in Middle Earth was both exciting and nerve-wracking. Without information for months, we finally had our first glimpse of the set through the Vanity Fair images. Through these, we saw Galadriel, equipped in Númenórean armour, a far cry from the flowy white robes we were used to.

Lauren was struck by this image and started crafting a replica of the armour in an endeavour which totalled five months. During this time, her armour gained the attention of The One Ring Net, who organised for Lauren to attend the San Diego Comic-Con and meet Morfydd Clark, who plays Galadriel in The Rings of Power.

The armour was crafted from foam pieces with the addition of foam clay to add all the carved lines within the breastplate and topped off with worbla sheets to smooth out the lines and give a metallic look. You can check out Lauren's full YouTube tutorial here, where she details how each piece of the costume was made.

Sparrowhawkcosplay As Malenia, Blade Of Miquella: Elden Ring (#3)

Sparrowhawk Cosplay has taken it upon herself to embody the Goddess of Rot herself, Malenia. Malenia was a notorious optional boss that left many of us clutching at our hair, with fierce and near impossible-to-dodge combos that slowly built-up scarlet rot.

Despite her reputation, this just made fans love her even more, with her Empyrean design and a prosthetic arm and leg further setting her apart from other bosses in the game, a permanent reminder of her deadly battle with Starscourge Radahn.

Sparrowhawk Cosplay has chosen to replicate this by creating a Malenia cosplay with incredible attention to detail. This included constructing chainmail, an arm harness for the prosthetic arm, a prosthetic leg, a helmet per designs by Diego Queiroz, the dyed and weathered cloth underneath the armour and more, all with added makeup to indicate rot attached to Malenia as per her affliction.

• If you avoided Malenia on your first playthrough, try reading our guide on how to defeat Malenia in Elden Ring and give it another go.

Vilina Cosplay as Alexstrasza, Queen of The Dragons: World Of Warcraft (#2)

Even to people who do not know World of Warcraft, this cosplay by Vilina is beyond impressive. As such, it is unsurprising that she won the cosplay competition at Twitch Con Amsterdam 2022.

In World Of Warcraft, Alexstrasza the Life-Binder is imbued with god-like power given by the Titans and acts as a guardian of all life in Azeroth. She is the queen of the dragons but is also capable of assuming the form of a high elf, as seen in Vilina's cosplay and character concept art by Cinderys Art.

The enormity of the headpiece and wings was delicately handcrafted by Vilina, who added 144 LED lights to the wings to fully embody the flaming power of the Dragon Queen. The gauntlets took 120 hours alone just to prime for painting, not to mention the foam, gems and ornaments that needed fixing afterwards.

This project took four months to complete and required utmost dedication to complete, with Vilina having to pause commission to get the work finished in time for Twitch Con.

• Be sure to also check out our list of the top ten indie games of 2022.

Maul Cosplay as Kratos: God of War (#1)

Maul Cosplay is an established brand within the cosplay scene. He is previously known for his Geralt of Rivia cosplay from The Witcher Wild Hunt, Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption 2, Eivor from Assassins Creed Valhalla, and numerous more impressive costumes.

His recent efforts have gone into creating an authentic Kratos cosplay, which has left an impression on the cosplay world and Sony Santa Monica studios, who have commissioned him as their official cosplay Kratos.

• If you're thinking about getting God of War for Christmas, check out our God of War Ragnarök review first.

Maul, otherwise known as Ben and his wife Maja worked hard to finish the project in just six weeks, working with traditional leather working and stitching to produce not only Kratos' new Ragnarök outfit, complete with Leviathan Axe but also an outfit for Atreus too.

Maul built a muscle suit back in 2020 in preparation for slipping into the exaggerated frame of the God of War, with added paint detail to show off Kratos' iconic full-body tattoo. No small detail was overlooked for this cosplay, and it shows.