Google picks the best Android apps and games of 2022 – download them now

Google has followed Apple in announcing its apps and games of the year – and if you're looking for something new to install on your Android phone then these Play Store picks are well worth checking out.

These picks were made by the Google Play editorial team, and there are some honorable mentions as well as the winners in each category. Google has also highlighted the best books and audiobooks. From what we can tell, there are some country-specific choices as well: find your local selection here.

Most of us probably spend our days cycling around the same core set of apps on our phones, so these lists are a good opportunity to check out something new that perhaps we haven't come across before.

The best Android apps of 2022

Best app overall: Dream (freemium) – artificial intelligence just keeps getting better and better, so it seems fitting that AI art generator Dream has the top spot. All you need to do is enter a few prompts, and the app will produce some fantastic-looking digital artwork.

Best app for fun: PetStar (freemium) – if we tell you that PetStar gives you the tools you need to create a music video starring your pet's face, then we probably don't need to say anything else. We're not sure quite what your pet will make of the end results, however.

Best app for personal growth: Breathwrk (freemium) – ready for a self-improvement drive over the next year? Breathwrk wants to help you reduce stress and release energy from your body through hundreds of carefully curated breathing exercises led by the app.

Breathwrk (Image credit: Breathwrk)

Best app for everyday essentials: Plant Parent (freemium) – as the name suggests, this app helps you parent your plants, giving you customized tips on what your plants need to stay healthy. It can identify just about any plant through your smartphone camera as well.

Best hidden gem app: Recover Athletics (freemium) – we're not sure exactly what qualifies as a "hidden gem", but Google has picked Recover Athletics, which works with Strava to ensure that your body recovers properly after exercise to avoid injury and fatigue.

Best app for good: The Stigma App (free) – The Stigma App is on an important mission to normalize conversations around mental health. You can use the straightforward app to hear stories from other people, to reach out for help, and to support others as well.

Best app for Wear: Todoist (freemium) – if you're looking for something to improve the experience on your Wear OS smartwatch then Todoist is well worth a look. The comprehensive to do list app gives you everything you need to plan and organize your life.

Pocket (Image credit: Pocket)

Best app for tablets: Pocket (freemium) – there's never enough time to read everything online, and Pocket helps by providing an article archive to catch up on when you can. A distraction-free layout and the option to have articles read aloud add to the app's appeal.

Best app for Chromebooks: BandLab (freemium) – Chromebooks can run Android apps now of course, and this is one of the apps that's most suited to the laptop format. BandLab makes creating and mixing music easy, whether you're a veteran or a complete beginner.

Best app chosen by users: BeReal (free) – we're not sure exactly which users voted for this category, but the winner is BeReal, the social app that challenges you to post a picture of whatever you're doing at a particular time of day, whenever the app prompts you to.

That's not all either: Google has also found time to give honorable mentions to DanceFitme, noteit widget, Learn to Read – Duolingo ABC, Gym Log & Workouts, Ukulele by Yousician, Book Morning Routine Waking Up, Daily Diary, Sleep Tracker, Linktree, Little Lunches, Wamble, Sleep Fruits and Zario.

The best Android games of 2022

Best game overall: Apex Legends Mobile (freemium) – this strategy battle royale shooter remains phenomenally popular and got the user's choice award too. You've got a choice of gameplay modes to pick from, and the speed and the fun of the combat is hard to beat.

Best multiplayer game: Dislyte (freemium) – a urban mythological role-playing game that stands out from the crowd due to its style, the quality of its visuals, and the story running through it. The game also does well at staying challenging as you get better at it.

Best Pick Up and Play game: Angry Birds Journey (freemium) – the Angry Birds will need no introduction for those who know their mobile gaming history, and this is the latest in the series. It's as fun as ever, as you throw birds to demolish structure after structure.

(Image credit: Dicey Dungeons)

Best indie game: Dicey Dungeons ($4.99/£4.19) – sometimes the best games don't have to be incredibly complex, and Dicey Dungeons takes a simple format and uses it well. You're a giant dice in this deckbuilding roguelike, and have to escape the whims of chance.

Best story game: Papers, Please ($4.99/£4.09) – one of the most immersive and engaging games on the Play Store at the moment, Papers, Please is described as a "dystopian document thriller", asking you to be smart in identifying smugglers, spies, and terrorists.

Best ongoing game: Genshin Impact (freemium) – assuming this is your type of game (an open world action role-playing game), you're guaranteed to get a whole lot of enjoyment out of Genshin Impact, which features beautiful landscapes and memorable characters.

Very Little Nightmares (Image credit: Very Little Nightmares)

Best game on Play Pass: Very Little Nightmares ($4.99/£4.99 a month) – if you're paying a monthly fee for the Google Play Pass, you get games like Very Little Nightmares included, a brilliantly creepy and compelling puzzle game that will give you hours of entertainment.

Best game for tablets: Tower of Fantasy (freemium) – Tower of Fantasy is one of the better Play Store games when it comes to taking advantage of the bigger screens offered by tablets, and the open world fantasy adventure title scores highly in most areas.

Best game for Chromebooks: Roblox (freemium) – Roblox has been something of a gaming sensation over recent years, and Google has picked it as one of the best Android games for running on a Chromebook, giving you access to a keyboard and trackpad.

Hang on a minute, because there are plenty of honorable mentions here too: you might also want to check out Catalyst Black, Diablo Immortal, Rocket League Sideswipe, Gun & Dungeons, HOOK 2, Hyde and Seek, quadline, Dungeons of Dreadrock, Knotwords, One Hand Clapping, Phobies, DEEMO II, Inua - A Story in Ice and Time, The Secret of Cat Island, Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, Candy Crush Saga, Garena Free Fire, Pokémon GO, Bridge Constructor, Final Fantasy VII, Linelight, and Path of Giants.

• Everything you need to know about Android 13

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Apple's latest accessibility video is one of its best, but it also gives me hope for VR

Earlier this week, Apple marked International Day of Disabled Persons 2022, held every year on December 3, with a video called ‘The Greatest’ that showcased how some of its users were using its accessibility features, from door detection to sound alerts.

As ‘I Am the Greatest’ (with the Marliya Choir) by Spinifex Gum plays in the background, you’re shown a few scenarios employing accessibility features on iOS and macOS such as Magnifier, Door Detection, and Image Descriptions on an iPhone, alongside alternate pointer controls on Mac, such as head tracking & facial expressions.

Granted, it’s an ad when it boils down to it - a bunch of features shown off that you can use on Apple’s devices. However, you can’t deny that there’s something special here, and it makes an impact as to how far software has come that almost anyone can use these devices as well as anyone else.

Yet, with rumors of an Apple VR headset allegedly coming in 2023, it makes me wonder how Apple’s accessibility features could go one step beyond when it comes to AR and VR.

The era of calling Accessibility as an ‘easter egg’ is over

As you watch this two-minute video (there’s an audio-described version, as well), you’re struck by how these seven users, not actors, are going about their lives using an iPhone, a Mac, and an Apple Watch to help them with day-to-day tasks. For example, you see a hearing-impaired mother being alerted on her Apple Watch that her newborn child is crying, so she goes and tends to her. You can switch this on by going to Settings > Accessibility > Sound Recognition, then turn on Sound Recognition to select certain alerts for some sounds.

Meanwhile, Julliard-trained jazz pianist Matthew Whitaker caught my attention with how he was using the detection feature in a scene where he’s using an iPhone to help him read out what it says on the door. I've been told that door detection works with any iPhone that features a LIDAR scanner, so an iPhone 12 Pro and above, and it can work for distances of up to 20 feet.

Watching how Detection Mode in the Magnifier app was reading the ‘Stage’ word on the door, it struck me how this could be the start of something greater. Imagine a headset that could automatically read out items on a menu wherever you directed your eyes or other detection notifications for distance.

Also, if you’re walking a dog, for example, the headset could let you see clearer on a foggy morning to pick up a stick that the dog may have dropped beside you, or it could instruct you where the stick is, and how close it is.

(Image credit: Apple)

All of these come back to accessibility and how it can enrich someone’s lifestyle. For too long, there’s been content describing Accessibility features as ‘easter eggs’ or ‘hidden features’, and it’s time for that to change. It’s videos like ‘The Greatest’ that shows just how Detection Mode and Voice Control not only help users every day but to thrive as well.

The rumored headset could take these features to the next level, and if it does get announced in 2023, the first question for me won’t be about how much it will cost, but what accessibility features are included from day one.

The video is one of Apple’s best in recent years - now let’s see what else the category can do to better enrich other people’s lives.

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Disney’s incredible new re-aging tech could turn back time on more Hollywood heroes

Re-aging technology is all the rage in Hollywood at the moment. In the past five years alone, actors including Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Chris Evans, Keanu Reeves, Mark Hamill, and Ewan McGregor have been subjected to various forms of age-altering digital wizardry in a range of big-budget films and TV series.

In most cases, these attempts to trick audiences into thinking said movie stars are significantly younger or older than their off-screen counterparts have come off as less-than-convincing at best and downright embarrassing at worst (looking at you, The Mandalorian), but evidence suggests that progress is being made. 

Harrison Ford’s upcoming turn as a 30-something Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones 5 looks, at least, like it’ll represent a watershed moment for the development of re-aging technology – and Disney, specifically, appears to be leading the charge on improving the quality of age-altered content.

Whether by chance or design, the good folks over at Disney’s visual effects division announced a major breakthrough in digital re-aging technology just one day before Lucasfilm pulled the pin on its first Indiana Jones 5 trailer. 

A de-aged Harrison Ford appears in the first trailer for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Image credit: Lucasfilm)

In a new research paper, the entertainment giant heralds its proprietary Face Re-aging Network, or FRAN, as "the first practical, fully automatic and production-ready method for re-aging faces" – and what we’ve seen of the technology so far looks mightily impressive.

By using a program called StyleGAN2, which generates thousands of artificial faces to more accurately predict the changing appearance of the human face over long periods of time, FRAN does away with the costly and time-consuming need to collect data on these changes manually.

Disney's FRAN software generates artificial faces to predict the aging process (Image credit: Disney)

In other words, Disney’s visual effects division has developed an algorithm that tracks the aging process virtually in order to more effectively apply authentic physical alterations to real-life subjects. 

Take a look at FRAN in action via the demonstration video below, which was shared to Disney's DisneyResearchHub YouTube channel on November 30. 

Pretty amazing, right? Disney’s report claims that FRAN "provides artists with localized control and creative freedom to direct and fine-tune the re-aging effect," and the House of Mouse clearly considers the technology to be good enough for mainstream film and TV production.

By our eyes, at least, FRAN’s results are an improvement over almost all of the de-aging effects we’ve seen used in movies over the past few years – and it’s likely that the software behind it comes at a much, much smaller cost, too. 

That should come as great news for filmmakers, film studios, and film fans alike. Scorsese’s use of de-aging effects in his 2019 gangster epic The Irishman, for instance, reportedly ate up a huge chunk of the movie’s $159 million budget – a move that, by most accounts, was a waste of money given how inauthentic those effects turned out to be on screen.

But if movie studios can employ re-aging technology of the sort made possible by FRAN – as Lucasfilm looks to have done with Indiana Jones 5 – then we could see more and more aging Hollywood heroes turning back time on, well, time.  

Sure, nothing can last forever – but who doesn't want to see Arnold Schwarzenegger return as a prime-time Terminator for one last hurrah? 

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7 new movies and TV shows on Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, and more this weekend (December 2)

Given that we’re now officially into December, we’re pleasantly surprised by the relative lack of festive features forcing their way onto streaming services this weekend. 

Save for Scrooge: A Christmas Carol on Netflix – there’s always one! – this month’s first flurry of on-demand content is a real mixed bag, genre-wise. That’s not to say there’s nothing to watch over the next few days, mind. In fact, the opposite is true, with six different streamers represented in this week’s crop of top-tier recommendations. 

Below, then, we’ve rounded up seven of the biggest new movies and TV shows available to watch on the likes of Netflix, Prime Video, and HBO Max over the next few days.

Willow (Disney Plus)

Now here’s a series we didn’t expect to see in 2022 (before it was announced as being in production, that is). Willow, a Lucasfilm-produced sequel to Ron Howard's 1988 fantasy film of the same name, is now streaming on Disney Plus. 

Once again starring Warwick Davis as titular sorcerer Willow Ufgood, this eight-part show – which marks the first first non-Star Wars project from Lucasfilm in five years – takes place two decades after Howard's original movie, and follows six heroes on a cross-country quest to save their homeland. 

Other than Davis, Willow’s cast of characters is entirely new. We spoke to Ellie Bamber – who plays (initially, at least) Dove the kitchen maid in the show – about keeping her character's true identity a secret. And, in a separate interview with TechRadar, Davis himself told us how "everything aligned perfectly" to bring Willow back to the screen. 

Now available to stream on Disney Plus.

Slow Horses season 2 (Apple TV Plus)

One of the very best Apple TV shows, Slow Horses, returns for its highly-anticipated second season this weekend. 

New episodes of the Gary Oldman-starring espionage drama take their cues from the second book in Mick Herron’s Slough House series – Dead Lions – with Jackson Lamb (Oldman), River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), and Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas) once again tasked with solving a twisty murder mystery. 

The first two episodes of Slow Horses season 2 are available to stream now on Apple TV Plus, with the remaining four set to arrive in weekly installments every Friday. The show has already been renewed for its third and fourth seasons, so we’re expecting big things from this first follow-up. 

Now available to stream on Apple TV Plus.

Lady Chatterley's Lover (Netflix)

A word of warning: Lady Chatterley's Lover is steamy. It’s a story that always has been, that always will be – and Netflix’s adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s novel of the same name is no exception to that rule.

This time around, young British stars Emma Corrin (The Crown) and Jack O'Connell (Unbroken) step into the well-worn shoes of Lady Constance Reid and gamekeeper Oliver Mellors, respectively – two characters from very different worlds who engage in a risky extramarital affair. 

Before arriving on Netflix, Lady Chatterley's Lover enjoyed a brief theatrical run and was near-unanimously praised by critics for its authentic and moving portrait of forbidden love. By the sounds of things, then, it could be making its way onto our list of the best Netflix movies. 

Now available to stream on Netflix. 

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (Netflix)

It wouldn’t be Christmas without another needless-but-still-strangely-welcome adaptation of Charles Dickens’ age-old festive favorite, A Christmas Carol. This year, Netflix tries its hand at delivering just that, only weeks after Apple did the same with its own adaptation, Spirited.

The streamer’s animated (and musical) take on the story of an elderly miser who comes to learn the meaning of Christmas features the voices of Luke Evans, Olivia Colman, and Jessie Buckley. By the looks of things, the film is a much more family-friendly affair than we’ve become used to seeing from retellings of A Christmas Carol.

Reviews haven’t been too kind to this one as yet, but if you’re after an easy festive watch this weekend, we expect you’ll still find plenty to enjoy here. 

Now available to stream on Netflix.

Three Pines (Prime Video) 

Spider-Man: No Way Home star Alfred Molina returns to the screen this weekend to lead the cast of Prime Video’s latest crime series, Three Pines.

The Doc Ock actor plays a seasoned detective on the hunt for answers in this grisly Québec-set drama, which is an adaptation of Louise Penny's award-winning Inspector Gamache novel series. As such, you can expect more twists than a helter skelter and enough tension to keep the blood pumping during these cold winter months.

The first episode of Three Pines is available to stream now, with the remaining seven entries set to arrive weekly every Friday until the season finale on December 23. Here’s hoping it’s one of the best Prime Video shows of the year.  

Now available to stream on Prime Video. 

The Great American Baking Show: Celebrity Holiday (The Roku Channel) 

Roku streaming stick recently got 36 new live channels for free, and chief among that number was an entire channel dedicated to popular British reality import The Great British Baking Show.

As part of Roku’s new licensing deal, The Roku Channel is now also playing host to a holiday-themed celebrity episode of The Great American Baking Show, which originally aired on ABC in the US.

The format is simple: six celebrities – including actor Nat Faxon and former NFL star Marshawn Lynch – compete against each other to produce the best oven-based creations for judges Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood. Need we say more? 

Now available to stream on The Roku Channel.

Branson (HBO Max)  

This week’s documentary pick is Branson, a four-part look at the life and legacy of (you guessed it!) British entrepreneur Richard Branson. 

Famous for founding the Virgin Group megacorporation – which is currently valued at more than $5 billion – Branson has lived an undeniably unique life chasing ventures and adventures, and this HBO-produced docuseries takes a microscope to his successes, controversies and risk-taking personality. 

Now available to stream on HBO Max. 

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The cloud networking market is broken – Netmaker is trying to fix it

From businesses to individual users, everybody seems to be using the cloud. And, with organizations migrating more and more towards a remote or hybrid work model, cloud computing is simply going to get bigger and bigger. 

The market's overall value exceeded $368 billion in 2021, and this is expected to grow at a staggering annual rate of 15.7% between now and 2030.  

This fast expansion together with a considerable rise in demand is bringing quite a few challenges as the sector struggles to keep up with new trends, tools and cyber threats.   

This was exactly the scenario that ex-IBM cloud engineer Alex Feasley and former colleague, now business partner, Dillon Carns encountered about a year ago when they decided to set up their own cloud network system. 

The limits of today's cloud networking systems

"The newest trends [in cloud computing] are about building more distributed applications. There's things like IoT, edge computing, multi hybrid cloud. All of these new patterns involve running applications in differently networked environments. But there's not really a solution, or a good solution, for controlling the networking across these different infrastructures," Feasley told TechRadar.

"That's the gap we're aiming to solve: automating and integrating the networking between these different distributed environments."

Cloud computing, or networking, refers to the infrastructure delivering on-demand computing services over the internet. Starting off with the cloud as a secure storage space, its more recent use is a way to process and link different accounts and applications over a remote virtual network. 

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Blackboard)

"I think there's a bit of a skill gap in the industry where there's just not enough developers focused on networking. I don't think we see nearly as much innovation in the networking space as we do in other spaces, but it's really needed," said Feasley. 

A lack of expertise able to keep up with new trends in cloud computing is one of the main issues affecting organizations, according to a recent survey conducted by US computer software company Flexera.  

Other limitations dragging down new developments in cloud networking are: 

• Limited control over the cloud infrastructure hindering the correct management and implementation of procedures in line with organizations' goals; 
• Difficulty in promoting security practices able to protect organizations from a diverse range of cyber threats;
• Compliance with several local data regulations and laws;
• Cost and issues of managing multiple clouds.  

Netmaker: the virtual networking platform of the future?

These were some of the issues that CEO and co-founder of Netmaker Alex Feasley and partner Dillon Carns encountered a year ago, before deciding to create their own mesh network able to overcome such limitations.

"We originally had a much bigger idea: to have a cloud provider that doesn't own any infrastructure and it's provided by users. But to make it work, we needed a really performant mesh VPN," he said.

For those not familiar with the concept of mesh VPN, such a software differs from traditional VPN services as it uses peer-to-peer technology to directly connect every node (or device) within the network without needing to pass via a central gateway or server. 

What Feasely and Carns were after, though, was a very fast, secure and dynamic mesh VPN. "Unfortunately, when we looked at what was currently out there, nothing really accomplished what we needed," said Feasely. "So, we built Netmaker to solve our problem."

Netmaker differs from its competitors as it's powered by the secure and ultra-fast WireGuard protocol. Its flexibility and great performance which can match an unencrypted network make it especially suited for running infrastructure, Feasley explained to us. 

Read more

> NordVPN users can now create their own private network with new Meshnet feature

> Discover how to manage cloud cybersecurity

> Our pick of the best cloud hosting providers in 2022

Existing mesh networks generally use different protocols delivering slower performances. And also when WireGuard is employed, like in the case of Tailscale and NordVPN's Meshnet, such tools aim for a simple end user experience powerful enough to carry on everyday activities.

On the contrary, Netmaker is looking to improve the experience for IT departments and IT businesses rather than individual users. 

An open-source networking platform available on GitHub for everyone to review, it aims to link hybrid/multi-cloud, edge, IoT, and Kubernetes environments without sacrificing strong performance, security and flexibility. 

"In practice, it allows people to define the connections between any machines that they own inside the network - as long as those machines have an Internet connection - securely and automatically," said Feasley.

People can choose between its community and professional plan, both free of charge. The latter gives users some additional features like metrics details, user access control and a so-called failover routing option to automatically relay the network via a third machine in case a peer-to-peer connection cannot be established. 

It is worth noting that bigger organizations need to upgrade their pro plan into a paid subscription as the free tier only allows for one user and 50 machines as network limit. 

What's more, it's very easy for users to secure their anonymity as, despite the paid version, it doesn't even require an email address to get started. 

(Image credit: Netmaker)

What's next?

Launched in March 2021, the Netmaker's community is quickly growing. It now counts over 1400 active platforms with roughly 10,000 machines running across these networks.   

However, as Feasley admitted, "it turns out building a VPN is a very challenging thing." 

Netmaker's goal is certainly quite ambitious and it needs resources to keep developing at the same pace the cloud networking sector does. 

That's why they launched a funding campaign to secure the necessary resources to be able to stay on top of the cloud's game and its challenges. After graduating from Y Combinator, the startup managed to raise $2.3 million last October to enlarge their team and keep doing what they love: writing more and better codes. 

"We would love to go in some more directions with this over time as we see some great opportunities for integrations," said Feasley. "But networking is a huge problem to solve and something that needs a lot of work. So, Netmaker is going to keep us plenty busy for the foreseeable future."  

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The Mandalorian season 3 release date has been delayed – but not by much

The Mandalorian season 3 has finally been given a concrete release date on Disney Plus – and it’s only slightly later than expected.

The Star Wars TV show will make its return to our screens on March 1, 2023, having originally been slated for release sometime in February. Season 3’s official release date was revealed at Brazil Comic-Con alongside new set images and an extended version of the already released teaser trailer, which reportedly shows Grogu using the force. 

The Mandalorian season 3 will pick up directly after the events of The Book of Boba Fett – but if you don’t want those events spoiled for you, we suggest navigating away from this page quicker than the Millenium Falcon in hyperspace.

Based on the upcoming season’s first teaser trailer (below), we know that new episodes of the Pedro Pascal-starring series will find Mando and Grogu reunited but more alone than ever. 

Full spoilers follow for The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian season 3's plot.

After going their separate ways at the end of The Mandalorian season 2, the pair came together again in The Book of Boba Fett episode 5, when Grogu decided to abandon his Jedi training with Luke Skywalker in favor of travelling the galaxy with his heavily armored companion. 

In The Mandalorian season 3, then, it’ll be just like old times for Mando and Grogu – except it won’t. The former removed his helmet in The Book of Boba Fett and, in doing so, severed all remaining ties to his Mandalorian brotherhood. Head honcho Bo-Katan is subsequently on his case, and we expect this tension to form the narrative lynchpin of the new season.

There are several additional plot threads that The Mandalorian season 3 could tie up, too, including those concerning the still mysterious Darksaber and the Empire’s shady use of Grogu's magical blood. We know that our little green friend will be flexing even more Force-based powers in the show’s new episodes, so we’re excited to see how powerful he’s become. 

"This child has magic powers, [is] 50 years old, and can see the future,” Giancarlo Esposito (who plays villain Moff Gideon) told a young fan at GalaxyCon (via SlashFilm), “and we want everyone to know, eventually on this show, that [Grogu] could save our universe."

In other words, we’re expecting events to ramp up a notch in The Mandalorian season 3. Here’s hoping the show can maintain its winning formula and continue the hot streak established by its most recent Star Wars-set sibling, Andor, which we described in our review as “possibly the best Star Wars show yet" (making it, by extension, one of the best Disney Plus TV shows we've seen so far). 

Here's that all-important release date news one last time: The Mandalorian season 3 lands on Disney Plus on March 1, 2023.

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The Rings of Power season 2 drops a big name star as key character is recast

The Rings of Power season 2 will see a new actor portray Adar after Joseph Mawle surprisingly departed the project.

Announced in a press release, Amazon Studios confirmed that Mawle has been replaced by Sam Hazeldine (Peaky Blinders) in the second season of its hugely popular Prime Video show. 

No reason has been given for Mawle's departure, but we've reached out to Amazon for an official comment. We'll update this article if we hear back.

Despite being replaced as the orc leader, Mawle had nothing but good things to say about his time on The Rings of Power season 1. Taking to his personal Twitter account after the news broke, the former Game of Thrones actor expressed gratitude for being able to play a small but significant role in J.R.R. Tolkien's legendary world:

I loved my time exploring middle earth and diving into Tolkien’s mythology. I’m so honoured that the character was liked. He cared deeply about telling you his story. Though as an actor it remains my wish, my job description to explore new characters and worlds. Wishing all theDecember 1, 2022

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As well as recasting the role of Adar, Amazon that announced six other actors (alongside Hazeldine) have been added to The Rings of Power season 2's cast:

• Gabriel Akuwudike (1917, War of the Worlds)
• Yasen ‘Zates’ Atour (The Witcher season 2, Young Wallander)
• Ben Daniels (The Crown, Jupiter's Legacy)
• Nicholas Woodeson (Rome, Silent Witness)
• Nia Towle (Persuasion)
• Amelia Kenworthy (N/A)

Amazon hasn't confirmed which characters these actors will play, but Hazeldine and his fellow stars will all have "recurring roles" in one of the best Prime Video shows, according to the studio's press release.

The Rings of Power's showrunners Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne have already confirmed that Cirdan the Shipwright – one of Middle-earth's oldest elves – will appear in season 2. Woodeson is the oldest of these new cast members, so he's a logical fit for the role of Cirdan, in our opinion.

In a brief statement accompanying the new cast announcements, Amazon's Head of Global Television Vernon Sanders said: "Since its premiere, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has been bringing audiences together to experience the magic and wonder of J.R.R. Tolkien’s magnificent Middle-earth. 

"To date, season one is the top original series for Prime Video in every region and has been viewed by over 100 million people worldwide, a truly global hit that speaks to the universal nature of powerful storytelling. We welcome these wonderful actors to our ‘fellowship’ and look forward to telling more incredible second age stories in season two."

The Rings of Power's cast additions reveal comes just 10 days after another big announcement surrounding the show. On November 21, a Rings of Power docuseries was released on Prime Video, which details the development of the series' expensive first season.

Meanwhile, production on The Rings of Power season 2 began in late October, with principal photography taking place in the UK instead of New Zealand. No release date has been set for the show's return, but we suspect it won't arrive until sometime in 2024.

For more content centered on Amazon's Lord of the Rings prequel series, read our Rings of Power season 1 ending explained article. Alternatively, find out when one Rings of Power star learned he was playing Sauron and why The Stranger's big reveal was held back from the cast until the final few months.

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