My Top Games 2021

Hey spacers,

So at this point it seems like this is just gonna be the world we live in. I honestly stopped thinking that we will ever get past this virus. Anyway, I did play a lot of games this year, and I ranked them.

I really enjoyed a lot of the games that I played this year, so I gave four different games a 10/10. But alas, only one can receive my fabled GOTY 2021 award. Despite having so many good contenders for this award, it wasn't really hard to choose - it honestly wasn't even a competition at all in my mind. The game that got my GOTY 2021 award honestly blew my mind - I really didn't think I would enjoy it to this degree. But first, the runner-ups.

This one shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. I gave Endless Space 2 my GOTY 2020 award last year, and Endless Legend hits very similar notes. So there's not that much I can say about this one. I just had a lot of fun with this game.

What I do wanna mention is that I absolutely loved the factions in this game, especially the ones they added with the DLCs. A lot of the factions allow you to play the game in vastly different ways. This gives the game a lot of replayability, even for people who are already familiar with Amplitude Studios' other titles (like I was). This is where both Endless Legend and Endless Space excel, and where Humankind sadly lacks a bit (although I still think it's a really polished and well-designed game).

Among the factions in the game, the Mykara are probably my favorite: a race of sentient funguses that can quickly spread throughout the entire map thanks to their spores. Their faction plays with map control in a creative way. This results in a really unique playstyle. And they are just one example among many others in this game.

But still, since this game did also remind me of Endless Space 2 quite a bit, I couldn't really give this one the GOTY award. Sorry, Amplitude Studios.

One of the most well-designed Roguelites out there. The entire gameplay experience is just top notch - from the first moment you boot up the game until the end. If you ever wanna try your hand at creating a Roguelite game, you can draw tons of learnings from Hades.

Despite that, I found myself not sinking as many hours into Hades as I did with some other Roguelites I enjoyed in the past. Hades just didn't happen to grip me. With Roguelites, there needs to be a spark that makes you want to keep playing and playing. With Hades, I felt like I got the gist of the gameplay experience relatively quickly. It's probably because the game doesn't give you much variety in terms of enemies and areas - not like Dead Cells for example, where you can take different paths and face vastly different enemies with each run. 

Hades has less quantity of content, but the quality is flawless without question. So you could say that they went with a quality over quantity approach. Which is great too, but it just didn't quite align with my personal preferences for a Roguelite. So, no GOTY award to Hades either.

Metroid Dread was an absolutely stellar comeback for the Metroid franchise, as well as an excellent Metroidvania game in itself. I am also really happy with how popular and successful it turned out to be. Super Metroid is one of my all-time favorite games. And now, Metroid is back! With tons of fun new abilities and QoL features, too! Metroid Dread is easily among the best Metroid games.

So, what's wrong with Metroid Dread? Honestly, I cannot point to anything about it that I really disliked. It just didn't seem to be quite as memorable overall. Are kids who grow up with Metroid Dread gonna remember it as fondly as kids who grew up with Super Metroid? I'm not sure. It's a great game, but it just falls short of being a perfect game. I think the atmosphere and the story could have been better. Maybe it's also just that I compare it to Super Metroid too much. But then again, that is the fate of all sequels. A game like Metroid Dread has to find new and innovative ways of topping its predecessors in order to stay memorable.

Still, I wanna emphasize that I really loved Metroid Dread. For the longest time, I was convinced that I would choose it as my GOTY 2021. But then, I just happened to stumble upon a DLC for a game I had last played many years ago...

Yes. My GOTY 2021 is a DLC for Fallout 4 - a game that the entire internet hates. For the record, I get why some people were disappointed with Fallout 4. It's one of my favorite games, however, and I think it does a lot of things exceedingly well for an open world game of its caliber (an interesting and dynamic main quest line, compelling factions, memorable companions, an absolutely bonkers modding and crafting system - just to name a few).

But this isn't about Fallout 4 - this is specifically about the Far Harbor DLC. Far Harbor gave me one of the best experiences in an open world RPG ever. I just cannot stress enough how this DLC blew my mind. I could gush on and on about it forever. So to keep things short, here is a concise list of bullet points:

Here's my full ranking of games I played this year. I didn't include games that I didn't spend too much time on or games that I would have rated worse than 6/10. I had a lot of fun with all of the games listed here.