If Immortals Fenyx Rising started in 2020 as a very good game, 2021 has made it, well, if not great, then at least one of the most fun and interesting games this year, and well worth revisiting if you missed it the first time around.Īvailable on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, Windows PC, and Google Stadia The Lost Gods is a top-down brawler that’s completely different from the original game, as well as the DLC that came after it. In The Lost Gods, players returned to the world of Greek myth, this time with a new hero and a new gameplay perspective. The third DLC pack, released just a month later, was called The Lost Gods and changed things up once again. But the second pack, Myths of the Eastern Realm, transported players to the world of Chinese mythology with the story of a totally new hero. The game featured three add-ons one called A New God was basically a continuation of what came before it. Perhaps the most surprising part of Immortals Fenyx Rising, however, is its downloadable content. It even translates the weird and often hilarious Greek pantheon into a cast of characters that are always fun to hear from as they narrate your story and talk to your character. It’s got a full-fledged RPG system complete with combat that deftly mixes magic and weapons, and upgrades that make scouring the world worthwhile. But Immortals is more self-consciously gamey than Breath of the Wild, and with great results. It’s true that Immortals Fenyx Rising’s huge, explorable open world can’t reach the creative heights of 2018’s Zelda sequel - that game’s true successor on this list is Halo Infinite. Somehow, this description both over- and undersells what really makes Immortals special - other than its stupidly spelled name. When Immortals Fenyx Rising was released in December 2020 - mere weeks after our voting deadline for last year’s top 50 - the most uncharitable descriptions of the game essentially called it a Breath of the Wild clone with a coat of Greek mythology paint. And that’s exciting.Īnyway, enough from me. And while many might fit cleanly into a single genre, many more defy a basic label. Some had something to say about our cultural landscape, and some were just really damn fun. Whether you’ve been following along with each new release throughout the year, or you’re popping in now to see what you missed, the following is a collection of games that we think encapsulated 2021. Genres are helpful in the brochure, but they can only get you so far - at a certain point, you need a bit of patience, a lot of curiosity, and maybe a tour guide or two. Video games are a towering monument to our collective imagination - they’re part haunted castle, part Freudian psychoscape, part interactive museum whose exhibits each bleed into the next. Unsighted posed that age-old question: If we’re all going to die, then why care about anything at all? In one way or another, a slew of our favorite games were about the ways we deal with catastrophe, and move forward in its wake. Unpacking explored humans’ talent for making a home, even as we grieve. But you all need to play it.”Īs I see them all laid out on this page, I also recognize that many of the year’s best titles were about hope. It became what felt like a weekly occurrence here at Polygon for someone to unmute their microphone during a Zoom meeting and say something along the lines of: “So, I played this game called Inscryption this weekend. I’m hard-pressed to describe so many of 2021’s best games because, well, so many of them are hard to describe. My personal favorite was about storytelling itself, and our ability to weave our own interior narratives out of emergent fantasy adventures. Another was about crushing rich people in Argentine wineries. Some games were about combating self-doubt. With fewer AAA attention magnets, and a renewed collective appreciation for the escapist and social benefits of the medium, it felt like we were all more willing to try something that fell outside of our comfort zone. In fact, it was a weird, wonderful, disorienting labyrinth of dazzling titles. The release schedule felt altogether calm, as an increasing number of blockbuster video games moved out of this year and into the next.īut in trying to find a unifying thread for the games that defined the last 12 months, I’m struck by the fact that this year wasn’t really calm at all. Isolation may not be the norm, but for many, it is still the default. The COVID-19 pandemic continues and supply chains remain choked.
In some ways, this year felt like more of the same.
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