Most Anticipated Games of 2021
Most Anticipated Games of 2021
Welcome to the future! The holidays are over, New Years resolutions have been made, New Years resolutions have already been broken, there is a vaccine for COVID-19 and public gatherings are slowly starting to happen again. The year is 2021 and despite what Back to the Future told us about 10/18/2015, we definitely do not have self tying velcro shoes, flying cars or an actual working hoverboard.
What 2021 does have, are the infinite possibilities of gaming and what could be. It still feels surreal to write down a list of games for 2021. I can still remember opening a N64 for Christmas and spending almost every second of that day in front of the television like it was yesterday except for when I was forced to eat dinner with the rest of the family. The holidays and gaming always combine to make the perfect pairing, which is why there is never a better time to look ahead at the next twelve months of what could be. So get in the Delorean, get it up to 88 mph and let’s see what the future has planned for us in 2021 with our most anticipated games of 2021.
Returnal - HouseMarque
Although not a first party studio, HouseMarque always seems to be connected to PlayStation since the days of the PlayStation 3 launch with Super Stardust HD in 2007. This was essentially the forefront of the arcade genre. Lower priced, downloadable, indie titles with original concepts. The golden era of the arcade genre on consoles has to be the Summer of Arcade from the Xbox 360 which began in 2008 and ran until 2013.
This program introduced the world to some of the best games of the HD era of gaming as it gave these games a platform to rise above, which became increasingly difficult as the market became flooded. Some of the standouts from the summer of arcade program include Braid, Trials HD, Bastion, Limbo and Shadow Complex. HouseMarque was ahead of the curve on the Playstation 3, unfortunately, without a similar program to summer of arcade on the Sony platform, indie titles had a hard time getting the exposure they needed.
Since 2007, HouseMarque has released some excellent titles for the PlayStation including Dead Nation, Resogun, Alienation, Nex Machina, and Matterfall. All of these games were arcade darlings, that would come to define who HouseMarque is, in fact Nex Machine was designed with Eugene Jarvis, who designed Robotron 2084 and Defender for the actual arcades back in the 1980’s. Unfortunately for HouseMarque, it seems that being the care taker of the arcade titles wasn’t a feasible business model as in 2017, the company announced that it would no longer be working in the arcade genre from a blog post on their site titled “Arcade is Dead” The post mentioned that despite numerous awards and critical success on many of their games, the sales just didn’t follow, which had forced the studio to evolve with the gaming industry.
Fast forward three years, one unreleased Battle Royale game, and HouseMarque announced their return at the PS5 games showcase in the summer of 2020. Returnal sees the studio step away from the 2D arcade roots they have known over the past few decades and now enter the realm of 3D with a third person shooter that still manages to have the Housemarque signature. Returnal will be published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, making it an exclusive PS5 title that will be falling under the PlayStation Studios brand.
According to the latest trailer from The Game Awards, we are going to be playing this game in March sounds like the perfect timing for this title. It is generally quieter in spring, giving smaller titles a chance to break into the mainstream consciousness.
The reasoning behind putting Returnal on the list for me is based completely from their previous work. Housemarque games typically provide satisfying gameplay loops, tight controls, and smartly designed visual styles that make the game stand out. What most of their previous games lack is much of a plot or depth and this is where Returnal might be able to shine. The concept behind Returnal is a female pilot who looks to be stranded on an extra terrestrial planet and is caught in some type of time loop. Outside of the timeloop aspect, its hard not to think of Metroid, when looking at this game. Female protagonist, aliens, strange planet, futuristic weapons, all of the ingredients are there. With Metroid and it’s prolonged absence, I will happily take anything of resemblance.
Returnal will also be HouseMarques first foray into full 3D, which I would like to see how the studio handles the change and growth. Sometimes changes is exactly what a studio needs. Guerilla games produced some very good Killzone games that sold a a few million copies each but it wasn’t until they branched away from what they were known for with Horizon Zero Dawn, that they really saw massive mainstream critical and commercial success. Horizon Zero Dawn has sold well over ten million copies according to Sony.
There is also a very good chance that Housemarque will use all of the features of the DualSense to elevate the immersion of Returnal creating an innovative experience. This studio was at the forefront of the arcade genre and the hope is that with the new direction, they can be at the forefront of something else heading into the great unknown.
12 Minutes
The future of gaming is here and its all about visual fidelity, haptic feedback, 3D audio and this is precisely why 12 Minutes is one of my most anticipated games of 2021. Some of the best games of all time aren’t the best looking or have the best features, but instead use original ideas to elevate themselves above the masses. Super Mario Bros. wasn't all that visually different from many of the games out at the time but it was revolutionary in it’s gameplay and level design.
One of my personal favourite games from last generation was Cuphead. There is nothing special abouts platformers or side scrolling shooters in 2017 but the art design, art direction and tight controls took Cuphead from just another game from an indie studio and made it mainstream. Cuphead has sold millions of copies across many different platforms, won many awards and even has a Netflix special in the works. These examples prove that there is a lot more to amazing games than just cutting edge graphics.
Im not sure if I am selecting similar games or if time loops are the new Battle Royale with DeathLoop, Returnal and now 12 Minutes. The idea behind 12 Mintues is that you only have… well 12 Minutes during each loop. You take control of a husband in a top down perspective over a small apartment, while trying to figure out how to unravel a mystery of why people are trying to kill your pregnant wife. The game uses point and click controls, which could be another reason why this game has my interest piqued. Point and Clicks games will always have a special place in my heart with many classic LucasArts titles including Monkey Island, Full Throttle and The Dig.
12 Minutes is being developed by Luis Antonio who is a former artist at Rockstar and Ubisoft and was first unveiled back in 2015 but due to the studio only being composed of one person, has taken many years to complete. Antonio has since added a handful of people to the team to help facilitate development as well as getting a deal with Annapurna for publishing. It also seems as though Xbox exclusivity has been obtained due to the release only mentioning Microsoft platforms with others to follow after. Speaking of Cuphead, Xbox exclusivity seemed to help springboard them with the right marketing of a huge corporation and hopefully this can happen with 12 Mintues. Annapurna and Microsoft don’t support games if they don’t see something special in them, which bodes well for the quality of 12 Minutes.
With the increased budget from Microsoft, the voice acting talents of James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley and Willem Dafoe were revealed in a recent trailer. If you are Microsoft or Annapurna, you don't approve the cost of these talents if the game isn’t deserving of them. If Microsoft and Annapurna like what they have seen then I am very excited for the final product.
Hollow Knight: SilkSong
Hollow Knight is one of my personal choices for best game of the last generation. As a sucker for a good Metroidvania, Hollow Knight hit the nail on the head. The game had all the elements of the formula to make it stand out from the crowd. There are certain features that are required for an excellent MetroidVania experience, including setting, level design, controls, gradual progression, and enemy design.
The 2D hand drawn style for art design provided a beautifully dark backdrop for the payer to learn about this fallen kingdom. As you traverse deeper into the nest, the environmental storytelling fill in the gaps of what happened and encountering all the different species of bugs gave Hollow Knight a personality. The juxtaposition of the brightest areas of hallow nest, situated right beside some of the most dreary ares truly popped in such a dark atmospheric world. These areas constantly kept the game feeling fresh and less like you are treading the same paths again. Hollow Knight also took a hard stance on revealing the map which would only be fully done if you search out the cartographer using his paper trail, which was a very divisive feature.
In addition to the excellent variety of areas in Hallownest, these sections were begging to be properly explored. Secrets and discovery are an integral part of the genre as you don’t need these areas to complete the game but the game will reward the player for searching for these areas. Whether it’s a simple false wall that can be broken, or a tough few jumps to chain together or swimming under areas that don’t look accessible, Hollow Knight rewarded the players sense of exploration with charms and currency.
Charms were skills that you could equip and were one of the two pillars of upgrading and progression. Obviously, throughout the game you would gain permanent skills after defeating key bosses, including greater movement or fighting abilities. This method is as old as time and can be traced back to games from over three decades ago.
The way Hollow Knight used charms as the other pillar of progression was a reason for its excellence. It allowed the player the freedom to take on the world with different skills and they choose. Did you want a charm that allows you to pick up more money from slain enemies or did you want a charm that would bite back at enemies when they strike you? The choice was completely yours and these charms could be swapped frequently at certain areas in the game. Charms could either be purchased from vendors around the world or by discovering hidden areas tying progression into exploration.
Hollow Knight also seems to be inspired a lot by the fromsoftware souls likes. When you die, you leave a shadow version of yourself which if you want all the money you collected on your last run have to track him down where you died, which can be very far and behind many enemies and defeat him, similar to the blood echoes.
Hollow Knight also throws you in the deep end right away forcing you to adapt or die to the game without any direction or skills. This is a common reason why people say you need to get good at the from games and the same holds true in hollow night as many people bounced off the game. The most common similarity is how Hollow Knight is unforgiving and you will die a lot. There are minimal save points and every enemy in the world can kill you if you are not focused, especially some of the brutal bosses that take the proper timing and patience to figure out their attack patterns. This is allowed since the controls of the game are very precise.
Hollow Knight started out as a kick-starter with one of the stretch goals being an extra playable character. While creating this content, the group at Team Cherry realized that the scope had outgrew the initial idea and decided it was best to turn it into a full sequel. Based on the trailers we have seen, what gets me most excited is how it will be a familiar style of game but feature a new toolset that the new character offers, new areas to explore, new enemies to discover in addition to brand new features in the game including quests.
The original game was kickstarted in 2014 and released in 2017 with around thirty hours of gameplay. Although Team Cherry has been fairly vague and quiet about the sequel and its release, it can be assumed that a similar development time is to be expected. Considering that it was announced in 2019, 2021 seems like a reasonable expectation for this game.
Honorable Mentions
According to this list, most of my choices are independent titles, which is a big coincidence because there are a lot of premium games that are coming in 2021. There are many sequels from critical and commercial series including Horizon Forbidden West, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and God of War: Ragnarok.
How will the team at Guerilla continue to evolve the story of Aloy? Will there be big gameplay changes and a new variety of enemies or will Forbidden West just be more of the same, which woudn’t be a bad thing.
I am excited to see how Insomniac showcases the innovative features of a new Rachet and Clank game when propelled by the new technology in the PlayStation 5. Even without the new features of the brand new console, there would still be a lot of anticipation for a new Ratchet game based on the track record of providing such excellent experiences with almost every Lombax appearance dating back to 2002.
Metroid must always be mentioned on any prediction list or anticipated list because it eventually has to happen. There is always good reasoning as to why Samus will make a new appearance but this year feels extra strong with the 35th anniversary of the series happening in 2021. Will there be a Samus Returns port from the DS in 2017 or something similar? Will we finally get the Metroid Prime Trilogy that has been speculated to be finished for a while now? The realistic chance of seeing Metroid Prime 4 is very low considering it hasn’t been that long since Retro took over the reins from Bandai Namco.
Resident Evil 8: Village is a very interesting prospect to me based from the direction that Capcom took with Resident Evil 7 and getting the series back to the roots of intimate survival horror, at least for the first 80 percent of the game. It’s hard to tell from the trailers for Resident Evil Village if the team will be sticking with the vision or if they are once again going to tread strongly into the action genre. The trailer does have a slightly more action tone to it and the European setting does resemble Resident Evil 4, which was considered the pinnacle of the series for many. Designing survival horror games are similar to walking a tightrope because too much in one direction and its just a walking simulator and too much the other way and it’s a shooter.
Best Year of Gaming
2021 is shaping up to be an amazing year for games across the board on all consoles, both new and old. The Nintendo Switch has continued its dominance. Including two years straight being the best selling console according to NPD, which is likely to continue with some great titles in the new year, hopefully including the breath of the wild sequel. As for the next generation or technically current generation consoles, we have a lot to look forward to with a lot of new possibilities, thanks to the new technology and the new features. Tempering expectations first and who not being able to predict the future, 2021 looks like it has the potential to be one of the best years of gaming right up there with 1998, 2007, and some of the other greatest years of gaming.