The Best 17 Games of 2021

These lists are turning more into "Here's every game I played this year that I didn't dislike, with a list of games I really liked". So here are my favorite ones for the year of 2021, starting off with -

Honorable Mentions:

• Godstrike - It's Furi but with a skill tree. You do not have a health pool, instead it's tied into a boss timer that decreases each time you get hit. Once it's 0, one more hit will kill you. An interesting mechanic that would have been even better with a memorable soundtrack.
• Goldeneye 007 XLBA Remake - One of the best 2021 leaks for a cancelled 2008 remake of a 1997 game
• Destiny 2 - Destiny is still hella fun to play. Story wise it's currently in the best place it's ever been this year, setting up the Witch Queen expansion arriving Feb 2021 to [hopefully] provide answers about the Darkness that have eluded us for far too long.
• Knockout City - I broke my pinky finger in middle school playing dodgeball. I didn't break any fingers playing Knockout City thankfully. It's a lovely dodgeball game that I was obsessed with for a few days to only fall off it hard as other games were coming out. Knockout City is free up to level 25 now, so it deserves a play to break some fingers.
• Wave Break - You can't play as a cute bear in a boat in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, but you sure as hell can in Wave Break. It has all the same goals as the Pro Skater series with the same type of progression wrapped up in a game I wish was longer. The controls aren't near as tight as you would expect for this type of game, although it's got a free demo to give it a drive first.
• Grime - A souls-like Metroidvania. It's more forgiving than most, in that not only can you dodge most attacks but it has the widest parry window I've ever seen. The map can be pain to navigate since it doesn't give you the option to fast travel until right before the end when you've probably already backtracked to get all the optional upgrades, and it's got plenty of those if you want a challenge.
• Lego's Builder Journey - An incredible showcase of ray tracing packed into a short adorable puzzle game with Lego's
• Doom Eternal: Ancient Gods Part One and Two - Beating both these DLCs on Nightmare put me into a state that I can only imagine is how cocaine feels
• Returnal - My disappointment with Returnal is purely from a story standpoint. It plays well, looks well, and runs well (for the most part). The premise of being isolated on a planet that's messing with your mind through an astronaut phantasm is right up my alley. At the end however all I was left with was wanting more answers to these questions that Returnal kept asking.
• Death's Door - Cute animals in games are my kryptonite (as you'll find out later), and your crow sure as hell is that. The idea of a bird going into work at a desk and then leaving with a weapon was never not funny either.
• Operation Tango - An asymmetrical co-op game part Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes and part The Operative: No One Lives Forever where you can hastily attempt to describe a puzzle to your friend who's practically playing blindfolded
• Destruction AllStars - ITS SO GOOD. Plain and simple. Car combat is fun, and always has been fun. It's just hollow, leaving it with no staying power
• Far Cry 6 - Easily the best Far Cry since Far Cry 3. It's diverse and funny characters make up for the fact that the main villain Anton doesn't get as much screen time as expected

Here's also a list of games that I did not get around to playing by the time I wanted to make this list, so to avoid rushing through them I'll get around to them when I have time. They potentially could have made this list going off the type of games I enjoy: Solar Ash, The Ascent, Psychonauts 2, and Severed Steel

And now onto the list! Here's my top 10 17 games of the year 2021:

17: Chivarly 2

Huge scale battles in multiplayer games have been around for decades now, except it's a different feel when you put them on a smaller scale map. It leads to chaos that just can't be found on a map the size of Kansas, and Chivalry 2 is nothing short of that. You'll join either the Agatha Knights or the Mason Order as you use any sort of medieval weapon you can find to defend your land.

Torn Banner Studios have nailed the combat here in both its sound design and depth. It has a surprising amount of depth that I wasn't expecting, as I mostly skipped the first Chivalry. You've got more than enough options for mind games in a skirmish, with feints and counters alongside swings in every cardinal direction. And if that's not enough, you can start crouch dodging or learning reads for when to time your kicks.

That's not even the best part though.

You know the unwritten rule for multiplayer games where if one players crouches and then stands up while looking at another player, the receiving player has to do the same? So take that and add in where both players can scream incoherent nonsense at each other with a dedicated "Battlecry" button. Chivalry leans into how silly it can be which works out perfectly for it. Whether it be with constant battle cries, picking up loose limbs from fallen knights to use as a weapon when you lose yours, or just being there for morale support with your harp, each match is entertaining in its own way.

16. Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

Rift Apart brings more to the table than the series's predecessors ever have, at a time when it was necessary. Ratchet got a new Lombax accomplice in Rivet who's there to step in when he needs some time to do his own thing, both literally and to breathe new life into the story when it needs it. Collecting bolts, upgrading weapons, exploring new and robust worlds, it's all here. Just this time it's not only faster and looks better, but Insomniac Games has created a masterclass in animation that needs to be appreciated more.

It's hard for me to describe what's fun about Ratchet and Clank without sounding like a broken record. It's the quintessential collect-a-thon series that is still here in 2021 while most others have been abandoned or have trouble capturing the magic that Ratchet does. It's writing always lands with me, the weapons are a blast to use, and it's just chill fun.

15. Outriders

I believe the reason I enjoyed Outriders so much is due to the class I chose accompanied by the time that I played, which was at launch. I began playing as Trickster before starting over as a Technomancer when I realized the Trickster's mechanics for healing were not suitable for the distance you usually engage at.

It didn't take long playing as a Techno to start breaking everything with its skill "Blighted Rounds". To avoid getting heavy into theory crafting here, you could create a build using this skill where you never have to reload. That's not an exaggeration either, as I did multiple 10-15 minute missions where I never reloaded once. It created a power fantasy of fucking shit up that any game would crave for. All of this would later get nerfed, though I had moved on by that point.

Outriders needed that fantasy to hold everything together as not much else could. People Can Fly touted both its story and endgame pre-release, and while I don't have anything too negative to say about its forgettable story (voice acting included), it was nothing more than to serve as a way to get you from level to level. The end game however was mostly a DPS race in a timed instance, leading to the normal grind you'd see in a Diablo/Destiny.

That'd be fine if Outriders weren't fighting with itself in regards to its imbalanced healing and cover mechanics, the latter of which I never used more than a handful of times in my 73 hours played. No class has a dedicated heal skill as two of the classes' healing is built around being close to the enemy as they die or melee'ing them before they die (the other two classes can heal at range). That's one of the main reasons I stopped playing Trickster because on higher world tiers I was dying so fast in melee range that I couldn't heal. I don't think Outriders makes this list if I don't give the other classes a try to spend the time in creating the build I wanted, but I'm glad I did. It's a solid loot based shooter that, above anything else, respects your time more than others.

With many games today being built around the idea of "Games as a service", it's hard to break that mold that your game isn't when it looks exactly like one. People Can Fly/Square Enix both came out early messaging that Outriders was not going down the same road as a Destiny, albeit not well enough as they weren't able to properly set that expectation come release leading many to expect something entirely different than what they got. For how much I still play Destiny 2 to this day, it's refreshing when a game lays out everything it has to offer at the start and won't get mad at you for leaving whenever you're finished.

14. Halo Infinite

Halo is the reason I'm writing this list right now. I had been playing games for almost a decade leading up to Halo CE's release, and the combination of CE/Halo 2/Halo 3 propelled me into LAN and online gaming that I had never experienced before. Halo didn't raise the bar, it was the bar. I couldn't wait to get home from school every day to run Halo 2 customs with the same group of rotating 10-20 friends year after year. Today is a different story however.

I didn't engage in Infinite's multiplayer for more than a few hours before coming to the realization that it has passed me by. I look back so fondly on a time that I'll never be able to replicate; not in the sense of being unable to find a competitive game I enjoy, but any multiplayer Halo experience that isn't that will never be the same. I had a sense of all that going in, as I felt something similar playing Halo 5. Halo Infinite was going to shine in its campaign for me.

Chief crash lands on Zeta Halo to begin his adventure in preventing The Banished from taking control of the Ring, similar in concept to Halo CE's 2nd level "Halo". I say that because Infinite's entire campaign resembles an open world re-imagining of "Halo" over anything else. You've been given an entire extraterrestrial ring to explore as many set pieces as it has, yet it falls into the same trappings of its predecessor through simplicity and repetition. At least for all the trees and hills you come across, the incredibly satisfying grappling hook will let you traverse them with superhuman speed like you were playing Tribes: Ascend.

Don't get me wrong, Zeta Halo is visually stunning in its overworld as it tries to break apart from it's less than impressive E3 2019 unveil. It's still novel for a series which has mostly confined you to the bounds of closed off spaces before. In spite of that, what you'd consider the numbered campaign missions fare off much worse with each level more closely resembling the last. They're more diverse than the stale hallway crawls seen in The Library, but once you've ran into a blue and grey tower to press a button starting a cutscene, you've ran into them all. Which leads me into the reason I'm playing Halo still; it's story.

Infinite tries to distance itself from the idea that you have to read 30 novels to get a grasp on its story, which I'm all for. Contrary to how much I'm writing here, I was never a fan of reading books. You'll have plenty of time to wonder what's going on as you pick up audio logs that do more to flush out the story than any cutscene will.

On one hand that's exactly what these types of logs are for; they're in countless games as an optional side objective to give you more world context to prior events. I'm someone who combs every nook and cranny of a world, where I had collected nearly all of them come story end. There's one particular audio log from Escharum preceding a cutscene that, if obtained, gives substantially more weight to what is forthcoming. I'm going to leave it there so you can discover it yourself, as it's towards the end of the game.

For now much I have to say about Infinite, it gives off the impression that it shouldn't be on this in the first place. I haven't mentioned much about how Halo plays as a, you know, video game, because it falls in a similar vein as Ratchet and Clank. I could have just typed out "Halo still plays as well as it ever has", and just left it at that to nullify everything else I've said thus far. Even with 343 picking up the reins from Bungie years ago they've maintained the excellence in how well it feels to shoot shit. This was the first Halo I played with a mouse and keyboard since Halo 2 Vista and I'm popping off headshots like I'm John Wick.

The Halo series means more to me than any other, so any release that isn't the greatest game of the year leaves me wanting more. I've set near unreasonable expectations for what I want Halo to be in 2021 and onwards by virtue of nostalgia for a game mode I no longer have interest in. At the end of the day 343 has laid a solid, if unorganized, foundation for Infinite's 10 year plan that I hope will continue to expand upon what draws me into Halo today.

13. Scarlet Nexus

I wouldn't consider myself an anime fan, seeing that I never watch anime. On the other hand I really like JRPGs. I've beaten Tales of Vesperia 14 times on three different platforms since it's intial release in 2008, three of which were 100% runs. I live out my apparent love for anime through video games instead. There's something about superpowers and calling upon God himself to strike someone with lightning that I'm into. Scarlet Nexus has superpowers galore, as you and 9 other companions mess with time itself in a quest to solve a black hole in the sky.

The real time combat loop here is pure madness as you'll be teleporting, slowing down time, and using psychokinesis to throw shit around just as a handful of the abilities provided by your teammates. It's just plain fun with how often you can keep your enemies stunned or juggled since you can get wild with having all of your teammates abilities activated simultaneously. Starting a fight by just slamming all your face buttons activating every power at once is hilarious while your teammates try to get in their voice lines, and also makes you feel like a god as you're cruising through the story.

As part of the story you'll unlock a base of operations later that serves as your hub for companion quests with each party member having their own corner to customize as they see fit. They'll do so by you giving them collectibles found out in the world, and by the end they'll all look like their own slice of home. I'm particularly fond of Arashi's corner with a full size arcade cabinet next to tons of pillows under a desk of a computers. It all gives off such a cozy vibe. You can spend a lot of time in your base between main missions flushing out character stories through their respective bond quests, which are the standout here outside of combat. The quests themselves are not anything to write home about due to their backtrack nature, but that's not what I'm here for. I want family. There's too much content in these stories to expand upon here without spoilers, so just know they all flesh out endearing in the end.

I'm way less fond of the characters in Kasane's group compared to Yuito's, leading me to not play Kasane's campaign. I'm clearly missing out on a good deal of the story beats, but I thoroughly enjoyed everything on Yuito's playthrough enough that I left on a high note.

12. Forza Horizon 5

Let me put a wide body kit on a car and I'm happier than a pig in mud. My best friend and I would spend all Saturday customizing cars at my house in Need for Speed Underground, and even though I unfortunately can't put suicide doors on a Hummer in Forza, a lot of the customization is still there. One thing that the Forza series never gets wrong is what it's built around; the cars. I say this with every Horizon and I'll say it again, this is the best car list in a Horizon so far. It probably helps when you have 593 cars (at the time of this writing) too. Racing in some form or fashion is one of the oldest forms of competition, and I'm not the only one who likes to win.

I usually avoid online multiplayer in the Forza games mostly due to everyone using your car as brakes, leaving my competitiveness to find it's place offline. The problem with that is the algorithm behind Drivatars is still far from where it needs to be. The AI drivers stick to the racing line in single file as if they are on rails, with your only true opponent being the car in first that always separates themselves from the rest of the pack after the first few corners. This is especially true on the hardest difficulty "Unbeatable", so I was hoping we'd see a drastic improvement instead of them setting world records in normal races. For the most part these problems are only present while doing doing races confined to the streets, so when you take it offroad that's where those rails fall off forcing you to be on your toes.

Seasons are still here from Forza Horizon 4 but this time more directly reflect the weather types you'll run into during. Wet, Storm, Dry, and Hot describe the climate of each week's rotation, even though they don't bring with them the detailed map changes from 4 as two of them are just toned down versions of the others. In place of that are dust storms in the dry season and tropical storms in the storm season. I only encountered both of those once in my playtime since I had moved on before a full rotation, but you can play events at your leisure with these storms at any point. The seasons in 4 were the most welcomed change for a series that would have grown too stagnant without it (even if three of them were essentially palette swaps), so these storm based seasons do a good job to expand on that even further with how chaotic they are to drive though. The Winter season is the only significant absence from 4 and that's not a big deal. It's less work to put elsewhere and driving in it sucked even with snow tires.

In each of these weekly seasons you'll also accrue festival points by completing challenges of varying types, like finishing first in an offline tournament or using a specific type of car in a drift zone. Once you get enough points you'll automatically gain access to the first festival car for that week as a reward, and you can continue doing challenges to hit the second tier for an additional car. Make sure you get what you want too, cause these cars can be marked as "Exclusive" meaning you cannot obtain it outside of that week.

Thankfully you can get both cars in 5-6 hours of playing, or if you miss that week hopefully you'll find it to buy with your [in-game] currency at the Auction House from another player who got it themselves and wants to get rid of it. I had this problem with Forza Horizon 4 as it has this same system, where I missed obtaining of my favorite cars (the Ford Mustang RTR) and then could never find it for sale in an auction. Time limited events with exclusive rewards aren't anything new yet that doesn't change the fact that systems like this suck and only exist as a means to give the player a fear of missing out.

I did see the RTR in the AutoShow to purchase early on in Horizon 5, and boy was I happy to buy it and start working on it. I don't get crazy deep into the tuning aspects of Forza but I know enough. I'm not striving for world record times here (atleast not in Horizon) but it sucks finding that perfect car only to get in and realize it handles like mud. At the same time it's so satisfying when you put in the time to fix it. When I hit that apex as tight as I can and the front tyre lifts off for a second, it's glorious. I continue to hop into Forza every now and again to just drive around, listening to how mean my exhaust sounds when I fly off the line. I can't tell you where you take Forza from here, but I hope it gets crazy. The chances of me ever driving a Ferrari F40 during a tropical storm are low, but damnit I'll continue to live out my dream one way or another.

11. Riders Republic

As someone who still gets excited for X-Games every year since I began watching it in 2000, Riders Republic is the extreme sports game I've been clamoring years for even with its absence of skateboarding, moto, and BMX (atleast until Season 3). While Red Bull Rampage is more of a direct comparison than the X-Games (and is included as a sponsored event in the game), it's able to scratch that same itch of what makes them so fun; seeing how far you can push the limits of gravity.

Built on the framework on Ubisoft Annecy's 2016 game Steep, I finally got the game I was hoping Steep would be by adding in more sports, particularly bikes. Even though I enjoyed Steep at the time, I didn't put too much time into it as I don't keep up with Winter extreme sports as much as I'd like. You're given plenty of options here, some of which I won't dive into. Particularly paragliding, wingsuit, and rocket wingsuit, all of which are identical to how they were in Steep.

The map of Riders Republic is split into 3 biomes with a specialized discipline in each one. You'll snowboard or ski through slopestyle courses in the tundra, freeride down a colossal mountain in the desert, or breeze through whatever trail you can find in the forest. After loading into the world, you're placed in an instance with other players similar to how Forza Horizon does it, but also with an abundance of AI riders that will spawn/despawn around you as you're riding. It's an effective counter against the lifeless world of Steep without trying to accomplish the impossible task of putting every player in the same map. There is one mode however that will do just that.

Mega Races are the standout multiplayer mode here as a multi round race between you and 63 other players. Essentially the video game counterpart of Megavalanche, you're almost guaranteed top 20 if you don't crash in the first corner like everyone else will. Each round includes multiple disciplines, so you could jump off a cliff on your bike to switch to your wingsuit mid air and then glide down close to the ground and switch to your snowboard to finish it out. There's one major flaw here with Mass Races in that level advantages are active, meaning the higher gear you have the higher chance of success you'll have since you're just going faster than everyone else. I really wish gear was normalized in Mass Races, yet this still hasn't been done as of January 2022.

I'd easily consider myself competitive when it comes to racing but I have no frame of reference since leaderboards are missing from Riders Republic. It's odd to include so many real competitions like Red Bull Hardline, yet lose sight of their primary objective to see who can complete them the fastest. I want to check how close (or far) I am away from the world record time, not just see that I beat "BOT John" by 45 seconds.

Missing leaderboards aren't that big of a deal, at least not more than foregoing session markers; a way to set a spawn point of sorts and teleport back there anytime you'd like. It's always easier said than done, but skate. included exactly what I'm looking for 14 years ago. To offset this Ubisoft has included a rewind feature you can activate at any point to go a good bit back. It's not ideal as hitting a dedicated session marker button is a lot quicker than rewinding 30 seconds, but it's better than nothing. In a game seemingly built around finding your perfect spot, it certainly gives you a hard time in hitting that spot time and time again. Thankfully none of this detracts too much from that fact that just shredding down a hill hitting 360 Double Back Tailwhips are a sick time bro.

10. Road 96

You are not the main character in Road 96. In your place instead are 8 people, all vastly different from the other with their own problems that you somehow always become intertwined with. You'll hitchhike, drive a stolen car, walk, and catch a ride any way you can as you go from place to place seeing the progression for each character while listening to the best soundtrack on this list.

A couple of the characters are clearly there for comedic relief, but none of them are free from pulling at your heartstrings. They've all got a clear goal and a few of them will do whatever it takes to accomplish it, even if it means throwing everything away. Some want answers, some want forgiveness, and others just need a friend.

Road 96 doesn't want you to like all of its main cast (except Alex, what a cool cat), but it does an incredible job throughout the story as you begin to learn more and more about their past in changing your perception of everyone. Sometimes when you dedicate an entire part of your life to one thing you realize by time you get to the end it was all for naught. Other times you never get to the end. I had begun to sympathize with certain characters by the end that I never wanted to see in the parts leading up that point, and any game that manages to do that with my renegade driven heart is a winner in my book.

9. Kena: Bridge of Spirits

All I want to talk about is how adorable Kena: Bridge of Spirits is. So I will.

As you progress through the game you'll collect those cute little fur balls above called Rot, who will always follow behind you. I mean, just look at them! Even better is the setting you can toggle to show all collected Rot following alongside you rather than just a few. And I mean all. I couldn't help but just smile every time I turned the camera around to 100 little Rot stumbling over to try and catch up with me.

When you aren't running around you can take a seat at any time to huddle all your Rot around you to interact with them too. The first Rot you collect will jump off your shoulder and plop in your lap to either kiss you, sneeze, or dance on your head. About 10% of my playtime is right here, since there is an actual game mixed in with these all this cuteness.

Story wise it feels front loaded for me, presenting the best characters early on leading me to care less about the later acts. The premise of the story is to find three souls (for lack of a better explanation to avoid spoilers), so I would have swapped the 1st and 2nd for better pacing. The act revolving around the two kids shown in that first link is what the game starts with, and damnit does it hit hard by the end. Love those little dudes so much. The combat is a little frustrating particularly in the range of enemy melee attacks not being entirely clear, so I turned down the difficulty early on as I didn't want anything to distract from the story.

But really, did you see how cute those Rot are? You ever see so something cute it makes you emotional? Kena in a nutshell.

8. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury

Super Mario 3D World is the best 3D mario game. You heard me. Odyssey is great and so is 64. Yet each time I've played 3D World it's been with at least one other person over co-op where everyone is ready to explore and avoid using their inside voice. So take the excellence that is 3D World and combine it with what could have been an expansion to Odyssey, and you've got the total package.

There's a great deal of quality of life changes made to 2013's 3D World here outside of it's small resolution increase, which thankfully lets me continue to play as adorable little Toad. The Mario Wiki has a complete list if you want to see them all. The general movement speed of your characters got an increase, collected stamps and stars are kept if you lose a life after, and Toad's level can be played cooperatively now, just to name a few. I'd recommend reading Patrick Klepek's review for the original release as it puts into words better than I can what makes this game so special, and continues to do so in 2021.

Bowser's Fury is the new standalone game here outside of Super Mario 3D World. If you've played Super Mario Odyssey you'll feel right at home since it feels pulled right out of that. The entire game takes place in one large map that gradually opens up as you collect more shines, of which there are 100. It's always a joy to find those hidden shines, usually by asking yourself "what if" or skirting around the outside of the level. Damn right I found all 100 shines in Bowser's Fury too. You know by now I like collecting stuff. I'm not particularly fond of the the final Bowser fight since it felt like he was always hitting us whenever we were in the air where we couldn't avoid it, but all the other encounters leading up to that point made up for it. It's like I'm playing Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee with how big ass Mario and Bowser are just smashing everything.

If you play either 3D World or Bowser's Fury I'd strongly recommend playing it with, at minimum, one other person (at least for 3D World, since Fury is just two players). The person not playing as Mario in Bowser's Fury has a similar role as Cappy in Odyssey, meaning they aren't going to be near as active as you, so just make sure to set that expectation. Or just swap controllers occasionally. Whatever you do you can't go wrong playing a Mario game.

7. Hitman 3

Hitman is the best puzzle series I've ever played, and that's coming from someone who's not a fan of "real" puzzles (as I'm looking at a sealed copy of Go! Sudoku on my shelf). After learning what you need from your dossier, you know what your goal is on every level but have no direction on how to get it done. You need to play private investigator as you determine where your target stays, who their friends are, and when they are most vulnerable. And once you feel like you've discovered everything inside of a level, you take a look at the uncompleted challenges only to figure out you've just scratched the surface.

Part of what's always made this re-imagining of Hitman so great over the last five years is in it's AI. They are more than moving cameras with a vision cone, but that's not far off. I'm not coming to Hitman for world class AI but you can be sure this guard in the attic will follow a coin I'm dropping for 500 yards so they can be $.01 richer. You can get away with almost anything as you run frantically around each level like you've lost your kid in the mall trying to find that one opening you need so you can drown your target while they're peeing, only to come out of the bathroom while their guard looks at you oblivious that the person they're supposed to be guarding didn't walk into the bathroom with a bald head. Every level has such a degree of freedom seldom seem elsewhere in stealth games.

I come to this series for the challenge, playing it just like 47 would. My first playthrough for all 3 games has been to play on the standard difficulty (Professional) all the way through like you would expect, and then when I'm done go back to the start to really get into it. Finish all the mission stories, finish all the challenges, and then complete a Silent Assassin + Suit Only run on Master difficulty before moving onto the next level.

Since you can only save once on Master, I'll usually plan out the entire level before actually going through with it, down to the exact route I'll take and what guards I'll take out. It's a rewarding, yet sometimes stressful feeling when a whole plan comes together. I'll toot my own horn here by saying I've done SA/SO Master for all levels in all 3 games, excluding Hitman 2016 which doesn't have Master so it's done on Professional. I've spent so much time in this trilogy and loved every second of it.

While Hitman 3 is lacking the quantity found in previous entries, it makes up for it with unique level based mechanics that started to rear it's head towards the end of Hitman 2. You've always got at least one target to kill as your objective, but you can't run up to them this time and start blasting as you head for the exit. Death In The Family will turn 47 into Nancy Drew, Apex Predator has a disturbing introduction leading into one of the best levels in the trilogy, and Untouchable will let you say "fuck it" to Silent Assassin in every way you want. There's more variety in Hitman 3's levels when looking at those in Hitman (2016) and Hitman 2, even though there are less of them.

(since writing this IOI has announced Year 2 of Hitman 3, but I'm not going back and changing this paragraph)

With that in mind, quality always over quantity. It's clear to see that looking at all three games in the World of Assassination Trilogy that the pure amount of the content has steadily declined, especially when comparing Hitman (2016) to Hitman 3. Sure, I would have welcomed more maps with open arms, but only if I knew it wouldn't have taken away from the near perfection in the 6 levels that are here.

6. Resident Evil Village

Right before starting Village I played through Resident Evil 7 for the first time in an attempt to complete my second Resident Evil game, the first being Resident Evil 2 Remake two years prior. I had never been a fan of Capcom's legendary horror series leading up to this point [mainly] due to me being a scaredy cat. I'm mostly fine playing third person scary games, as I feel disconnected from the player I'm controlling both literally and mentally. I don't have that luxury here however. After a recommendation from a friend I sucked it up to finally dive into a series I should have given a chance long ago.

Finishing 7 right before was the right idea, as it maintains a more standard approach to horror compared to Village's more cartoonish cast that let me settle in easier either though their humor or pure insanity. Everything works the same here as before as you control Ethan Winters working through the Mortal Kombat Arcade Ladder until you reach the Big Bad at the top, starting off with the three Witches. These fights were an early letdown for me since they involve running just around in a circle while you bide your time to find the right means to start the mechanic to kill the Witches. For how kick-ass they look and how slick they traverse the mansion, you deal with them too early on in the story before they are given any meaningful interactions.

I have to be reasonable here though as they are just underlings, especially when comparing them to the main bosses who present their own challenges through psychological torment, physical exertion, and escape room puzzles. They're all wolves in sheep's clothing, if that sheep were raised by a pack of wolves. For Heisenberg it's best to just describe him as a badass with Magneto-esque powers that cause the world to levitate around him when he walks. They each have their own part of the village where your showdown with them will take place, and this is where Resident Evil excels in how well orchestrated the level design is in both visual fidelity and layout.

Every inch of Village's map is so densely packed in a way that not only embellishes your surroundings but serves as a compass of sorts to guide the player in the right direction. It's the nicest looking place I never want to visit. Every real estate agent in Eastern Europe is jumping at the opportunity to show off Lady Dimitrescu's gothic castle, filled with chandeliers taller than the Lady herself as they hang over golden lined staircases and marble floors. That's all a stark difference from Heisenberg's underground factory that could be it's own industrial city with doors that have more gears than a Ford F-150. The Factory is where I first began to feel as if things were dragging as I got towards the end, so this is where Capcom turns it up to 11 and breaks the knob off. It's a conglomerate of ideas that work, if not for just how far in left field they are. It's a great finale for an already great game.

5. Lost Judgment

I could write pages here about how much I love the Yakuza series but this list is already too long as it is. I've been playing Yakuza since it initially came out in 2006 with it's notoriously bad english dub. The release of Yakuza 0 outside of Japan was finally the turning point for this series which saw it take over as it never had before, which at that point was still a fairly obscure series in spite of over a decade of releases. As the mainline Yakuza titles since then have transitioned into a turn based RPG, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio created the Judgment series to continue onwards from where it left off.

Everything about Lost Judgment strikes the right chord for me. Combat wise it's mastered that aspect since Yakuza 2, but what keeps me coming back to these games is the story. I've always been into movies based around organized crime ever since I can remember. I'm far from the first to ever say this, but gangster films like Goodfellas and The Godfather formed many of my interests early on up to now. Lost Judgment encapsulates all that I love about those movies; from the backstabbings that you least expect, to how it accurately portrays what makes the mob life enticing, all the way to how that life will destroy everything you care about. These games can be a roller coaster of emotions and I always eat it up. I've rewatched the cutscene leading up to the final boss in Lost Judgment multiple times since beating it, including just before I'm writing this sentence now. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's ability to create such powerful musical pieces leading into a big fight is unmatched, and gives me goosebumps every single time.

Compared to Judgment and previous Yakuza games, Lost Judgment takes a more serious approach in the issues it tries to tackle in its story, rather than the usual "Yakuza bad". Regardless of how you feel on if it handles it with the weight it deserves, one thing is true in that the game does it the only way it knows how to; by cutting the shit to let scenes have the time they need, and then giving you a side case like applying at a gym to become a ninja.

Outside of the main story you've got plenty of side cases to dive into which are still as goofy as ever, including one that will span most of the game involving you joining the detective club at a school where you'll learn how to become a boxer, play Road Rash, and join a dance competition as just a handful of the mini-games you can play. This quest drops the ball in my opinion towards the end, but it's not always about the destination if the journey there is worth it, and the detective club quests are just as good as the main story leading up to that point.

For how much detective work you'll do in Lost Judgment all the detective mini-games need to be either completely redone or removed entirely. I wasn't fond of them in Judgment and nothing has changed with how much they break up the pacing of the story. Tailing missions and hidden object games are not fun (sorry REO Speedwagon). If you can find your way to look past all that though you'll find a captivating adventure that I'm always impressed finds a way to avoid overstaying it's welcome.

4. Deathloop

By time you finish reading this list it'll be crystal clear that I love these types of sandbox games. This time around Deathloop puts you in the shoes of Colt Vahn as he tries to kill eight others (called Visionaries) in an effort to break a time loop he's stuck in, and will continue to be stuck in to repeat the same process until he's successful. Alongside those Visionaries is Julianna Blake who will hunt you down any chance she gets to preserve the loop.

Deathloop isn't too story driven like other games on this list, but it keeps the pace going from loop to loop through Julianna being as your earpiece during missions for the story beats. Most of the significant story will be presented through some funny, if not aggressive, back and forth between you and Julianna as each map starts or through audio logs and instant messages on computers that could have been pulled out from any AIM chat room in 2007. A good deal of the writing here is sarcastic meaning it will land well with someone who shares that same style of conversation. Like me.

Even though I wouldn't consider Deathloop a rogue-lite they share many of the same elements, including with more recent iterations like Hades that give you multiple lives in one run. Deathloop calls it "Reprise" and it's given to you while you're still in the prologue. It allows you to revive twice per level per loop, totaling to 8 deaths per loop attempt. It cannot be upgraded further but it is always equipped, providing a big enough cushion for players to get a grasp on the mechanics without worrying about get stuck early on.

Alongside Reprise you can also equip two more abilities all of which are dropped whenever you kill a Visionary. Five of your targets have their own unique ability that you can pickup from their body after killing them, but if one (or more) is giving you a hard time in taking them out you can try to get it from Julianna. Similar to Phantoms in Dark Souls, Julianna can invade you at any time in your current loop as long as you're in a map where the Visionary isn't dead. These invasions cannot be turned off, but you can turn off player invasions so that Julianna is an NPC invader rather than controlled by another player. When she dies she'll randomly drop one of the abilities from the other Visionaries and will continue to do so until you've collected them all as well as all of their upgrades.

Once you make enough progress in the early game you'll be introduced into by far the best part of Deathloop; Residuum, which we'll just call a form of currency. You'll get loads of this each time you kill a Visionary plus just picking it up from loose items in the world. In between each cycle of the day you can use that Residuum to "bank" every weapon, character trinket, attachment, ability, and upgrade that Colt can equip. This makes those items persist in between loops and there is no limit to how many items you can bank. It's quick to get the ball rolling in Deathloop past your first couple items and before you know it you'll be able to start loops with a fully tricked out inventory.

Early on, each time I was invaded by Julianna it was an engaging albeit stressful challenge that I wasn't prepared for. I had to tactically play hide and seek while hastily learning the layout of this map I wasn't familiar with. I managed to take her out every time she invaded excluding one occasion, and all of those first invasion kills were a rush of adrenaline. It doesn't take long for you to scale over the difficulty, meaning you won't have too many of these interesting battles before they turn more into a "Alright, let's get this over with" moment. At least Julianna is more aware of her surroundings to be a somewhat competent opponent, which I cannot say for every one else in the game.

Saying the AI is brain dead would be putting it lightly. We'll take an example of combining the Aether ability with the Ghost and Flicker upgrades which will let you stand still to maintain invisibility forever. When you shoot you'll briefly appear but go back invisible afterwards, meaning you can kill someone in the open while their friends alongside them just go ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Do it openly enough around a group where they can see a glimpse of where the shot came from and they will run at you oblivious that you are standing right in front of them, letting you just pop them off one. Honestly I thought this was funny as hell so it didn't bother me. Four of these abilities are mad useful and a blast to use. I just wish I could have them all equipped simultaneously. Karnesis is an odd ability which lets you lift and throw enemies. I never used it past my initial pickup of it since there's just way more viable options especially when you're already limited to two abilities. It can lead to some satisfying throws off cliffs though, so it's got that going for it.

I went back and forth between myself a lot in deciding if I wanted to talk about performance for Deathloop, as I try to look past performance issues for a game when talking about it. You can hammer those out with enough work. But holy shit, Deathloop is busted on PC. I've got a 10700K + 3080 at 1440p and it barely cooperated to run as I wanted it to, even when using Digital Foundry's optimized settings. Arkane is using the same Void Engine that was used for Dishonored 2 so it shares much of the same performance issues it fared at launch, particularly with stuttering and higher than normal CPU usage. I'm usually not bothered by this, but the lack of saving in the midst of a mission led me to restart three of them due to crashes and soft locks. Just something to be wary of, or play on console.

Performance aside, what makes Deathloop so great is how accessible it is. It gives the player multiple revives from the start, multiple ways to get Abilities, and more than enough ways to progress by maintaining your inventory even if you fail a loop. Deathloop doesn't want you to get stuck. It'll throw curveballs at once when you least expect it through Julianna, but even then you can respawn right back and finish the job, twice. Even though I think the difficulty of Deathloop is lopsided too much in one direction, it's a great entry point into more difficult or full rogue-lite games if one is so inclined.

3. Guardians of the Galaxy

I couldn't tell you the name of anyone in Guardians of the Galaxy leading up to this game other than Drax, which is only because Batista. I'm not a big fan of superhero movies for that matter, despite my enjoyment of superpowers themselves. Marvel movies are more or less American anime so that might play into it. I wasn't actively avoiding Guardians of the Galaxy, it just wasn't something on my radar. Nevertheless this was a rare time where I took interest in a game solely off the recommendations of others, and you can figure out by this point I ended up enjoying it.

The writing is the one aspect of superhero movies that turns me off from them. It's their combination of being cheesy and taking itself seriously that has never worked for me, yet it was the driving factor in this game that kept me coming back to it. It's hilarious all the way though while at the same time knows when to back off and get serious. Granted I've never seen either Guardians movie, so maybe the writing in those are just like these? If so, I should watch them.

I feel as if it took way too long for games to realize that you need to have [interesting] discussion between characters outside of key moments to avoid dead air, and Guardians does it better than most. Those small conversations in between cutscenes on the way to the next objective stand out here in a great light when compared to any other game doing the same thing. The amount of banter back and forth between everyone is more than I've ever seen while never being verbose, and above all else is believable and funny. They all have fears, doubts, and regrets like any normal person would, and over time they are all confronted with them. No Guardian is the same by story end as they were at the start using each other to develop out as a more understanding person. They're all a group of misfit toys that will have each other's back when it comes down to it.

I don't think I've ever been as positively surprised with a game as I have with Guardians of the Galaxy. I never try to go into a game with a preconceived notion that I'll dislike it, cause what am I playing it for at that point? Outside of knowing you were stuck playing as Star Lord (which in the end wasn't a big deal) I had zero expectations here; I don't know the characters, I don't know the world, the combat looks serviceable, and I got in on sale for Black Friday. If that's not a recipe for success I don't know what is.

2. It Takes Two

The Oscars wishes there was a movie made on It Takes Two so it could nominate it. But fuck them. In it's place we've got Josef Fares's latest game as a Honey, I Shrunk The Kids analogue where you and a friend will play as May and Cody in hopes to mend their broken marriage for the sake of their daughter Rose.

It Takes Two reminds me a lot of Portal 2's co-op mode. Nothing you need to do can be done alone. You always need your partner to help with one thing or another, just like they need you for the same. Most of the time you'll be platforming and solving puzzles, but it mixes it up just when you've been doing it long enough by shifting genres. In the first half of the game you'll grind on rails fighting a wasp queen like you're in Sunset Overdrive, commandeer a ship to fight a giant octopus, and then switch to an isometric dungeon crawler the likes of Diablo. Anyone can make a game that's a mashup of genres but it's harder to actually flesh them all out well enough so it doesn't just feel like a gimmick. If someone ever asks me to provide them an example of how a game should be paced, It Takes Two will be my go to answer.

As you go through the game you'll also run into 25 different mini-games you can play with your partner. I thought this was such a well done idea to bring both May and Cody closer together through some friendly competition, while doing the same for both players. Before, during, and after each game the couple banters back and forth to slowly lay the framework for progress being made in their marriage. You may not find many of these worth spending a significant amount of time on, and I don't think they are meant to be. They are there to serve as a fun break from the story to move the couple closer in rebuilding their marriage, and they do a fine job at that.

Just like Guardians of the Galaxy before, the story is consistently carried for me through its humor. Dr. Hakim, also known as "The Book of Love", is one of the main characters that's always there to keep pushing May and Cody along as try to get back into their bodies. His level of exuberance for everything gets me every time. I can see how the person you play It Takes Two can have a dramatic impact on how the tone for the story is handled, like with a spouse. I played this with my regular buddy that I've been completing games with together for years. We also played A Way Out together and enjoyed that, so it's not a surprise we felt the same here. I'm not exaggerating when I believe this is the best co-op game I've ever played. Go grab a friend and take advantage of Friend's Pass so that they can enjoy this game with you for free.

1. The Forgotten City

Who would have guessed a Skyrim mod turned full game would be number 1 on this list? Calling it that though undercuts The Forgotten City as it's so much more than that. It's the 1700+ work hours put in from lead developer Nick Pearce for the original mod, who gave up their decade long established career in pursuit of their dream project (from NoClip's documentary on the game). It's the extensive level of research done to make sure its Roman setting is authentic. All that and more to further solidify how important mods are for games as a way to enhance the end user experience and possibly forge a path into a new career.

"The many shall suffer for the sins of the one"; it's the golden rule everyone lives by in this forgotten city, in that if one sin is committed then all citizens are punished for it as if they were each guilty. The Forgotten City is another time loop game where you've been cast back thousands of years and need to figure out a way to create a paradox that would make your current existence in the past impossible, thus freeing you from this god forsaken nightmare. Stuck inside the ruins of this city are 23 others who you'll extensively talk to as you go over the 85,000 word script that all culminates with a profound discussion resembling Neo's talk with The Architect in The Matrix Reloaded.

For Deathloop it fixed repetition by having Colt retain his memory and inventory after each loop, but The Forgotten City expands upon that further by letting you bypass redoing quests you've completed in a prior loop (if you'd like, as this is optional). While I don't believe incorporating this would make Deathloop a better game, it works for The Forgotten City since most of these quests are just going through dialogue options.

At the start of each loop you'll run into Galerius who functions as your maid in a sense. When he interacts with you you'll given plenty of options to immediately end the conversation if you have a certain goal in mind and want to just get to it, or you can inform him of all of your findings from prior loops; giving him a potion to cure an illness, warning him of an upcoming structural failure to prevent an accidental death, and anything else to put the city back in the same state it was before looping. He's dumbfounded in how a visitor such as yourself knows all that you do, but he doesn't question it as he scurries off to do your chores so you don't have to. With that, it also allows you have the freedom to try new things each loop without having to worry about ruining a "run". See a dialogue option that you want to choose but feel as if it may make someone mad? Want to steal a useful item? Just do it. Everything is streamlined in a way to prevent the player from doing the same monotonous task each loop, while also maintaining plausibility (ignoring the fact that there's a time loop somehow).

In 2016 the Australian Writers' Guild awarded Nick an award in "Interactive Media" for their original work in The Forgotten City, the first mod to accomplish such a feat. Five years later Nick and their team are on a small list of studios that have turned a mod into a standalone game, improving upon it in every imaginable way in the process. Modern Storyteller has well written an engrossing story and batch of characters that drives you explore each dialogue option presented to you, just so you can stay with it a little bit longer. It deserves all the praise it's been given as it sits on its throne at the top of this list.