Community GOTY 2021 Winners

Man, Chivalry 2 got done dirty this year. Fun year of gaming, looking forward to 2022's games.

Damn, Skyward Sword Remake not even cracking top 50? Yall some haters.

I wonder if there has ever been a bigger disconnect between the GB crew #1 and the community vote. Chicory: a colorful tale only made it to 23.

Returnal is top 5 you people have failed me

I'm surprised Halo did that well.

Halo: Infinite is my most disappointing game of the year……….it’s also my GOTY.

Everything about the game is so lackluster. After 6 years in development I can’t believe this is what 343 gave us.

MP has a dismal amount of maps, no progression system (outside the Battle Pass) and a terrible shop economy.

SP has an awful story with all the good stuff happening before the game takes place, 2 environments (green ring world or blue underground corridors) and no Co-Op.

The game is incredibly fun though and hopefully they build on a really strong gameplay foundation with more content. However that content is coming with Season 2 which is 3 months away

Neat. Thanks Rorie.

Respect to Neo: The World Ends with You bringing up the rear.

I voted for it. Pretty fun game.

Probably didn't help for GB GOTY voting that the site didn't do a video, just a little talk on the Bombcast.

More of you need to play Road 96.

The 14 of you that voted for Outriders are sick

Halo Infinite beating Psychonauts 2 is funny. Both games are on my personal list, but at the end of the day, the people complaining about Jeff G being negative all the time, did his bidding. The man is still a threat. Glad to see Returnal in a decent spot though. There was a time I felt that game would've been completely forgotten come GOTY time. And clearly, I need to play Inscyption

@bigevil1987: I'm one of them I bet! I liked it well enough for what it was.

Out of the top 3, I finished Inscryption, RE Village, and Rift Apart. I am making my way through GotG now.

I really need to get to Halo, Psychonauts, and FH5. I love gamepass but sometimes it makes it feel less urgent to play games, especially first party ones that aren't going to leave the service.

@doctordonkey: Agreed. Haven't listened to the goty podcast episodes yet, but I hope someone on the team fought for Retrunal.

I like this list! I might like the pure votes list even more, but I could go either way. Great taste Giant Bomb peeps.

@doctordonkey: It could only be played by people who got their hands on a PS5. It's a decent showing if you take that into account.

Well there you go. I hope you're happy with what you've done community. I hope you're fucking happy about this.

This is a good list, useful to see what we might have missed out on.. And I'm still so happy with how Psychonauts 2 turned out and glad so many enjoyed it too.

Halo Infinite is such a lifeless, bare game to me. I have no idea how anyone can enjoy it for more than a couple of hours. It lacks so much basic stuff that it should have for being in development for six years with teams made specifically for the campaign and multiplayer. So bizarre seeing it get so much praise for all its current issues. I'm glad people are having fun with it. I guess I'm just saying it puzzles me. haha

I think this is a fantastic list.

Only downside I can see is that in an accumulated list like this, more personal favorite games like Unpacking, Death's Door, It Takes Two etc. will fall through the ranks a bit.

But what community lists like this always have me wonder:
How would the list look if everybody had played (or even was forced to play) everything.

How did FFXIV Endwalker not make the list?

Edit: Nvm I'm an idiot.

Also crazy to see what games got so many votes. Inscryption is the only game I've ever requested a Steam refund for. And nobody played Ender Lillies which is a shame. Props to Rorie for putting all this together. Really interesting to see where other peoples gaming tastes are at.

I would love to see the list of games that got exactly 1 vote. And I’m not just saying that because I think one of the games I submitted (Encased) might qualify for that list.

@nuttism: As far as Giant Bomb's User lists vs. the site wide List? Probably. I honestly was expect that game to rate lower considering that the game you're mentioning released in a packed week from 2021 and felt like it got little traction in the public. But yeah can't think of a bigger difference in rankings with where Chicory ranked on the community list vs. Chicory winning the site's GOTY.

That said, considering the lead developer behind Chicory, this game did WAY BETTER on Giant Bomb's community GOTY list than his last game. Before Chicory, the lead developer Greg Lobanov made a great little game in 2018 called Wandersong. It came out on PC and Switch and it was a charming singing adventure game but it made a very little splash in 2018. In the 2018 Giant Bomb Community GOTY list it got 12 weighted votes and it ranked below BOTH Fallout 76 and The Quiet Man. This is a huge upgrade for the dev and his team considering how it got ranked below two duds.

Interesting results!

Tales of Arise, Monster Hunter, Shin Megami Tensei and Persona 5 Strikers getting in was surprising! I always thought there more fans of western games than eastern games in Giant Bomb. I was wrong.

RE Village and Metroid Dread were surprisingly high.

I'm very surprised that Cruelty Squad didn't receive more love from duders. That game looks like exactly the kinda shit this community would love, but I guess not.

Overall 2021 was a unique year for differences between the staff top 10 and the community top 10.

I looked through the other Community GotYs, and nothing is as disparate as Chicory's #1 compared to the community putting it at 23/20. The closest is Tetris Effect, the site's #1 that the community put at 11/10. All 9 other staff-chosen games this year rank significantly better than Chicory on both community lists, though Monster Hunter Rise is only a few spots better than Chicory on the pure votes list.

The comparison that comes to mind would be like if Spiritfarer was randomly awarded site #1 in 2020 (ranked 15/12 by the community). Both games that are more about a feeling than gameplay, and both games that one or more staff felt strongly about while I don't think nearly as many community members even bought, let alone played and thought highly of.

As for the reverse, the biggest disparity I can recall is The Last of Us 2, which was the community's #2 on both lists, but was summarily dumped off the site top 10 to an unspecified rank.

Frankly a lot of community GotY is decided by "what game simply sold really well that many site users actually have a vaguely positive experience with." The staff puts their hands on a lot of games and sometimes want to champion stuff for GotY that the broader audience might've seen the Quick Look for but never bought. In an effort to not waste your money, I'd guess the site users might only purchase a small set of 2021 games that are more of a known quantity they would like.

Another weird stat oddity: this is the first year where the total votes vs. ranked votes for Community was a different game (at least looking at 2015 through 2021). Inscryption took first place with weighted votes, but did significantly worse on pure votes (4th place). Halo took first on pure votes, and also finished strong on weighted votes (2nd). Furthermore, it's pretty unusual to see a community #1, Inscryption, not register on the staff top 10 at all. In all other Community GotY (2015-2021), the #1 community game (Hades/Control/God of War/Breath of the Wild/Doom/MGSV: The Phantom Pain) was on the staff top 10, almost always finishing top 3.

The audience being enamoured with Inscryption while the staff being largely immune to Inscryption's charms in favour of 10 other games is one of the more interesting GotY quirks that's ever come out of these year-end lists.

@allthedinos: Dang, I backed that game but still have it just chilling on my backlog. One of these day s I'll get around to it...