The Best Games Of 2021 – For The Win

Deathloop is a Quentin Tarantino-esque thrill ride through the psychedelic ‘60s. It’s all primary colors, wavey sculptures and ’60s kitsch backed by monochrome buildings and craggy cliffs. It’s bold, brash and immediately recognizable in any screenshot. The most impressive thing about the art of Deathloop is how it isn’t all style over substance. The game’s levels are dense, complex and layered – created to be replayed on repeat – and the art draws your eye to secret infiltration routes or other points of interest, strengthening the brilliant work done by some of the best level designers in the business. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Kena: Bridge of Spirits

• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

This one was a particularly hard choice in a year filled with amazing indie games, but The Riftbreaker is one of those experiences that burrows into your brain. On the surface, it’s a simple tower defense game, but that’s augmented by engrossing base-building mechanics and deep research trees. Oh, and it’s also a twin-stick shooter. You pilot a mech and defend your base against waves of aliens, deadly storms and other threats, all while building turrets, walls and other structures that can turn the tide in your favor. Try it on Game Pass and you’ll see why we think it’s the best indie of the year. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Unpacking

• Sable
• Griftlands

Unfortunately overlooked in a lot of end-of-year lists thanks to its January launch, Hitman 3 is perhaps the best game in a series of excellent games. From the opening sequence infiltrating a skyscraper in Dubai to an underground rave in Berlin, it’s packed with memorable missions. One even flips the script, asking you to solve a murder in a Dartmoor mansion while also stalking your own target. Where most action games are all about the fights, Hitman asks you to avoid conflict as much as possible. It’s as much a puzzle game as it is an action game or a stealth game, in many ways defying definition because there’s nothing else like it. The best books and films know that bullets mean more when they’re used sparingly, and Hitman 3 captures that same tension. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Guardians of the Galaxy

• Lost Judgment
• Returnal

Returnal – along with Demon’s Souls – is a showcase for PS5’s new 3D audio engine. Discordant and twisted, its alien soundscapes feel like they’re taking place inside of your head, and its splodgy, organic environments are enough to make your ears feel wet. When you’re wearing headphones, firing a gun is like wielding lightning. Couple this with the threatening, ominous synths of the combat music and the harmonic progression of the main character’s theme, and it’s an audio experience that lingers in the mind way after you put down the controller. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Forza Horizon 5

• Halo Infinite
• Call of Duty: Vanguard

Jennifer Hale, the voice of Mass Effect’s Commander Shepard, just doesn’t miss. She’s incapable of it. How easy it would have been to alienate the fans by introducing a new playable character in Rift Apart (even though Rivet and Ratchet get around half the game each, you know what fandoms are like), but Rivet is so endearing that she feels like she’s been there all along. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Deathloop – Julianna Blake
• Far Cry 6 – Antón Castillo
• Guardians of the Galaxy – Star-Lord

It’s just as fun to play solo, but Forza Horizon 5 really shines when you take a road trip with your friends. Create custom races, hook up for car meets and explore the expansive, beautiful map Playground Games has created. The developer really lives up to its name here, giving you the sandbox and the tools to create your own fun before letting you loose across Mexico. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Halo Infinite

• Battlefield 2042
• Chivalry 2

“Waah, the Battle Pass takes too long to progress and I can’t get this specific shoulder pad for my space guy.” This is what the internet has been saying about Halo Infinite’s multiplayer, but we can’t hear them over these sick no-scope snipes and mid-jump plasma grenade sticks. We’re too busy bringing it home clutch with a last-minute flag capture, bathing in the glory of being top of the leaderboard, enjoying Halo Infinite‘s deadly dance. It feels good to be enjoying Halo again after so long, and this feels like the beginning of a new legacy. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Hell Let Loose 

• Far Cry 6
• Battlefield 2042

A series that’s been going for over two decades, the Arise games seem to get better with age. It’s something you don’t often see with JRPGs, a genre that left its golden age behind, but Tales of Arise perfects the formula its developers have been honing for the last 25 years. With fluid combat, a gorgeous art style, an interesting cast of characters and mature themes, it’s the best JRPG since Persona 5, and a game that proves that refinement can be as worthwhile a goal as reinvention and innovation. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Monster Hunter Stories 2

• Bravely Default II
• Fantasian

With its newest season, Escape, Apex Legends proved that it still has ideas. Introducing a fresh map populated by AI as well as other players, Season 11 shook up the meta in a big way. It also introduced Ash as a new playable hero, giving players options for locking down Octanes and other movement heroes with her tether ability. She’s also capable of seeing where the fights are with her passive ability, allowing teams to move between engagements at a terrifying pace. Escape made Apex Legends feel fresh again. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Fortnite

• GTA Online
• Genshin Impact

Not only is Hazelight’s latest the best co-op game of 2021, it’s one of the best games released this year. Period. It launched way back in March, but it still lingers in the memory even during these busier months for game releases. There’s no single-player here at all – the entire game is built around co-op. Together with a partner, you play as a bickering couple who have been shrunken down to miniature size because their kid is sad. Just go with it. Working together, you have to figure out how to break the spell. The game takes you through puzzles, platforming sections and shootouts. One minute you’re playing a platformer, the next you’re playing a dungeon crawler. It reinvents itself constantly. On top of that moment-to-moment variety, there are dozens of competitive minigames hidden around each level. There really is nothing like this. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Far Cry 6

• Back 4 Blood
• Overcooked! All You Can Eat

While other games might have had a stronger emotional impact than Guardians of the Galaxy, Eidos-Montreal’s action game deserves this nod because of its implementation. Conversations here feel natural and flowing, and characters don’t just stand around waiting for the player’s input. It helps that the developer nailed the characters, too, both in and outside conversations. Head into your crewmate’s rooms and every item, every detail adds to their character.  Everyone has an expertly-crafted arc, and the comic timing is some of the best ever seen in video games. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Life Is Strange: True Colors

• Deathloop
• Returnal

We’ve all fired up a remaster, played it for an hour and never touched it again. That’s how remasters are meant to be played. Remakes are different – they feel new enough to experience afresh. But Mass Effect: Legendary Edition captured that remake energy, despite being a remaster. So many of us played all three massive games over again. Perhaps it had been just the right amount of time since the original launch, or perhaps it’s because Mass Effect is one of the best RPGs of all time. Either way, all it took were some updated textures, improved lighting, 60fps and reworked controls, and that was enough to have us all probing Uranus all over again. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Alan Wake Remastered

• Crysis Remastered Trilogy
• Saints Row: The Third Remastered

Card games are strategy games, and Griftlands is one of the best single-player card games out there. Developer Klei jumps from genre to genre with every release, and it never misses. Griftlands blends choice-based RPG mechanics with a Hearthstone or Slay the Spire-style card battle system. The results are incredible. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Age of Empires IV

• Football Manager 2022
• Jurassic World Evolution 2

Damn, this one was hard. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart was incredible, Metroid Dread was brilliant and Forza Horizon 5 was sublime. Even Halo Infinite is great, and we haven’t even mentioned Returnal. 2021 was a good year for platform exclusives. But someone has to win, and Deathloop takes it home on pure originality and charisma. It’s one of those rare games that just gets better the more you play it, and invading other players’ games never gets old. We’re still finding hidden details and surprising moments tucked away in every corner of its world. 

Honorable mentions: 

• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

• Metroid Dread
• Forza Horizon 5

Unpacking is a game about moving house. All you have to do is unpack boxes, clicking on them with its tactile interface before dragging them into place in a room. When you’re playing it, it’s the most relaxing game ever made. When you’re watching someone else and they’re placing things where you don’t want them to go, it’s infuriating. But the genius of Unpacking is in how it builds out these characters you never see, picking through their belongings and telling yourself a story about their life as you neatly pack their things away. “My mama always said you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes,” Forrest Gump famously said. This game proves him right. 

Honorable mentions: 

• The Good Life

• New Pokemon Snap
• I Am Fish

Did your favorite game make the cut? Reach out to us on social media if not, but please be polite about it! 

Written by Kirk McKeand on behalf of GLHF.