Before you nibble my ears off, I know: there have been some good games this year. We've had Resident Evil Village, remakes galore, Persona 5 Strikers, Returnal, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and of course, Eastward. Plenty to get on with! Well, yes and no. This year has been a bit of a graveyard for non-mainstream genres, and some publishers - like Nintendo, for example - have release barely anything of value.
I want to also preface the rest of this piece by clarifying something: this isn't going to be one of those "unpopular opinion" columns that y'all get so upset about. Well, at least, I don't think that it is an unpopular opinion, or an uncommon opinion for that matter, that 2021 has kind of sucked. You guys all hated my opinion on Horizon: Zero Dawn, and that's fine, but I don't think you'll find anything too controversial here.
Let's start with Nintendo. We are on the eve of Metroid: Dread's release. It's the first proper Metroid game in decades, and is something that the hardcore among us are unbelievably excited about. In November, we're getting more Pokémon remakes, putting us in the mood for Pokémon Arceus in early 2022. On paper, this seems okay, but all you need to do is take a look at what Nintendo have released thus-far in 2021 to get a more accurate picture of their offerings.
At least for me, the only new game that caught my attention from Nintendo was Monster Hunter Rise, and sure it's a great game, but it's not really something that has kept my interest. What else? Well, lots of rereleases, and games like Mario Golf and Pokémon Snap. Not a huge amount on offer, is there? No, and it's kind of the same for every other platform this year.
If doing EarlyGame's Monthly Game Release Watch this year has taught me anything, it's that 2021 is the game of rereleases, remasters, and ports. It's the year of the bizarrely named "Director's Cut", it's the year of disappointing anniversaries (see Zelda's 35th Anniversary) and it's the year of small Indie games far outperforming Triple-A studios. Eastward is the best game I've played this year, and that's hugely surprising!
Why has it been this way, though? Well, there are a few theories that could be valid. One is that we are feeling the delayed aftershock of last year's Covid-19 related closures. We all saw what happened with Cyberpunk 2077, and it's very likely that games have been put off and delayed so that things get released at an optimal standard. Developers saw from the CD Projekt Red scandal that selling an unfinished game can hugely hurt the reputation of a company, and with all of the delays and closures caused by the pandemic, it's best to give games a few more months in the oven before they release them to the public.
We're also experiencing that dreaded transition period between last and new-gen consoles. With PlayStation 5's being particularly hard to find, we could see some developers holding off until more people have had a chance to pick up their new consoles. This, combined with the reality that many developers will be secretly working on next-gen projects, could contribute to the seeming lack of new games this year.
It seems like only the big yearly franchises are releasing games in 2021. Activision are predictably releasing a new Call of Duty in November, as is EA with Battlefield 2042 and FIFA 22. We are getting remakes of old Pokémon games, and we got a Zelda remaster earlier this year too. Far Cry 6 is less than two weeks away. These could all be great games, but they're hardly exciting. Persona 5: Strikers was fantastic, but that was all the way back in February, and Resident Evil Village? It looked like an amazing horror game before launch, but our hearts fell when we realized it was basically just another shooter.
Words simply can't describe how few s**ts I give about a new freaking Call of Duty. Bo-ring. A new Battlefield? What's the fuss about? Shoot, shoot, shoot, drive tank, things go boom. I'm not a twelve-year-old anymore, and I want something with a little bit more substance. I'll be honest with you and say that I really couldn't care less about FIFA 22. Yay, more football? Again, shoot me, please. This crap is just so f**king boring.
Other than Eastward, the most fun I have had with a game this year is with the Mass Effect Remastered Trilogy. Those games are a decade old now. They're amazing, but they're hardly "new". Hopefully 2022 will bring more, with companies slowly getting over the shock of having to shift all of their work out of offices and into complicated home-office environments. I am looking forward to God of War: Ragnarok, and whilst Pokémon Arceus looks like a GameCube game, it should be fun. It'll be interesting to see how games move on from the pandemic, and how it changes game development into the future. Will it be beneficial? Maybe... maybe not.
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