2021 is now behind us. And what a year it has been. There were a plethora of amazing indie titles released across the board. And, if AAA is more your scene, several big names dropped, too.
From Deathloop, Resident Evil Village, and Forza Horizon 5, to Death’s Door, The Ascent, and Rain On Your Parade, we’ve been spoilt this year.
And now, it’s time to give back to the industry. Sure, it may not be the biggest award on the planet, but it means something to someone, somewhere. We here at ABG are proud to present the Game of the Year [GOTY] to a worthy and deserving candidate.
But first, let’s take a look at our nominees.
The rules for how we mark our prospective GOTY here at ABG are as follows; the game must have been released within the last 12 months as of the time of press. Remasters and/or remakes are allowed, as long as they were released this past year. Whichever order the games were put into on our Editor’s nomination form equates to where they think the game should rank overall. In other words, option A would be that Editor’s GOTY and would earn the game five [5] points overall. The game with the highest number of points collated from every participating editor’s form will be crowned the GOTY.
- It Takes Two (EA/Hazelight Studio)
- Hitman 3 (IO Interactive)
- Lemnis Gate (Frontier Developments/Ratloop Games)
- Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (Square Enix/Eidos-Montréal)
- Chivalry 2 (Tripwire Interactive/Torn Banner Studios)
- The Artful Escape (Annapurna Interactive/Beethoven & Dinosaur)
- Resident Evil 4 VR (Capcom, Oculus/Armature Studio)
- Final Fantasy VII Remake – Intergrade Edition (Square Enix)
- Metroid Dread (Nintendo/MercurySteam)
- The Last Stop (Annapurna Interactive/Variable State)
- Mortal Shell: Enhanced Edition (Playstack/Cold Symmetry)
- Halo Infinite (Xbox Game Studios/43 Industries)
- Back 4 Blood (WB Games/Turtle Rock Studio)
- Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox Game Studios/Playground Games)
- Resident Evil Village (Capcom)
- Age of Empires IV (Xbox Game Studios/Relic Entertainment, World’s Edge)
- Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond (Electronic Arts/Respawn Entertainment)
- Far Cry 6 (Ubisoft/Ubisoft Toronto)
- Star Wars: Republic Commando (Aspyr Media)
- Scott Pilgrim Vs The World: The Game – The Complete Edition (Ubisoft/Ubisoft Montréal, Ubisoft Chengdu)
- Deathloop (Bethesda Softworks/Arkane Lyon)
- Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (Electronic Arts/BioWare)
- Psychonauts 2 (Xbox Game Studios/Double Fine)
- Tails of Iron (United Label, CI Games/Odd BugStudio)
- ENDER LILLIES: Quietus of the Knights (Binary Haze Interactive/Adglobe, Live Wire)
- Tales of Arise (Bandai Namco)
- Rain On Your Parade (Unbound Creations)
- Chorus (Deep Silver/Fishlabs)
- Biomutant (THQ Nordic/Experiment 101)
- Death’s Door (Devolver Digital/Acid Nerve)
And now, the Any Button Gaming Game of the Year 2021, is…
It Takes Two!
Yes, with 10 points awarded, It Takes Two picks up our GOTY award. Second place goes to Deathloop, whilst Mass Effect: Legendary Edition finishes in third.
What do you think about the outcome? Were there any games not listed here that you thought to at least be in the conversation? As always, please do leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section down below.
I would personally like to thank each and every member of the ABG team for contributing to this ceremony. And I would also like to thank them all for their continued hard work throughout 2021. It has been a pleasure and an honour to call you all a part of the ABG team.
ABG’s Senior Editor (News), YouTube content creator/streamer.