The most exciting games of 2021 | bit-tech.net (2023)

it's 2021! Or as I call it: 2020: Part 2. We all know what the situation is, so there's no point in talking about it. The good news is that the gaming industry continues to grow. New games are coming out all the time. I'm still looking forward to playing them and I hope you are too. Here are my game picks to look out for over the next 12 months:

death loop

The creators of Dishonored and Prey seem to be Arkane Studios' wildest project yet. The story takes place on the island of Blackreef and revolves around an extravagant party trapped in an endless time warp. Your character, Cole, is tasked with eliminating eight targets present at the party before midnight. If he dies, the loop resets.

Deathloop intends to bring the structure of a rogue game to Arkane's deep and layered systems, with the idea that you can experiment with each playthrough and learn with each new try. There is also a multiplayer element that allows another player to take control of a counter-killer tasked with stopping you. This is surely one of the most unusual and exciting projects to be released this year and we can't wait to try it out when it launches in May.

dying light 2

This is the third time that Dying Light 2 has appeared on our list of upcoming games. Let's hope it will be the last. Dying Light 2 takes the free-roam zombie combat mechanics from the original and adds a dynamic storytelling system where the choices you make have a dramatic impact on the infested city you explore. In its complex faction system, zombie and human factions will take over different parts of the city based on key plot decisions. But other conditions, such as time of day and areas you've cleared before, can also affect faction movement and behavior. Sounds fascinating. Let's hope we can actually try it.

Back4Blood

After years in the wild, the creators of Left4Dead, Turtle Rock, return with a game similar to Left4Dead 3 except for the name. In Back4Blood, up to four players team up to fight their way through another cinematic-inspired zombie apocalypse.

According to available trailers, Back4Blood should capture the fast and unpredictable action of the Left4Dead games. The question is: can it bring something new? Revealed features include a deck-building system that allows you to customize characters and encounters to suit your playstyle, as well as bosses that can mutate into huge and deadly forms. Is that enough to differentiate it from the games it's based on? We'll find out later this year.

Little devil inside

This crazy looking survival game has one of the coolest art styles we've seen in a while. Inspired by 19th-century exploration, Little Devil Inside takes players from their hometown to explore an unpredictable and dangerous wilderness.

Unlike most survival games, Little Devil Inside is less about dealing with different types of ailments and more about dealing with random events that may occur during your journey, such as being chased by a wild animal or a tribe of cannibals. There are still some questions about how exactly the game will work, but it will likely still be one of the more unique experiences to be released this year.

shadow warrior 3

After the somewhat disappointing Shadow Warrior 2, Lo Wang ditched the random loot-hunting elements for its second installment and returned to a more familiar romance filled with wacky humor and ultra-violence for the third game in the series. While SW2 was inspired by Borderlands, SW3 is more oriented towards Doom Eternal. So expect more arena fights and spooky melee kills.

Zobel

Although Raw Fury's open world explorer has been in development for centuries, it is still shrouded in mystery. In this story, the titular Sable embarks on a rite of passage through a vast desert filled with everything from ancient ruins to spaceship wrecks.

The game seems to share some similarities with Journey, offering a minimalist narrative and an emphasis on exploration. You will even meet other nomads on your journey, however, they are NPCs rather than player control. The developers also mention that the puzzles will add structure to your adventure, although it's unclear what these puzzles will look like.

stray

Stray is a third-person puzzle platformer where you play as a cat as you explore a highly detailed cyberpunk city. Honestly, I'm not sure what else to add to this. If you've read the previous sentence and you're not yet convinced by the idea, you probably won't. If so, you probably don't want to know anything else until the game is in your hands. In short, you're playing cat and that's all you need to know.

Far Cry 6

Far Cry has been in a downtrend since Far Cry 3 launched in 2012. I hope that Far Cry 6 will be an impetus for the series, but it's hard to say how likely such a scenario is. Ubisoft has not yet shown the game in action. All we know is that Breaking Bad's Giancarlo Esposito will play the role of a dictator you must overthrow on the fictional island of Yara. Also, unlike previous Far Cry games, Far Cry 6 will have a more urbanized setting, allowing you to explore the streets and rooftops of a dense and sprawling urban landscape. I feel like maybe it's a bit like Dying Light, just without the zombies. Time will tell if that's good or bad.

Hello infinity

Given that the original Halo was originally intended to be an open-world game, it's odd that it took so long for the series to finally make the leap. Yes, Halo Infinite will finally allow players to explore its rings with some freedom, piloting the warthog where you want it, not where the game wants you to go.

How much freedom and what that freedom will mean for the structure of the game is still difficult to estimate. Last year's gameplay demo was mostly focused on the (fun) combat, while most of the questions about the demo were about the (not so good) graphics. It also begs the question of what Halo can do with the open-world structure, given how thoroughly other games have explored it. However, having rekindled my love for Halo with the Master Chief Collection, I can't wait to find out where Infinite will take Master Chief later this year.

Psychonauten 2

Another game that seems to have been in development for ages, Psychonauts 2 is a return to the human mind of Tim Schafer's cute, wacky adventures. It's basically a direct sequel to the original, with an almost identical art style to the first game and a similar mix of platforming and puzzles. But Psychonauts is such a bizarre and unusual gaming oddity that a direct sequel is more than enough to pique our interest.

blood lines 2

I never thought we'd get a sequel to Bloodlines, the incredibly ambitious and turbulent 2004 vampire RPG. I think to some extent it's still not decided. Extraordinary events took place at Hardsuit Labs: last year, four years after the project began, the developer fired its creative director and lead writer. As for progress, things have also remained quiet with little to no new disclosures for most of 2020.

That said, I'm still blown away by what Bloodlines 2 tries to do, from the dynamic faction and masquerading system where they'll be hunted down by other people if you anger the wrong people, to the subtle approach to quests where clues are thrown into the game are built into into the world itself and it's up to you to follow the threads that will lead you to the next part of the story.

Resident Evil VIII: The Village

While Resident Evil VII was a first-person homage to the original game, Resident Evil VIII for Resident Evil 4 seems to do the same. From his European-looking snow-covered village to his human enemies who look suspiciously like four Ganads. Given Resident Evil 4's immense popularity, it's a bold move to completely reinvent it. Most of the core gameplay remains hidden, so it's hard to speculate exactly how Resi VIII will play out, whether it'll aim for the more action-oriented Intensity 4 or stick with VII's slower tensions.

Gotham Knights

Gotham Knights is an upcoming Batman game to be published by Warner Bros. interactive. Except it doesn't include Batman because apparently Batman is dead (Can I do the best "Yes, Right" of all time?). But there are a few people who have been trained by Batman, are associated with him, or are the female counterpart of Batman.

You can play each of these characters in single-player or, even more exciting, in two-player co-op to explore Gotham City, solve puzzles, and fight enemies together. I'm not sure I want to play a Batman game without Batman. But the idea of ​​an Arkham-style open-world game that you can play with someone else intrigues me. In other words, I'm cautiously optimistic about Gotham Knight launching later this year.

Atomherz

It's a cliché to refer to a game from Russia or Eastern Europe and say, "Look how weird that is." In this sci-fi shooter set in an alternate 1950s Soviet Union, your character, a KGB agent named P-3, is sent to investigate a manufacturing facility in darkness.

The result is a game that feels like a hybrid of Half-Life, Stalker, and clown nightmare content, combining open-world exploration with long-range combat and melee combat with highly customizable weapons. There have been rumors about how the current state of the game reflects what was actually shown, but we're still interested in how this ambitious FPS oddity will play out.

chivalry 2

Chivalry may be known for its polished medieval combat system and addictive multiplayer combat, but what I love most about it is how fun it is. Please don't think I'm a serial killer when I say this, but when I face two combat knights in a valiant duel to the death, I cut off their legs with one blow and listen to them shed their own blood, it always leaves me laughing out loud.

Chivalry 2 is basically "chivalry but more". More varied combat, better graphics, bigger battles and so on. I'm sure it'll be fine, but I know it'll be fine, depending on whether I'm doubled over and can't breathe.

Wrath: Aeon of Doom

WRATH: Aeon of Ruin is a spiritual sequel to the original Quake and the latest FPS from reborn 3D worlds. Built in a modernized version of the original Quake engine, WRATH plows your way through a spooky world full of pixelated monsters that simply explode into a pulp when shot at by the Fang Repeater.

While WRATH is essentially a step backwards, it has a beautifully ambitious level design. Each of its levels offers a huge, expansive environment that seems to come from an alternate universe where the FPS prioritizes spatial puzzles over graphical enhancements. WRATH recently released its last tier in Early Access, which means it's hopefully not far from the 1.0 release.

Düsterholz

Speaking of spiritual repercussions. Gloomwood does to Thief what WRATH does to Quake. In Gloomwood, you play as a doctor exploring the labyrinth of a Victorian city in search of the source of a mysterious curse. This is primarily a stealth game, but unlike Thief, you can defend yourself if you get stuck in a corner. It features a variety of weapons, from your trusty sword to pistols and shotguns.

The developers at Gloomwood are working hard to bring back the essence of Thief. The look, the atmosphere and even some systems like sound propagation through doors. But what excites me is how these ideas and systems are going to be used to tell a different story in a different world.

Warhammer 40:000: Dark Tide

Following the success of the chaotic fantasy co-op Vermintide, Fatshark tries to apply the same crazy magic to the Warhammer 40:000 universe. In Darktide, you and up to three other players work together as agents of the Inquisition tasked with infiltrating and eliminating a heretical cult that has taken over a hive city on Atoma Prime.

As you'd expect, Darktide's main addition to Vermintide's systems is gunplay, although you do need to put a chainsword in the poxwalker's face from time to time. The structure of the game is still unclear as to whether it will revolve around linear missions or offer a more open-ended experience. We'll find out later this year.

Elder Ring

Elden Ring is the latest project from the creators of Dark Souls from From Software. Created in collaboration with George R.R. Martin develops and is a Souls-style fantasy role-playing game where Martin brings his writing talent to the game's story.

Elden Ring gameplay has yet to be shown, and details are still missing. However, it has been revealed that Elden Ring will be a much larger and more open-ended experience than previous From games, large enough to require a horse to overcome. They also confirmed that there will be no populated cities in the game, meaning it will likely retain the dingy, unfamiliar atmosphere that is so central to the From games. Given that From Software hasn't made a mistake yet, there's good reason to get excited about what could be the best game of all time.

Sternenfelda

Considering it's been a decade since Skyrim launched, and almost six years since Fallout 4, I'd be very surprised if we didn't see a new title from Bethesda Softwarks this year. Apparently Elder Scrolls VI is still a long way off, which means the mysterious Starfield will likely be their next big launch.

There are still very few details about the project itself. We know it's going to be a sci-fi RPG, and judging by some screenshots leaked online, it appears to have a third and first person perspective, just like Fallout 4 and Skyrim before it.

However, what I would like to see from Starfield are some new ideas from Bethesda. When Fallout 4 launched, it seemed to be backward, both in terms of its squeaky engine and its rather outdated systems. I hope that changing the setting will help Bethesda bring something new to the RPG.