Welcome to the Game Enthusiast annual Game of the Year poll where you decide what the best game of 2021 is. In the poll below, you’ll get to choose one of our preselected hits of 2021. If your answer is not in there, just let us know your pick in the last selection box below.
Game of the Year: Game Enthusiast edition
For our selection, we’ve looked at the biggest releases of this year. It’s clear that 2021 was pretty weird for multiple reasons. Yet despite all the lockdowns and development teams working from home, there’s still a bunch of solid games to choose from. So let’s quickly dive into why we chose the games we chose.
The obvious ones
Starting with Forza 5, it’s clear fans are enamored with its amazing visuals and ever evolving gameplay. Another obvious pick for us was Deathloop. As one of the only PlayStation (and PC) exclusives, it became widely covered for its innovative gameplay structure of fight, death, repeat embedded into the story.
Surprise hits
Another category we saw fleshed out this year was surprise hits. We’re talking unprecedented hype for an unknown early access indie game called Valheim (yes, that was this year). Additionally, New World blew up as the next big MMO before crashing as a GPU destroying mess. As of writing, it seems to be mostly running fine, which made us incorporate it into the list.
And lastly in this category a shoutout to Resident Evil Village; it became hugely popular for its inclusion of kinda hot, kinda creepy vampire mistresses; but also for it’s polished new gameplay and story. It introduced a whole new set of players into the RE-universe.
Shooter selections
And finally for our Game of the Year options the shooters. It’s no secret that shooters make up both the most popular and controversial category amongst games. This year, we saw three major franchises return to fire arms related violence once again. With varying amounts of success.
Battlefield 2042 was highly criticized for its poor launch state. As we mention in our review, after Update #3 most of the huge technical problems were fixed, leaving us with a bold yet messy shooter. Still, many gamers would probably still pick the game, fueled by pure fandom. The same goes for Call of Duty: Vanguard. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t do anything new, but still pleases a huge audience of Call of Duty fans.
And then there’s Halo Infinite. This one really seems to get a lot of positive feedback. Veteran fans of the franchise joined disgruntled newcomers in the most recent Halo entry. The game is an old school shooter with old school Halo gameplay. And that seemed to be a lot more popular than all the curveballs by other established franchises. It didn’t get the Player’s Voice Award for nothing!
Let us know your pick below!