The Game Awards 2021 Recap
Let’s be honest, no-one really watches The Game Awards for the actual awards right? Does it really matter who wins GOTY when we all know that it is clearly Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition? (I reckon if there was a category for Best Game Title, then it would smash that one too.) No, we only really care about the announcements made at the event, so without further ado here is our recap of the 2021 Game Awards.
SUICIDE SQUAD: KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE
When it finally launches in 2022, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League will be Rocksteady’s first game in seven years! Although this thing was first announced at 2020’s DC Fandome event, it feels like we have been getting trailer for it for about seven years. Still though, it looks decent enough and is a title that I will definitely pick up at some point.
STAR WARS ECLIPSE
We didn’t get a look at Ubisoft’s Star Wars game as predicted, but we did get a look at another Star Wars game made by French-speaking sex pests. Star Wars: Eclipse is being developed by Detroit: Become Human developer Quantic Dream. The game will be set in the High Republic era of Star Wars and will feature multiple playable characters and branching story paths, as per Quantic Dream’s MO, (other than sexual harassment in the workplace.) The title is still in the very early stages of development, so don’t expect a release date anytime soon.
WONDER WOMAN
The Wonder Woman movie franchise may have been canned after they made Kristen Wigg jump about in a cheetah costume, but apparently a video game isn’t off the cards. Wonder Woman is being developed by Monolith Productions, the team behind Middle-earth: Shadow of War. This was a typical teaser trailer that was essentially just a look at a character model and a title card, but I am onboard with the idea.
ALAN WAKE 2
A full decade after the original game, Alan Wake 2 is set for release in 2023. The sequel looks to be far more rooted in survival horror than the original game and will actually be will be Remedy’s first proper foray into full-on survival horror. The studio has flirted with horror elements in past games, so I am excited to see what they can pull off here.
FORSPOKEN
Boom, boom, boom. We first saw Forspoken at the PlayStation Showcase earlier in the year and it continues to look pretty damn cool. We also got a release date for this one, which was nice. The game is set to drop on the 24th of May 2022.
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
The modern gaming audience: “You can’t just keep making lazy adaptions of classic horror movies!”
Illfonic Games: “Haha, chainsaw go brrrrr.”
Yep, after they churned out that lacklustre Friday the 13th: The Game back in 2017 and the god-awful Predator: Hunting Grounds last year, Illfonic announced that they are working on a game based on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with a short teaser trailer.
SENUA’S SAGA: HELLBLADE 2
Ninja Theory dropped another trailer for the awesome looking sequel to Hellblade during the show. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 manages to look both stunning and utterly grotesque in equal measure. This is definitely not going to be one to play whilst under the influence.
ELDEN RING
Speaking of trippy, a pot with limbs then arrived onstage to deliver a new trailer for Elden Ring.
SONIC FRONTIERS
I particularly enjoyed the moment when Sega acted as if they were breaking new ground by announcing that Sonic Frontiers will be the “first-ever open-zone-inspired Sonic game.” We have known that a new Sonic title is coming for a while now and this one is expected to drop sometime in late 2022.
SLITTERHEAD
Time for nightmare fuel. You know that a development team led by Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama is going to make something freaky, but the horrifying spider with a human face disturbed me to no end. This was a trailer for Bohek Game Studios new title; Slitterhead.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: GOLLUM
Neckbeards rejoice, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is set to release in 2022. I am unsure that anyone out there was calling out for a game that would let you crawl about the world of Lord of the Rings as Gollum, but here we are. This thing is described as a stealth-action title and is being developed by Daedalic Entertainment and NACON.
TINY TINA’S WONDERLANDS
The more that I see of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, the more I wonder who it is for. It doesn’t look hardcore enough to appeal to fans of fantasy tabletop role-playing games, but it also doesn’t look broad enough to appeal to the mainstream gaming audience. I like Will Arnett and Ashley Burch enough, I just can’t seem to fully get behind this thing. It’s release date is March 25th 2022.
AMONG US
Despite the intense oversaturation of the IP and plethora of memes, the Among Us cash-cow is still apparently being milked. A brief clip was shown teasing Among Us VR.
STAR TREK: RESURGENCE
Have you ever wondered what a Telltale Star Trek game would look like if it was made by someone other than Telltale? Well then you are in luck. Star Trek: Resurgence is a “third-person choice-driven” game dropping in 2022. The game will be developed by Dramatic Labs, a studio that includes past veterans of Telltale Games.
ARC RAIDERS
Embark Studios are team founded by former DICE and Battlefield devs. They dropped a trailer for a shooter called Arc Raiders, which is set to drop sometime in 2022.
NEW “CREATOR-SAFE” MUSIC FROM RIOT GAMES
Sessions: Diana is an album that was announced by Riot Games. The point of this projects is that streamers and content creators can use this music without getting hit by a copyright claim. The Diana referred to in the album’s title is a League Of Legends character.
I am not a LOL fan or a fan of MMORPGs in general, but I think that this is a really cool idea. Between this and the Radiohead thing announced at PlayStation Showcase, it is really cool to see how much music is crossing over with gaming lately.
THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS + AWAKENS
The utterly breath-taking Keanu Reeves made a glorious appearance during the show. Of course, he brought a trailer for The Matrix Resurrections with him, but he also showed off The Matrix Awakens, which is a cool-looking interactive, immersive experience set in the world of The Matrix.
RUMBLEVERSE
Apparently a gaming show isn’t a gaming show these days without some garish battle royale game being shown. This headache is called Rumbleverse and will come to consoles next year.
THE EXPANSE: A TELLTALE SERIES
Earlier, I alluded to the fact that nobody was asking for a Gollum-base videogame, but I feel like even less people were asking for one based on The Expanse. Nonetheless, the Amazon Prime series is getting a videogame adaption called; The Expanse: A Telltale Series. Yep, everyone’s favourite choose-your-own-adventure development team have been resurrected from the brink of financial death and they are apparently scraping the barrel of popular franchises to adapt.
TUNIC
The only thing worse than The Legend of Zelda, is a Legend Of Zelda rip-off. Tunic will be come to Mac, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X on the 16th of March 2022.
HOMEWORLD 3
Did you know that a Homeworld and Homeworld 2 existed? I certainly didn’t. However, apparently they do and Blackbird Interactive are working on the creatively named follow-up; Homeworld 3.
CROSSFIREX
Ever since it was announced, I’ve always thought that CrossfireX sounds like a Rob Leifeld comic book character from the 90’s. The game finally got a release date of the 10th of February 2022.
NIGHTINGALE
In case you weren’t creeped out enough already by the other disturbing content on show, Inflexion Games dropped a trailer for Nightingale. This title is a fantasy survival game set in the Victorian era. Again the trailer showed off freaky monsters with haunting faces. Nightingale will feature a, “shared world,” and releases on Windows PC next year.
PUBG BATTLEGROUNDS
PUBG Battlegrounds has a lot to answer for. About two years too late to have a chance of catching up to Fortnite and COD: Warzone, the battle-royale that started it all announced that it is now free-to-play.
CUPHEAD DLC
Cuphead is getting new DLC. This one is called The Delicious Last Course and will drop on the 30th of June 2022.
THIRSTY SUITORS
Annapurna Games showed off a new indie title developed by Outerloop Games. It is called Thirsty Suitors, and looks strange.
DUNE: SPICE WARS
They are making a Dune video game – Yay!
It is a real time strategy game – Boo!
I am sure that there are people out there who will love the sound of this, RTS has just never been my thing.
So there you have it, our recap of The Game Awards 2021. Overall, although most of my predictions were totally wrong, I thought there was some decent content on display here. That said, there was also a lot of fluff that could have been cut.
Let us know what you thought of the show in the comments below. Did you have a favourite announcement? Was there anything that really excited you?
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