Community GOTY 2021: Voting Begins!

2021: It had games! It's time to vote on your favorites! You can do so via this form, or you can read on for more information!

If you're curious to revisit the days of yore, have a link to our our 2020 GOTY, 2019 GOTY, 2018 GOTY, 2017 GOTY, our 2016 GOTY, or our 2015 GOTY lists! Congrats to Hades for being our Community GOTY winner for 2020! What will it be this year? Deathloop? Halo? Psychonauts 2? Let's find out...together!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

When does voting end? Let's go ahead and say January 28th and I will try to get the collated list together by the end of the month!

Can I change my votes later after I play more stuff? Sure, up until voting ends! Just clear out your choices and select new ones, then hit Submit again.

I haven't played ten games this year; can I still vote? Sure, just vote for whatever your favorite games were. You can just vote for one game, if you want.

How does this work? This is a weighted-voting system, so your first-place game will be weighted more heavily than your tenth-place game when we tally up the votes in the end. We'll also include pure voting results without weights for the data nerds.

I can't find my favorite game in here! Our search system is very special and might not always return the expected results. Some games might have older-than-expected release years in the search, or may not appear at all. Let us know in the bug reporting forum if you can't find something!

Hah, I'm going to vote for ET on Atari ten times, suckers! Feel free! You can add any games you want to your list. We're mostly focused on American release dates here; Jeff will ultimately decide on any edge cases. (If something came out of Early Access in 2021, feel free to include it as well. Honestly, feel free to throw anything on your list and we'll figure it out later!)

If you have any issues finding a game in the search box, please let us know via this thread in Bug Reporting.

Thanks, I love you.

Thanks, Rorie! Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon FTW!

Awesome news! Here's what I'm about to vote for but I have a question about one of the games on my list:

So for #6 I have Super Mario 3D World, which is really a vote for the expansion the Switch version got which is Bowser's Fury. Even though vanilla 3D World is an 8 year old can that be voted for as a 2021 game since it got a substantial expansion when it released on Switch? I know the standard rule is voting an old game can be allowed on the list but ultimately will be cut from the final list because it wasn't from 2021.

@mocbucket62 said:

Awesome news! Here's what I'm about to vote for but I have a question about one of the games on my list:

So for #6 I have Super Mario 3D World, which is really a vote for the expansion the Switch version got which is Bowser's Fury. Even though vanilla 3D World is an 8 year old can that be voted for as a 2021 game since it got a substantial expansion when it released on Switch? I know the standard rule is voting an old game can be allowed on the list but ultimately will be cut from the final list because it wasn't from 2021.

wondering about that issue too Bowser's Fury being my number 8, it doesn't even seem likes its in the database.

Here's my pics

1

Death's Door

2

Resident Evil Village

3

Solar Ash

4

Little Nightmares II

5

Axiom Verge 2

6

Sable

7

Griftlands

8

Eldest Souls

9

Olija

10

Super Mario 3D World

Same with the Bowser's Fury wondering since the new one doesn't seem to be in the database. Also I just want to throw out a question for others perhaps. What's the down low on GoT: Iki island? Would that be counted because it came real close to getting a spot on my top 10. Figured it might land on others.

It begins!

(from an earlier forum post):

This year I have been able to get my hands on a PS5, which means I have been busy catching up with the last few generations of Playstation games I've missed. My highlights being the first time playing Bloodborne and Demon's Souls. Besides that there were plenty of Game Pass games I enjoyed on PC and I even dabbled in some Apple Arcade.

So, I have been piecing together something of a list of my favorite 2021 releases. I wasn't sure if the new Nier version was even eligible so I put it at the bottom.

Psychonauts 2 was everything I hoped for as a fan of 3D-platformers. It feels great to move around in, the characters are all so witty and fun to talk to. The levels look amazing and each one has such a distinct style and the gameplay was built around their theme. The story was paced nicely, building slowly until you got to the last hub area where it felt like the stakes were really on. Combat was also a big step up from the original game. Honestly I didn't stop playing until I had collected everything there was. Well done Double Fine!

@mocbucket62: Good question! I want to vote for Bowser's Fury, too!

@beggary: If you vote for the base game, it should be understood that you mean the new release/content. In previous years, this applied to things like XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, etc. and would apply to things like Bowser's Fury and the new Outer Wilds DLC this year.

What about stuff like Omori, which was technically released on Christmas day of 2020 but most people didn't even hear of it till last year? I really want it to get its due somewhere... :-(

Do expansions count? My number 1 game is ff14 endwalker if its eligible, otherwise Ill choose something else.

Good year for video games! I have a similar issue with previous commenters; I thought Resident Evil 4 VR was a really strong use of the VR medium, but it doesn't have its own page. Definitely a bigger leap forward for VR than RE7 was (which was still great).

Anyway, I figure using the vanilla title is close enough.

Sure, just vote for the base game!

I hope Riders Republic ends up being crowned Giant Bomb Game of the Year

Fundamental differences between this list and my super thorough and fun to read 2021 Game of the Year blog I wrote about a week ago: I shifted MLB The Show down from first place to ninth place, owing to the fact it would be a waste of a first place vote given this community's voting / gaming tendencies and had to remove Hades from fourth place due to it not technically being a 2021 game even if it did debut on XBox and PS4 this calendar year. Between that shift upwards of one slot for ranks 1 and 2 plus a double rank up for 3-8, I was left without a tenth game to nominate this year.

I could've chose NBA 2K22 but I would feel morally ambiguous at best about that vote. I could've chosen Deathloop, but I haven't touched that game since writing my GotY blog and I think being in that position after 7 hours played and reading so many gushing end of the year testimonials says enough about why including Deathloop on my list would be silly. Likewise, I played well into the third act of Scarlet Nexus and despite maybe my favorite narrative beat of the year I couldn't be bothered to say anything about it during the blog. That's how hard an exit I took from that game when the time for rejection came.

I played The Last Stop and Jett: The Far Shore as well...no thoughts really. The Last Stop is a marked improvement from Virginia, but it's also far less interesting. There.

So I nominated Lost Judgement for tenth place on this list, an RGG studio franchise which I may not have played yet, but having put over 70 hours into the Yakuza franchise in just this the year of our lord 2021 alone I think I can safely say this would have made a placement on my list somewhere.

Fun year of gaming. Looking forward to 2022.

I voted for it 1-10 myself.

are previously early access games that are fully released this year eligible (such as GTFO)?

I think this is the first time that I've actually played 10 good games the year they came out! ALSO PLAY FUGA: MELODIES OF STEEL YOU NERDS OH MY GOD.

My list so far. I've only played 10 games released in 2021 and that's why Twelve Minutes is on my list. Maybe I'll play something else before the voting ends.

The voting form doesn't work for me. I assume I'm supposed to search for games in those numbered text fields, but I can't actually type anything or search for anything. It just says "No selection" in each of them.

Which is fine. Scrolling through the games that came out this year, there's lots of games that probably would make my top 10, but I realize I can barely fill a top 5 with the new releases I've played this year. And not all of those would even make the list.

1. The Forgotten City, 2. Metroid Dread. 3. Maybe Monster Hunter Rise. That's my 2021 list.

Most of what I've played has been 2020 and older I guess. Curse of the Infinite Steam Backlog.

@robinottens: Having the same issue.

@robinottens: Same problem for me. I assume it's due to security settings / cookie consent / some other browser reason, but haven't been able to figure it out yet. I think I had the same issue last year, but don't remember how I solved it.

@robinottens: Also experiencing the same issue in Chrome and Edge.

Mine:

1. Fights in Tight Spaces
2. Psychonauts 2
3. Metroid: Dread
4. Inscryption
5. Sable
6. Halo: Infinite
7. Deathloop
8. Little Nightmares II
9. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury
10. Death's Door

@robinottens: I'm having the exact same issue on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge

I'm guessing it's because of security settings, cookie consent, or some other browser issue, but I haven't figured it out yet. I believe I had a similar problem last time, but I'm not sure how I resolved it.

@micorej328: No, I actually don't think it's on your end. It seems like the form has been changed to some sort of read-only mode.

GOTY 2021 is so last year

@robinottens: @julmajuuhan: @julmajuuhan: @junpei: @roaddog: @micorej328: Hey this should be resolved now! Sorry for the trouble!

@metalheel : are you alex navarro? :)

1. Wildermyth
2. Hitman 3
3. Jurassic World Evolution 2
4. Resident Evil Village
5. Tales of Arise
6. Forza Horizon 5
7. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
8. The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
9. Death Stranding Director's Cut
10. Chivalry 2

I love how different everyone's lists are here. I've heard a few people refer to this year as another 2014 but I found this year to be amazing for games. I had a few tough cuts from this list and I didn't even get around to playing a few others that I am pretty confident would have competed for a spot (Inscryption, Bowsers Fury, Psychonauts 2). Wildermyth was a surprise launch as I never heard anything about it before hand and Xcom style tactical games are my jam. Hitman 3 is more Hitman and that's awesome. JWE2 has been a huge time sync that I'm far from done with. Resident Evil Village is the first Resident Evil I have gotten into since the original release of the second one. Tales of Arise is the first Tales game that I was really able to sink my teeth into, even if there were too many cut-scenes (even for someone like me who generally likes cut-scenes). Forza Horizon is some awesome, do as you see fit fun. Ratchet was beautiful and a damn good Ratchet game. Dark Pictures was great to play co-op with my wife as always. It was great to go back to Death Stranding, ignore and skip past all of the story bits, and just build roads and zip lines to my hearts content. And then there is Chiv 2 for some great melee axe to the face fun. What an awesome year for games.

What's the ruling on:

Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - The Official Video Game

Released in 2019 in Japan only (PS4, Switch).

Delayed with the Olympics

Released worldwide in June 2021 (All platforms)

It was free on Xbox for a time at the start of the Olympics and my wife and I had a great time with it.

I may well be the only person to vote for it, but I want to make sure it gets it's due :p

@rorie: Thnx Rorie dawg

Yes.

Vote for what you want.

The Skyward Sword HD remaster was the best game I played in 2021.

1. Inscryption - It is imperfect but I found it incredibly clever, and absolutely nails the ending which is difficult to do in games. Also I don't normally like roguelike deckbuilders.
2. Unsighted - LttP-like with the best parry since Sekiro, and an interesting time limit mechanic that kills off NPCs.
3. Valheim - best time sink/dopamine drip machine game
4. Chicory - best marriage of gameplay and story to take advantage of what makes gaming a unique medium (well, maybe 2nd to Inscryption)
5. Metroid Dread - Didn't like the EMMI sections but the rest of the game makes up for it.
6. Psychonauts 2 - Not something I was anticipating but the writing and art design are wonderful.
7. Forza Horizon 5 - it got its hooks in deep despite some frustrations I had with it.
8. The Forgotten City - I loved my time with it, but looking back, it hasn't really stuck with me.
9. Cookie Clicker - this one probably won't count but it came out on Steam in September and I now have 2,880 hours logged.
10. Rocket League - obligatory perennial GOTY.

I feel like Pokemon Snap was a super underrated game this year, it was really good.

My list so far:

1. NieR Replicant

2. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker

3. Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin

4. Resident Evil Village

5. Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights

6. Monster Hunter Rise

7. Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars

8. The Good Life

9. Death's Door

Here is my list. Am hoping am closer to the community (and site's) GoTY this year... though, am usually not, and I find that disheartening, Anywho...

No top 10 list this year? I loved reading through those every year.

GOTY starts Jan 24th

As other's have mentioned the vote for 3D World is a vote for Bowser's Fury

I hope Nier Replicant gets some love but if Metroid Dread or Deathloop make it to the top 10 I'm happy. I didn't vote for 3D World, I'm voting for Bowser's Fury

Metroid was exactly what I've been asking for in this series forever...

there probably isn't a better studio at crafting an experience than arkane

Halo came out while huge FPS launched and pretty much sunk their battleships

... I have a job so I don't have time to hunt down a PS5 but can't imagine Ratchet and Clank not making my list if I did. Returnal also sound right up my alley.

I've been out of the loop... did GB not do a GOTY this year?