2021 GOTY Scoreboard: It Takes Two, Returnal, and More

There have been years where the “Game of the Year” honors were spread far and wide amongst several big titles… but 2021 went even further than that.

Four games shared in the five major year-end awards, a nearly unprecedented outcome that last occurred during the 2007-2008 awards season. This time around, Square Enix’s resurgent MMO (Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker), Daniel Mullins’s visually-impressive card battler (Inscryption), and Housemarque’s action-packed roguelike (Returnal) all collected a single award. But that’s only three, and the tie was broken by Hazelight’s It Takes Two, which managed to capture a second statuette.

Moving beyond the major awards, many publications were equally split on their “Game of the Year” choice, though a few titles stood out from the pack. That list includes Bethesda’s Deathloop, Playground’s Forza Horizon 5, Nintendo’s Metroid Dread, Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Capcom’s Resident Evil Village.

And it didn’t stop there. You can see more of last year’s most-acclaimed titles in the 2021 GOTY Scoreboard after the break.

It Takes Two

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker

Inscryption

Returnal

Before Your Eyes

Chicory: A Colorful Tale

Deathloop

Forza Horizon 5

Guardians of the Galaxy

Halo Infinite

Kena: Bridge of Spirits

Metroid Dread

Psychonauts 2

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Resident Evil Village

Unpacking

Unranked Lists

 
Altogether, more than 100 titles received at least one mention…

2021 GOTY Scoreboard (Expand)

As always, this isn’t going to be every “Game of the Year” list from 2021 (and more links will be added as I find them), but it does provide us with a fairly representative sample of the critical reaction to last year’s releases.