2021: Photograph of a strange gaming year and slides from the future

2021

To draw up the first balance sheet of a videogame year has never been a complex operation as in the case of this bizarre 2021. Usually we sit at the table and weigh the productions that have most marked the industry, wondering which platform has stand out among others, which video game deserves more to sit on the throne of GOTY, which new trend is making its way into the undergrowth of the market.

But 2021 was a completely different year. It was the first year to have to fully testify the impact of the global pandemic on the production cycles of large and small software-houses; it was the debut year of next-gen hardware still difficult to trace due to the shortage of components; it was a bare year of mammoth productions capable of completely eclipsing the competition; it was the year of the continuous collapse of Cyberpunk 2077 and the forced triumph of cross-gen philosophy.

The particular atmosphere that emerged following the alignment of these elements has broken several dogmas of the video game industry. Think for example of the recent small launches and releases of unpolished and problematic remastered editions, such as the Definitive Edition of the Grand Theft Auto trilogy or the Nintendo Switch virtual console 64 offer, projects that seem designed and marketed only to fill the holes caused by the expansion of production times due to Covid.

There are many releases that aim to fill the chasm left by the expansion of production times. An expansion of the times that has inevitably led to the postponement of dozens of projects, some skidded a lot forward, others now almost ready for release. Think of Horizon: Forbidden West, Dying Light 2, Elden Ring, Halo: Infinite, God of War: Ragnarok, Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, but also the same next-gen version of Cyberpunk 2077, now destined to see light only in 2022 . We had never witnessed such a mass of adjustments in the declared release dates, and next year risks concretely turning out to be the most overcrowded in the history of the medium.

But let's go in order, and let's analyze in the detail this first photo of 2021 of video games starting from The Game Awards, the event that more than any other aims to synthesize the videogame vintage and raise the curtain on everything to come. The eyes of the fans are focused on the GOTY award ceremony, and those that we believe are the best games of the year ... have not been nominated.

If you have followed the editorial production of Eurogamer.it you will certainly have 'Another noted that two of the titles that most impressed us this year, namely Returnal by Housemarque and Forza Horizon 5 by PlayGround Games, failed to obtain the necessary votes to get to compete for the most coveted statuette, the one destined for Game of the Year.

The official nominees for the title of best video game of the year are: Deathloop, It Takes Two, Metroid Dread, Psychonauts 2, Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart and Resident Evil Village. A selection that, with the exception of the works of Josef Fares and Double Fine, we could define as rather standardized, made up of classic AAA productions that fall within the high average of the category without noticing Icarian flights.

The candidates for the title of Game of the Year betray a year without blockbusters and wearily average. Some time ago we made an article trying to analyze the logic that lead to the election of the Game of the Year, noting how, apart from very rare exceptions, the GOTY award ceremony according to The Game Awards almost always leads to the consecration of a great video game AAA narrative, one of those enormous mass-produced productions that, for one reason or another, did not see light in the course of 2021.

It is possible that the short circuit resulting from the absence of an "undisputed king" has violently shaken the selection mechanics, confusing less experienced insiders, those who may not have paid the right attention to a particular work such as Returnal, or who perhaps approach with a subtle layer of prejudice an arcade racing video game such as Forza Horizon 5, probably considering it unsuitable for a stage like that of the GOTY.

Also noteworthy is the absence of independent productions, small or large that s iano, from the list of candidates to the most coveted statuette. In past editions, masterpieces like Hades have had to bow before the titans of industry, works like Outer Wilds have not been considered, Celeste has had to content herself with appearing alongside the huge God of War and Red Dead Redemption 2. Over the course of a year without flickers for the richest segment of the industry we would have liked to see a greater focus on this undergrowth more than ever inspired.

Nonetheless, space has been created to bring out the aforementioned Psychonauts 2 and It Takes Two , titles strongly distant from the classic blockbuster model, probably the only ones capable of bringing a breath of fresh air to the selection. Let me be clear, all the other candidates stage valid and memorable experiences, in this specific case they fully deserve to stay where they are, only we are not sure they would have made it during any other edition of the event.

Image from The Forgotten City. The independent market is still the medium's most inspired rib. If absences such as those of Returnal, Forza Horizon 5 and Monster Hunter Rise have a very high specific weight, it is a shame to see some works stand out in the accessory categories only, such as The Forgotten City, Death's Door or Ender Lilies, three titles that we recommend highly in a large indie and AA market that has given great satisfaction. But it is clear that the 2021 of video games, although full of excellent productions, did not offer the classic qualitative peaks capable of shining blindingly above any other release.

The absence of exceptional launches has weighed down a situation that yes, it was to some extent predictable, but it is spreading like wildfire in the midst of the metrics that tell about digital ecosystems. A strong backlash in all segments of the virtual universe followed that formula of bulimic consumption of content and video games that undoubtedly helped the whole world during the lockdowns.

There's more of a YouTube content creator who has seen views drop below critical thresholds, Twitch metrics that spiked during the pandemic have dropped a lot over the past few months, and the same fate has obviously befallen the market numbers video games; who knows, maybe if any Back 4 Blood had been released in the middle of 2020 it could have avoided losing the entirety of its playerbase in just two weeks.

It is as if the mechanism that cyclically surrounds the great videogame phenomenon of the moment with laurel while making everyone else eat, the bearer of that crown that has passed from hand to hand among the various PUBG, Fortnite, Valheim, World of Warcraft Classic, Fall Guys, Among Us and many other titanic works. Consumption times have been further reduced, and now the success of Crab Game, a video game "inspired" by the Squid Game series, seems to have come to an end after just one week on the roof of the world. Eliminated the alpha predator from the ecosystem, the whole structure has ended up being affected.

Will a great video game like Elden Ring or the new Horizon be enough to reconstruct the dogmas that have fallen over the last year? Looking instead towards the horizon of traditional productions, the feeling is that of having lived a similar year, full of experiences that are always different and almost always excellent, from Tales of Arise to Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, from Far Cry 6 to Age of Empires IV - just to name a few - but none of them managed to garner the attention or the resonance it deserved.

To arrive at a complete reading, an essential element of the equation is missing, namely that passage soft to the new generation of consoles which, despite itself, also had to deal with the worst shortage of components ever. The consequences were two: on the one hand the 'slight "technological leap opened the doors to a market of cross-gen products that struggled to satisfy the hype generated by the new hardware, while on the other hand the problems in supplying a large slice of the public to put their passion in stasis.

These factors have impacted all the situations analyzed up to now. The disappointment of Cyberpunk 2077, for example, is closely linked to the unfortunate choice The failure to nominate a title such as Returnal for the Game of the Year award could be due to the fact that it is an original and exclusive PS5 product, therefore out of the reach of the sphere of interest of the public. Furthermore, given that many enthusiasts still lack next-gen hardware, it is possible that they have kept dozens of titles to buy only when they are in possession of the new consoles.

The 20 21 also tells of a new expanded formula of the market that travels at different speeds, making millions of fans happy and at the same time decentralizing the overwhelming current of hype. Because it is true, many productions are cross-gen, consoles are missing, there is an absence of a great blockbuster, but the videogame "retail" market has experienced a particular golden age.

Rarely we had to deal with a very varied videogame offer. Fans of simulation titles have been able to get their hands on a gigantic work like Microsoft Flight Simulator, RTS aficionados have rediscovered Age of Empires, Arkane has released a new immersive-sim, MMORPG lovers have rediscovered their passion with Final Fantasy XIV, The Forgotten City has delighted lovers of philosophy, the most discerning palates are satisfied with Inscryption. Rarely have we had such a wide and varied offer available, now made even more accessible thanks to the extraordinary contribution of new services.

In short, these are times of great change. It is still very early to determine whether the torrent of the market will return within its banks by re-establishing the old equilibrium at the first launch of a massive work, such as an Elden Ring or any Horizon: Forbidden West, titles capable of attracting attention. of the whole world. It is just as early to hypothesize that the river is now overflowing, creating a landscape made of stagnant and fragmented waters, with a few creative flashes ready to shine in an ever larger and impossible to observe cauldron in its entirety.

These are conditions that can coexist? There is the Game Pass model, which offers Age of Empires, gathers millions of players in Forza Horizon Mexico and even before the magic runs out invites all subscribers to the battles of Halo: Infinite, risking to penalize themselves by unbalancing the relationship between supply and demand. There is Sony's enhancing system, which instead sees the single great video game placed at the center of everything and which remains inextricably linked to the success or failure of the aforementioned productions, to the point that a slip on the front of the God of War alone would be enough to rock the whole building.

And then of course there is Nintendo, who intends to continue on the Switch's golden path, and next to her is Steam, who winked at her by embarking on the Portable Deck project. There is a colossal Amazon that has launched New World and Twitch Gaming, which will soon be joined by the Luna cloud. There are software-houses such as Electronic Arts and Ubisoft that have suddenly turned to the world of NFTs. There is the Facebook metaverse, which between science fiction and dystopia intends to get serious. There are more and more brands starting from pixels and trying to penetrate the cinematic universe.

The launch of New World coincides with the first big step taken by Amazon in the world of video games. Most Read Now

Is GameStop Christmas Nightmare for Employees? There is talk of locked wages, grueling shifts and more

GameStop in chaos.

Forza Horizon 5 bans a player for 8,000 years due to a livery

A livery is cost a Forza Horizon 5 player dearly.

PS5, some players are receiving an invitation from Sony to purchase the console

These invitations are a PlayStation Europe initiative.

All the industry greats are frenzied in search of the "next big thing", a new promised land closely linked to the world of video games. Often, during the research, they seem to forget the path that led the medium to reach the extraordinary dimensions it can boast today. And they are likely to do well, because the reality is that we are facing the first major generational gap since the birth of the digital universe.

We still don't realize it but 2022 could turn out to be the year heaviest and most decisive in the entire history of video games. It will be a moment in which the old will have to coexist and fight with the new, in which all the balances between the actors could be overturned in the blink of an eye, in which it will finally be possible to discover and perhaps reap the benefits of ten-year strategies, in which anyone will risk a fatal fall following the choice of a dead end road.

Certainties reside precisely where they have always been: in the deep roots of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, those platform owners who instead of focusing on the concept of "videogame" have shifted attention to the figure of the gamer.

Through completely different strategies and philosophies they pursue the same goal, that of preserving the medium in the shelter of the eye of the hurricane of change, well aware of the long and tiring history that has brought them up to this moment.