It is awards season in the world of gaming. The Game Awards just announced its winners for 2021, and other publishers are following suit. With that in mind, TIME Magazine has just released its best ten games of the year, and the list includes some big hits and some surprise indie titles.
TIME Magazine is one of the more popular and recognized magazines around the world. Although it may not be thought of as a major gaming entity at first blush, it certainly is interesting to consider its list. The top ten seems to be well-thought-out, as it is not simply the most popular games of the year. Instead, there are some hidden gems of 2021, along with some heavy hitters.
TIME Magazine's number one game of 2021 is Metroid Dread, the Samus adventure game that many thought would never see the light of day. Metroid Dread has already taken home a few awards this year, so this has perhaps solidified a very successful return of Metroid. Inscryption is the number two game for TIME Magazine, an indie-developed deck-building card and point and click adventure game.
IGN's Game of the Year Forza Horizon 5 is the number three game for TIME. The driving and open world game is a visual masterpiece that takes full advantage of Xbox technology. The fourth game on the list is another lesser known title in Chicory: A Colorful Tale, a top-down adventure that takes place in a coloring book world.
Hitman 3 was one of the earliest big name games of the year, as was the PlayStation 5 exclusive Returnal. Those games took home five and six respectively on the TIME list. Meanwhile, the year was capped off with the long-awaited and celebrated Halo Infinite, and that game took home number seven for TIME. The PlayStation 5 timed exclusive Dealthoop sits at number eight on the publication's official list.
Another indie hits the list for TIME at nine with Sable, an open-world coming of age game that was also another success for Xbox Game Pass in 2021. And lastly, It Takes Two caps off the list at number ten, which happens to be the winner of The Game Awards 2021's Game of the Year award. As mentioned above, TIME's list is quite varied. It has shooters, open world titles, racing games, indies, and AAA titles. Games from Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo are included, too. It is nice to see that 2021 was filled with such a wide verity of successful and exciting titles.
Source: TIME