Browse by year
151 games released in 2021 and reviewed here, best first.
151 reviews
A long-awaited revival of a beloved 1990s-2000s fantasy tactics franchise that traded its signature systems for a 3D open world and split its fanbase on arrival -- then ended on a cliffhanger promising story DLC that never came, after its studio was swept up in the corporate fallout of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
6 / 10
A narrative adventure from Deck Nine that gives its protagonist the power to read and absorb others' emotions, Very Positive across more than 7,200 reviews for its presentation and characters — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint about a short runtime relative to its price, choices that barely affect the outcome, and a story that many longtime series fans feel is a step down from its predecessors.
6 / 10
A wholly hand-drawn, pencil-sketched folk-horror adventure set in the Swiss Alps, Very Positive across more than 900 reviews for its extraordinary, one-of-a-kind visual style — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint about slow, clunky movement and pacing, widely derided combat and stealth, and a specific camera-motion issue several reviewers report causing genuine physical discomfort.
6 / 10
A melee-focused battle royale with grappling-hook mobility and wuxia-inspired combat, Very Positive across nearly 13,000 reviews for its innovative fighting-game-style action and striking visuals — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint about the absence of region locking that lets high-ping players exploit lag-compensation mechanics, a well-corroborated cheating problem, and a serious, widely reported security concern around its anti-cheat requiring a Windows kernel protection feature to be disabled.
6 / 10
A retro synthwave-styled action-platformer set inside a digital "Digital Kingdom," Mostly Positive across more than 600 reviews for its astonishing pixel art and soundtrack — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint that the actual gameplay is hollow relative to its presentation, with floaty controls, unsatisfying combat, and a misleadingly linear level structure for a game marketed alongside metroidvanias.
6 / 10
A gorgeously art-directed Warhammer 40,000 underhive shooter whose environments draw consistent praise even from critical reviewers, held back by the single most-mentioned complaint this outlet has found in any game reviewed this session — enemy AI reviewers describe as janky and frustrating — spread consistently across every year since a 2021 launch that never fully resolved it.
6 / 10
The factory-building sequel to NGU Idle swaps rebirth layering for conveyor belts and work orders, builds a genuinely interesting system out of it in its first six weeks, and then stops. It has been Early Access, unfinished, since April 2021.
6 / 10
A gorgeous, atmospheric open-world coming-of-age exploration game from debut studio Shedworks, Very Positive across nearly 4,000 reviews for its art, music, and sense of place — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint about severe performance issues and bugs that plagued its launch, with some reviewers reporting stuttering and frame drops persisting years later despite genuine post-launch support.
6 / 10
A standalone stealth-tactics expansion revisiting the world of Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, Very Positive across 1,228 reviews for delivering more of the beloved original's excellent mission design — undercut by an extremely consistent, near-universal complaint that its three to six missions represent poor value sold at a full standalone price, compounded by real technical bugs this review found no evidence of being patched.
6 / 10
An open-world detective prequel from Frogwares depicting a young Sherlock Holmes investigating his late mother's past, Mostly Positive across nearly 1,700 reviews for its atmosphere and setting — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint from longtime series fans that its open-world structure actively works against the deduction-focused depth that made earlier entries beloved, alongside widely derided combat and shallow puzzle stakes.
6 / 10
A psychedelic, guitar-shredding side-scrolling adventure about a young musician escaping his uncle's folk-legend shadow, Very Positive across nearly 900 reviews for its stunning visual spectacle — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint that the actual gameplay is shallow and repetitive, a well-corroborated complaint about unchanging, repetitive music, and a specific progression-blocking bug this review found no evidence of being patched.
6 / 10
A forgiving, auto-mapped first-person dungeon crawler wrapped around an unusually pointed story about corporate exploitation, undercut on PC by a control scheme reviewers describe as actively broken.
6 / 10
A genuinely striking noir art style and story wrapped around two half-realized game systems — a business sim too simple to satisfy and a detective clue-connecting mechanic several reviewers call arbitrary enough to feel like a coin flip.
5.9 / 10
A genuinely deep double-prestige incremental wearing a crypto-mining skin, undone by a UI that assumes you'll join the Discord to understand it and a leaderboard economy built on premium currency that decays before you can spend it.
5.8 / 10
A Ludum Dare 48 toy that inverts the usual chess puzzle app — instead of solving a mate-in-N problem, you build one from an empty board and a tray of spare pieces, and a client-side Stockfish confirms whether you actually pulled it off.
5.8 / 10
A deep, community-loved incremental game built around a real pachinko board — drop balls, earn currency from where they land, buy upgrades. On desktop it's a well-regarded idle game with genuine staying power; on a phone, the board itself shrinks to a postage stamp.
5.8 / 10
The fourth entry in solo developer Phr00t's long-running procedurally-generated, VR-native action RPG series is a real evolution of the formula, but its own longtime fanbase is split on whether the evolution is actually more fun to play than 2016's 5089.
5.5 / 10
A stealth-action sequel to the shadow-teleporting indie hit Aragami, Mostly Positive across its Steam reviews for its aesthetic and co-op fun when it works — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint from original fans that its core shadow mechanics were gutted in favour of a more generic combat system, persistent bugs including a long-standing tutorial soft-lock, and a mission structure many reviewers find repetitive.
5.5 / 10
A hand-drawn JRPG built by veterans of Final Fantasy and Vagrant Story, with a score by Hitoshi Sakimoto and a script from Kazushige Nojima, that its own players say doesn't play, read or animate like the pedigree behind it would suggest.
5.5 / 10
A gorgeous, time-manipulation turn-based JRPG from debut studio Dreams Uncorporated and SYCK, Mixed across its Steam reviews for stunning art and voice acting — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint that its signature past-present-future mechanic is underused, sluggish combat, uneven difficulty, and a story and pacing that collapse noticeably in the back half.
5.5 / 10
A post-apocalyptic city-builder and survival sim about rebuilding society decades after a nuclear catastrophe, Mostly Positive across nearly 3,400 reviews for its distinctive setting and initial appeal — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint about punishing, escalating difficulty spirals and shallow content depth once the early hours are exhausted.
5.5 / 10
A surreal, jazz-scored art game reimagining the birth, life, and death of the universe through a noir framing device, Mostly Positive across nearly 700 reviews for its audiovisual craft — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint that it barely qualifies as an interactive game, pretentious and overindulgent writing, and a widely criticised ending that many reviewers feel the beautiful presentation can't rescue.
5.5 / 10
A cute, mobile-originated tower defense where the monsters are the good guys and the robots are the invaders, with a real and populated Steam player base that — unusually for this coverage — has left almost no written trace on Steam at all.
5.5 / 10
A physics-based sandbox chaos game casting players as elderly retirees causing mayhem across an open world, Very Positive across its Steam reviews for its initial concept and atmosphere — undercut by an extremely consistent complaint that its novelty wears off within an hour or two, janky and unsatisfying physics interactions, and persistent multiplayer connectivity bugs.
5.5 / 10
