10 Best Video Games Of 2021
3. Returnal
Returnal feels like the best game of the year no one played - or those that did were smushed into a fine paste by its unrelentingly tough design, electing to "give it a minute"... and then never returning.
I was certainly one of those people, but there's a flow to Returnal that once you get down - once you start reading enemy animations, sharpening your reflexes, unlocking world details and seeing at least the first ending - is unlike anything else this year.
Returnal is a roguelike where you're banking weapon XP to eventually use some ludicrously OP firearms after hours at a time. It's a meaty bullet hell shooter with gorgeous firework-display visuals, meaning every boss fight is as much about nailing timing as it is just drinking in what Housemarque have coded.
Across the board, Returnal is a "gamer's game" - something you need a certain level of mettle to get through, but one that comes with a sense of reward nobody else is anywhere near. Props to Sony releasing Demon's Souls and Returnal within their first year.
"For the players", indeed.