13 Most Anticipated 2021 Video Games Ranked - Did They Live Up To The Hype?

7. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury

What happens when you combine one of Mario's best games with a possible preview of the series' future? In the words of Hair Metal icons Poison, "Nothin' but a good time".

Super Mario 3D World never received the audience it deserved due to its release on the doomed Wii U, but thanks to the Switch's popularity (and Nintendo's realisation that porting great games no-one played is an express train to Money Mountain), gamers in 2021 got to experience Mario's greatest co-op adventure.

But for all twelve of us who did play the Wii U original, the real draw was Bowser's Fury - an eight hour expansion pack that took the plumber in an intriguing new direction.

As well as gifting the internet with the sight of Angry Cat God Mario getting into a slap fight with Kaiju Bowser, Bowser's Fury acted as a proof of concept for a fully open-world Mario game. BF's short-but-sweet runtime offered a tantalising glimpse of Mario getting his very own Breath of the Wild style reinvention, and given how great the latter game turned out here's hoping Mario follows in Link's footsteps.

If nothing else, it'll be nice to see Mario and Sonic reignite their old rivalry in a battle of the open-world platformers!