11 Best 2021 Video Games You Didn't Play

7. The Artful Escape

Between this and 12 Minutes, film studio Annapurna are continuing to make one hell of a mark on the gaming industry.

Creating the most indie of indie titles conceptually, Artful Escape also has a ludicrously stacked voice cast, comprising Lena Headey, Michael Johnston, Mark Strong and Carl Weathers, the latter playing an intergalactic retiring space rockstar, dropping down to planet Earth with an alien friend to take your character, Francis, on the tour of his life.

Brilliantly, that's all this game wants to be - a ludicrously gorgeous fly-through of kaleidoscopic, Asimov'ian visuals, complete with light platforming and a button you can hold down to rip a guitar solo for as long as you want.

Story-wise it's about the importance of freewheeling rock expression in a world of shoe-gazing folk tunes, and by journey's end it's a sequence of locations and events you'll never forget.