Despite mass delays, 2021 was a year that delivered on all fronts in the world of gaming. From high-profile hits like Halo Infinite to unexpected hits like Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, gamers are leaving the year with no shortage of games on their backlogs.
That sentiment goes double for fans of the Japanese role-playing game genre, which had a banner year. Several games pushed the genre forward this year, building on the groundwork that franchises like Final Fantasy have been laying for years. Call 2021 “the year of the JRPG.”
Right from the start of 2021, players were hit with one groundbreaking juggernaut after the next. Looking back, it feels like half of my time this year went to putting countless hours into numerous grand adventures. It’s as if developers worldwide convened and decided we had too many hours in the day and needed some long games to fill the gaps. Whatever the reason for the flood of games was, fans of the genre were kept busy for 12 months.
One of the best parts about this year being so JRPG heavy is that there were releases for every type of player. I’ve journeyed through relaxing forests while looking for materials to mix in Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy, fought a brainpunk apocalypse with a hack-and-slash combat style in Scarlet Nexus, and raised a pet kaiju in Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin. I love how varied not only the worlds of all these titles are, but the gameplay as well.
While I couldn’t possibly list and describe every single release of the year, I do want to talk about one of the most important takeaways from the “year of the JRPG.” We saw the evolution of a genre in real time. Last year, Square Enix changed the world with Final Fantasy VII once again when it released Final Fantasy VII: Remake. The game’s cinematic storytelling, detailed environments, and reimagined gameplay blew apart expectations and removed barriers to players beyond the usual turn-based fans. It completely changed the genre, just as the original did back in 1997.
FF7R is a game that was years in the making, with its eventual combat formula getting tested in games like Final Fantasy 13 and 15. Remake finally found the right formula, becoming the perfect fusion of classic turn-based strategy and more active combat, making it appealing not only to JRPG fans but players from other spheres as well.
One of my picks for JRPG of the year, Tales of Arise, and Scarlet Nexus continue where that game left off. Both these games involve the hack-and-slash-esque gameplay similar to that in FF7R and find the perfect balance between it and typical strategy — all while keeping that classic JRPG feel. Both games, along with Remake‘s mini continuation, Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Intergrade, have me very excited to see who takes that next step in further building upon the groundwork that Square Enix set. Maybe the next great JRPG will go more the Scarlet Nexus route and bring some fresh ideas to the mix.
While the year saw drastic evolution for the genre, it also featured plenty of titles that iterated on the traditional, turn-based JRPG style. Fans of the classics weren’t left behind. Fantasian, Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne HD Remaster, the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl offer classic experiences with clean quality of life updates to keep them relevant in a new age of gaming.
My personal highlight of bunch is Shin Megami Tensei 5, a game that perfectly captures the nostalgic feeling of being a kid and exploring these vast virtual lands. The game just feels so lifelike thanks to a host of personality-filled demonic creatures that populate the explorable overworld. It features one of the best customization systems I’ve ever had the pleasure of using in a JRPG, giving players control over damn near every aspect of their demon team. And who can forget that sweet difficulty that challenges players’ mastery of the game’s systems?
Those are only a few examples. There are so many 2021 JRPG experiences to sink one’s teeth into that I can’t even talk about them all here (we’d be here all day). I’m not sure why so many excellent, genre-defining games all landed in the same 12-month span, but I won’t question it. What I do know is that if you’re a JRPG fan or if you’re looking to get into the genre anytime soon, treat 2021’s release calendar as your own personal backlog. And do it fast, because 2022 might end up being just as stacked.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.