Top 10 Video Games of 2021: Art, Politics, and Digital Innovation
The video game sector encountered obstacles in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a shortage of chips, impacting the demand for electronics and the availability of components. Although the launches of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X faced delays, several significant titles were released. Artribune identified ten games that enrich cultural and artistic conversations in the context of the pandemic and climate change: Cruel World, Exo One, First Land, Kid A Mnesia: Exhibition, The Catacombs of Solaris Revisited, The Forgotten City, The Geography, Unpacking, We Dwell in Possibility, and Wildermyth.
Key facts
- The list was published on Artribune on January 2022.
- Cruel World is a performance collective online game about resource exploitation and capitalism.
- Exo One features gravity manipulation to explore alien planets.
- First Land uses a text-based language to communicate with worm-like creatures.
- Kid A Mnesia: Exhibition is a free interactive experience by Radiohead and Epic Games.
- The Catacombs of Solaris Revisited is a psychedelic toy with no goals or sound.
- The Forgotten City originated as a mod for Skyrim and features a time loop.
- The Geography generates infinite music and landscapes referencing the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
- Unpacking tells a story through objects during moves, without words.
- We Dwell in Possibility is a digital garden about public space and political landscape.
- Wildermyth procedurally generates myths with characters that age and die.
- All games are available on various platforms including PC, consoles, and mobile.
Entities
Artists
- Droqen
- Mer Grazzini
- John Molloy
- Sylvie
- Jay Weston
- David Kazi
- Rhys Lindsay
- fotocopiadora
- Radiohead
- Nigel Godrich
- Stanley Donwood
- Sean Evans
- Christine Jones
- Matthew Davis
- [namethemachine]
- Ian MacLarty
- Modern Storyteller
- Dear Villagers
- Paws Menu
- Michael Berto
- Witch Beam
- Jeff van Dyck
- Robert Yang
- Eleanor Davis
- aya
- Worldwalker Games
- Rich Burlew
- Paolo Pedercini
- Will Wright
- Christopher Nolan
- Stanley Kubrick
- Ted Chiang
- Denis Villeneuve
- Stanisław Lem
- Andrei Tarkovsky
- Steven Soderbergh
- Harold Ramis
- Matteo Lupetti
Institutions
- Artribune
- Epic Games
- Future Friends Games
- Humble Games
- Humble Grove
- Fellow Traveller
- Manchester International Festival
- Virtual Factory
- Bethesda
- FromSoftware
- Kitfox Games
- Inkle
- Molleindustria
- FISAR
- Scuola Internazionale di Comics di Firenze
- Gravure
Locations
- Svalbard Global Seed Vault
- Spitsbergen
- Svalbard
- Norway
- Arctic Ocean
- Italy
- Firenze
- Earth