UPDATE: Metroid Dread won Best Action/Adventure Game at The Game Awards 2021!
There's only a week to go before the gaming industry's biggest award show takes center stage once more. With plenty of big reveals being teased, like Breath of the Wild 2, and live performances music being lined up, The Game Awards 2021 is shaping up to be one exciting night for gamers. While many players may have thought this year was a little sparse of new releases, the Best Action/Adventure category of this year's awards proves that this year has seen some first-class video game experiences.
Resident Evil Village, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Psychonauts 2, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, and Metroid Dread are all in the running for this year's Best Action/Adventure trophy. With all of these releases being critically-acclaimed, it's pretty tricky to predict a potential winner, but there's a few hints pointing in the direction of one particular title taking home this award.
Resident Evil Village
The Resident Evil franchise has seen somewhat of a resurgence in the last few years, with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard redefining the mainline series, and Resident Evil 2 Remake delivering one of the tightest AAA horror experiences in the modern age. There were a lot of eyes on Resident Evil Village before release, with many fans wondering if the new game could pull off another hit for the newly reinvigorated series. While Village was met with critical praise across the board, it wasn't without its faults, and those faults could prevent it from being this year's Best Action/Adventure game.
The visuals and audio design of Resident Evil Village stand out, with every location looking suitably haunting, and every exploding head sounding sufficiently crunchy. The boss design was also a highlight of the game, with varied and unique encounters occuring every few hours. The classic Resident Evil environmental puzzles and back-tracking was also prevalent in the game, although those puzzles were cited as being too easy. Resident Evil Village has a solid chance of winning this category, with its gunplay and traditional puzzle formula lending itself well to the Action/Adventure genre, but the game's lackluster ending and loose plot might turn voters away.
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart
By all accounts, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is an excellent Action/Adventure game. Insomniac Games has really honed in on what makes a Ratchet game click with players, providing the tightest gameplay in the series to date. Visually, Rift Apart is a masterpiece, with bright and vibrant sci-fi aesthetics being blended together seamlessly with next-gen realism. The range of bombastic and bizarre weapons and the tongue-in-cheek humor makes Rift Apart a blast to play through.
However, The Game Awards' definition of this category states that the Best Action/Adventure game should "combine combat with traversal and puzzle solving," and Ratchet might not tick all of those boxes. While its combat is extremely responsive and satisfying, the traversal in Rift Apart is fairly standard, and the puzzles are very barebones, with only simple logic "Anomaly" puzzles being present. It's much more likely that Rift Apart will win the award for Best Action game, as that's where it really shines.
Psychonauts 2
The long-anticipated Psychonauts 2 finally released this year, with Double Fine continuing the Psychonauts story in a big way. With vibrant psychadelic visuals that reinforce the game's tone, and an engaging and personal narrative, Psychonauts 2 surprised many with its high level of polish and refinement. The game has some interesting traversal mechanics and some fun psychic abilities to use during combat, as well as during the game's array of engaging puzzles.
Psychonauts 2 ticks every one of the Game Awards' boxes for the category; traversal, puzzle solving, and combat. However, in trying to tick all of these boxes, Psychonauts 2 may have spread itself a little too thin, meaning each individual element doesn't reach its maximum potential. Psychonauts winning this category depends on if the committee is going to vote for a game that does one thing extremely well, or a game that does everything pretty well.
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy surprised many with just how good it actually was. With the maligned Marvel's Avengers fresh on players' minds, Guardians of the Galaxy surpassed expectations and delivered a polished singleplayer, narrative-driven adventure through space. The game boasts an unexpectedly complex and adult narrative, with emotive and genuine character relationships at its heart, being the perfect companion to its MCU movie counterpart. While some players were initially disappointed with the reveal that they'd only get to play as Star-Lord, it lead to the game feeling more refined and focused in the end.
Guardians of the Galaxy seems to have decent odds of winning Best Action/Adventure game, with its unique squad-based combat mechanics. Outside of combat, some found Guardians a little lacking. In particular, the game's environmental puzzles and long stretches between combat were criticized by players, and when that makes up a large portion of the Best Action/Adventure definition, Guardians winning the award seems less likely.
Metroid Dread
The game that long-time fans had waited 16 years for, Metroid Dread rolled onto Switch this year to a great deal of critical acclaim. Dread had a lot of expectations to live up to, and many fans believe that it exceeded them. Intense and exciting boss battles, some of the best exploration and most satisfying progression in the series so far, and a consistent and unique tone, all combine to make Metroid Dread one of the best games of the year.
With regards to the Action/Adventure category, Metroid Dread seems like an absolute shoo-in: The combat is intense and thrilling while also being very responsive and satisfying, traversal upgrades are slowly drip-fed to the player, giving the game a rewarding sense of progression, and environmental and boss puzzles are challenging enough to keep the player engaged but not too difficult to turn away those new to the series.
Final Prediction
While every game in this list could win the Best Action/Adventure trophy at The Game Awards 2021, the evidence seems to point to one clear winner: Metroid Dread. While some voters may cast their ballot in favor of Psychonauts 2, especially as it isn't all too likely to win in another category, Metroid Dread delivers upon every aspect of the Game Awards' definition of the category and does so to a very high standard.
Metroid Dread was not only the return to classic 2D Metroid that fans had longer for, but it was also the perfect jumping on point for new players. The constant sense of progression felt during the course of the game helps to cement the adventure genre, while the intense and difficult bosses and E.M.M.I. encounters provides plenty of action. Combining this all with exceptionally tight gameplay mechanics, responsive controls, satsfying upgrades, and stunning visuals and audio, makes Metroid Dread the most likely winner for Best Action/Adventure game this year.
The Game Awards 2021 stream December 9 at 5:00 p.m. PST.