RPGWatch - GOTY 2021 - Best RPG

The votes have been collected and by applying some magic a winner has risen to the top. Not a surprising one though.
Go here for all the details.

More information.

poor year overall at least from AAA perspective
2022 should be better

Congratulations to Owlcat Games, Tactical Adventures and the Chronicles Of Myrtana Team!

Originally Posted by Lolozaur
poor year overall at least from AAA perspective
2022 should be better

I honestly disagree. This is the first year in a long time when I've looked at the results and not been surprised by anything. Everything seems to be about right.

The only thing I find lacking is the low percentages. If a dedicated cRPG fan can't find anything of interest on that list then that's really depressing. Are 20% of our audience really only interested in big money polytastic hype trains? If so, shame, shame, shame, Game of Thrones style

Ahh, so I've three games that I can look forward to checking out, when some decent sales come along. Owlcat Games are on a roll with us!

Not surprised by Pathfinder 1st and Solasta 2nd place. Great games! But Chronicles Of Myrtana ? I tried the game but I thought it was near unplayable. If it was only ugly (and that sort of 3d graphics didn't age well), I wouldn't mind too much, but the gameplay, ouch!

I guess it has a strong fandom.

(Ps 2020 Editor Choice award? ;-) )

Originally Posted by vanedor
(Ps 2020 Editor Choice award? ;-) )

Launch now - fix later @Myrthos 2022

Just testing if someone would notice

The list seems about right. It was a decent year for RPGs; we've experienced much worse.

Thanks for putting this together.

Congratulations to None, which has recovered one position and took the 2nd place after last year's setback!

Does that indicate fans of the Watch prefer to wait until a game is mature before playing it? Or that game had more bugs these last years? Or were they just not inspiring?

Anyway, no surprise for Pathfinder and well deserved. I'm more surprised by The Chronicles Of Myrtana too, but then the scores after the 2 first places are quite close and don't stand out very much.

Originally Posted by HiddenX
Launch now - fix later @Myrthos 2022

Catchy title, isn't it?

Except for Gloomhaven all games in the top 9 are in the RPGWatch Steam Curator. I trust the Watchers and add the game right now.

This was great year for cRPGs and aside to those games I played it added nice chunk to my must-play backlog. WotR is great great game and for me it will be up there with best games of all time. Solasta has quite few flaws, but in my eyes it deserves the praise for being so ambitious, yet succesful, project of small studio. And Archolos … even though I spent just few hours with it so far, for me its Gothic 3 as I wanted it to be those years ago. So congratulations to winners and thanks for GOTY voting well done!

Originally Posted by Redglyph
Congratulations to None, which has recovered one position and took the 2nd place after last year's setback!

Fun Fact: None actually got first place 1 year. It was 2016 and it beat out Tyranny, Grim Dawn, and Dark Souls 2 for first place.

Originally Posted by forgottenlor
Fun Fact: None actually got first place 1 year. It was 2016 and it beat out Tyranny, Grim Dawn, and Dark Souls 2 for first place.

I saw it in 2019 too (beating The Outer Worlds, Disco Elysium, Greedfall). Quite a good game, this, and doesn't cost much.

Nice list!

Loved WotR and liked Solasta a great deal as well, though I'll have to check out "Chronicles Of Myrtana" (I had forgotten about that one) installing it right now.

Unsurprising indeed: WotR on the top, none getting high scores and someone commenting (along the lines) "the last year was bad for RPGs, let's hope this year is better"

Congrats to Owlcat, Tactical Adventures and the modders. So nice that we have all of them and that "old school RPGs" are back for real. As far as I remember, there has been at least one isometric RPG on the top-3 list since Pillars of Eternity.

PS. Feels weird to call Baldur's Gate type games "old school RPGs". Feels like it was released only short time ago. Couldn't come up with a better name. You know what I mean…

Those top three are incredibly strong. I have 200 hours played in Solasta and 100 in Chronicles.

I have been waiting on Pathfinder but I'm going to start it soon. One of the best years in recent memory.

Originally Posted by Redglyph
I saw it in 2019 too (beating The Outer Worlds, Disco Elysium, Greedfall). Quite a good game, this, and doesn't cost much.

Yeah, picking a GOTY between these three games was very challenging.

Woohoo, congrats to Owlcats

For me, 2021 was a fantastic year in terms of cRPG.

Each year, I get surprised how high "none" scores - but then I also contributed to it in several times. I guess its high as many people have massive backlogs and/or waiting for final/definitive edition of games.

Originally Posted by Redglyph
I'm more surprised by The Chronicles Of Myrtana

I'm quite shocked that TCoM: Archolos made it into the top 3. Not because it isn't worthy, but because I didn't think many Watchers had played it yet.