GOTY 2021 Shortlisting the long list - Most Anticipated

Like previous year I present you the long list of most anticipated games from our database. The goal is to get the right games in the top 30, because that is the number we'll use for the short list to vote on.
Our editors had a first go already.

The list is ordered by h-index, which could be seen as an indication of how often the game was discussed in our forums. Next to that there are also the comments and posts given for further sorting.

ID	Title	News Posts	Comments	Ratio	h-index
1	Baldur’s Gate 3	73	2671	36.1	30
2	ELEX II	16	569	33.5	14
3	Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness	46	862	18.3	13
4	Vampire - The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2	35	503	14	13
5	System Shock (Remake)	73	487	6.6	13
6	Expeditions: Rome	23	257	10.7	11
7	Elden Ring	17	313	17.4	10
8	The Waylanders	51	276	5.3	9
9	Starfield	8	251	27.9	8
10	S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2	13	144	10.3	8
11	Alaloth: Champions of the Four Kingdoms	20	174	8.3	8
12	Urban Strife	11	129	10.8	7
13	Broken Roads	16	120	7.1	7
14	Gothic Remake	7	218	27.2	6
15	Weird West	12	92	7.1	6
16	King Arthur: Knight's Tale	12	72	5.5	6
17	Sacred Fire	13	59	4.2	6
18	Hogwarts Legacy	5	56	9.3	5
19	Monomyth	11	86	7.2	5
20	Lost Eidolons	15	108	6.8	5
21	Project Haven	9	59	5.9	5
22	Wartales	17	64	3.6	5
23	Arcadian Atlas	14	41	2.7	5
24	Avowed	4	161	32.2	4
25	Dying Light 2	6	63	9	4
26	Archaelund	5	41	6.8	4
27	Steelrising	4	33	6.6	4
28	SKALD: Against the Black Priory	7	42	5.2	4
29	Cyber Knights: Flashpoint	13	54	3.9	4
30	Dark Envoy	9	36	3.6	4
31	Marvel's Midnight Suns	3	72	18	3
32	Zoria: Age of Shattering	4	51	10.2	3
33	StarCrawlers Chimera	3	41	10.2	3
34	GRAVEN	3	32	8	3
35	Atomic Heart	4	32	6.4	3
36	Skullstone	4	29	5.8	3
37	Empire of Ember	6	34	4.9	3
38	Forspoken	4	24	4.8	3
39	Within the Cosmos	4	22	4.4	3
40	The Way of Wrath	8	24	2.7	3
41	Prisonscape	12	33	2.5	3
42	Pixel Noir	16	31	1.8	3
43	Age of Grit	18	27	1.4	3
44	The Blades of Netheril	2	30	10	2
45	Wizardry: The Five Ordeals	2	27	9	2
46	Queen's Wish 2: The Tormentor	2	21	7	2
47	The Invincible	2	12	4	2
48	Thymesia	4	16	3.2	2
49	Last Epoch	5	18	3	2
50	Reverie Knights Tactics	3	11	2.8	2
51	Together in Battle	2	8	2.7	2
52	The Hand of Merlin	5	10	1.7	2
53	Scarlet Republics	3	6	1.5	2
54	Divinia Chronicles: Relics of Gan-Ti	7	10	1.2	2
55	Star Trek: Resurgence	1	13	6.5	1
56	Rollers of the Realm: Reunion	1	12	6	1
57	Minimal Affect	1	11	5.5	1
58	Shieldwall Chronicles: Realm of Madness	1	10	5	1
59	Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong	1	10	5	1
60	Stormrite	2	13	4.3	1
61	Achilles: Legends Untold	1	8	4	1
62	The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero	1	8	4	1
63	Vendir: Plague of Lies	1	8	4	1
64	Asterigos	1	7	3.5	1
65	Chained Echoes	1	7	3.5	1
66	Aye Captain!	1	6	3	1
67	Zodiac Legion	2	8	2.7	1
68	DISGAEA RPG	1	5	2.5	1
69	Star Ocean: The Divine Force	1	5	2.5	1
70	Telepath Tactics Liberated	1	5	2.5	1
71	Babylon's Fall	2	6	2	1
72	Peripeteia	2	6	2	1
73	Chrono Ark	1	4	2	1
74	MONARK	1	4	2	1
75	Soulborn	1	4	2	1
76	Trail of Ayash	1	4	2	1
77	VED	1	4	2	1
78	Gatewalkers	2	5	1.7	1
79	Mother of All Secrets	1	3	1.5	1
80	Nautilus Epoch	1	3	1.5	1
81	Vestaria Saga Gaiden: The Sacred Sword of Silvanister	1	3	1.5	1
82	Code of the Savage	2	3	1	1
83	Live by the Sword: Tactics	2	3	1	1
84	Curse of Eternity	1	2	1	1
85	Manafinder	1	2	1	1
86	Salt and Sacrifice	1	2	1	1
87	Shores Unknown	5	5	0.8	1
88	Spire of Sorcery	4	4	0.8	1
89	Rising Mist	2	2	0.7	1
90	Shadow of the Road	2	2	0.7	1
91	Dolmen	3	2	0.5	1
92	Sea of Stars	3	2	0.5	1
93	Grim Tranquility	1	1	0.5	1
94	MidKnight Story	1	1	0.5	1
95	Nobody Saves the World	1	1	0.5	1
96	Fate of WINDSHIFT	2	1	0.3	1
97	Luckless Seven	2	1	0.3	1
98	Stray Blade	2	1	0.3	1
99	Cloud Exiles	0	0	0	0
100	Coridden	1	0	0	0
101	Dark Dragonkin	1	0	0	0
102	Farathan	1	0	0	0
103	Granblue Fantasy: Relink	1	0	0	0
104	Infernax	1	0	0	0
105	Mists of Noyah	3	0	0	0
106	Souldiers	1	0	0	0

Let us know what games should be in the top 30 instead of what we have now.

As mentioned in the other thread, Knights of the Chalice 2 should be on this list rather than the GOTY list as it hasn't released yet and is still in kickstarter.

These are mine (although Expeditions Rome will have released by the time the poll goes live I believe):

Baldur’s Gate 3
ELEX II
Expeditions: Rome
Broken Roads
Gothic Remake

Sorry, what did you want us to do? Give you our top 5?

Mine would be:
Elden Ring
Starfield
Dying Light 2
Stalker 2
Tainted Grail (not on this list)

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
Sorry, what did you want us to do? Give you our top 5?

No, this is just the filtering stage.

Just point out anything that should or shouldn't be there (wrong genre or platform or wrong placement or missing games etc etc) to get a shortlist of 30 games that we vote on later. So also if you see something you like or think you saw other people liking but it's above 30 then point it out.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
Sorry, what did you want us to do? Give you our top 5?

Mine would be:
Elden Ring
Starfield
Dying Light 2
Stalker 2
Tainted Grail (not on this list)

Wasn't Tainted Grail on your GOTY list (best RPG of 2021)? If so, it shouldn't be in most anticipated list as well (since we are talking about which game we look forward to most in 2022)

I would agree about Knights of the Chalice two belonging on the other list, since it's not actually released as of yet.

Add
I feel like Colony Ship (RPG) should be on the top 30. Not sure why it's not on the list at all. Last I heard they're targeting a late 2022 release.

The Iron Oath- while Steam page says TBD recent comments from them have said they're targeting 2022.

Honorable Mentions
Probably too niche to get many votes but things I'm personally interested in: Prometheus Wept, Death Trash, Space Wreck, & Call of Sarengar

Remove
Isn't Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 basically vaporware at this point? Paradox said it isn't canceled but we don't even know for sure who is working on it and there's no release date. Perhaps HBS has taken the reigns, but given the troubled status I'm not sure how many members are highly anticipating it right now.

Waylanders may have been discussed a lot but how much of it was positive? I probably bashed it in every thread because the developers are so shady.

Questionable:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 & System Shock. Are these actually RPGs? They sound more like action adventure / shooter games with light RPG elements, unless the new ones are going to be very different from the originals? I know fans of these games would probably grumble if they're excluded but if they're included there's probably other upcoming Action Adventure games with RPG elements that should arguably be included as well. Might as well include Monster Hunter because many people call that an RPG for some reason.

Originally Posted by daveyd
Add
I feel like Colony Ship (RPG) should be on the top 30. Not sure why it's not on the list at all. Last I heard they're targeting a late 2022 release.

I second adding Colony Ship RPG.

From what I understand, Myrthos asks for deltas, not our top 5 - that will be for the vote itself. I may be wrong though.

I agree with Colony Ship too, but did they intend to release it in 2022? If they had a timetable, I lost track of it.

I was expecting Atomic Heart to be higher since there was some enthusiasm about it, but there are already a number of good titles up there. Let's just see if others think the same.

To add to other comments,

• About S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 & System Shock (Remake), they may not be "pure RPG" if such a notion exists, but I'm afraid that if we go down that route we'll eject many other titles and start arguing for weeks. RPG is a very volatile definition, we should probably trust our list at this point.
• I was wondering about Expeditions: Rome too the other day, but it's a list for 2021.

Originally Posted by Redglyph

I agree with Colony Ship too, but did they intend to release it in 2022? If they had a timetable, I lost track of it.

That is the current plan. The timetable's on the steam page, with "Nov 2022 - Endgame (chapter 4)" Of course it could get pushed to 2023 but the same thing could be said for BG3 and probably many of the other games on this list which are not even in EA and in many cases have no announced release date.

Originally Posted by purpleblob1
Wasn't Tainted Grail on your GOTY list (best RPG of 2021)? If so, it shouldn't be in most anticipated list as well (since we are talking about which game we look forward to most in 2022)

There's apparently two different Tainted Grail games: Conquest, which released last year and Fall of Avalon which may release this year.

Originally Posted by daveyd
There's apparently two different Tainted Grail games: Conquest, which released last year and Fall of Avalon which may release this year.

Ah ok, that makes sense.

I reckon we will see BG3 in most anticipated list 3 years in a row

BTW, I was a little surprised this TMORPG called Book of Travels was never covered here - it was even nominated as one of the PCGamer contributor's GOTY pick:

https://www.pcgamer.com/book-of-trav…s-theyre-tiny/

It will definitely be in my most anticipated list

Originally Posted by purpleblob1
Wasn't Tainted Grail on your GOTY list (best RPG of 2021)? If so, it shouldn't be in most anticipated list as well (since we are talking about which game we look forward to most in 2022)

Different game. The game that's out and that I've played is a card based roguelite. The game that I'm referring to here is an upcoming RPG.

…and I see now that Dave already answered this. Thanks, Dave.

I'm another that believes Colony Ship should be on this list.

It is very unlikely that Colony Ship releases in 2022. Their target date is the very end of the year and if you think they're going to make that first target date you must not follow many games in development, much less Age of Decadence.

So not this list. Maybe most anticipated for 2023, though.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
It is very unlikely that Colony Ship releases in 2022. Their target date is the very end of the year and if you think they're going to make that first target date you must not follow many games in development, much less Age of Decadence.

So not this list. Maybe most anticipated for 2023, though.

Sure, but what about all of the games on this list that don't even have a precise target date? Looking at their Steam pages, many of these are currently vague "TBD" or "hopefully" 2022 releases. Lost Eidolons lists Q3 2022 and that's only for their Early Access release.

Then there's others with specific dates, but very late in the year:
Starfield has gives a release date of Nov. 11. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 lists Dec. 8th.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
It is very unlikely that Colony Ship releases in 2022. Their target date is the very end of the year and if you think they're going to make that first target date you must not follow many games in development, much less Age of Decadence.

So not this list. Maybe most anticipated for 2023, though.

It doesn't say most anticipated in 2022 though. Or did I miss something?

Originally Posted by Pladio
It doesn't say most anticipated in 2022 though. Or did I miss something?

It doesn't say 2022, but it's an annual thing and Elder Scrolls VI is nowhere to be found, so yeah, I'd say you probably missed something.

stalker, atomic heart and dying light - out, a few rpg elements doesnt make them rpgs, even the recent call of duty games have the same "rpg" elements