Video game releases traditionally accelerate in fall and winter, and despite the pandemic altering some launch dates, 2021 is no exception.
Superheroes, antiheroes and even athletic birds populate some of our most anticipated games this fall.
‘The Artful Escape’
A musical game that explores the more psychedelic aspects of the medium, merging the anything-goes mashups of video game animation with the hallucinatory guitar riffs of yore. While “The Artful Escape” promises to turn movement into music, think of this work as a search for identity, imagining how someone like David Bowie creates Ziggy Stardust. There’s folk music, but there are also aliens.
Developer: Beethoven & Dinosaur
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Release date: Sept. 9
Platforms: Xbox consoles, PC
‘Deathloop’
“Deathloop” has style. With an aesthetic inspired by the art of the late 1960s and early ’70s, “Deathloop” looks on the surface like some alternate-reality take on James Bond. “Groundhog Day” is maybe the more apt reference since players are trapped in a time loop. But in this game from the studio behind “Dishonored,” solving a murder won’t be easy and will come with lots of gunplay. There’s only one other character aware of the looping universe: an assassin out to ruin the player’s plans.