Yes, it’s that time of the year again and I wanted to take some time to reflect on 2021 and the games I’ve enjoyed most this year.

We’re going to be doing it a little differently this year, as some of us will be posting our own “Games of the Year”, as opposed to an eXplorminate Game of the Year. However, I think we can all agree on one particular title as the 4X Game of the Year, so you might see a separate article soon to officially give that award.

Anyway, back to me. For starters, 2021 has been a whirlwind year for me. I suffered a really serious neck injury that led to the fusion of four of my cervical vertebrae. I was out of work for almost five months, unable to be very active for at least 3 of those months, and was provided a lot of time to work on eXplorminate, for better or worse.

Since my return to work in July, things have been extraordinarily hectic. As many of you know, I work as a police officer as my full-time profession, and I take the job very seriously. I know policing in America has had a series of serious setbacks this year, and many other years, and I’ve always held myself to a higher standard to “be the change I want to see”, so to speak.

In saying that, I just wanted to explain why the site hasn’t seen much in the way of content in the second half of 2021. It’s just that I had a lot of work to do in my community, as a police officer, and by the time I would get home, or have a day off, I was mentally exhausted. Too exhausted to commit time to eXplorminate, quite frankly.

But things have settled down now, so I plan on returning to writing here, editing, and getting more content up. Also, we’ve been incredibly blessed by some new patron support recently (please consider helping us further), so you should start seeing more content as we move into 2022, as I can now provide more incentives to our writers.

With All That Being Said…

The real reason you come here is to discuss 4X, strategy, and tactics games, so let’s talk about the games that have made the biggest impression on me in 2021, in my own personal order:

Old World

Before I begin here, I’d like to once again disclose that I did, in fact, work with Mohawk Games for a bit this year. I hosted their “Meet the Team” podcast, wherein I interviewed each of the designers, producers, artists, community managers, executives, and more at Mohawk Games. But that honestly doesn’t impact my decision to claim Old World as my personal favorite game of 2021.

I’m closing in on 250 hours with Old World for a variety of reasons, but namely, it’s probably because of how tight the design is and how replayable the game feels. Soren Johnson and company have done an amazing job here. You should absolutely read Omar’s Old World Review if you haven’t done so already. Omar does a great job of explaining why Old World is worthy of every 4X fan’s attention.

You should also keep an eye out for our upcoming strategy guide, wherein one of our amazing community members has laid out some really great starting tips for those that might be having a hard time with Old World, or might be coming to it fresh with its Steam release early next year.

The blend of Civilization-like gameplay, with a real focus on infrastructure building, mixed with an interesting character system, paired with over 3,000 events (I still see new ones every time I play), and a deeper-than-average military system, make for a 4X game that really draws me in and brings me back time and time again.

The game also feels relatively quick in its pacing, probably a result of the innovative Orders system that Omar described in his review.

I’ve had a blast playing it and the fact that it continues to provide me challenge while allowing me to peel back layers of its many different strategies, makes it a shoo-in for my personal 2021 GotY.

Here’s a video series I did, right before the “v1.0 release”. They’ve updated and improved it so much since this series that it feels weird to think that its “1.0” came out earlier this year…

Wildermyth

I had a feeling this game would take the gaming world by storm way before it actually did. I was lucky enough to interview the married duo behind the game, Nate and Annie, a long time ago and I feel lucky to have had the opportunity before they “made it big”.

Probably the single most endearing and soulful game I’ve ever played, Wildermyth is exactly the kind of game that I can lose myself in for hours as I attempt to navigate sometimes-pretty-difficult battles while weaving my own story of my band of adventurers that can lead to all sorts of wild twists and turns.

Sometimes your character becomes a crow, other times a rock-person, and other times a host of other transformations, all while collecting new weapons, armor, and items that make them harder to kill.

Meanwhile, a unique story unfolds between your characters based on choices you make at a variety of different pitstops along the way. The dialogue between your party and the way they seem to bond, or sometimes become rivals, is really fun to watch and play.

It’s one of the best games I’ve ever played. If you like role-playing games with a unique battle system, fantastic writing, and one-of-a-kind gameplay twists (like the transformation system here), you should have already bought Wildermyth. It’s an extraordinarily close runner-up for my Game of the Year choices.

Humankind

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Humankind ever since I started playing in the Amplitude VIP program. The hatred comes from me not wanting to play another historical 4X or see Amplitude Studios veer away from their Endless Universe. The love started to shine through when I saw how much time and effort was going into Humankind and how much it actually works…mostly, sorta.

Honestly, for as broken as Humankind is in a lot of ways, I have really enjoyed my time with it, regardless. It’s easily the prettiest historical 4X game on the market, which does distract me quite a bit from some of the issues it has, but its culture system is unique enough, and perhaps imbalanced enough, to be fun and to create some pretty varied gameplay strategies.

But I haven’t returned to it since its release, as the flaws became rather glaring after a lot of time, and honestly, Amplitude hasn’t done much to draw me back in. In fact, I feel like they’re dropping the ball a bit when it comes to post-release support, as the patches that have come since release have barely touched the many, many complaints (most of them valid) that players have had. As of the time of this writing, Humankind’s Steam review score sits at “Mixed” overall, which is Amplitude Studios’ lowest-scoring game.

But its beauty and its attempt at innovation really drew me in for about 150 hours. That’s more than most games ever keep me interested, so I’ll take it.

As an aside, Humankind was my most successful YouTube series, period. You can watch it here:

Urtuk: The Desolation

David Kaleta’s debut game, Urtuk: The Desolation, is one of the best turn-based tactical experiences I’ve had in a long, long time. That it’s essentially made by one person is absolutely insane.

Since release, David has even dropped free DLC, adding new enemies, a new biome, and THIRTY MINUTES of new music.

Really, there are few other games that are as engaging, at times challenging, and overall, as polished as this one-man endeavor and if you’re a fan of turn-based tactics, you should already have played this. If you haven’t, you’re getting coal in your stockings if you don’t rectify that.

Check out some gameplay I have on YouTube here:

Remnants of the Precursors

Ray Fowler recreating the timeless masterpiece, Master of Orion 1, has been one of the best things to happen to ALL of us. It’s free. It’s a great remake of a classic. I don’t need to say much more. You should already be playing it. On Christmas Day, it’ll finally reach a glorious version 1.0 and then you really, truly have no excuse.

On the Horizon

Good lord does 2022 look great for strategy game fans. Maybe even a little *too* great. How the HELL are we gonna find the time to play all of these games? In addition to what I’ve listed below, we’ll also see the releases of games like Total War: Warhammer 3, Alliance of the Sacred Suns, Terra Invicta, Company of Heroes 3, Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and maybe even the likes of Victoria 3. There are many more, too, but the ones below have me the most excited!

Galactic Civilizations 4

I’ve been playing this a bit on the YouTube channel, but suffice to say, I’m pretty excited for the next iteration of the Galactic Civilizations series. The scale of the universe, the new core world and “feeder world” systems, the new leaders system, and much more have me pretty darn excited.

Granted, it still feels a bit empty in some ways. Like, for instance, there’s very little in the way of flavorful interaction with the other factions in the game, some of the turns feel pretty empty, and the events all start to repeat themselves far too quickly (man, I’d love to see faction-specific events, too, for extra replayability). Also, there’s some clunkiness present that drives me crazy, like the fact that I have to manually queue up colony ships for each of the DOZENS, if not HUNDREDS, of colonies you’ll colonize in a game (and I’ve been begging for a button on uncolonized planets that queues up a colony ship and sends it to that planet), among some other quibbles.

However, it’s already in pretty good shape for version 0.65, with an expected release in Spring 2022, I think it has plenty of time to iron out the issues and make the game world feel more alive. I sure hope so. But it’s probably my most-anticipated v1.0 release of 2022.

Distant Worlds 2

Distant Worlds 2 takes AN INCREDIBLY CLOSE second place to GalCiv 4 for 2022 on my list. That’s probably because I’ve been incredibly privileged to play Distant Worlds 2‘s beta and have an ungodly amount of hours with it already, so the “excitement” is a bit dulled, only because I’ve played it that much. That being said, it will likely be at the very top of most 4X fans’ lists, and for good reason: it’s everything you liked about the incredible Distant Worlds 1, only made much more user-friendly, prettier, and with a much better user interface.

I think it’ll be really hard for DW2 to NOT win Game of the Year in 2022. In other words, the award is Distant Worlds 2‘s to lose.

I simply can’t wait to see how the community reacts to it.

Interstellar Space Genesis: Expansion #2

Interstellar Space: Genesis (IS:G) is a surprise hit for me. Quite frankly, when it first came out, I didn’t much like it. However, Praxis Games stuck with it, improving it incrementally, and it’s now one of my favorite-ever Master of Orion-like 4X games.

The first expansion, “Natural Law”, did what I think it needed to: add some content in the form of new factions, new ships, and that’s about it. Which was okay, because IS:G needed more factions and more content.

However, Praxis Games have hinted at some new mechanics coming to the second expansion for IS:G, which was originally slated for a late 2021 release, which I think the game is due for now. Some more mechanics could really help flesh an already solid game out and make it even more appealing, as long as the new gameplay is as fresh and unique as the team has alluded to.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on anything from Praxis Games and nudge them next year to see if we can glean any information out of them when the time comes. Don’t you worry…

Master of Magic Reboot

There isn’t much known about MuHa Games’ interpretation of Master of Magic, other than that they plan to take everything we loved about the original and simply make it modern. Modern graphics, modern user interface, modern sensibilities, and all the content that made the first some well-loved. That sounds like a winning recipe.

I wasn’t quite the uber fan of MoM as people like our dear BATTLEMODE were/are, but I did enjoy it way back when and I’m champing at the bit for another fantasy 4X game, so I’m eager as hell to get my hands on this one. Plus, MuHa Games knows what they’re doing, so I’m certain it’s in good hands.

Now we just have to convince them to let me in their beta for MoM and we’ll be all set. That’s coming early 2022, by the way. MuHa! Let me in!

Falling Frontier

Stutter Fox Studios has me hook, line, and sinker with this one. First, it looks gorgeous, GORGEOUS, and second, its gameplay reveals have had me at hello. Its clear influences from the Expanse series aside, the scale, the politics, and the quasi-realistic gameplay of ships in space have me very excited.

If you haven’t heard our podcast with Todd, the lead developer, you should listen to it now. Then you’ll know why I’m so excited for this one. And if that’s not enough, you should just watch a few of their videos, like this one below, and you’ll understand why most of the internet is talking about this one. Talk about pressure!

Songs of Conquest

It’s basically a modernization of the earlier Heroes of Might and Magic games, the good ones, with some of the best pixel art I’ve ever seen. No exaggeration. Just look at it:

Beyond that, with the limited amount of information we’ve been fed, it sounds like each of the game’s four separate factions will be asymmetric and unique, allowing for some decent replayability. Add some random maps or a plethora of different pre-made ones, and we’ll be treated to a seriously replayable game.

We had a great interview with the team, Lava Potion Studios. If you haven’t read it yet, you should definitely do so, as we were able to pull some great information out of the team with that one. They’re currently running a closed Alpha, which I may or may not be in, and I’m sure they’ll open it up to more players in 2022, so stay tuned!

Dune: Spice Wars

This one was only just announced at the Game Awards, but it’s already shot up to the top of my most-anticipated games, as I love the Dune universe and I really liked the developer’s, Shiro Games, last strategy foray, Northgard. Additionally, the screenshots look fuggin’ great. Not much is known about the game, so my excitement is tempered a bit, but I’m all too eager to get my hands on this one, for the lineage of great games by Shiro and for the setting alone.

Please be good.

Games I Can’t Quit

There are a few games that weren’t new to 2021 that I have come back to with the small amount of spare time I’ve had this year.

Grim Dawn

It’s the single best ARPG in the vein of Diablo that I’ve ever played. There are countless legitimate builds that you can create using the 10 different classes (which combine!) and many of them have very different playstyles. Its appeal is endless to me, as it’s really fun to start new classes, build them up, see how they fare, and then start all over again. I’ve got about a dozen different characters, all of different character builds, that I rotate through depending on my mood.

If you’re an ARPG fan and haven’t played Grim Dawn, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice.

I’m just about to start diving into Wolcen, now that it’s had some big updates, and the Last Epoch is wrapping up development, so I might finally be broken of my Grim Dawn addiction. ARPGs are fun little diversions from the density and cerebral investment that most 4X games require.

Surprisingly, Stellaris

Yeah, it’s likely because there’s been a slow drip of new content, new patches, and new species packs, but Stellaris is a game that I’ve come back to a bunch this year. I’m finally beginning to appreciate some of what it offers, though I lament how long a game takes to “really get going”.

That being said, Stellaris is hitting its stride right now, with the custodial staff doing an amazing job of making the base game and previous DLCs better, while the other team continues to work on new stuff for the fanbase.

There are some aspects of Stellaris, like the game’s pacing and general lack of compelling diplomacy, that keep me from thinking that Stellaris will become the greatest of all time that some fans already believe it is, but it’s slowly creeping up on my list of best strategy games I’ve ever played. Hell, the fact that it’s on that list is something I never thought I’d say, but here I am…saying it.

2020, Part Two

My good friend, eXplorminate co-founder, and all-around great dude, Nate, has frequently labeled 2021 as “2020, Part Two”, in reference to how shitty in many ways 2021 has been. Looking back, 2021 was the worst year of my life in many ways. Hell, as I finish this article, I’m sick with COVID, a virus I’ve done my very best to keep out of my life, only to catch it from my daughter who got it from school. FML.

It sucks and I’m miserable.

However, they say that growth and strength come from adversity, which is something that I’ve actively sought throughout my whole life, in order to “become a better person” or something like that. But this year has been particularly rough, as I stated in my intro. I’m hoping that in the end, I’ve become a stronger person, a better husband, a much better father, and a more essential contributor to my community. Despite my bout with COVID, I’ve ended this year obtaining my purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a martial art I thought I’d never be able to go back to after my major surgery. I also received an exemplary evaluation at work, I’m in a marriage that’s stronger than ever, with kids that are happy and healthy, and I’ve stayed in above average shape, despite the many curveballs life has thrown at me.

Yeah, 2021 sucked ass, but I still have a lot to be thankful for. I hope you do, too.

Here’s to 2022 being a bit better for all of us. Thank you, eXplorminate community, for always being there for me. I simply wouldn’t be where I am today without you.

Rob Honaker

Rob founded eXplorminate in 2014 as his passion for 4X needed an outlet. You can find Rob in just about every 4X game beta and 4X game forum, too. He’s equally obsessed with the strategy and tactics genres and constantly combs the internet for new and exciting titles in those genres. He’s proud to be a member of Amplitude Studios’ VIP program and the concept creator of Endless Space 2’s Unfallen.