Top 15 Most Popular Video Games of 2021

Grand Theft Auto V is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the first main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series since 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV. Set within the fictional state of San Andreas, based on Southern California, the single-player story follows three protagonists—retired bank robber Michael De Santa, street gangster Franklin Clinton, and drug dealer and arms smuggler Trevor Philips—and their attempts to commit heists while under pressure from a corrupt government agency and powerful criminals. The open world design lets players freely roam San Andreas' open countryside and the fictional city of Los Santos, based on Los Angeles.

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Super Mario Odyssey is a 2017 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. An entry in the Super Mario series, it follows Mario and Cappy, a sentient hat that allows Mario to control other characters and objects, as they journey across various kingdoms to save Princess Peach from his nemesis Bowser, who plans to forcibly marry her. In contrast to the linear gameplay of prior entries, the game returns to the primarily open-ended, 3D platform gameplay featured in Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine.

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Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system developed by Roblox Corporation. It allows users to program games and play games created by other users. Created by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 and released in 2006, the platform hosts user-created games of multiple genres coded in the programming language Lua. For most of Roblox's history, it was relatively small, both as a platform and a company, due to both co-founder Baszucki's lack of interest in press coverage and it being "lost among the crowd" in a large number of platforms released around the same time. Roblox began to grow rapidly in the second half of the 2010s, and this growth has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Minecraft is a sandbox video game developed by the Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009 before fully releasing in November 2011, with Jens Bergensten then taking over development. Minecraft has since been ported to several other platforms and is the best-selling video game of all time, with 200 million copies sold and 126 million monthly active users as of 2020.

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Fortnite is an online video game developed by Epic Games and released in 2017. It is available in three distinct game mode versions that otherwise share the same general gameplay and game engine: Fortnite: Save the World, a cooperative hybrid-tower defense-shooter-survival game for up to four players to fight off zombie-like creatures and defend objects with traps and fortifications they can build; Fortnite Battle Royale, a free-to-play battle royale game in which up to 100 players fight to be the last person standing; and Fortnite Creative, in which players are given complete freedom to create worlds and battle arenas.

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Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is an enhanced Nintendo Switch version, released worldwide on April 28, 2017. It includes all previously released DLC, additional content, gameplay tweaks, 1080p graphics while docked, and 720p in handheld mode. Some features in Deluxe are reworked or restored from previous Mario Kart games: Battle Mode has eight new arenas and several gameplay modes; the Boo and Feather items are restored; and players can carry two items at once, even if they don't drag the first item. Five additional playable characters were added to the roster, including Bowser Jr., Dry Bones, King Boo, the Inkling Boys and Girls from Splatoon, and an unlockable Gold Mario costume for Metal Mario.

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Tom Clancy's The Division 2 is an online action role-playing video game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft. The sequel to Tom Clancy's The Division (2016), it is set in a near-future Washington, D.C. in the aftermath of a genetically engineered virus known as "Green Poison" being released, and follows an agent of the Strategic Homeland Division as they try to rebuild the city. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on March 15, 2019.

It received generally favorable reviews from critics, with most noting it as an improvement over the first installment for its setting, gameplay, visuals, combat and soundtrack, though the Endgame content polarised critics. Like its predecessor, it was a commercial success, selling over 10 million copies worldwide despite not meeting expectations at launch.

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Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is an action-adventure game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. It was released for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November 2019, for Stadia in November 2020, and for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S in June 2021. The story, set in the Star Wars universe five years after Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, follows Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis, who becomes a target of the Galactic Empire and is hunted throughout the galaxy by two Inquisitors while attempting to complete his training, escape his troubled past, and rebuild the fallen Jedi Order.

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Super Smash Bros. is a Japanese series of crossover fighting video games published by Nintendo, and primarily features characters from various Nintendo franchises. The series was created by Masahiro Sakurai, who has directed every game in the series. The gameplay objective differs from that of traditional fighters in that the aim is to increase damage counters and knock opponents off the stage instead of depleting life bars.

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Kingdom Hearts III is a 2019 action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and later Microsoft Windows. It is the twelfth installment in the Kingdom Hearts series, and serves as a conclusion of the "Dark Seeker Saga" story arc that began with the original game. Set after the events of Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, returning protagonist Sora is joined by Donald Duck, Goofy, King Mickey and Riku in their search for seven guardians of light as they attempt to thwart Xehanort's plan to bring about a second Keyblade War. Their journey has them cross paths with characters and visit worlds based on different Disney and Pixar intellectual properties.

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Mortal Kombat 11 is a fighting game developed by NetherRealm Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Running on a heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 3, it is the eleventh main installment in the Mortal Kombat series and a sequel to 2015's Mortal Kombat X. Announced at The Game Awards 2018, the game was released in North America and Europe on April 23, 2019 for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One—with the exception of Europe's Switch version which was released on May 10, 2019. The game was released on the Stadia on November 19, 2019.

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Borderlands 3 is an action role-playing first-person shooter video game developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games. It is a sequel to 2012's Borderlands 2, and the fourth entry in the main Borderlands series. Borderlands 3 was released on 13 September 2019 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and on 30 October 2019 for Apple macOS. A Stadia port was released on 17 December 2019. Versions for the Xbox Series X and Series S and PlayStation 5 including free upgrades for users on the prior console versions were released on 10 and 12 November, respectively.

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Madden NFL 20 is an American football video game based on the National Football League (NFL), developed by EA Tiburon and published by Electronic Arts. The latest installment in the long-running Madden NFL series, the game was released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows on August 2, 2019. It features Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes as the cover athlete. Mahomes became the second player after Rob Gronkowski to win a Super Bowl the same season they were on the Madden cover.

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NBA 2K20 is a basketball simulation video game developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K Sports, based on the National Basketball Association (NBA). It is the 21st installment in the NBA 2K franchise, the successor to NBA 2K19, and the predecessor to NBA 2K21. Anthony Davis of the Los Angeles Lakers is the cover athlete for the regular edition of the game, while Dwyane Wade is the cover athlete for the 'Legend Edition'.

NBA 2K20 was released on September 6, 2019, for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and on November 18, 2019 for Stadia.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is the sixteenth entry in the Call of Duty series and is also a reboot of the Modern Warfare series. The story has been described to be darker and more realistic than previous Call of Duty games. It is set in the Black Ops timeline,[91] separate from the other Modern Warfare games (however, characters such as Captain Price and other fan favorites from the series make a return). The game was officially revealed on May 30, 2019, and released on October 25, 2019.

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