Jared’s Top Ten Most Anticipated Video Games of 2021, Written Entirely in Iambic Pentameter

In an effort to be so outside of the box compared to all other games writing on the internet, I’ve concocted the most obnoxious, pedantic, pretentious, pernicious, and esoteric way to do top ten lists and year-long previews. Enjoy.

Honorable Mentions: Binding of Isaac: Repentance, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Gotham Knights, Psychonauts 2, Deathloop, Ghostwire: Tokyo, The Gunk, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake, Windjammers 2, Pokemon Snap 2, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Twelve Minutes, Earth Defense Force 6, Sable, Stray, Solar Ash, Back 4 Blood, Balan Wonderland, maybe Diablo IV, Dying Light 2, whatever Bowser’s Fury is

10 – Far Cry 6

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of generic nondescript Latin American country;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon Giancarlo Esposito’s house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

9 – Horizon: Forbidden West

Whan Aloy eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the robot ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale robotic foweles maken melodye,
Thanne longen folk to cyber goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge neon strondes

8 – Hogwarts Legacy

And I do love thee, Harry: therefore, go with me;
I’ll give thee fairies and wizards to attend on thee,
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep

7 – Halo Infinite

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with Master Chief how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run…
And fill all the Banished with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the shotgun shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding spore,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer 2021`has o’er-brimm’d their delays once more.

6 – Breath of the Wild 2

If music be the food of love, play on Link;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That Zelda strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

5 – Overwatch 2

When in disgrace with Junkrat’s eyes,
I all alone between the payload,
And trouble deaf with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse team for my fate
Desiring Roadhog’s chain and Widow’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
For thy sweet love rememberd such wealth brings, that then I scorn to change my team with kings.

4 – Resident Evil 8: Village

Mia’s vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off
Those creepy paintings on the castle walls,
Looking as if they were alive, I recall
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
Of this dead werewolf and his witch-like queen…

3 – Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night through portals;
When I behold Ratchet’s past prime,
That new Lombax’s sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;

O spirit of love! My precious Clank! How quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity of bolts…
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical, thy arsenal be.

2 – God of War: Ragnarok

O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting Kratos had not fix’d
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!

Of Atreus, or of Thor, didst inspire
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how Asgard and earth
Rose out of Chaos: or, if Oden’s hill
Delight thee more, and Freja’s brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar.

1 – Elden Ring

Batter my heart Miyazaki, for you
as yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend.
That I may rise and stand o’erthrow my missing arm and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.

Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Elden Ring, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse Miyazaki, that, on the secret top.