Let's Speculate! 2021 Games to be Bundled

2021 graced us with a fairly diverse array of games from mainstream and independent developers, including much anticipated sequels to lauded franchises such as Halo, Age of Empires and Resident Evil, alongside smaller yet no less impressive additions to the Psychonauts and Tales series, to name but a few. Valheim took survival-crafting games to a retro-renaissance while Dysmantle snatched up the remnants, Eastward and Voice of Cards charmed with their whimsical aesthetic, The Ascent showed us all what Cyberpunk 2077 failed to capture and Biomutant dissappeared into obscurity. The list goes on with staggering breadth, from Scarlet Nexus and Ender Lilies, to the PC port of Days Gone or Nioh 2, alongside the Steam debut of Mechwarrior 5 and Journey to the Savage Planet...

...but none of those are likely to appear in bundles anytime soon.

Those are the success stories, the financial and critical juggernauts. The award-winning headline titles that may be discounted during the holidays, but are otherwise relegated to retail pricing. Contemporary bundles tend to attract the old, the niche and the disappointing, which is where this thread enters the fray: as dedicated bundle collectors, gift-givers and gamers, who best to guess what will find its way into this year's offerings?

So, in the spirit of things, let's take a collective moment to speculate regarding recent titles from 2021 that are likely to appear in the catalogue of HumbleBundle and Fanatical. I'd suggest steering clear of Indiegala speculation as that basically entails everything sold for a dollar on Steam or any low-effort product featuring a child's doodle of anime breasts.

To kick it off, I'll proffer my thoughts.

Hood: Outlaws & Legends
Released: May 2021
$19.99 (sale: $16.99 / $7.72 alternative sites)
Mixed (53%)
Peak players: 8769
Average players: 15
Published by Focus Home Interactive, who have bundled the overwhelming majority of their catalogue in the past, Hood is proving to be a financial loss given its rapid decline and the scant interest their season pass generated.

Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance
Released: June 2021
$39.99 (sale: $29.99 / $16.87 alternative sites)
Mixed (50%)
Peak players: 5269
Average players: 19
D&D games were, once, rather like the Final Fantasy franchise in that they never seemed to go on sale nor be properly bundled; as we've seen over the past few years, the IP holders seem less interested in maintaining that trend with the "enhanced editions" of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights being bundled for as little as a dollar each. What's more, Dark Alliance was a financial flop, widely disparaged by gamers, with Wizard's of the Coast CEO specifically noting that it had a "disappointing launch" and "did not meet the expectations of the company." Nothing would revive the flagging multiplayer aspect quite like tossing it on a bundle-discount.

Gods Will Fall
Released: January 2021
$24.99 ($7.49 sale / $6.30 alternative sites)
Mixed (48%)
Peak players: 27
Average players: 4
Recently provided as a complementary title on the Epic Games Store and published by Deep Silver, who have a longstanding history of bundling their underperformers, this seems a forgone conclusion.

Backbone
Released: June 2021
$24.99 (sale: $14.99 / $12.29 alternative sites)
Mixed (60%)
Peak players: 739
Average players: 11
Published by Raw Fury, an outfit best known for the Kingdom franchise, which have been repeatedly bundled, it's also worth noting that Backbone suffers from a significantly worse reception than its demo. The "prologue" version, freely available on Steam, has an Overwhelmingly Positive score of 97% approval, contrasted with the full release at 60% which shouldn't be underestimated given that the demo garnered reviews from over four-thousand players, whereas the paid version barely surpassed one thousand.

Astria Ascending
Released: September 2021
$34.99 (sale: $26.24 / $9.15 alternative sites)
Mixed (56%)
Peak players: 233
Average players: 5
Gorgeous art does little to redeem this one, whose PC port is awash with so many errors and basic quality-of-life issues (such as sensible control schemes or key-rebinding), while the developers appear to have abandoned it entirely. The simultaneous release on every major console may have redeemed their sales figures, but if the console-refund clamor resembled the outrage on their Steam discussion board than bundling it may be the only profitable choice. At $35 dollars it's a scam, but as part of a bundle I'd wager most players would be content with the wonky performance.

Share your thoughts and suggestions below, I'd love to check back on this at the end of the year to see how we fared.