There have been plenty of video game-related controversies this year. The Abandoned controversy involving game designer Hideo Kojima kept gamers on their toes, while Mass Effect Legendary Edition, despite being a great remaster of the original trilogy of Mass Effect games, was also controversial. Plus, a mini-game in Far Cry 6 got people arguing this year too.. So without further ado, here follows a list of the top video game controversies of 2021.
1. Starfield being an Xbox exclusive
Bethesda is a video game company famous for its Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim video game, and is known to millions of gamers the world over. So you can imagine expectations for their upcoming sci-fi role-playing game Starfield are sky high. This will also be the company’s first original game in years, and not a sequel to their award-winning Elder Scrolls or Fallout series.
Bethesda whet gamers’ appetites with a teaser trailer at this year’s E3 show, which showed some impressive gameplay footage. Many PlayStation owners, though, were dismayed to discover that the game won’t be coming to PS5, as it will only be hitting Xbox consoles and PC when it launches on November 11, 2022.
Starfield’s Xbox exclusivity has been controversial since Microsoft acquired Bethesda and Zenimax Media in a massive $7.5 billion US dollars deal. Actually, Bethesda has even apologized for the game’s Xbox exclusivity… But a big-name game like Starfield will clearly do wonders to Microsoft’s Game Pass service, even if millions of PlayStation 5 owners will be left in the cold in what clearly was one of the biggest controversies of the year.
Starfield (Bethesda Softworks)