The most popular walkthroughs of 2021

By Luke Albigés,
With TA being the biggest and best Xbox community out there, we decided that as well as celebrating the best games of the year, we'd also like to look inwards and shine a light on the finest works of this awesome community. Since they take the most work, walkthroughs seemed the best place to look for this — some community members have spent years perfecting comprehensive guides that all of us can use to take the pain out of achievement hunting, and that deserves a hell of a lot of respect and gratitude. First up, let's take a look at the ten best-loved walkthroughs, according to how many times other users have *ahem* 'smashed that Like button.'

Call of the Sea Achievements

Unsurprisingly, all ten of the most-thanked walkthroughs are for games that either are or have been part of Xbox Game Pass, as those are the games that get the biggest audiences. They're also predominantly fairly quick completions, as obviously shorter games will see more players get through them, as well as gravitate towards them in the first place for that very reason. We'd love to say it was a close race, but that would be a big fat lie — with over 620 thank-yous, Chui's walkthrough for Call of the Sea was 2021's most popular by no small margin. It makes sense — Call of the Sea, which just dropped out of Xbox Game Pass last month, is a quick completion, but only with a guide on hand, as some of the collectables can be a pain otherwise and adding another playthrough into the mix makes it... well, not a quick completion. With the game having launched into Game Pass late last year and only dropped out a few weeks ago, the timing here certainly accounts for at least part of this walkthrough's runaway success, though that's to take nothing away from the author, who did a fantastic job on this one.

Runner-up Twelve Minutes was another shoo-in, with the point-and-click-style time loop mystery's list being nothing but cryptic clues, and plenty of achievements being missable — even our quick news story alerting folks to the fact that all achievements had individual guides went ballistic, so a proper walkthrough and roadmap breaking down the best way to pop the lot was always going to do well. That's a consistent pattern with a lot of these, actually... most of these games, while fairly straightforward in theory, have missables or confusing achievements that can make the completions that much trickier, so it's only natural that folks should be happy to have these awesome user-made guides at their disposal. With that, here are the ten most popular walkthroughs from 2021, and thanks again to all of the authors — keep up the amazing work!

Estimated time
3 to 4 hours
Playthroughs
1 required
Missable achievements
0
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
30 minutes
Videos
0
Chui
Published by Chui
View walkthrough

Estimated time
2 to 4 hours
Playthroughs
1 required
Missable achievements
6
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
30 minutes
Videos
0
DynamicWolfNLD
Published by DynamicWolfNLD
View walkthrough

Estimated time
3 to 4 hours
Playthroughs
1 required
Missable achievements
0
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
30 minutes
Videos
0
ComicKaze23
Published by ComicKaze23
View walkthrough

Estimated time
1 to 2 hours
Playthroughs
2 required
Missable achievements
21
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
30 minutes
Videos
0
DoomScott
Published by DoomScott
View walkthrough

Estimated time
3 to 4 hours
Playthroughs
1 required
Missable achievements
0
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
30 minutes
Videos
0
ThePurplePixie
Published by ThePurplePixie
View walkthrough

Estimated time
6 to 8 hours
Playthroughs
1 required
Missable achievements
0
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
45 minutes
Videos
0
ComicKaze23
Published by ComicKaze23
View walkthrough

Estimated time
10 to 12 hours
Playthroughs
1 required
Missable achievements
0
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
1 hour
Videos
0
TheOnlyMatto
Published by TheOnlyMatto
View walkthrough

Estimated time
3 to 4 hours
Playthroughs
1 required
Missable achievements
7
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
45 minutes
Videos
1
TheOnlyMatto
Published by TheOnlyMatto
View walkthrough

Estimated time
6 to 10 hours
Playthroughs
1 required
Missable achievements
0
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
1 hour 30 minutes
Videos
0
IronInvoker47
Published by IronInvoker47
View walkthrough

Estimated time
6 to 8 hours
Playthroughs
1 required
Missable achievements
10
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
1 hour
Videos
0
ComicKaze23
Published by ComicKaze23
View walkthrough

As well as celebrating the most popular walkthroughs, we wanted to make sure that the cream of the crop also had a little time in the spotlight. To that end, we reached out to our walkthrough managers to get their input on some of the very best walkthroughs published in 2021, and here's what they picked out. And what a selection it is... Nier is amazingly concise for such a big game, with a great sense of focus and structure to it; Kingdom Hearts was almost two years in the making, and it's a 26-chapter labour of love; World at War shows the value in updating and improving older walkthroughs, with the team's very own ManicMetalhead leading by example; Yakuza is a comprehensive and easy-to-follow guide to one of the busiest games in the series; Hitman is an absolute epic and effectively a double-bill, also covering all of the content from the original game playable in the sequel. All five are amazing examples, so kudos to the authors of all of these!

Estimated time
60 to 80 hours
Playthroughs
6 required
Missable achievements
32
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
1 hour 45 minutes
Videos
0
psybOltOn
Published by psybOltOn
View walkthrough

Estimated time
60 to 80 hours
Playthroughs
2 required
Missable achievements
0
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
7 hours 45 minutes
Videos
11
zr122
Published by zr122
View walkthrough

Estimated time
230 to 300 hours
Playthroughs
1 required
Missable achievements
0
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
2 hours
Videos
17
ManicMetalhead
Published by ManicMetalhead
View walkthrough

Estimated time
80 to 100 hours
Playthroughs
1 required
Missable achievements
0
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
5 hours
Videos
0
Avianette
Published by Avianette
View walkthrough

Estimated time
60 to 100 hours
Playthroughs
1 required
Missable achievements
0
Unobtainable or Discontinued achievements
0
Estimated reading time
10 hours 30 minutes
Videos
3
ASUnknown1
Published by ASUnknown1
View walkthrough

Got any personal favourite 2021 walkthroughs that you'd like to celebrate? Drop them in the comments and let the authors know you appreciate them!
Luke Albigés
Written by Luke Albigés
Luke runs the TA news team, contributing where he can primarily with reviews and other long-form features — crafts he has honed across two decades of print and online gaming media experience, having worked with the likes of gamesTM, Eurogamer, Play, Retro Gamer, Edge, and many more. He loves all things Monster Hunter, enjoys a good D&D session, and has played way too much Destiny.
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