A slight exaggeration, but with respect to the boards that mattered for qualification to the Candidates and, I think, to next year's FIDE Grand Prix, not an exaggeration at all as every game on board 1-13 finished peacefully. It's a slightly surprising conclusion to the FIDE Grand Swiss, but the lure of money and the Grand Prix (see below) mitigated against significant risk for most of the leaders.
That's not to say that all the games were peaceful. 18-year-old Alireza Firouzja, who deservedly won the tournament, had a fairly easy time of it against Grigoriy Oparin. It's not that Oparin didn't try with the white pieces, but that Firouzja played well and didn't give him any chances. On board 2, Fabiano Caruana had White against Alexandr Predke and played with some ambition, but Predke played well and held. The upshot of these two games was that Firouzja took clear first and Oparin failed to qualify for the Candidates. What about Caruana? I think, but am not sure, that a win by either player in the Yu Yangyi - Maxime Vachier-Lagrave might have let him pass Caruana on tiebreaks. In fact Yu was winning at one moment, but missed his chance. That probably sealed the deal for Caruana, but as none of the players in the next score group won there was no need to count anyone's tiebreak scores other than Oparin's, and his were inadequate.
The other games featuring players who started the day half a point behind Caruana and Oparin also finished in a draw: Bogdan-Daniel Deac vs. Andrey Esipenko saw Deac have some early chances that disappeared almost immediately. Gabriel Sargissian and Alexei Shirov were content to repeat a repetition in the Botvinnik Semi-Slav that goes back to 1996; David Anton Guijarro and Sam Sevian didn't reproduce known theory, but their game was also quickly drawn without any missed chances. Finally, David Howell and Vincent Keymer played a longer game, but there don't seem to have been any major missed opportunities there either.
The draws kept on coming in the next score group, but two players worked their way up into the score group that finished in the big tie for fourth. Vladislav Artemiev defeated Kirill Shevchenko and Anton Korobov defeated Krishnan Sasikiran, in both cases with Black.
To summarize: Firouzja won with 8/11, Caruana and Oparin finished with 7.5 points apiece but with Caruana taking the second qualifying spot for the Candidates. In tiebreak order, the following 13(!) players finished tied for 4th-16th places: Yu, Keymer, MVL, Predke, Shirov, Howell, Sargissian, Anton Guijarro, Korobov, Sevian, Esipenko, Deac, and Artemiev.
My understanding is that those who finished in the top eight, excluding the two players who qualified for the Candidates, qualify for the FIDE Grand Prix, a series of tournaments which will determine the last two qualifying spots for next year's Candidates. If that's right, then Oparin, Yu, Keymer (16 years old!), MVL, Predke, and Shirov (49 years old!) have punched their ticket to those events. Congratulations to them as well!
Finally then, here are the known Candidates for 2022:
1. Magnus Carlsen or Ian Nepomniachtchi (whoever loses their World Championship match, which starts in just under three weeks)
2. Teimour Radjabov (FIDE's wildcard, as compensation for his withdrawal from the previous Candidates due to COVID concerns)
3. Jan-Krzysztof Duda (winner of the 2021 Chess World Cup)
4. Sergey Karjakin (runner-up of the 2021 Chess World Cup)
5. Alireza Firouzja (winner of the 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss)
6. Fabiano Caruana (runner-up of the 2021 FIDE Grand Swiss)
What's next on the chess calendar? The World Championship match starts on the 26th (presumably that's the date for the opening ceremony, with play commencing the following day), but before that there's the European Team Championship starting this coming Thursday (November 11) and the GCT rapid & blitz event in Kolkata, India on November 17. Remember to let me know if you are interested in signing up for my World Championship match coverage in the next several days!